If you’re not familiar with the Association of Computer Machinery’s (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) sponsored by IBM Corp., just think of it like the “March Madness” of computer programming.

Just like the NBA recruits top basketball talent from the top teams that compete in the annual NCAA tournament, the world’s top software companies will recruit the students taking part in this contest that was spawned in 1970. Also, there are a lot of confusing acronyms that confound newcomers. Indeed, IBM has sponsored this event since 1997, dubbing it “Battle of the Brains” and uses it as a recruiting mechanism, giving blanket job offers to the teams that finish in the top 10 – and may other competitors as well.

Under Big Blue’s guidance, the contest has exploded in the level of involvement and competition. There are regional competitions leading up to the world finals that 30,000 students and 2,2000 universities participate in. The 122 teams here at the University of Warsaw for this year’s finals come from 85 countries across six continents (they’re still trying to find an organizer for Antarctica).

The main event involves a gruelling, five-hour programming contest in which the teams of three students gather around a single workstation and solve problems. There are typically about 10 problems available to solve, which would normally constitute an entire semester’s worth of work, yet the winning team will solve around 80 per cent of them in this brief period. The teams compete in close proximity to each other in a large, arena area, complete with a spectator booth and score board. The teams also collect a balloon for each problem solved, tying their visual bragging rights to their workstation.

Brian Jackson, Associate Editor, ITBusiness.ca

The finals are a big deal. Last night the opening ceremonies held in Warsaw’s Palace of Culture featured dignitaries such as the mayor of Warsaw, and Poland’s president was scheduled to attend, but ended up sending a representative instead. The finals are even streamed live to the Web so spectators can cheer on their home team, and the broadcast production level is equal to that of many professional sports events. This year, viewers will be able to choose from multiple feeds to stream, including individual Web cams at each work station.

It’s a real culmination of the best computer programmers in the world. Contestants are either Master’s level in computer science, or some are senior-year undergraduate students. The sampling of talent is representative of upcoming worldwide talent pool for software programming, and allows us to take the pulse of the industry. Here’s a couple of the trends apparent this year:

Lack of female competitors

During the opening ceremonies, each team was introduced on a large video screen. You could literally count the number of female competitors on one hand. Though it was more common to see female coaches, as is the case with the University of Toronto’s Carolyn MacLeod.

Last year’s winner, Zhejiang University from China, had a female student on its team and that was likely a the first time a girl won the trophy. The lack of female competitors here underlines the overall dearth of women choosing computer science as a field of study and career choice.

North America’s decline in computer science

The ICPC competition became much more international after IBM began sponsoring it in 1997, and 1999 was the last time a North American school won the top spot – Canada’s own University of Waterloo. Last year, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbour surprised many by coming in second place overall. But North American schools have occupied the top 10 spots less often in recent years, with teams from China and Russia dominating the contest.

It makes sense that the Asia region schools are more competitive, as they must rise above more competition to make it here. Although there are proportionally more students in the Eastern continent competing to get here, they do not get a matching number of teams entered. In order to make space for other teams from around the world, they get squeezed out.

But the trend also reflects a cultural difference that should concern North Americans. While computer programming is considered “geeky” and socially undesirable in the U.S. and Canada, the contestants from China here actually have fans rooting for them back home. The other contestants often speak of the Chinese students’ reputation for rigorous practice schedules and ability to write out sections of code on pure muscle memory.

It’s almost as if those students are taking this contest as seriously as basketball is taken in the U.S. during March Madness.

 Do you have a passion for IT? Back in November 2008, I lost my passion for technology.

The perfect storm of why I hated technology had been brewing for quite some time. We were hiring the best of the worst simply because available great talent didn’t exist, client frustrations were increasing and my love for what I did simply disappeared.

Stewart Crawford

Luckily for me, around May 2010, my passion for IT returned and Ulistic started to focus on helping IT consulting firms, VARs and resellers with marketing support. Today, we also provide coaching and mentoring for IT firms.

