This is an excellent question and a follow on to a couple of my previous innovation posts. This post will be the first in a five part series.

The Conference Board of Canada produces an annual report that measures a number of key areas in the Canadian economy (the newest report was just released today). One of the areas measured  is Innovation. Declaration of personal bias; I feel that The Conference Board of Canada significantly lacks the knowledge and insight to develop meaningful metrics with respect to innovation. This is based on the general quality of the reports that I have had the opportunity to read regarding innovation (I have read all of the annual reports from 2000 – 2007 will be reading 2008 over the weekend). I find the Conference Board of Canada’s reports lack any real world insight or expertise. The metrics and reporting appear to be drawn from primarily academic and bureaucratic sources with little concept of what transpires in the private sector. That said lets have a review of their metrics and see what can be done to develop some meaningful metrics of our own.

Here are the general categories as extracted from the Conference Board of Canada 2007 “How Canada Performs; A Report Card on Canada”. The categories in the report are reasonably well done.

Creation: Generating new knowledge or significantly improving existing knowledge (through activities such as researching, inventing and designing).

Diffusion: Communicating and sharing knowledge (through activities such as mentoring, networking, collaborating, training and publishing).

Transformation: Developing new or significantly improved products and processes; adopting or adapting knowledge for specific purposes; and transforming knowledge (through activities such as prototyping, testing, customizing, producing and assembling).

Use: Commercializing and delivering or implementing new or significantly improved products or processes (through activities such as selling, buying, installing and operating).

One post will be dedicated to each of the following categories in the coming weeks.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation by Ian
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I had a call from my web weekend buddy and podcaster extraordinaire Mark Blevis. Mark kindly offered some lessons and thoughts for which I am truly grateful. Mark has inspired this post.

On Friday Carleton University issued a release regarding the arrangement we have reached. This post is dedicated to my thoughts on our arrangement and what it means to our budding relationship.

I meet quite a few start-ups in Ottawa and my rule of thumb is that I meet a new start-up every business day. One observation that I have had is there are a lot of really great start-ups coming out of Carleton University. Here are just a few examples of some of the excellent people and start-ups I have had the opportunity to meet (all Carleton U alumni); Mike Milinkovich of The Eclipse Foundation, Kareem Sultan of RaceDV, Nikhil Adnani of thinkRF, Ben Houston of Exocortex, Nelson Ko of CitadelRock Online Communities, Steve O’Halloran of Asset Labs, Matt Roberts of JohnnyVoIP, Rob Villeneuve of DeletedTheory and the list goes on. These are excellent people with very cool ideas and companies. I am proud and honoured to be associated with any organization that has such an excellent track record of producing quality start-ups. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at Carleton University.

Luc and Tony have been strong supporters of theCodeFactory exercise in “Lean Innovation” and I am grateful for the opportunity that they have provided. Luc and Tony are two guys who “get it”. They live innovation everyday and to them it is a way of life rather than a word you put in a funding proposal. The two of them have had a significant influence in the success of the Ottawa start-up scene and the companies mentioned of are just a small subset of the Carleton University Start-up Alumni. Thank you to Luc and Tony for providing this opportunity.

I am committed to producing tangible and measureable results that will add value to Carleton University students theCodeFactory experience. The first tangible evidence of this commitment will be our “Students and Start-ups” event to be announced soon. The premise of the event is simple enough students and recent grads want relevant and meaningful work experience and start-ups want capable, motivated team members. Building on that theme theCodeFactory will be hosting a fun, interactive and results oriented team building session to act as catalyst for the students and start-ups. Jason Kealy of LavaBlast introduced me to another very exciting Ottawa area start-up that will be providing some innovative technology to help facilitate the event, expect an announcement soon. 

I look forward to building on the Carleton University and theCodeFactory arrangement to produce value for students, start-ups and community.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Open Source, The Code Factory by Ian
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Ontario’s Talent First Network and Carleton University’s Foundry Program team up with TheCode Factory to drive innovation

Ottawa, June 27, 2008 – Ontario’s Talent First Network and Carleton University’s Foundry Program announce a partnership with TheCodeFactory to assist technology savvy students to work, meet and connect with the Ottawa start-up community.

