35 business proposals were submitted this 2009 season, and the 3 finalists this year are :

1. Smart Rotor Systems
2. The SATESS Business Plan
3. VSM Technologies – Wireless Vital Signal Monitoring 

The finalists, who represent the best and brightest and most from both the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, will present in front of top technology entrepreneurs, investors, business professionals, judges, and of course, family and friends.   The top prize is worth $10,000, second and third both get $5,000.  For more information on TVC, go to - http://www.techvc.org/.

The Carleton University Foundry Program (and therefor Luc Lalande) and Ontario Centers of Excellence are among the main sponsors at TVC.  The OCRI Entrepreneurship Centre (and consequently Manu Sharma) are strong supporters of the annual competition.

Stay tuned for our thoughts and impression of the event and the pitches on tbridge.ca.  Congratulations to all the semi-finalists.

We find ourselves in a curious situation where the very personality trait we’re seeking, entrepreneurial spirit, should be the same thing that brings people to our doorstep, should it not? How can it be that a program existing for entrepreneurs tasked with the singular goal of fostering the youthful business community in Ottawa, is not effective in garnering people to it’s cause?

Working within the premise that young, talented, entrepreneurial individuals exist in Ottawa, it would seem a logical assumption that these people will strive to leverage themselves and better their positions in life as is becoming of their nature.  In this scenario if TalentBridge were a program that would help these people attain their goals, surly they would attempt to become engaged?  Since we here are acting on the notion that TalentBridge is indeed an excellent and effective program, we can then assume that it does in fact have much to offer to the endeavoring youth.

It has been established that Ottawa has an untapped pool of young business potential.  It has been established that these entrepreneurs would try to use TalentBridge if they thought it would help forward them in life.  It has been established that TalentBridge will indeed aid a business savvy individual to accomplish their goals.  Finally, it has been established that there is a disconnect between the pool of talent in Ottawa and TalentBridge.

This scenario brings to light the fundamental question at hand – why is an effective program being deemed ineffective by it’s intended constituents?

Poor advertising?  Lack of an identifiable product?  Is the established scenario incorrect in it’s assumed factual base?

Toss out some possible root causes for our problem, followup with some possible solutions.   The followup article will address what the community has to say concerning this issue.  Keep in mind that many problems and their best solutions, are multi-layered in nature, not simply a causal relation.

If you don’t know what an unconference is, Wikipedia describes it as “An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term “unconference” has been applied, or “self-applied”, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations”

It was very interesting to hear about this model being applied to urban issues, and how the participants would come together to aid our elected officials in designing new policies to improve our quality of life. Even more interesting was a remark that Mark made in regards to the inability of some of these officials to take full advantage of the social media tools, and how this was the main cause of some of the initiatives not being as successful as they could have been. Mark said “they were great in person, in face to face conversations, but did not fully understand the diffusion power of web based social media these days”.

That statement is extremely interesting to me because saying that the incomplete use of social media was the reason an initiative was not successful, implies that for it to achieve the desired results, a certain type of social media use HAD to be part of the solution. Feels kind of the same as asking: if Obama did not make use of social media technology as much as he did, would he have won the elections?

It sounded like Mark was suggesting a shift in the essence of social media, from an added element in strategic planning, to something that is essential towards achieving your goals. Social media is no longer sufficient, it is necessary. 

And if that is the case, as this trend becomes more widespread, you cannot but wonder – what is the next thing going to look like? And in a day and age were we suffer from lack of human connection due to advancement of technology, will this make things worse?

When we hear the famous “move confidently in the direction of your dreams”, most of us stop to think of what their dreams are, and take solace from imagining a world without boundaries, a world where to achieve something one must just desire it.

But how many times do we reflect on the word “confidently”? How many people know what their dreams are, and are intimidated by them? In my opinion entrepreneurship can be applied to all spheres of life, and it really is that moral fiber that allows to go after your dreams confidently. I have a very visual brain, and when I am trying to understand something I always try to develop a mental picture of it: when I think of entrepreneurship I imagine a very sharp, very sturdy, roman warrior type spear. When launched properly this spear is able to break through the hardest walls; its sturdiness related to self esteem, and its sharpness to self confidence.

I think everyone has a certain amount of entrepreneurship in themselves but the key to unlocking its full potential lies in our willingness to try new things, challenge our assumptions, and stay the course.  All things that stem from being confident in one self, and having good self esteem.

I’ve often used a concept of desire, willingness and ability when teaching concept of assessing market demand for a new product or service.  The story would go something like… a marketer calls me up and asks if I would like to own a Porsche. Of course I say yes. If s/he ends the call and assesses the market need at that time they might foolishly think a sale is possible. If they clue in to the fact that they need more information, they might call back and ask a follow up question related to my being willing to pay 100k for a new Porsche. Again, I might provide a positive response based on seeing good value for money and they might again go away with incomplete information. Of course it wouldn’t be until they looked into my wallet to see if I could actually buy a Porsche (ability) that they would receive the information required to make a decent assessment on the likelihood of me buying a Porsche.

That seems logical, but it is a simple process that isn’t often followed in market assessment. It’s often too tempting to stop the process with only one or two answers to any of: ”do you like it?” ; “would you buy it?”; “can you afford it?”  Without a positive response to each question, you can’t move forward with any real hope.

Random thought re: desire, willingness and ability. If I want (desire) to become an entrepreneur, what does willingness and ability look like? Is anything still missing? How does this relate to “Outliers”?

sd

ps I drive a corolla and am quite happy with it.