Citadel Rock Online Communities was TheCodeFactory’s first drop-in group of multiple people. We had had individual drop-in members but they were the first group to use a drop in membership for the company. The two principles are co-founders Nelson Ko and Pascal St Jean, CEO and CTO respectively. Nelson participated in the Carleton TIM program and I met him when he was just starting Citadel. Pascal and I were connected through democamp when I used to help organize them. I badgered Pascal for several months to come out and demo one of his other start-ups PicSphere, which he did eventually present. Pascal also presented at one of our entrepreneurial panels. Citadel Rock Online communities sponsored Ottawa’s first TikiFest which was held at TheCodeFactory.
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About the Company:
Citadel Rock was founded in March 2006 with the aim of empowering organizations through online collaboration and social media solutions based on TikiWiki and other open source software. Our solutions combine the power of wiki collaboration and multimedia communications with a full range of Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 technologies to enhance organizations’ productivity, influence and reach. Our customers include Mozilla, Carleton Centre for Community Innovation, International Council on Nanotechnology, and Orange Telecom.

Next instalment – About the founders.

Ian Graham

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This is a guest post by Cate Huston on how to make Ottawa more Awesome. I meet Cate at TeamCamp back in the late fall early winter. Cate is one of my favorite Ottawa U students. What follows are her own words.
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Cate Huston is a Masters student in Computer Science at the University of Ottawa, and former president of the uOttawa Women in Science and Engineering group. She has a BSc (hons) in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh and is a qualified ski instructor. She has trained in martial arts and taught programming in China, and developed programming curriculum taught across the US and in Shanghai. Cate blogs at Accidentally in Code, is an enthusiastic user of twitter @kittenthebad and a reluctant user of email (catehuston AT gmail).

I’m coming to the end of my masters degree, and as a result of that I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done so far (not enough) and what I’m going to do next. At uOttawa, I revived and was president of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) group. We went from nothing, to two events a month a strong exec committee in less than a year.

As I handed over my role with WISE, I wondered what my next challenge would be. There are many cool things happening in Ottawa that it would be great to be involved with. However this idea of starting an Awesome Foundation in Ottawa has been in my mind since I heard about it from my friend Emily, one of the founding members of the original one in Boston. I’ve met so many creative, inspiring people in Ottawa, some of them in the government even. However I’ve met others that have this dead look in their eyes, like their motivation and creativity has been sucked out of them by excessive beaurocracy and a culture of mediocrity. Ottawa is very much a government city. I think we need more awesome to compensate for that.

The Awesome Foundation is a group of 10 people who every month award a grant of $1000 to someone to enable something AWESOME. Examples include: a giant laser, a cotton candy cannon, and a “happiness hat” (my personal favourite).

Ultimately, the time isn’t later, or tomorrow, or next week. If we want to make change happen, if we want to “be the change we want to see” as the expression goes, the time is now. There’s always going to be a reason not to. There’s always going to be other things to do with $100 a month.

The question is, do we want to make Ottawa more awesome, or not. Do we want to make a difference, or not.

I do. I hope I can find 9 other people who do too.

This is why I announced my plan for the Awesome Foundation at Team Camp. Wannabe and existing entrepreneurs are the kind of people who are being the change they want to see, and they tend to be well connected too. Even those who couldn’t make the commitment to be on The Board of Awesome were helpful, retweeting and emailing my original blog post offering help with web-dev, other helpful suggestions and generally being enthusiastic. I really appreciate their help and support.

One of the things Ian suggested I write about was what my “vision” was for Awesome Foundation Ottawa. Honestly, I don’t have a strong vision. It goes no further than finding a diverse group of board members and promoting what we’re doing widely enough to get a good selection of proposals. The people who get involved will shape where we go from there. That uncertainty is part of the adventure. So I’m not inviting you to get on board with my vision, I’m inviting you to join with me and 8 others to shape a bigger one.

We’re already well on our way to the 10 people we need for the Board of Awesome, which is why next Thursday (April 8th) we’ll be having a meeting at The Code Factory for prospective board members. I hope, if this project interests you, you’ll come along and join us to find out more.

Thank you Cate!

Filed under: Collaboration Corner, Featured, Guest Post, Innovation, The Code Factory by Ian
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This will be the first in a four or five part series about collaboration between two of my favourite open source companies; Blindside Networks and Citadel Rock Online Communities. Both organizations can trace their lineage back to Carleton University’s Technology Innovation Management (TIM) Program. Both organizations also have connections to TheCodeFactory and started on their collaborative journey together here. I hope you enjoy the story.
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The format is something like:

Next Instalment in the series coming to The Road Less Travelled next week.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Collaboration Corner, Featured, Guest Post, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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Technology Innovation Management program at Carleton University is probably one of the brightest blips on the Ottawa innovation radar. I am a huge suporter on what Michael Weiss and the team at Carleton are doing and have personally experienced some of the great stuff that the program has produced, certainly not the least of which is Blindside Networks and their project BIG Blue Button, also Citadel Online Communities and interaction with a number of the grads and surrounding ecosystem.
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Link to more information on Lecture series.

