business.creativity.life.

In today’s world of opportunity there are so many paths, so many options for each of us to embark on and make our own. But what happens when things don’t pan out the way we had envisioned? How do we pick ourselves up and move onto the next experience? With the oldest trick in the book: positive thinking.

Negative experiences are bound to come anyone’s way, scaling from disappointment to detriment. But when encouraged to see the silver lining to any situation, it becomes easier to turn a frown upside-down. I believe that thinking positively about any situation can only work in your favor, what do you have to lose? Positive thinking is a form of self-motivation, thinking ‘I will get that promotion’ or ‘I am getting an A on this paper’ is the first stepping-stone to your action plan. By taking a pessimistic approach one would most likely be bogged down with negativity and never think to make a risk, or take the plunge; stepping outside of your boundaries is what life is about. I think my approach intertwines with the concept of ‘karma’ in a way, since the ‘what goes around, comes around’ philosophy behind it can only be beneficial if taken with a positive attitude, right?

In dire situations, finding the motivation to think positively is a daunting task and sometimes negative results will seem like they are always coming your way despite it all. But that’s where thinking optimistically can prove as a coping mechanism as well. I’m not saying that it’s easy, but I am a firm believer that the results of positive thinking can only make you stronger and better prepared for life’s obstacles.

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed just a little boost of motivation to either make your idea or reality or keep pushing through the one you’re working on? Well, this video ‘Entrepreneurs Can Change the World’ developed by Grasshopper (and brought to my attention by the Sprouter blog) is a gem that needs to be tucked away in your vault of motivational tools. Using simple graphics and words of motivation the video enlightens and inspires viewers to take flight with their thoughts. Check it out and see for yourself!

For the capital of a nation such as Canada, Ottawa brings ‘big city’ caliber with a small-town, homely feel. Amongst its eclectic mix of high-tech, politics and Government driven population, business and innovation are domains that have a large following but are often not recognized or even associated with Ottawa. So how do we bring these hidden gems to the forefront? The Ottawa Innovation Challenge is just one of the ways in which we can expose and highlight the emerging talent in business and innovation.

OIC is an event dear to my heart as I had the privilege to work with Steve Robins, Will Armstrong and Manu Sharma on this initiative from the day the idea was brought up in a casual TalentBridge Friday conversation. I’ve organized events before but working on the OIC was a unique learning experience in itself.  We had many discussions, debates and focus groups to make sure we were creating something of purpose and value to both students and companies.

Bringing an idea like this to fruition in just a matter of weeks clearly illustrates how much we believe in its purpose and what opportunities it can bring to the young entrepreneurial innovators of Ottawa. We are actively taking an initiative to establish a new name for Ottawa. One that connotates originality, creativity, forward-thinking, and opportunity. Please join us for the weekend-long event, that is sure to be filled with fun, learning and opportunity. If you are unable to attend but still want to be in on the action, feel free to follow the event via twitter (@innovateottawa) to have a live feed of the weekend’s happenings and please stay tuned for the next OIC!

What:      The Ottawa Innovation Challenge (OIC)

A 48-hour competition to find creative, entrepreneurial solutions for real business problems presented from Ottawa-based companies: Benbria and ThinkSM.

When:    Friday, August 21 @5pm to Sunday, August 23, 2009

Where:   Carleton University, Ottawa

Who:        Registered students from a recognized post secondary institution with an interest or background in entrepreneurship and business development are eligible to register. Applicants must be highly motivated, comfortable with working in a diverse team, as teams will be assembled by the OIC committee, and must have a keen interest in entrepreneurship

How:        Contact Steve Robins at steve@innovationottawa.com or Manu Sharma msharma@ocri.ca to register now! Find additional information at  www.innovationottawa.com

Why:

• Showcase your talents where it matters: in application to real-world problems 
• Become exposed to the realities of the business world, with the presented problems, developing teamwork strategies and working through a problem-solving pipeline
• Network with top Ottawa company executives and bright, young talent of Ottawa

For fellow BIT students, alumni or people just interested in IT the Bachelor of Information Technology Degree at Carleton University has just launched its official blog: BIT Blog. It will act as a central hub for news, tips, trends and articles relating to BIT and its two halves: networking and interactive multimedia. Stay informed with these emerging technologies and subscribe to BIT Blog!

