Prosperity [1]
Holistic prosperity extends beyond just material wealth, and includes factors such as social capital, health, equality of opportunity, the environment, effective governance, human rights and liberties, and overall quality of life.

Photo Attribution: “Meditation Red Sun” by h.koppdelaney

First, it takes a holistic view of prosperity, encompassing both material wealth and life satisfaction. In practice, this means the Index is based on two equally weighted subindices: economic competitiveness (factors that explain differences in countries’ relative levels of material wealth) and comparative liveability (factors that explain differences in countries’ relative levels of life satisfaction). Second, it assesses the drivers and causes of prosperity, rather than measuring outcomes. Third, it includes factors that relate to government policy and to individual citizens.

Commercialization [2]
“Commercialization includes everything a firm does that transforms knowledge and technology into new goods, processes or services to satisfy market demands.”

Entrepreneurship [3]
Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which is a French word meaning “one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods”. This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response to a perceived opportunity.

References:

1] The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report; Methodology, Data and Findings

2] People and Excellence, the heart of successful commercialization;
Industry Canada, Volume 1 the expert panel on commercialization

3] The 2008 Legatum Prosperity Index Report; Methodology, Data and Findings

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This series of videos is intended as a light hearted tongue in cheek kind of portrayal of the atypical “VC” and “Start-up”. All characters in this series … even those based on real people are entirely fictional. All voice over’s are impersonated … poorly.

ENJOY!

This is the first of 13 episodes on the adventures of our intrepid; Chris Schmitt of Team Camp fame and Dan Gagliardi co-founder of Zeebu Mobile playing the parts of Start-up and VC respectively. There is also a whole supporting cast that helped to make this happen including;

- Kelly Rusk as the PR Person
- Anthony Rizk as the Security Guard
- Susan Murphy as the Counsellor
- Ian Graham as the Angel
- Ian Capstick as the Devil
- Brian Alkerton Production and editing
- Willy the most awesome camera man

Filmed at Media Style Studio @ TheCodeFactory

Thank you everyone.

Ian Graham

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I am really excited to announce that “The Road Less Traveled” (my blog) now has BigBlueButton on board. Just look in the top right of the right had column. I have (with Freds’ help) installed the BigBlueButton widget. This was super easy and took about 5 minutes … If I can do it so can you.

Here is the deal … I can now have video conferences, chat and meetings from my blog. Too cool. There are two meeting room channels 1) Ian Graham and 2) Prof Graham for my CST8300-330 class at Algonquin College.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Featured, Open Source, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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You won’t want to miss this exciting talk for students, faculty, and Ottawa-area entrepreneurs.
Raising Venture Capital for Technology Start-ups

Raising capital for your technology start-up can be an exhilarating experience—or an utter disappointment. Why do some start-ups raise capital with ease while others have a long, drawn-out experience that never seems to get to the finish line? Once the capital is raised, then the real work begins.

Meet speakers David Aronoff, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Carleton alumnus Charles Chi, Greylock Partners and Executive Chairman of Refocus Imaging, California, whose 30 years of combined experience in venture capital and start-ups will provide unique insights into this challenging issue.

Raising Venture Capital for Technology Start-ups
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
9:00 – 10:00 am
Carleton University, Loeb C164

The event is free of charge. To register, please e-mail: judy_cardo@carleton.ca or call (613) 520-2600 x1897 by October 4, 2010.

Organized by:

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Featured, Ottawa, Start-up by Ian
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This is the second post in my Innovation series and makes an attempt at putting some sort of a framework around innovation.

Amazing Photo Attribution: Trey Ratcliff

This post will delve a little deeper into what is Innovation. Defining Innovation is a challenge and a bit of a slippery slope. The dictionary definition seemed a little hollow so I have taken a different approach.

The methodology that I decided to use is relatively simple; think of some of the greatest innovators in the world today and see what they have to say about innovation. I thought a good reference point would be; Apples – Steve Jobs, Google and Peter Drucker. Here is what they had to say:

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”
– Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998 – Steve Jobs

Finding a quote from the Google founders on the definition of innovation proved to be a real challenge. My thought was that Google lives innovation rather than defines it; therefore I have taken a few snippets from their “culture” page, which actually refers to how they foster innovation.