The partnership arrangement provides entrepreneurial students and recent graduates access to TheCodeFactory’s collaborative co-working space and incubator. “TheCodeFactory is far more than just a physical place to incubate ideas”, says Dr. Tony Bailetti, the Director of Ontario’s Talent First Network (TFN) and a 30-year Carleton University veteran. “I look forward to having our students and future entrepreneurial leaders participate in TheCodeFactory’s novel programs. The services are first-class and quite affordable for individuals who are full- or part-time entrepreneurs. Students and employed individuals can also pursue their entrepreneurial dreams at theTheCodeFactory.”

“TheCodefactory has the right formula for innovation: small, lean and mean, entrepreneurial-driven, fun, and transparent. To innovative effectively, small and cheap is big; big and expensive simply doesn’t work” says Bailetti. He adds: “What we need to drive massive innovation in Ottawa is many small innovation hubs like TheCodefactory, all linked to early buyers worldwide. Mechanisms that enable our innovators working anywhere in Ottawa to collaborate with early buyers at the start of the innovation cycle can produce significant benefits for our community.”

This membership-based arrangement is ideal for students according to Carleton University’s Director of Innovation Transfer, Luc Lalande. “Carleton University students are very entrepreneurial and the partnership with TheCodeFactory will help forge new connections for our students with Ottawa’s start-up community. Ian has done a fantastic job in rallying the local start-up community and he is widely respected by its members for connecting people with ideas and ideas with people.”

Collaborative work space and fun interactive events like Students and Start-ups are examples of TheCodeFactory’s approach in helping the local start-up community grow and diversify. “When you think about it, innovation is really all about the people and providing a collaborative environment for idea’s to grow states Ian Graham, Founder of privately-held TheCodeFactory. “TheCodeFactory is an exercise in “lean innovation” where 99% of the space is dedicated to the people using the facility rather than administration and program delivery.”

Ian Graham

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My good friend and fellow co-worker Marquis Cote is having a great Canada Day event called City Hunters. Please find the event details below or at http://www.cityhunters.ca/

WHEN? 5 days until next event!
CANADA DAY — 10am to 3pm

WHERE? PUB.101 2nd Floor, 101 York St. [ Google Map ]

HUNTING ZONE: ByWard Market HOW MUCH? $20.00/solo or $30.00/team of two (one camera)
(food platters will be available at the after party) WHAT DO I NEED TO BRING? You’ll need a digital camera with a minimum resolution of 4.0 megapixels with an empty memory card (all are acceptable). Arrive with a smile and willing to have fun and you’ve got all your bases covered!

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Actually lots of stuff. Here is a few of the things we have on the go:

reBookMe, the company that spun out of Ottawa WebWeekend continues to move forward and are meeting at theCodeFactory on a biweekly basis. Kinda of cool that our first event has actually given birth to a new start-up in Ottawa. Their next meeting is June 25th in the extended meeting room.

Real Financing for Entrepreneurs on June 25th from 6pm to 8pm. Still in discussions regarding sponsorship for this event, regardless we will be moving ahead. If your organization is interested in sponsoring the event please contact ian(at)thecodefactory.ca. The event focuses on three types of financing that are available to entrepreneurs today; Canadian Small Business Financing Loan, Lines of Credit and working capital loans. The format is a buddy system with entrepreneur and financial institution to provide the lender and lendee perspective on criteria for securing financing and how to use the financing once you get it.  Expect to have the details finalized early this week.

OCLUG (Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group) will be meeting in the evening at theCodeFactory on June 26th. This is the first open source user group to test out theCodeFactory and we are very excited to be offering OCLUG a place to meet and demo. Thanks to Jean for checking out the space and Ian Ward for providing the opportunity to connect.

Students and Start-up Event. This event is being prepared in conjunction with Carleton University and theCodeFactory. The intent is to provide a fun and engaging event where students and start-ups are introduced to each other. The basic premise is that Start-ups need developers and students need meaningful and relevant projects to work on. Introducing the two groups to each seems like a no brainer. Stay tuned more details later this week. The event is tentatively scheduled during the last week of June.

July and August Lunch and Learn Series. In discussions with two groups to have two lunch and learn series over the summer with content relevant to the grassroots and start-up community and held in the extended meeting room from noon to 1pm. This is an up close and personal type presentations with no power point and also done on the buddy system of provider and entrepreneur. Use of the Wii-mote electronic whiteboard is encouraged. Registration in advance is required and lunch will be provided. Stay tuned.