Originally posted on: Social Media Ottawa

If you’re in the market for setting up a new website, and you’re in a pickle about whether to go with a Wordpress installation or not here are some tips to keep in mind as to why hosting your site independent of wordpress.com will help you in the long-run.

1 – Credibility for Your Brand

By purchasing and using a domain name specific to your brand customers and viewers of the site recognize credibility to the brand; as there is a financial input to its maintenance. Using a personal website domain instead of ‘www.wordpress.com/companynamehere’ also maintains consistency for your brand, thereby minimizing the effort needed to to recognize and remember you.

2 – Full Integration

With the standard, free Wordpress installation integration with custom themes and plugins are limited. These are the very features that set your site apart from the rest, so why would you not want it?

3 – Additional Flexibility

There is also potential to create a ‘second layer’ of functionality with unique domain and web hosting purchases. For example your own company emails ie: dave@oakcomputing.com rather than dave_oakcomputing@gmail.com. This is another simple way to establish and create brand credibility.

Also, let’s pose the idea that your wordpress website ‘takes off’ and becomes one of the internet’s hottest websites. If your site is hosted with Wordpress and you want to later transition to a custom domain name and hosting, wordpress will charge you per megabyte of information transferred over 2MBs. The charges associated with this transition will cost well over the mere $70/year it would have cost you to use a custom domain name with independent web hosting.

4 – Revenue Possibilities

Even with all of these incentives to independently host your new Wordpress site, there is more motivation: a chance to create monetary revenue. The world of internet marketing and banner ads is a simple and easy way to have a steady cash flow with minimal work. Plentyoffish.com itself makes over $100 000 a month by giving space on its site to web banner advertising companies. Well-known companies like Pepperjam and Chitika are established in the ‘web banner business’ and partnering with them is a good way to make easy money.

5 – Minimal Cost for Bountiful Benefits

Yes hosting and domain name purchase cost money, compared to the $0 you need for a basic Wordpress install. But with as little as $70 a year, you can establish credibility, brand consistency, while having all the latest website ‘bells and whistles’, with full site flexibility and even create additional revenue. So is $70 really a large enough barrier to set you back from all of this potential?

This morning I had the privilege of attending Ottawa’s Social Media Breakfast, a monthly early morning event where Ottawa’s social media experts and beginners come together to eat, share and learn about the emerging trend of social media. At today’s event Toronto rogue entrepreneur, David Crow(@davidcrow), shared his thoughts on the growing craze giving not only insight on the topic but also how we can each tap into it and have it work for us. Encouraging quotes and thought provoking questions, both included below, were interspersed throughout his one-hour talk. 

“the future exists today. It’s just unevenly distributed” – William Gibson

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” – Alan Kay

From the get-go I’ll admit that I was expecting to see an older gentleman standing before us, educating us on the wisdom he gained over the years, etc, etc. But instead Mr Crow was a fun, fresh, intriguing character who talked openly about current viral companies or ideas like: WillItBlend? and mentos + coke on David Letterman. He spoke candidly about his beginnings in kinesiology at Waterloo, and his reasoning for the degree being its higher female population, onto his days at Carnegie Mellon to now being at Microsoft and helping budding Canadian entrepreneurs in parallel. But sprinkled among his personal information was truly insightful information about how to capitalize on social media mainly through establishing meaningful experiences for users. At the root of all examples and inspirational stories, Mr Crow made it a point to repeat the point: stop accepting mediocre, build awesomeexperiences and always strive for greatness. After all the majority of social media outlets are available as the ‘digital glue’ for anyone and everyone to use as a means of converging advertising, marketing and customers. So how do you make your idea stick? Mediocrity is no longer an option; “don’t just sit back and [observe], take the leap, know you might fail but that you will learn [in the process]”.

