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Entrepreneurism

Ray Simonson Video Replay of MaRS Entrepreneurship 101

December 14, 2008

I wanted to share a great presentation by Ray Simonson who spoke on December 3rd, giving a “Lived It” talk as part of the Mars Entrepreneurship 101 lecture series at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.

I’ve known Ray for a long time and, not only is he a great guy, but he’s an amazing storyteller. Certainly Ray’s stories can serve to …

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Entrepreneurism

ARISE Fair Sun …

August 21, 2008
Ian MacLellan, ARISE Founder

The reference to Romeo and Juliet was apt when last week I had the pleasure to meet with Ian MacLellan, of ARISE Technologies (TSX:APV)

The Founder of ARISE, Ian is now Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer and I met him just after a great quarterly release to the public markets.

Having worked …

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Entrepreneurism

Entrepreneurial Toolkit #5: The Power of Two (or Three)

August 11, 2008

As an investor, the most important lesson I’ve learned over the years is that great companies are built by great teams. Furthermore, great teams rarely are one superhuman “A” player surrounded by a supporting cast of “B” players. And unlike the Borg Collective which seeks to “… add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own”, great management teams need …

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Business Strategy

Entrepreneurial Toolkit Summary: It’s All About Personal Growth

July 10, 2008

New York Times on Sunday contained an article which immediately caught my attention, as it appears to provide the missing piece pulling together all of my recent postings outlining an “Entrepreneurial Toolkit”, so far consisting of these five core skill sets:

“Fearless Passion” “Don’t Drink Your Own Bathwater” “Embrace Change” “Taste the Cash Burn” “The Power of Two (or Three)” (coming soon)

The article, “If You’re …

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Arts

“The Third Place”: A Better Place?

April 19, 2008

The Office Goes Home

Over a short span of years, I’ve witnessed work migrate from a highly structured office setting, to home offices via telecommuting and now into the “Third Place”, a term coined by Ray Oldenberg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place.

Back in the early 1980’s, I was a pioneer of telecommuting, between Waterloo and Chicago via a …

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General

Iotum – Rocketing Through 200 000 Users

March 15, 2008

Today, I am excitedly watching Ottawa-based iotum‘s Free Conference Calls application on Facebook rocket through the 200 000 net installed user mark. As many of you know, iotum is a Verdexus portfolio investment of late last year when I also engaged with the company as Chairman. Note that I plan to discuss the investment cycle for global and Canadian startups …

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General

The World is My Oyster – State of Connectivity in Europe

March 15, 2008

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And, don’t worry, with modern hand luggage restrictions, I didn’t have my sword to open the oyster to extract a pearl! In fact, Oyster is a Transport For London brand for their payment system. Many here in North America feel we are at the epicentre of the technology universe and have a monopoly on great technologies empowering the connectivity …

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General

CeBIT 2008 – World’s Largest ICT Show Still Strong in the Age of the Web!

March 6, 2008

As part of a European trip through Vienna, Munich, London and Berlin to meet with some tech startups and key tech investors, yesterday I stopped in at CeBIT in Hannover Germany.

For those who don’t know CeBIT, this massive Information & Communications Technologies (ICT) show remains the largest computer show in the world. I’ve attended CeBIT off and on …

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