Why is this important? I got to talking to a client the other day about the lack of performance of sales teams. After a lengthy discussion on what makes a great sales professional, we determined that it started with passion.

I love the story he told me. I’ll do my best to summarize it.

It started with a painter. Any painter will do, but let’s say a painter of landscapes.

There are two types of painters.

The first is the painter who wants to have everything right and knows all about the types of paper, paints, canvas, the history of the scene he is painting and all the technical details of what he is about to do.

The second is the painter who has a passion to paint. Sure, she may want to know all the details, but the details are not as important as the act of painting.

The canvas, the paper, the technical makeup of the paints, the process involved with the strokes are not as important as the finished product.

Now, let’s look at this from a sales and marketing perspective. I help MSPs around the country with marketing and sales. Many of my clients are running cloud computing events right now. Why? Mainly because I tell them to, and because there is a need for knowledge out there. Many are successful; one is struggling. WHY?

The successful ones focus more on sharing useful information and less on the details of running successful events. Kind of like my READY, FIRE, AIM approach. Or even what I learned from T. Harv Eker when I attended his boot camps. Sell IT before you create IT. The successful companies are just getting out there and learning as they go.

The one that is struggling focuses more on the details of what makes a successful event. Emails and invites have to be exactly right. The venue has to be great. Everything has to be perfect and according to what pundits say make an event successful. All of this refinement and attention to detail makes the invites and calls seem less genuine and more focused on making a sale.

Where’s the passion for IT, for helping others?

For my readers who are Howard Stern fans, this rings true. When Howard was jumping from radio station to radio station across the US early in his career, he wasn’t succeeding because he was hiding his passion for radio behind a mechanical radio-appropriate persona.

It wasn’t until his wife Allison pointed out to him a time when he screwed up and was just himself on the air and let his passion for radio ring through that he truly became great.

So, who are you? Are you the mechanic, or the passionate artist?

by Christine Wong

Startup Grind is the newest entry on Canada’s red hot tech startup scene.

The U.S.-based organization, which already has branches in Los Angeles, New York, Austin, Tx., San Francisco, Tempe, Az. and Marin, Ca., just opened new bases in Ottawa and Toronto. The group’s goal is to foster startup activity in each of those regions by bringing together local entrepreneurs, investors, designers, programmers and mentors.

Christine Wong, staff writer, ITBusiness.ca

The Canadian startup scene seems to be turbocharged. It also seems to be getting crowded.

Within the last few months alone there’s been a string of additions like the Startup Grind announcement: new incubators and accelerators (Jolt, Hyperdrive, Driven, and one within InvestOttawa), new organizations (Startup Canada and the aforementioned Startup Grind), new funding (including about half a billion dollars for startup ventures in the federal budget) and new media outlets (PostMedia bought Sprouter which begat BetaKit, respected blogger Mark Evans just launched a weekly newsletter, newcomer Startup Canada now sends out a daily digest, we here at IT Business Canada are doing a daily startup news round-up, and the National Post and Globe and Mail have beefed up their small business and entrepreneurship coverage with a heavy emphasis on the tech scene).

There’s even a service called Clarity.fm offering startups advice from successful businesspeople over the phone, launched by east coast serial entrepreneur Dan Martell.

Will this onslaught of funding, support services, and media coverage actually translate into stronger Canadian tech startups?

Too early to tell.

But having more players in any game usually breeds competition. And that can’t be a bad thing. It probably means all these startups are vying more fiercely for talent to hire, which admittedly causes headaches for recruiters and tech firms trying to fill key spots on their teams. It might also mean, however, that all these groups, services and media outlets will be forced to constantly improve their offerings to survive.

It’s easy being the only game in town and enjoying a monopoly. New competition in a market that’s getting a bit crowded makes you take a look at yourself and up your level of play, to not only stay afloat but beat your rivals.

Survival of the startup services fittest, you might say. It’s a game playing out not just among the emerging tech firms themselves but perhaps among the services catering to them now here in Canada.

Startup headlines vs reality?