In this lecture, recent graduates from the TIM program in the MASc option will talk about their theses.

Presenters:

The Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program is a unique Master’s program for innovative engineers that focuses on creating wealth at the early stages of company or opportunity life cycles. It is a synthesis of management and engineering. The program is offered by Carleton University’s Department of Systems and Computer Engineering. It provides benefits to aspiring entrepreneurs, engineers seeking more senior leadership roles in their companies, and engineers building credentials and expertise for their next career move.

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The following is a post by Andrew Ross. Andrew is a good friend, open source advocate, event organizing dynamo and founder of FOSSLC an organization with which TheCodeFactory has proudly been affiliated with. I asked Andrew for a guest post and left him to decide the topic. He made a great choice. Transparency is one of the founding principles of Open Source and TheCodeFactory.

The following is in Andrew’s own words.

I find good Science Fiction (Sci Fi) often uses the present or past to justify predictions about the future. Sci Fi often use literature to make observations or statements about society. This blog post attempts to predict the future of government and business practices.

Often Sci Fi shines a light on the best and worst of humanity. For example, the portrayal of the evil humans can do in Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama series will surely disgust you and remind you of genocides that somehow keep occurring around the globe. Humanity’s short attention span and ineffective planning for the future when acting in groups are evident in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s prequels & sequels to Frank Herbert’s classic Dune. They are also central to Asimov’s Foundation series. These themes have a natural parallel to abuses of the environment and (lack of proper) financial planning – two very important issues in society.

Currently I am reading The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem. Each chapter presents a voyage of the protagonist, Ljon Tichy. Tichy’s eleventh voyage took him to investigate the disappearance of over one thousand agents on a planet. This planet was inhabited by an all robot society founded by a computer that apparently went rogue after consuming a psychological library including horrible details involving Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, the Marquis de Sade and more. As a result, the robots in this society appeared to have evolved sadist tendencies, were prejudiced, abusive, violent, and more. [SPOILER WARNING: stop here if you plan to read this book and wish to avoid a spoiler for this chapter]

When I finished that chapter, I saw the elegance in what he wrote. Reminiscent of the wizard of Oz, Tichy pulled back the curtain and exposed the fact that the robots, every single one, were in fact humans in robot disguises even though none of them realized it. The fear of being exposed as a human on a planet full of sadistic robots forced for them to conform and pretend to be robots with sadist tendencies and openly practice and encourage abuse. This was all carefully orchestrated by the computer once it realized it’s robots were failing without possibility of repair or replacement. Any newcomers were quickly captured, and offered death or servitude involving them pretending to be robots and exposing any infiltrators.

What does this have to do with this blog you might ask? It speaks to the importance of transparency. With effective transparency, the scenario described in Lem’s Star Diaries could never happen. I like to believe most citizens would never stand for genocide. Similarly, in society today, transparency makes it far more difficult for corruption to take root and grow. The problem is lack of transparency lets these issues grow until they are beyond the means of most individuals or groups to reasonably stop them. Sound familiar? In the business world, think Enron, WorldCom, Nortel. Madoff, and many more.

This is an issue that I feel strongly about, and which draws me to open source communities and companies successfully practicing transparency as part of their business practices. There is a clear difference between keeping your strategies secret from your competitors and unethical practices.

I predict people will naturally gravitate to products, leaders, and organizations that deliver results and transparency so they can measure results for themselves. Apathy is a tough thing to overcome, but emotional motivators such as retirement savings, standard of living, and the planet we hand down to our children become involved, people will act. As I’ve covered at FOSSLC, emotions are very powerful motivators.

Thank you Andrew.

Filed under: Camp Culture, Featured, Guest Post, Open Source, Ottawa, The Code Factory by Ian
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One of the GREAT things about being an entrepreneur is you gets to work on stuff that really matters to you. You get to create your own opportunity and it is something you are truly passionate about. There is a tremendous amount of satisfaction in working on something you care about. Certainly one of the GREAT things about starting your own business is loving what you do.
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“The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.” - Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies

This quote pretty much sums it up, find what you love to do and be the best at it. Cory Darby gave me a copy of the book “Crush it” by Gary Vaynerchuk which basically says follow your passion and build your personal brand to make your living. You will love what you do and be truly passionate about it.

