I feel a great sense of pride living and working around Cambridge among some extraordinary people and their innovative businesses which have made a difference to all our lives, from the birth of home computers and bluetooth technology, to the creation of round teabags and pioneering drug discovery.

The story of The Cambridge Phenomenon, 50 Years of Innovation and Enterprise, has just been published, and it’s a fascinating read for those of us who rub shoulders with many of these entrepreneurs at networking events in the city.

It was a mammoth research task for writer Kate Kirk to have undertaken, but it’s certainly a job well done, and both Kate and Charles Cotton, (pic) founder of The Cambridge Phenomenon, should feel immensely proud of their terrific achievement.

It was great to bump into Charles last week (we had worked together briefly at the end of the year when it was announced that Bill Gates was writing the foreword for the book), but, unfortunately, I was unable to attend the book launch which I have been told was a fabulous event, pretty much like a school reunion when many of the great and the good were able to share anecdotes again. Perhaps another book, Charles?

One of those great and good is James Collier, the father of my son’s former schoolfriend who ran up to him in the playground in primary school one day and said, “Daddy has invented something to do with computers and we are going to be very rich.”

He had helped discover bluetooth!

That kind of conversation must have been pretty common over the last few decades. But, paradoxially, as the book points out, part of the reason for many successes in Cambridge was because of the change in people’s attitudes towards failure as more entrepreneurs “had another go” afterwards, as well as the booming commercialisation of Cambridge University which provided many of the brains for these new start-ups, and the city’s supportive network community – the so-called “Cambridge spirit” described as an attitude where people willingly helped others without expecting anything in return; this generosity of spirit has not been observed elsewhere.

Within moments of bumping into Charles, I met up with another entrepreneur who was praising the book launch and telling me that one of his contacts in the Netherlands had just ordered 50 copies of the book. I have a PR buddy popping round tomorrow to borrow my copy so he can write a blog post about his client’s company which is mentioned in it as he is still waiting for his order to be delivered.

It’s wonderful to know that the Cambridge Phenomenon lives on….