Who You Calling a Jesse?

Local Kitchener-Waterloo Turkey Drive needs some help

If you are in the Waterloo Region and are looking to do something nice for those that aren’t doing so well locally this Christmas please consider donating time and/or money to the Turkey Drive. Just received this call for help:

Good news and bad news from turkey headquarters…

First the good news -
We are on track to reach our fundraising objective of $175,000.00 and hopefully with some luck and an extra push from everyone, surpass the $187,000.00 we (Kitchener-Conestoga Rotary Club) raised last year.

The bad news -
Assuming the economy was a little better this year, House of Friendship planned to distribute 3550 hampers this year compared to 3600 in 2009.  With all agencies reporting their needs this morning, the number has risen to 3850, which is a siginificant increase.

The biggest need is for more drivers to deliver hampers.  Please check to see if you can free up any spare time in the next three or four days and volunteer a couple of hours to deliver hampers.  Pass this on in the workplace, at home, friends, relatives, neighbours.  Extra money will also needed to be raised for the additional 300 hampers.

If you can volunteer to deliver, then please call HOF Hamper Headquarters at 519.883.3721 or email Tony Bender at tonyb@houseoffriendship.org

Thanks for your support of this project.

Best – Jim

Last Friday I went and dropped off a few hampers to families in Kitchener after work with my family. It was a good experience and is a good reminder that even though we see some strong economic growth locally there are still too many families that are having a tough time. The folks at the House of Friendship make it really easy to help out so if you can give them a couple of hours of your day before Christmas.

Startup thinking featuring the 7cubedproject

Tomorrow is the University of Waterloo IT conference, WatItis. I had planned on doing a talk on Startup thinking and how it relates to higher education using examples out of VeloCity but I had a conflict so decided to feature the best example of that thinking in the residence currently, the 7cubedproject. Why them? I think they are a perfect example of what I was going to talk about — build stuff quickly, get people to use it, move on to something else, be sure to be as open as you can with the process from end to end. That way people know what you are working on and why but also both yourself and those paying attention will learn from your experience.

How that could work in an institutional setting? That depends but to know you can build something and get it out their in a day should certainly work to change the current thinking/process that leaves things to committees that can take years to get something out the door.

On the final day of the 7cubedproject they found themselves on the front page of the local newspaper as well as giving a demo of their stuff to the Provincial Minister of Research and Innovation, Glen Murray. If you are curious as to why he thought he should sneak away from his announcement function at the Tannery in the Desire2Learn space to come talk to a bunch of University of Waterloo students come to the presentation tomorrow.

It will be in RCH 309 at 2:30pm, December 7.

Not much to say on RIM vs Kik as yet

By now it isn’t news to folks locally that the maker of the Blackberry and local corporate superstar, RIM, has decided to bring a lawsuit against a young startup in Waterloo (based across the road from RIM) that got its start in VeloCity, Kik. I had thought that I would have some pretty strong opinions on the matter given that I know Ted (CEO/founder of Kik) and I personally have very little affinity towards RIM (although they have been amazing community leaders, no one should let the odd hiccup spoil how great they have been for this community). My opinion at this point is pretty simple: I am confused and worried what this means for the startup community locally given that a lot of ‘founders’ have worked at RIM on co-op at one point.

I do sorta understand and respect RIM’s perspective on this but their reaction seems a tad dramatic. This could really harm the chances of people wanting to develop for their platform and discourage funders willing to fund anyone that has Blackberry development on their road map. Especially if the founders have any previous work history at RIM.

I hope it all gets sorted out quickly. Is it really that hard for RIM to go across the road to talk to them? That is what we do here in Waterloo… we tend to talk and sort out things, figure out ways to work together. Of course on the flip side, I keep being told that you aren’t successful until you get sued… so congrats Kik, you have reached a key milestone on the path to success!