There may be a disconnect going on between all the headlines trumpeting the flurry of global startup activity and what’s really happening in the world of entrepreneurship.

The U.S. startup business creation rate hit an all-time low of 7.87 per cent, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The startup business rate peaked at an all-time high of 13.02 per cent in 1987.

Entrepreneurial companies accounted for just 12 per cent of all American employment in 2010 compared with 20 per cent in the 1980s, the study showed.

Entrepreneurs’ share of job creation has also fallen to 30 per cent in recent years, down from over 40 per cent in the 1980s. And only 35 per cent of all American companies are within the startup range (in business for five or less years), down from almost 50 per cent in the early 1980s.

The takeaway: despite all the media coverage about startups and president Obama’s Startup America initiative to fund and support entrepreneurship, new business creation is hitting new lows, at least south of the border.

It’s not something to be taken lightly. A Reuters story on the data quotes warnings from some U.S. economists and researchers that without stronger rates of entrepreneurship, the American economy will continue to stagnate and not really recover from the U.S. recession that officially ended in 2009.

It’ll be interesting to check for similar statistics in Canada a year or two from now, to see if all the startup activity and coverage will really translate into more new businesses and jobs up here.

BlackBerry 10

by Yale Holder 

RIM’s CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled the BlackBerry 10 operating system and a prototype phone for developers in Orlando, Florida. With no launch date communicated as yet, the phone is still expected to be in our hands in time for the holiday season.

The good

The phone debuted didn’t have a keyboard and looked more like an Android device which is clearly a deviation from the regular BlackBerry Bold type cell phones. Check the video out below to get a sneak peak.

RIM adopted the BlackBerry Playbook interface and customized it for a cell phone, so customers who have used the Playbook may see a familiar interface.

Here are some of the sleak features demoed recently:

1. A swipe based interface versus the old ball type style we are accustomed to with older BlackBerry cell phone models
2. A new predictive typing interface which seems rather cool, where the words appear on the next letter you are going to type
3. A camera application which captures a segment of time giving the user the option to go back in time (and forward) over a few seconds to get that perfect shot.

Overall this is a major leap forward for BlackBerry and it looks like they are headed in the right direction.

The bad

None of the features above are earth shattering, they are cool and sleak, similar to some of the features I’ve seen in the new Windows phone platform, and that hasn’t taken off as yet. This just brings RIM into the current time and doesn’t leap frog Apple and Android. It’s still early, but my fear is that by the time RIM finally gets the full BlackBerry 10 lineup out the door, Apple and Android would’ve moved on to the next generation of smart phones.

And finally, in order to make this work, BlackBerry needs apps, apps and more apps.

Hopefully developers are excited about this new platform and make apps for the BlackBerry, or, maybe BlackBerry should consider allowing these phones to run android apps….just a thought.

Yale Holder is co-founder of myCELLmyTERMS, a Toronto-based company that helps cell phone users negotiate wireless plans with independent dealers.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) — a term which refers to employees bringing their own mobile devices into the workplace for business purposes — is one of the hottest acronyms in business technology world today.

Daniel Reio

Companies are increasingly embracing the idea that employees want greater choice and flexibility in the devices they use.

 In a recent CDW Canada survey of Canadian businesses, more than two thirds of respondents (67 per cent) said their company has or is working on a BYOD strategy.

With the freedom to use the devices most comfortable to them, employees can be more productive than ever, whether they are working in the office, on the road or at home. But this shift toward greater device diversity, better employee morale and building a more mobile workforce comes with a new set of challenges, especially when it comes to security, device management and user experience consistency.

In fact, the top concerns for organizations surveyed included securing corporate data and managing the incoming fleet of individually-owned mobile devices.

Here’s what you need to consider when implementing a BYOD strategy in your environment:

Determine needs – This decision regarding which devices to support should not be made by management alone. Different employees may require different device features for their day-to-day responsibilities, so getting together a wide cross-section of your organization’s employees or business leaders very early on during the project is advisable.