The following are a few key points taken from this morning’s event:

• The essence of marketing (continuous cycle)
  • Attract > engage > excite
• Mankind extends by
  • Amplifying tools
    • Tools that help you ‘reach’   
  •  Goal cloning
    • Building tools that motivate people to do one thing (ex: how do you get the world to watch football on television?)
• Social media is one of the media facets, it is the digital glue
• The marketing landscape is no longer a ‘push’ method
•  There are millions of websites, it’s about the ‘data’
  • How do you track the site?
  • How do you manipulate it?
  • Need to track and understand what people are doing
• Markets are conversations
  • Need to engage
• Every business has 2 functions
  • Marketing
  • Innovation
  • **social media touches both sides of this equation
• social media tools don’t make conversations, they support it!
  • By understanding how social media supports human desire for conversations , businesses can open vibrant interactions with individuals and communities
• Generate memories and an experience, build an emotional connection
• Social media is:
  • The connection point
  • It is the glue
  • Is isn’t one channel, it’s all channels
  • It’s where your audience is
• 5 Principles of Social Capital (excerpt from Tara Hunt’s The Whuffie Factor)
  • stop talking, start listening
  • become part of the community you serve
  • create amazing user experiences
  • embrace the chaos
  • find your higher purpose

David Crow (@davidcrow)

•  www.linkedin.com/davidcrow
• www.davidcrow.ca
• His initiatives
  • DemoCamp
  • Founders & Funders
  • StartupEmpire

Recently I went out for a ‘night on the town’ in downtown Toronto with my friend and a group of her friends, whom I had never met before. As I introduced myself to this new group of people we engaged in a variety of conversations and a few of us ‘hit it off’. We soon began joking around and discussing topics as if we were long lost girlfriends. As I got to know a little bit more about each person, their educational background, their current careers, etc. I soon realized they were very accomplished individuals all in the early stages of accelerating up their respective corporate ladders. The thought did cross my mind ‘these would be great business contacts’. But I quickly shoved the idea out of my head because how could I befriend these lovely people and then ‘use’ them as business contacts? That would be dead against the ‘business 101’ rulebook, right?

I find we are often given this preconceived notion that business and networking is a regimented, serious affair whereas socializing is where you can ‘let loose’ and not necessarily be ‘professional’. Now a days with so much networking, and each person we meet holding value as a business contact, it can be difficult to remember everyone. Often it is the contacts that we befriend that stick in our minds most prominently. But why is it that these friends are higher up on our ‘go to’ list of contacts as opposed to that big wig CEO your boss just introduced you to? Maybe we feel they are more trustworthy because we see and interact with them in more vulnerable situations, or maybe it’s because we enjoy spending time with that person so using them as a business contact is just an excuse to engage with them more often.

Whatever the reasoning in this day and age there is a need for meaningful relationships between people in order to be remembered. Networking in itself is a means of socializing, but it is a more active form. Both parties in the newly forming relationship need to take initiative to follow-up with one another as well as find and use the other person’s valuable attributes while still maintaining a friendly, conducive relationship. This may sound simple when considering making and maintaining just one contact. But I met on average twenty new people in one evening’s social interactions. So let’s say I meet roughly 10 new people each time I go out for a night on the town, and I average 2 social events per week. That results in 20 new people per week, and up to 80 new potential contacts that I have to maintain per month. Suddenly hanging out with the girls sounds like more work than fun!

Five to ten years ago if someone mentioned a ‘creative’ job I would think of scruffily dressed, independent thinking artists with messy work tables filled with drawings and sketches. The word ‘creative’ was always something I associated with the arts. Now that I am a part of that very industry, I see creativity in a very different light. It also seems that many others are now realizing and understanding the benefits of a creative mind for industries other than the arts, as mentioned in Harvard Business Publisher’s article ‘Learning From How Designers Think and Work’ by Becky Bermont.

