The high point of today was a trip to Yahoo’s Brickhouse research facility in the tech quarter of San Francisco. Chad Dickerson – the guy who organizes the famous hack days -gave us the run down. The facility was set up to allow an innovative culture to thrive away from the glare of corporate HQ. The thing you notice is the informal atmosphere – big open free form warehouse space with table tennis tables etc. The startlng thing though is what has been achieved. Yahoo Live was coded here by a team of six. Fire Eagle was also conceived here – again by a team ot six. We met Tom Coates the team lead. This bit of Yahoo at least doesn’t look like a company under threat of takeover by Microsoft. It looks likes nimble, innovative idea generation factory.