Launch a consolidated purchasing plan – Working with a solution provider to facilitate BYOD will let you maintain greater control of the devices being brought into your corporate environment without sacrificing employee choice. A solution provider can offer a great purchasing package that offers unlimited product choice and streamlines the process of getting devices into the hands of your employees.

Invest in MDM – Keeping tabs on one type of smart phone is relatively easy, but when you throw new mobile operating systems and tablets into the mix, device management can quickly become a nightmare. With a proper Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, businesses can keep track of the various mobile operating systems in their environment.  These tools will also allow you to easily deactivate apps on the smart phones and tablets of ongoing employees.

Prepare the infrastructure – Working with a solution provider with a dedicated team that knows the hardware and software you have purchased in the past will help keep you on track from an IT infrastructure perspective. Far too many IT organizations are reacting to BYOD and jumping in without a plan that keeps their environment secure. Do you have a secure wireless network in place? Is your company’s intranet accessible on the mobile devices that are now flooding into your environment? A solution provider can help you answer these questions and more around supporting numerous operating systems and maintaining a native user experience.

Draft a new policy – While smart phones, tablets and laptops might not be new to your organization, BYOD almost certainly is. Communicating exactly how employees can use their devices when they’re interfacing with company-owned e-mail systems or corporate applications is a must. In addition to acceptable use considerations, a strong policy should also include where end-users can go for IT support and what should happen if a user violates the policy. If the BYOD program only extends to certain employees, the policy should also clearly spell out eligibility requirements. An acceptable use policy will also help you identify any privacy and legal terms employees should agree to before using their own devices on the job.

Don’t forget about legacy tech – Starting up a BYOD strategy will require your existing application delivery models to change. This might require some time upfront, but the work will save a lot of headaches down the road. Working with a solution provider can help you accomplish this. ________________________________________________________________________

Daniel Reio is the director of marketing for CDW Canada, a leading provider of technology solutions and a trusted advisor for SMBs.  For more information, visit http://www.cdw.ca/.

“A million people walk into a bar in Silicon Valley. Nobody buys anything. The bar is declared a huge success.”

Harley Finkelstein, CPO of Shopify, shared that illuminating joke during the panel discussion atStartup Canada. It seemed to resonate with the audience because, aside from it being funny, it identified a serious problem in the way many entrepreneurs run their new companies.

The lesson is that startups will fail if they can’t see past the hype and generate sales consistently. Yet there is a common perception that if a new company garners attention, whether that is through media, word-of-mouth, or otherwise, it will automatically be successful.

While attention and success can support one another, this isn’t a business model on which startups should bet their livelihoods. The focus of attention must always be the needs of the customer.

“Need is the mother of all invention,” declared serial entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews during his speech. It is identifying need and positioning a product to solve it that enables startups to go to market quickly, beat out any competition and ultimately be successful.

And what a need there was to launch Startup Canada. As a startup itself, it’s nice to see the organization drinking its own medicine. Startup Canada’s success can be accredited to the fact that it is solving a serious need not just in Canada, but in the global economy as a whole. There is a need at home and abroad to support entrepreneurship as a way of creating jobs, improving quality of life and ultimately helping our national and global economies come out of the slump and prosper. And the movement isn’t just about the hype. The leaders behind Startup Canada want to see a return on investment for their efforts not only in the growth of new companies, but in the generation and accumulation of information that can be used to further the entrepreneurship agenda in Canada.

“Entrepreneurs can be the solution to the problems entrepreneurs face,” said Victoria Lennox, co-founder of Startup Canada.

“Nothing like it has ever before existed in the country — a grassroots national movement to celebrate and promote entrepreneurship in Canada,” MC Andrea Mandel-Campbell said to the Startup Canada launch crowd. “If we want our economy to grow and prosper it is going to be through supporting entrepreneurs like each and every one of you here.”

The reception hall was packed tight with entrepreneurs and Startup Canada supporters. As Mandel-Campbell pointed out during her speech, everyone in the room could be classified as an entrepreneur because they took a chance and came to an event to support an organization that has no track record and was created out of the minds of a few ambitious and determined individuals. Fueling that entrepreneurial passion is a goal of Startup Canada, and the palpable enthusiasm in the room was a clear indicator of its immediate success.

