Sheffield
The entrepreneurs - wearing green badges - were out in force at Sheffield's rock and pop music museum, reassuring First Tuesday that its first expedition beyond the M25 was not going to be in vain.

As in Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne, where the Pitcher and Piano bar attracted another good throng, Yorkshire's turnout suggested that the e-commerce world is going to be an eeh-world too.

"We all know that Leeds has got some big e-companies already, like Planet Online and the Press Association set-up" said Jonathan Armstrong, a Sheffield solicitor whose intellectual property specialism is tapping a host of internet copyright applications. "But here in Sheffield, we seem to be particularly strong in small e-companies and individuals with bright e-ideas - just the people looking for advice from the likes of me with capital." On cue, with his nose ring reflecting the National Centre's spotlights, Gary Kusula schmoozed up, to chat about the web application development he's been working on in the next-door Science Park of Sheffield Hallam university.

In his early twenties, he is looking for a backer. "Trouble is, you don't tend to get many red badges [investors] at these gigs," said Gary to nods of agreement from his friend Martyn Bailey - one of the few in the room to have bucked the first-name-only rule on the tags. Labelled solemnly as "Mr Bailey", he otherwise looked the part of the cool e-businessperson (head of a Yorkshire internet service provider), with a ponytail and hands still chalky from the climbing wall where he'd been working out.

Both men circled the museum's huge powder blue Cadillac in pursuit of two newly-arrived red badges, Suzanne and Michael Brand from Captum venture capital in Derby. The pair, trained in hard American business schools, are immigrants to the North via East Anglia.

They ran the first angels' network of online venture capitalists in Norfolk before being bought out.

The couple, whose firm's name is Latin for "capacity-building", are trying to turn the same trick in the Midlands and South Yorkshire. As the schmooze developed, oiled by free wine and the buzz from 250 guests, the Brands moved closer to a besuited knot of yellow badges (consultants, solicitors, accountants) where Jonathan Armstrong was outlining the difference between Yorkshire e-commerce and the county's traditional ways of making brass. "Just as they tend not to wear suits, Northern e-entrepreneurs seem generally keen for things to be informal," he said.

"The e-commerce world is very fast-moving and they all want to crack on with doing the deals."

The Brands agree, noting that a traditional firm takes between two and five years to develop that tradition of solidity which accompanies Yorkshire business people all over the world. "But with e-firms," says Suzanne, "you're talking about the whole thing being ready - and maybe even sold - by 18 months. It's all incredibly quick."

Another Sheffield e-entrepreneur, Russ Walker, who runs an IT consultancy with his partner Helen Piddock, says: "You can't get by on the internet as far as networking is concerned. You've got to come to events like this to meet the people face to face."

Optimists like Warren Bone of the regional Transport and General Workers' Union hope for a "virtuous circle", if e-business raises awareness in the North of an e-successor to the locally-strong mail order business.

"We still have some diabolical infrastructure here," he said. "If e-shopping goes the way it seems to be, there's going to be deliveries all over the shop and where you get more lorries, you tend to get better roads."

Jonathan Armstrong sees that coming too, with interactive TV ordering bringing a huge widening of the sophisticated internet shopping clientele.

He says: "We know the demography of the internet and e-commerce and at the moment it is something like 85% made up of ABC1s. But TV developments and mobiles are going to change that and see a strong movement downmarket. That's a plus for the North."

In the same way, suggests graphic design e-entrepreneur Peter Harwath, the gizmos of the e-world may appeal to a region where cherished car numberplates have particular appeal. He says: "There's a lot of bar room talk on the lines of 'My website's bigger than yours' and a tendency for clients to want the latest and most amazing thing."

Ian Germer of Vodafone conjured up a world of mini-phones with e-facilities small enough to wear as ear-rings "which your kids will want to have in the playground to show off".

A four-mobile man himself, Mr Germer encountered a nice piece of Northern scepticism, before the evening settled into post-presentation schmooze. "Anyone who asks Ian a question will get a free baseball cap," said the First Tuesday gofer .

"I will," said a Yorkshire voice . "Can he tell us when we can go two miles with our mobiles without being disconnected by signal failure?" (MW)

Manchester
It was an eclectic crowd of more than 300 e-entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and computer programmers that squeezed into the fashionable glass-panelled Bar 38 in the heart of Manchester for the inaugural meeting of First Tuesday North.

They may not have looked like natural business partners but everyone, without exception, was busy e-mingling, e-networking and cutting e-deals.

With similar gatherings in 38 cities across the globe, First Tuesday is devoted to realising the e-commerce dream and the North of England is its latest target.

Among the crowd was Alex Allan, the government's newly appointed e-envoy. "It's fantastic, isn't it?" he said, looking around the bar which was buzzing with fresh ideas. It is precisely the kind of event Tony Blair has asked him to foster.

"Small businesses used to take a cautious approach to e-commerce," he explains. "Often they would say: 'it's all rather difficult', or 'how will I get the finance?', or 'I'm not sure who the customers are'. But things are transforming now."

A recent Mori survey showed companies using e-commerce in the North of England jumped from 33% in January last year to 56% in November.

There was some worry in the early half of 1999 about whether Britain, and the North of England in particular, was getting left behind while the rest of the world hooked up to the web. But since then the surge in activity and interest has shocked everyone - not least Mr Allan.

"I've just met a firm from Wigan which makes protective gear for Rugby players," he said. "Since they put up their website, they've started getting hits from around the world. They've even had orders by email from as far as Italy and, incredibly, one from Kazakstan."

None of the e-pioneers in Bar 38 appear to show any of the caution of this time last year as they jostled with each other to pitch their proposals to the venture capitalist (easily identifiable by their red name tags and sensible suits).