Just go for it!

Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Featured by Ian
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Students and Start-ups 5 (Tech Edition) is offically SOLD OUT, however don’t despair we have opened up 10 more spots. These spots will be made available to enterprising young students from Algonquin, Carleton and Ottawa U in Engineering, Computer Science and anything software related. After all this is Students and Start-ups 5 (Tech Edition).

Stealthy Students and Start-ups 6 (Business edition) coming next week..

I am an AWESOME TECH STUDENT how do I get one of these 10 spots?

It is really easy … all you have to do is send Samantha (info [AT] thecodefactory [DOT] ca) an email with 100 words (No more) explaining how awesome you are and why you should attend. That’s it. Really simple.

The AWESOME 10 students will be announced early next week on this blog and through Twitter (@thecodefactory). Have your 100 word email submitted by the end of the day Friday March 12th.

Ian Graham

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This is a guest post by Jason Kealey of LavaBlast Software. I have gotten to know Jason quite well over the past two years and he is a person I always have time for. Jason is the sort of person that washes his own dishes and often brings milk or cream for the coffee to share with everyone. Little things say a lot about a person and Jason is one of the best entrepreneurs I know to have come out of the University of Ottawa. I am very proud that TheCodeFactory has such a great partner as LavaBlast.

What follows are Jason’s own words;

Back in mid-2008, I was contacted by Ian Graham after he saw a post on Startup Ottawa about my software startup. Before the end of the week, we had agreed that LavaBlast Software would become The Code Factory’s operational software provider. I had never visited a co-working location before but I instantly knew it was a great idea in today’s business market. Having launched a distributed software startup some 18 months earlier, the value proposition was clear to me.

Today, I feel The Code Factory is a great place for completely different reasons; I’d like to share this realisation with you. When The Code Factory launched, I thought a co-working location was a great way to keep costs down in a lean software startup because small businesses avoid paying a huge amount of rent by sharing the facilities. However, it turns out that co-working locations are much more than an extra rung in the garage to office building ladder.

First realization: co-working locations are not only for businesses

Because of its shared co-working space and individual tables, The Code Factory allows individuals to share the space. This means consultants and professionals share the space with businesses. Some are just starting up but others have decades of experience under their belts. They don’t aim to run a 50 person team one day, they’re happy as things are and are simply looking for a nice place to meet with clients and avoid working alone all day. Additionally, individuals provide stability to the space because they won’t outgrow it as other start-ups do.

Second realization: co-working locations are ideal places to make new contacts

Thanks to The Code Factory, I have met hundreds of people. Some run businesses like mine, others are professionals and some are simply looking for a cool place to have lunch. I was not expecting such a diverse clientele from a software co-working location. I’ve talked about business, strategy, marketing, currency exchanges, software engineering, law, accounting, government lobbying and many other subjects with other members. I’ve built bidirectional relationships with tons of people in the Ottawa-area just by dropping by The Code Factory.

Today, I understand that the true essence of co-working locations is not about being “a place to work”. It’s about meeting other people.

If you haven’t met Ian Graham yet, drop by for a coffee.

Thank you very much Jason.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Featured, Guest Post, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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What really drives entrepreneurs … passion … persistence … these are perhaps primal motivators and basic drivers of the entrepreneur’s personality. At a higher level I think there is a greater purpose and that is the desire to create something. Without a doubt entrepreneurs are builders, doers, and those that gitter done.
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The truly great part about being an entrepreneur is the ability to create something new and turn an idea into a tangible entity. The even greater part is the ability through this innovation to change the world in some small way and affect change in a positive direction. To paraphrase Steve Job’s “Those who think they can change the world … are often the ones who do.”

The next two posts are all about the “GREAT” stuff of being an entrepreneur; loving what you do and the awesome people you get to work with.

Next post; “I love what I do!”

Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Featured by Ian
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We have five start-ups signed up for Students and Start-ups 5; YOUi Labs, Zeebu Mobile, Blindside Networks, Exocortex and Infonium. All of these companies are hiring NOW or within the next 3 months.

This is for Technical Students 8 spots left for students.

Note: If you are a biz student expect an announcment next week … Stay Tuned.

Sign up here: http://studentsandstartups5.eventbrite.com/

Students and start-ups is fun, friendly, informal and a great opportunity for a warm introduction into some great companies that are hiring. We measure success in two ways; hires and smiles and every event thus far has been a success.

This edition of students and start-ups is for computer science, engineering and technical graduates. If you are a business student fear not and expect an announcement regarding students and start-ups 6 Business edition within the next week. STAY Tuned!

Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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