Entrepreneurship is a viable career choice

A goal of Startup Canada is to give confidence to young people that they can choose entrepreneurship as a career path. Lennox explained during the panel discussion that Canada’s education system must be set up to inform young people about entrepreneurship. Other panelists explained that starting up a company while you are young and in school can be a good idea. Furthermore, supporting young talent in Canada is vital to retaining it.

Brad LeBlanc, founder and CEO of Momentum Group, said that simply telling young people that they can start their own business is transformational. Passion should be fostered through validation, he said. Simply acknowledging a young entrepreneur in a school newspaper can provide enough encouragement for that young person to push forward with his or her idea. Giving them accessibility to programs that are there to support young entrepreneurs is also crucial.

Sarah Prevette, founder and CEO of Sprouter, suggested that university and college alumni can be the perfect mentors for young entrepreneurial students.

Finkelstein agreed and furthered Prevette’s point. “Starting a business as a student is a great thing to do,” he said. “You have classmates to test your idea, professors who act as your informal board of directors, and you can get recognized in the school paper. And if it doesn’t work, you can just go back to class!”

“The great thing about being young is that you have enthusiasm, great ideas and the ability to think big,” said Garry Zeigler, founder and CEO of eThor.

And, thanks to organizations like Startup Canada, we are starting to move past the idea that entrepreneurship is something you do if you can’t find a job.

“In this country, it’s becoming more celebrated and recognized as a real growth engine behind jobs,” saidBruce Lazenby, president and CEO of Invest Ottawa. “Talent is going to be key and talent is mobile. It is incumbent for us in Canada and Ottawa to express that we are an attractive place to stay.”

Focus on championing entrepreneurs, not the institutions

The entrepreneurs on the panel agreed that one of Startup Canada’s efforts must be to shift the focus from the organizations supporting entrepreneurs to the entrepreneurs themselves. By giving attention to the individual and personal efforts of entrepreneurs, we will impassion them and give them the courage to think big, take risks, feel proud of their work and then give back to the startup ecosystem which they helped to build.

“Startup Canada has a very simple purpose and that is to celebrate entrepreneurship and to make entrepreneurship a much bigger piece of our economy going into the future. We need all of your help to spread that word, to spread the message,” said Dr Adam Chowaniec, chairman of Startup Canada, during his speech. “We need a little bit of your time to connect with the people around you, to connect with the vision and to help us deliver a unified message across the country in terms of what entrepreneurialism is, what it means to succeed and how we can do it better.”

“Ottawa relies on institutions to help us do entrepreneurial things, but institutions get in the way,” saidScott Annan, founder and CEO of Startup Plays. “Doing a startup is like riding a bike. You don’t go to bike school to study. You just get on it.”

Failing is okay

Our Francis Moran will be the first to tell you that it’s a (too prevalent) ludicrous notion that Canadians don’t know how to take risks. But taking risks is never comfortable, unless perhaps you are Evel Knievel. We must teach young entrepreneurs that taking risks is okay, and have the support mechanisms in place to catch them when they fall.

“Canadians are starting to realize that failing gracefully and failing fast should be regarded as a badge of honour,” said Finkelstein.

“We are cushy and comfy in Canada and we don’t want to lose that. To step outside of those bounds is risky,” said Tara Hunt, founder and CEO of Buyosphere. “But perhaps there is some sort of attitude we can instill in the Canadian population that it’s okay to step outside of that comfort zone and take risk.”

Give ownership to your team

We’ve written about the importance of giving your team ownership before, and so it was nice to see that idea given credence by Sir Matthews last night.

“Give the team ownership. Don’t deal with employees, deal with owners,” he said. “New grads have no baggage. They have razor-sharp focus. They work seven days a week when they are given ownership.”

Focus on your brand

Bringing technology to market requires marketing — there is no simpler way of putting it.

