business.creativity.life.

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

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?