Sergey Brin, Larry Page on Innovation “Google’s emphasis on innovation and commitment to cost containment means each employee is a hands-on contributor. There’s little in the way of corporate hierarchy and everyone wears several hats.”

Finally, a third quote by business guru Peter Drucker.
Innovation is change that creates a new dimension of performance. Peter Drucker

Both Apple and Google are knowledge based companies that focus on innovation. The third definition by Peter Drucker is much broader and related to business in general rather than technology. This leads nicely into “what are the different types of innovation”. Depending on how you define innovation and the type of innovation are directly related into how government should incent innovation.

There are a number of key take aways from this definition of innovation exercise:

- Innovation is not easily defined
- There are many different ways to innovate
- The key to knowledge based innovation is corporate culture

Next post in the series wills more definitions. To move forward it is important to do some context setting.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Featured, Innovation, The Code Factory by Ian
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This series of blog posts has been percolating on the back burner of my brain for well over two years probably three or four years maybe even more. Anyway I recently decided to put a framework around my thoughts and get them ready to publish.

Photo Attribution: Pictr 30D

This series will likely be introduced in four or five sections (first two sections written, the remainder a work in progress). These will form the basis of my Monday morning posts from now until December. Here is the outline;

Innovation Series – 1 – Introduction
1.1 What is it?
1.2 More Definitions; Prosperity, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship
1.3 Even More Definitions – Social Innovation
1.4 Canadian Context – Athlete Analogy
1.5 Segway Measurement

Innovation Series – 2 – Measuring what matters.
2.1 Prosperity – Legatum Prosperity Index
2.1.1 Legatum Sub-index Entrepreneurship and Innovation
2.2 Prosperity – Richard Florida and the Creative Class 3T’s
2.3 Innovation – Conference Board of Canada Innovation Index
2.4 Innovation – OECD Innovation Metrics
2.5 Commercialization – “People and Excellence” the heart of successful commercialization

More to follow.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Innovation, The Code Factory by Ian
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This is the fifth year at for TheCodeFactory Start-ups to watch. Previous years choices will be posted next Monday.

There are two conflicting messages that are often heard, which one you hear depends on if you are an investor or a start-up. “All of the good start-ups will get funded” is what you tend to hear from investors. “There is a real shortage of funding” is what you tend to hear from many start-ups. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Bottom line is that good investors fund teams not ideas anyway. Ideas change and morph as start-ups pivot and work toward refining customer development and business model. I don’t think any start-up I know ended up where they started out, in terms of idea.

On that note of funding teams let’s start to unveil this year’s “Start-ups to Watch 2010”.

These choices are in alphabetical order.

Select Start Studios; Tariq, Adam and the rest of the team make an excellent combination of business and technical skills. If I understand correctly they also have some excellent advisors that help with those inexperience blind spots. A strong team that is gaining tons of experience in a growing market space certainly a start-up to watch in the next five years.

YOUi Labs under the lead of Jason Flick is the most mature start-up in the mix this year. They have already accumulated numerous awards (too many to mention) and landed funding from the Ontario Centre of Excellence Investment Accelerator Fund, definitely no small feat. YOUi Labs is quickly moving into that high growth phase of start-up development. I really like the market space that they are in, their team and future prospects.

Zeebu Mobile: What can I say these guys rock and have I known them since they were just a sparkle in the eye of the Lead to Wins application process. Dan and Anthony make a great founding team, they have a strong advisory board and Chris Saunders makes an awesome early employee. I see them almost every day and have been impressed at their progress in the past year, very likely they will be one of TheCodeFactory first graduates.

Wishing everyone much success in the year ahead.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Featured, Ottawa, Start-up by Ian
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Photo Attribution: Steve Jurvetson

BlogON set to resume Tuesday September 7th with a whole new line up of fun stuff for the fall. There will also be some new content including;

The Innovation Series of posts, my ramblings on Canadian Innovation in a global context.
Chating with Entrepreneurs, great things learned by chatting with folks here,
Start-up EATS, where to eat in the downtown Ottawa core for < $5.
Students and Start-ups video Series,
A super stealthy new video series set to de-cloak in mid-late September
Plenty O other fun stuff.

As the summer of the saw draws to a close …

Let the Awesomeness of Autumn lift off begin!

Ian Graham

Filed under: Featured, The Code Factory by Ian
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