“The image is incredibly important,” said Sir Matthews. ”It’s the image, the marketing and the brand. This is something that universities across the country forget. If you don’t have sales you will die. It’s about the brand. It’s about the image.”

Have fun

After starting up nearly 100 companies, Sir Matthews accredited his perseverance to simply “having fun.”

“It’s fun to have a team, it’s fun to go out and grow the business, watch the sales grow, talk to the team members every quarter about what’s going on, and have them participate,” he said.

On that note, why don’t you have some fun, venture out into your community and see what’s happening locally to support entrepreneurship? Better yet, see how you can get involved. Who knows — the people you meet and the information you learn might just spark your passion for entrepreneurship and empower you to startup your own company.

Attendees, what did you take away from the Startup Canada launch?

I have shamelessly adapted the headline of this post from a Wall Street Journal article I read on the weekend that reviewed two excellent books tracking the ascendancy of Africa over the past decade and predicting that the continent’s rise as an economic force to be reckoned with would continue in similar fashion for the next decade. Acknowledging the structural problems many African countries face on the political front, one of the reviewed authors was quoted as writing, “there is no magic recipe for turning countries around, only good cooks.”

The sharp application of the sentiment to the founding of startup companies was immediately and forcefully impressed upon me. There is no magic recipe for a successful company. There are only good cooks.

When I founded inmedia Public Relations at the height of the telecom boom in late 1998, I used to say our template client was “three engineers, a brilliant idea and $10 to $15-million in U.S. venture capital.” We were seeing these companies form at the rate of several a month, and I thought they were all going to succeed.

Boy, was I wrong.

Looking back, I have identified three reasons why most of these companies failed.

The first is that the success of many of them relied on genuine invention; these companies had to make a breakthrough in the science of physics, semiconductors or photonics in order to achieve what they were setting out to do. I — and they and their investors — swiftly learned a eureka moment can’t be manufactured by throwing money and engineers at it.

The second cause of failure for many came when the telecom bubble burst, and the market for what was being developed went away.

The third, and most common, cause of failure, however, had nothing to do with either of the above. Many of these companies had the capacity to develop the product their business plans called for. Many of them were playing in markets where success, while hard to come by, was still achievable. They went under purely and simply due to a failure to execute. In short, they possessed all the ingredients necessary for success, they were just lousy cooks.

While many companies, and those who back them, continue to search for some sort of elusive formula that will guarantee success, there is a growing awareness that the bet ought to be placed not on the ingredients and steps in the recipe but, rather, on the cooks and their skill in the kitchen. We’re seeing this with the latest initiative out of the Silicon Valley accelerator program Y Combinator, where teams can apply without having any idea whatsoever of the product they might want to build. In other words, Y Combinator will invest in what it thinks is a great team of cooks, and let them figure out later exactly what dish they’re actually going to pull together. You might argue that this is just the latest shot of hot air injected into the unsustainable startup froth that Y Combinator has played no small part in whipping up, but it is still a confirmation of the reality that execution trumps all else.

Our own experience in writing extensively this past year about the commercialization ecosystem would concur that there is no sure-fire path to success. Some companies have made use of every ingredient in the startup larder, and have still failed. There certainly is no commonality among the winners in terms of how they got there except for the ability of the founders to be their own taste-makers, adapt on the fly, use a pinch of this and a dash of that, and eventually pull something out of the oven that enough customers actually want to eat.

Postscript: The photo at the top of this post is a picture I took a year or so ago in Cape Town’s Africa Cafe, where owner and chef Portia de Smidt embodies both sides of the metaphor of cook as entrepreneur. Her food is an inventive and largely self-taught journey through the myriad tastes of this diverse continent while the story of how she and husband Jason de Smidt broke most of the rules of apartheid-era South Africa to open their restaurant first in their own home and eventually in their own building is a classic tale of adaptable and committed entrepreneurship. The metaphor continues whenever I cook something out of Portia’s recipe book as I am obliged to constantly adapt and invent in order to compensate for ingredients I can’t get at all or that exhibit a different flavour profile than their African equivalents.

by Ashley Huffman

If you’ve never worked in a startup company, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be in one. The way it’s portrayed in the media is fairly chaotic and a little skewed. The movie The Social Network didn’t help either by cutting out the real fun parts where they worked for 14 hours a day every day with no vacation and on average had Red Bull for dinner.

