It’s not quite the same. In the early days of “Silicon Valley”, even up to the mid-1990s, all the real action in the software/IT world could be found between Cupertino and Redwood City, with Palo Alto the center of the universe. Within that stretch of 16 miles were a pearl string of small towns and hot IT activity. SF was where the media action was at – San Jose was mostly hardware, and the groups in these 3 distinct centers rarely interacted. At least, that’s the way I remember it, from the little time I spent there in the 80s and 90s.

By comparison, the “Dulles Corridor” that John mentions is at most a 10 mile stretch; a very nice concentration in an otherwise traffic-jammed region. Heck, no one in Fairfax would ever make it to an event in Silver Spring MD if meetups required it.

Downtown Houston to Sugar Land is 16 miles. If all the startup activity were happening just along that stretch, it’d be a very different dynamic from the scattering of activity between the Woodlands to NASA and I-10 West’s “Energy Corridor” to Baytown’s refinery row. This city has got the sprawls! There is still a dynamic down here, but it has different challenges at present.

Just my observations on the lofty subject of “Urban Geography and Business Development”

But seriously, I appreciate that you started the conversation. As is apparent from posts on both of our sites, there is little agreement on the ingredients required for a high tech hub. Houston unquestionably has the ingredients for biotech and nanotech. Energy tech get evaluated here but most of it comes from the North Sea.

I think you’re dead on about consumer tech. One of the most gaping holes we have that I believe Austin has in spades is product marketing talent. This is due to the 2nd item needed that you pointed out, a lack of big consumer or software companies in Houston. I am not sure what happened to the minions that left Compaq after HP came in but they don’t seem to be having the same impact that the Dellionaires have.

Please don’t let the tar and feathers keep you from coming to Houston. We should set up a tour for you when you come to meet the growing startups here in town so you can tell Om all about them.

“I liked your point about distance, but I would compare it to California. San Jose is almost as far from San Francisco as Sugarland is from The Woodlands, so I’m not sure how limiting that is. I will say that the points in the comments about Houston’s tech scene comprising energy and NASA related tech is something the city should do more to exploit. In all honesty technology helping extract more natural gas more efficiently is far more interesting than another free VoIP platform.”

I do believe that consumer tech may always have a hard time in Houston, although that’s not to say successes won’t happen. But there are some very real innovations in nanotechnology, oilfield services and life sciences happening there that you guys should trumpet to the world. And hell, I’m only a few hours away and would very much love to cover the hottest startups coming out of Houston. I’ll even brave the humidity to come meet them

From a different angle, I would argue that the lack of critical mass (perceived or real) keeps talent from moving here, and consequently limits the technology sector dynamism and the number of start ups. My reasoning on this point is not about collaboration, but risk management. Tech talent does not want to move to a place where they perceive that the job prospects are not plentiful if their company or job goes south.

As I was trying to say the other day – I think Houston is already a hot technology city – it just hasn’t been recognized as such because it isn’t one in the same terms as San Francisco. I think there is something to be said for the stability of not having a startup on every corner, and having a lot of established industry. After all, isn’t that the goal of every startup? To become established for years to come?

And let me say that I’m saying this after starting my own soap-making business 10 years ago, starting my own blog-hosting business in the early 2000s, and starting my own photography business in 2006. I’m all for startups. But isn’t the goal of the startup to be something that sticks and last?

On a side note, I’ve been to Seattle, and it is nowhere near as humid as Houston. Orlando is the only place I’ve ever been to that comes close to our humidity.

At the same time, a little bohemia goes a long way. I worked for a number of years in the northern Virginia/DC tech sector, and that’s a pretty un-bohemian place – the region has a reputation for stuffiness (not entirely deserved).

I was thinking today about what got things going there. (I think it’s a good model to look at – like Houston, it’s spread out, tech is overshadowed by a bigger local industry, etc.)

1. Lots of tech workers buzzing around (perhaps working for the gov’t, consulting companies, etc. but there)
2. At least one cluster of related big companies – telecom in the NoVA case (MCI/Worldcom, Cable & Wireless, etc.)
3. in the heyday of AOL options being worth something, people leaving entrepreneurial organizations with a wad of cash, looking to do something interesting.
4. A few hubs – Tysons Corner and the Dulles corridor for IT, and Rockville MD for biotech. That is important. I worked in the former two areas at one point or another, and you really would go to Starbucks and hear tech talk, go out to lunch and hear tech talk, etc. It was easy for people to meet up after work for networking. That stuff matters.

(While people think of the DC area as a dense eastern city, northern Virginia is a lot like Houston. Except with traffic that’s five times worse.)

Oh, and one other: low costs, at least in the 90s. In the mid-90s people would come there from CA and be shocked at how much better they could live in Virginia. That advantage is gone for them at this point – but not for Houston.

Humidity a problem? Never stopped Seattle. It’s good for the skin – we’ll all be younger-looking many, many years longer than those arid folks in Silicon Valley and Austin

Bohemian – yes, important. There’s a connection there to creativity. That’s why I think as Houston’s high tech community takes off, it will be found in the Midtown/Montrose area, which is our bohemian enclave, and close by to a few major universities too. Houston is happening now, but I’ll be happy when I can sit any any coffee house (or, hey, tea house!), and overhear tech conversation most any time – that’s how it was when I lived in Palo Alto, and I’d love to have more of that here!

Also, how much of a factor is the hippie factor? Think about it … every one of those places are places that I consider a bit “hippie, granola, crunchie”. In a very good way. Houston just isn’t that – which is one of the main reasons I’ve always wanted to move.

But I think we have a LOT of technology in Houston – it is just focused in different areas than startups. More older, established businesses. So really, it is just a matter of perspective, and what you’re looking at.

Also, I don’t know how much proximity matters — I think it is more about associations with others, and working with others, and blogs, etc. make all of this possible. When I launched my hosting company years ago, I had a ton of support and instantly a lot of clients, all thanks to the people I knew in San Francisco and other places.

I think it all comes down to how you look at it, and what rule you’re using to measure. Plus Austin isn’t that much cooler than Houston in the middle of the summer, and we have better airports with easier access to travel around the country or world.

Social networking could be particularly valuable in a sprawling, fast-paced culture like Houston’s. I’ve started a small experiment on Twitter for this, hoping to add as many serious tech/entrepreneurial folks as possible from Houston as well as Austin/DFW/Bryan/San Antonio:

http://twitter.com/FBendHouston

We have to work harder at making and maintaining connections and social networking could really help.

Finally, John brought up the question of “trying to steer Houston’s tech businesses into a limited set of geographic areas to achieve that physical critical mass”. I think civic leaders really need to look at this.

When I first got out of college (1986), the economy was terrible, but Houston had just been given this really great asset next to NASA, Ellingtion Field. I kept expecting the city to jump on that as an entrepreneurial park, but there has never seemed to really be much of a vision for capitalizing on our main tech assets.

Stimulating such a vision among civic leaders is where groups like HTC could really play a valuable role.