Ms Bermont examines how while managing graphic designers she understood that there is an entire ‘experience’ that a designer thinks about for an end-user or customer that is often forgotten by business affiliates. Creative minds have the ability to make information more tangible and interesting to users. Ms Bermont poses questions regarding how remarkable abilities such as these could affect and in turn help the business world.

The beauty of the creative mind is in its freedom to go outside the lines, to push the boundaries. I find myself, when in a creative-management situation, I often borrow concepts or ideas from varying silo-departments and mesh them together unconsciously. In the end the final product incorporates all that satisfies the end-user as well as meets the project objectives. So in response to Ms Bermont’s posed questions, I do feel there is tremendous potential for the creative mind in the business world. I also feel those in the creative industry if equipped with the right business knowledge would pose as a serious threat to existing business related jobs. Business is something that can be taught, whereas the ability to come up with innovative solutions is not something that can be learned. I think many are over looking the world of design, and as a result it is not being given the recognition it deserves. Designers are not just artists; they can also be strategists and innovators. Look at Apple; their primary goals are for user experience and aesthetics. If Apple can see the value in creative minds, why can’t your company do the same and benefit?

Whether you’re the oldest, the youngest or just a number in between what does it really mean to be a sibling? Do you have a responsibility to uphold? If so what kind of responsibilities do you have? Does it vary depending on your position in the sibling order? What happens if you don’t get along with your sibling? Are you forced to get along with them simply because of a blood relation? What happens if you get along with one sibling better than the other?

There are many roles to fulfill in a family, some with defined roles and others without. A relationship, regardless of what category or whom it is with is fundamentally what you make it; only you hold the responsibility to maintain and nurture the connection.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had keen interests in an eclectic mix of areas from fashion to construction, event planning to medicine. If I liked it, I just appended it to the growing pile of things that I had an interest in.  As a young child I was exposed to a variety of things that may have been contributing factors. For instance my mother’s sewing, my father’s home renovation projects, family socializing and talks with my family about stable career choices. These exposures in combination with being the eldest child provided ample opportunities for me to ‘get my feet wet’ and try new things. I am happy that I took my formative years to develop my skill set, but I can vouch that it wasn’t always an asset, especially where choosing a degree was concerned.

In my latter years of high school I was convinced that I would complete my undergrad in biomedical engineering and then consider medical school. Obviously that isn’t what materialized, but I did try out the engineering world for a little while. Little did I know what a crazy situation I’d be in when I realized after two years that it wasn’t the right avenue for me to pursue. I had worked so hard to get there, then I was faced with having to choose a new path, but which one do I choose? Career stability was a factor that obviously had to be weighed into the equation, but I really was in a fix as I was unable to choose just one area to develop a career. I felt I was sacrificing a passion in one area for the sake of a career in another. In the end, all worked out well as my bachelor of information technology, focused on interactive multimedia and design, perfectly melds my largest and primary interests of: technology, creativity and business.

Now with graduation just under a year away thoughts of my first full-time job keep popping up. Which area do I go into? How long should I stay in that field? Some inspiring videos, included below, by Stanford University professors Carol Bartz and Randy Komisar have proved that my eclectic mix may be beneficial in the career world. Professor Bartz discusses how setting a foundation is key in the early years of your career. The formation of your career should be shaped like a pyramid over time. It should start off broad and with time refined to your ideal profession. Which makes logical sense since by the time you settle into your niche, you would have tested the other avenues to be sure you are going where you want to go. As she mentions in the video, if you keep trying to climb the vertical, corporate ladder as you get closer to the top you’re bound to fall because you have no foundation. All that is holding you up are two stakes in the ground. Professor Komisar further supports this argument by detailing the journey through his career and how he is so well equipped now because of the extensive knowledge he gained from all of the positions he has held over the years. Although it may seem glamorous to run up the corporate ladder as soon as you land your first job you have about 40+ years of your life to work, so what’s the rush?

Pyramids, Not Ladders – Carol Bartz

The History of a Virtual CEO – Randy Komisar