I thought about writing something that was very high brow and had lots of complicated intelligent sentences, but when it comes down to it in my mind its pretty simple. So for what its worth here goes my view.
Find a decent size room(s) to rent
Make it an attractive place to hang out, meet and work from
Put in bloody fast broadband – upload and download
Sweat the hell out of the space for education, training and events.
Engage with the business community and groups and make it a place for them to use
Don’t think too hard about what it will become, it will evolve so fast you wont know whats going on. What it is at the start will be very different in 2 years time.
Don’t obsess with it being better than Jersey. Its the people who will make it work not the fixtures and fittings etc.
Don’t let Civil Servants run it, (apologies to those i know and like ) they are not at the coal face and don’t operate in the same way as people at the coalface of business.
Just get on with it, we don’t need another year discussing what it will or wont be like.
Don’t spend a fortune at the outset just start and see where it goes, treat it as a lean startup not a flag waving exercise to get one up on another Island!
This is not totally idealistic but comes from experience of setting up things in the past and mistakes made as well as successes. One thing though is to keep an open communication with everyone using the free tools available – DIGITALLY