Jon Keefe, managing director of KMP Internet Solutions, an e-business consultancy firm that employs 24 people at its Stockport headquarters, was bursting with optimism about e-commerce opportunities in the north-west.

"Manchester has a great history in direct mail order marketing," he said. "Companies like Great Universal Stores and J D Williams already have well- established databases and distribution systems. These are fantastic resources for e-commerce.

"We are also finally seeing the gap between hi-tech programming specialists and creative design teams being bridged, which will enable e-business in Britain to really take off."

Martin Gelles, a partner in Andersen Consulting, who sponsored the event, said that many of the larger London-based firms have moved their e-commerce operations northward.

"A lot of the big players have realised that there is no need to be tied down to a particular place when you are dealing with the web. That's why you have banks, building societies and retail firms setting up in the North where there is a well-trained and flexible workforce."

Indeed, as Mr Allan points out, geography has become much less of an issue. "All these new technologies mean that small businesses can set up in, say, the middle of the Lake District and trade right around the world reaching markets that they would never have dreamed of."

However, as one e-commerce enthusiast rather sheepishly admits, the fact that all these pioneers have travelled from far and wide to gather in one spot is as embarrassing as it is encouraging.

"I suppose you have to ask yourself, if the web is all its cracked up to be, why are these people not meeting in cyberspace?

"The answer, I suppose, is that when it comes to actually doing a deal they still like to meet the person they're going to do business with." A similarly sceptical note is struck by Ross Sleight, a marketing and IT consultant based in London.

"I've chosen to base my business in London because, ultimately, that's where the people I want to employ are based. If the government want to draw the big venture capitalists out of London, they will have to invest more in training and infrastructure."

As with any fledgling industry e-commerce has its teething problems. Mr Allan's evangelising address, for example, was to be web-cast to simultaneous events in Sheffield and Newcastle. But this plan fell victim to technical difficulties.

Nevertheless, the burning optimism that has engulfed this emerging industry continues to spread like wild fire across the north-west. Mr Allan, who has been the government's e-envoy for only a month now, is also irrepressibly enthusiastic.

"We are going to set an example in government too," he promised. "We can't tell industry they must be adopting this new technology if they can turn around and say: 'well why can't I access this or that government department on line'. "There's going to be a lot of work opening up access to government." (SB)

Edinburgh
Just over 200 years ago, Edinburgh was at the centre of the Age of Enlightenment, an intellectual and knowledge revolution that was to lay the foundation stones for Scotland's pre-eminent role in the industrial revolution which, historically-speaking, followed quickly thereafter.

However, in the intervening centuries, new nations and sunrise technologies have risen and replaced the iron and steel technologies which built the country's wealth and subsequent economic development as a powerhouse of the industrial world which reached its zenith just before the first world war when the Clyde had the lion's share of world shipbuilding trade.

Since then, rampant municipalisation and nationalisation deprived Scotland of much of its entrepreneurial leadership.

However, the First Tuesday e-commerce network, which was exported from London north of the border to Edinburgh six months ago, is creating such an e-business fervour, that a new e-biz buzz is engulfing the city.

And in true new- technology style, word of email is spreading like online wildfire about the new e-business self-help and networking group. All adherents must consent to sharing email addresses and it operates on a culture of sharing information, ideas and contacts.

The first meetings attracted a handful of hard-core adherents-cum-anoraks. Four months later, more than 200 people crowded into the Assembly Rooms in George Street (traditionally a venue for the arts during the international festival) to hear James Oliver, director of a typical e-commerce start-up, lastorders.com (the "on line off licence") reveal the secret of the Holy Grail to his followers.

"Just do it," he told them.

The crowd was a curious mixture of venture capitalists, businesses seeking venture capital funding, people seeking to put together e-commerce teams, and a spate of lawyers touting for business from tomorrow's Bill Gates.

In fact, the presence of the lawyers is perhaps the most significant straw in the wind as the city's traditionally reserved and conservative legal establishment gets wired into the potential of online enterprise. Central government is yet to follow.

With a barely audible PA system fighting a losing battle with the self-interested and self-seeking e-buzz of budding new businesses clamouring for attention around a handful of venture capitalists like some modern-day Klondykers proclaiming they've found the one true lucky-strike e-gold mine, the atmosphere in the Assembly Rooms was a curious cross between some kind of religious fundamentalist group meeting Gordon Gekko, the avaricious lawyer in the movie Wall Street who decreed: "Greed is good."

By the time the fifth First Tuesday meeting was held in the Georgian grandeur of the Royal College of Physicians in the country which produced Baron David Hume and Adam "Wealth Of Nations" Smith, big business - in the form of British Energy plc sponsorship - had arrived to proclaim that it had seen the future and that e-business worked.

This time, more than 300 devout followers swarmed round Rupert Connolly, managing director of HomeDirectory.com as he preached the Gospel of the First Tuesday-ment, telling how, through the e-commerce self-help group, he was first introduced to his e-venture partners at British Energy, which has consequently taken a £5 million stake in the company.

His "disciples" listened in devout silence as the nmemonics tripped effortlessly from the PA system (which worked on this occasion). The keys to success in business and e-commerce are straightforward. He said: "It's KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid, and remember the seven most important things in business - people, people, people, people, people, people, and product."

To which worshippers reply with the silent mantra; "I've gotta e-business plan, I've gotta a hot e-business plan_ it's kinda like Los Angeles, without a sun tan."

Such has been the success of First Tuesday in developing new businesses and e-commerce in Edinburgh, that it the concept is being re-exported to the other side of the known universe - Glasgow, on March 7 at the Royal Concert Hall. Watch this e-space. (JC)