If you are a grass roots organization working in the open source arena, like OCLUG, would love to hear from you. theCodeFactory is dedicated to furthering excellence in the area of open source software and community.
If you are an organization in Ottawa that would like to help theCodeFactory by sponsoring lunch and learn or other events we would love to hear from you too.

Ian Graham

Filed under: The Code Factory by Ian
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TheCodeFactory is a strong supporter of all things open source. The following invitation was forwarded to me by Mike Milinkovich. The Eclipse Foundation is certainly one of Ottawa’s finest organizations. If you are interested in learning more about the foundation Oracle is sponsoring an Eclipse DemoCamp on 26th of June at the Clock Tower Pub. Please see below for more details.

You’re invited to an Eclipse DemoCamp to celebrate the upcoming Ganymede release.  The DemoCamp will feature short presentations on Eclipse projects, Eclipse-based applications and commercial products using Eclipse, and of course, there will be plenty of FREE BEER.  Sign up to attend on the event wiki: http://tinyurl.com/52tj7q.

Thursday, June 26
7:00pm – 10:00pm
Clock Tower Brew Pub
575 Bank St. (at Pretoria), Ottawa
Private room downstairs

Demo slots are still available as well, so feel free to add your name and topic under “Presenters” if you’d like to reserve a slot.

Cheers,
Lynn Gayowski
Marketing Events Manager
Eclipse Foundation, Inc.
P (613) 224-9461 ext. 234
F (613) 224-5172
lynn.gayowski@eclipse.org
www.eclipse.org

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Many of the people that Jocelyn and I have shown around theCodeFactory in the past few weeks seem to really like the idea of collaborative workspace and want to help with the project. With the fit up complete and our capital budget near it’s’ limit we are reaching out to the community for support. It is all in that spirit of giving and helping to support the initiative that this post is written.

Many thanks to Sylvain from Sylien Games for sharing his thoughts on helping to facilitate community a few weeks ago.

Support already received from the community:

Marquis Cotes, who is running a virtual office from theCodeFactory, and founder of theotherside and Digital Ottawa has agreed to provide funding for the foosball table. Thank you Marquis.

James Smith from Lebarge Weinstein and two partner organizations will be donating funds to purchase our Wii station. Thank you James and Lebarge.

Scott Jackson from the Utility Company, our communications provider, has donated a beverage fridge. Thank you Scott.

Andrew from poprockphoto has agreed to provide us some pictures on consignment. Thank you Andrew and Samantha for introducing me to Andrew.

Here is our wish list of items we would appreciate support from the community if you are able to help:

Art and photo’s for the walls. This would be done on a consignment basis. The artist provides the pictures and theCodeFactory in return; frames the art, provides a space to show the art, recognition and contact details from the artist and any sales resulting from the showing would be wholly the artists. If you know anyone that might be interested please put them in touch with ian (at) thecodefactory.ca

Book Shelves and Books. Jeff Eisen and Ben Houston have each donated a number of books to our theCodeFactory Library, which is available to all members. Now we really need some book shelves to properly provide a home for the books. More book donations are welcome too.

Wii-mote Electronic Whiteboard. When the Wii station does arrive we will be looking for a tech savvy entrepreneur to help us use it to create an electronic white board. Mike McNulty showed me a very cool TED video where Johnny Lee of Carnegie Mellon had, for about $50 in parts, converted a Wii-mote  into an electronic whiteboard.

We are always open to ideas so if you have a suggestion on how you can please feel free to forward it along.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, The Code Factory by Ian
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I wanted to start by thanking Mark Anderson for taking the time to drop by earlier this week to interview me. He did a great job in capturing the essence of what we discussed. There was one small area, however, where my recollection of our discussion is somewhat different.

Mark had asked what I thought of the Innovation hub, a $125M initiative aimed at building a large innovation centre here in Ottawa (the money will be used for the building $100M and operating cost $25M). I am not a supporter of this idea for all of the reasons he quoted in the article, but when asked what I thought my recollection of the response was I said it was a “bad” idea rather than a dumb idea, which was quoted in the article. I will stand by the bad idea sentiment. We can use $125M far more effectively by indirectly supporting entrepreneurs thorugh an Ottawa based regional pre-seed and seed fund.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Innovation by Ian
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