Now this post isn’t to gripe on the misconceptions of startups, it’s instead a look into how current events in the entrepreneurial realm are shaping what could be a direct impact on your medium to big business.

Canada’s startups are becoming of ever growing importance to our economic growth. Tech Vibes recently posted an awesome stat that 2.7 million Canadians were self-employed in 2010. That’s about 8% of the country’s total population (studies by Statistics Canada). We’re also home to the test capital of North America, we have a healthy immigration policy for a constant inflow of foreign brains and brawn, and not to mention our systems, organizations and businesses dedicated to accelerating, fostering and funding new businesses.

So what possible impact could a bunch of small, low budgeted companies have on your business?

Ashley Huffman – Contributor ITBusiness.ca

To start, the Canadian government is turning its gaze on them like the All-Seeing-Eye from Lord of the Rings. They’re launching a series of medium and long-term measures to boost and help startups, including the recent culmination of Startup Canada. This new org is dedicated to providing an entrepreneurial support system across the country. They’ve wrangled in the best and brightest business ego’s, rags to riches  founders and biggest up-and-comers. Not to mention the grants, loans, funds and tons of provincial programs dedicated to startups only.

Do you know what you’re up against?

Incubators exist for one purpose, and that’s to accelerate the business process. Whether it’s turning a concept into a viable, running operation or helping a functioning business get a lot of cash. It at its core is an accelerator; like business steroids. It no longer has to take 6 years to grow a business, nor do you need to run at an operational loss of 2-3 years. Startups can run on fumes; in both funding and staffing. Some are even run by teens; like my pal Nicholas Montgomery the founder of @oneplantclass.

The mentality of “you get what you pay for,” in reality isn’t the case anymore thanks to the web. Entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon of open-source and free utilities; especially when it comes to apps and tools. Unfortunately for larger companies, there’s a roadblock of licensing,
compatibility and work approvals. I get it, but you are missing out on a chance to use emerging technologies and save money at the same time.

In bigger companies there also tends to be a lot of politics and red tape, especially if unions are involved.

“Our IT manager was pretty much Jen from The It Crowd, she knew nothing about computers, coding or hardware. All she did was surf YouTube and go on Facebook. But they couldn’t fire her because she was full time,” said Scott, a former IT desk employee of Canada’s biggest Internet provider.

On the contrary.

“In a startup you don’t just do your best, you go above and beyond or you just won’t make it.  The livelihood of your coworkers is at stake, as well as your own. Like nature, it’s survival of the fittest,” said Graham, former programming intern at Silvercell.

Startups churn ideas and talent like butter on a farm. Where I mentor, INcubes, they have to sort through virtual stacks of applications; both startups and eager entrepreneurs.

Many Toronto startups are even swooping up some of the best and brightest players from bigger companies across Canada. The bait?  The temptation of flexible hours, increased freedom and the feeling that your work is actually making an impact.

Startups also utilize outreach in the most cost effective means, like the Internet! This includes while on their phone, whilst working at their desk using social media, with different tabs open on a separate monitor. Social media can be used to connect with some of the biggest players in the industry, and if you’re nice, you can get free advice. You can also read the blogs and tweets of some of the richest, smartest and most influential business heroes. And unlike the huge, expensive business conferences, you can make use of free-to-cheap meet ups, mixers, tweet ups and events. You may not meet those big wigs, but chances are you’ll meet the guy who knows the girl, who knows the big wig.

These every day entrepreneurial super heroes don’t just do their job, they take on the jobs of 4 people. When you go home at night, they’re still up working. When you’re sleeping, they’re probably still working. I’m not saying one way is better than the other, but I’m saying the people who work all the time just get more done. Undisputable fact.

What does this all mean?

It means packs of entrepreneurs will be coming out of the woodwork because they have a clear pathway and the assistance they need to grow. So, if you’re a medium to big company that isn’t innovating, using the internet effectively and keeping your people happy, your business is at risk.

Don’t get me wrong, we all need to stand together like proper Canadians.  But, by changing our mentalities to strive for innovation vs monopolizing our own markets, we can compete with each other into creating groundbreaking ideas and technologies. This will not only make Canadian companies more competitive within the biggest markets, but solve the real issues that impact the world.

Ashley is an education & technology evangelist from the GTA.  She is proudly a Marketing & PR mentor at INcubes and is the brains and brawn behind the geek blog www.chicktech.com. Ashley is also a self-proclaimed Twitter and Nanodots addict.

by Barry Gander

Areas for mutual development between researchers on first responder issues have been identified by a software robot that ‘reads’ online documents.

Barry Gander, chair, Networked Vehicle Association

The CIRILab software engine was recently employed to read the online documents from 50 Canadian and 50 U.S.-based first responder organizations.  The software focussed on finding links between the city of Stratford, and Clemson University in South Carolina.  Clemson is a hot-bed of wireless vehicle research.

The software found areas that will be explored in joint projects that unite the digital workforce of Waterloo and Stratford region, with the test-bed requirements of Clemson.  The university serves many car makers, including BMW and Volkswagen.

Stratford’s Mayor Dan Mathieson Mathieson said the traditional automotive supply chain is focused on cost-efficient production of physical parts, systems and engineering services. In next-generation vehicles, large parts of the new automotive supply chain will be built around software applications, digital content and network services. Now, the new automotive supply chain is the development of powerful linkages to collaborate on the delivery of digital services to the consumer in the vehicle. “Proven business models for software, digital content and network services from the information and communication industry need to be customized to the requirements of the automotive industry,” said Mathieson.   CATA i CANADA IT World Blog NVA Graph May 2 12

by Stuart Crawford

Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) of 2009 is nothing like the Protect IP Act (PIPA) that folks in theUnited States railed against in January 2012.

Stewart Crawford

Some may recall that Wikipedia, along with several other websites, “went black” on Jan.18, 2012, to express its disapproval of not only PIPA but also its companion the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Alberta’s version of PIPA is all about making businesses more open with consumers regarding the consumers’ personal information.

This new act “makes a number of amendments designed to foster openness and accountability in private-sector organizations with respect to the use of service providers outside Canada,” according to an information sheet that can you can find here.

When you think aboutAlberta’s PIPA, think about Google’s privacy policy in which the company tells you that it shares user information with various and sundry third-parties for the purpose of processing information, etc. Well, inAlberta, if a business shares information with vendors or advertisers or outsourced data processors or whatever, the business’ leaders must make sure that the consumers know how the business will use their personal information.

For example, section 13(1) of the act states that before or at the time of collecting personal information directly from someone, an organization must notify that person in writing or orally why the information is being collected and the name or position name or title of anyone who is able to answer, on behalf of the organization, the person’s questions about the collection.”

On the other hand, an organization does not have to let someone know about data being collected from another person. So, if you don’t pay your rent, your landlord can collect personal information about you from your neighbor without notifying you first or getting your permission.

The act has several other sections thatAlbertadenizens should become familiar with. It’s always good to know your rights, especially when it comes to divulging personal information.

I recommend that your Alberta IT consulting firm understand all the privacy rules. This is important if you are hosting information or recommending cloud solutions. Here are my recommendations:

• Use a Canadian backup solution. I recommend the guys from Nivsys in London, Ontario. As a Canadian online backup solution that helps Canadian IT firms ensure all client data continues to be hosted in Canada.
• Use a Canadian hosting solution. I recommend IT Utility in Ottawa. They provide multi-tenant Microsoft CRM 2011, SharePoint Hosting and of course, Hosted Microsoft Exchange services. All information is secured and stored inCanada.

If you are stuck, give me a call…as your MSP Coach in Canada, I am here to help you.