Who You Calling a Jesse?

A summer that brought fishing back in my life

Over this summer I spent more time fishing then I did in the last 10 years combined. It use to be something I did all the time, pretty much every weekend (or day in August for Salmon). When I moved to southern Ontario I pretty much stopped fishing though. After getting out on a charter boat at the end of the summer last year I decided I need to fish so my kids learn how to fish and how much fun it is outside… even in the south.

It all paid off this past Friday when I took both the kids down to a spot in the Niagara area that we have been trying out every so often. The kids didn’t have daycare so I figured it was a good excuse to head out early and see what we can catch. It worked out great.

Besides small largemouth bass we picked up a nice sized perch.

That perch found its way home, into the frying pan, and on to the plate of the kids.

All in one day! I think this is a great experience for the kids. My son had the choice to throw it back or eat it and going by the plastic knife to the side he was more than interested in getting it on his plate. He did it all btw and I can still filet small perch easily and without waste

It was a lot of work over the summer to find a place where we could find fish that weren’t Rock Bass and that we could eat. With the Grand River and all the creeks and streams in the area you can’t get access to them thanks to all the private property — that restricts you to a few spots that get a lot of pressure. Not to mention falling for all the stories you get at the fishing stores or on forums.

What we learned:

• Lake Erie is an amazing fishery but it isn’t kids friendly unless you have a boat
• The Grand River is a kid friendly river with unlimited small fish to keep kids entertained
• What should be great fishing spots around Hamilton and Niagara, are and no one really fishes them in great numbers.
• A worm and a hook is all you need.
• A canoe will get you to some great small mouth Bass fishing inside of the Waterloo Region.

What’s next, not sure. I think I am about ready to start going for the bigger badder fish without the kids as the weather gets colder and wetter. Next year I definitely want a boat too. Thinking of starting blog only about fishing around here too as I learning to fish again and I am really annoyed with the fishing stores. Fishing is not an ‘open’ sport. People don’t share what they do or how they do it… I would like to do it differently.

Mentor a student entrepreneur while helping your startup

Being a student at the University of Waterloo has one huge advantage over most other schools, Co-op. Startups have one huge advantage available to them available here in Waterloo, Waterloo students in co-op and the Small Business Internship Program along with a ton of other funding programs. From my perspective at VeloCity there is no better mentorship opportunity for students wanting to break into the startup world than by working for a startup.

However, it is not that easy for startups to stand out and be found by students — there is a lot of competition and with companies like Yahoo!, RIM, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and more posting jobs startups need to market themselves. On top of that, it is really hard to startups to get the timing right and navigate the co-op hiring process at the University. It’s not the fault of the process but more the nature of a fledgling business balancing a lot of demands meeting the deadlines that are at the start of each term.

Through VeloCity I want to help startups find good students to work with and I want the students to have the opportunity to gain some great experience working with a startup in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, San Francisco, etc. What I ask is that startups take a moment and fill out some basic information first (at the end of the post or use this link). From there go over to the Employer Manual on the CECS site and read up on hiring a student. You will need to follow their process to get a job posted.

Next VeloCity will follow-up with you. Once you have a job posted with CECS we will need to share that job posting number with students so they can find it faster.

What we plan to do is create a list for students at VeloCity to see right at the start of each term so that the company names are front and center. We will also send out the list of students (and some recent grads) that have been in VeloCity. We will share the details as we get them and keep them informed. The last thing is that we will develop a poster for campus that can feature startups and working for them.

What is asked in return…

We have the following topics that need speakers on the specific dates at 4pm:

As well as networking lunches at the Bomber every other Wednesday starting on September 22nd that it would good if you (by you I mean the founder(s), CEO, etc) could try and attend at least one. There is also are start of term BBQ on September 20th and would encourage you to come out that night.

G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit #g20yes

From June 20-22 in Toronto was the first G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit with delegates from close to all the G20 nations. The idea for the summit came from Italy but was hosted and run in Canada by the  CYBF. The goal of the summit was to bring together people that support entrepreneurship in the G20 countries and identify the core issues we all face, perhaps identify solutions that may exist in other countries, and establish what could be done next to support youth entrepreneurship globally.

The key belief underlying this summit is that entrepreneurship is the fundamental economic driver that makes recessions less painful and it is entrepreneurs that will lead economic growth. There is a shift in thinking in G20 governments from prioritizing the large employeer creating jobs and ignoring the small business entrepreneur that would create only a few jobs. The shift in thinking from the government perspective was emphasized when John Manley (former Industry Minister) took the stage and raised the point that he has seen Canada go from a nation that wants to be employees to that which what to be employers. Tony Clement‘s (current Industry Minister) statements made just before John Manley took the stage were more impressive considering where Canada was just 20 years ago.

Canada still can do a lot more, entrepreneurs (especially in the tech world) don’t feel it is all that easy to start a business and legislation is stacked against them in favour of the large companies. However, it is through more official channels like the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit where I think all entrepreneurs can be more effective influencing government.

The end result of the summit is that the B20 summit will have youth entrepreneurship on their agenda along with the recommendations to discuss from the delegations that attended this summit. A secondary result is an agreement to pursue this movement into the next year with a meeting in South Korea in November followed by a summit at the G20 in France next year.

Along with the delegate discussions there were a number of panels and presentations which just flooded twitter with some great tidbits of information. Here are some tweets from me and others that I really like that are quoting tidbits of the wisdom shared:

You have to be born an entrepreneur – it’s a character trait. I can’t paint, but I am an entrepreneur. – Eric Boyko

Partnership with spouse is key. Need to share responsibilities on a domestic level to avoid burnout. – Tara (mother of 7)

“They tend to work less and they tend to talk more” Speaking of the younger people in the work place – Rahul Chawla

the more people i meet the more i learn – Rahul Chawla

Ur sitting on an ice cream cone in the middle of July. You must be making decisions quickly. But have humility to reverse decisions.

No pure failure in entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurs are optimists that fail. You pick yourself up and try again – Tom Jenkins

#g20yes Minister Peter Van Loan Canada features strongest workforce, knowledgeable&skilled workers http://twitpic.com/1z3yyf

Prosperity is created by successful businesses, big and small. And it’s people like you that help build this success- Peter Van Loan #g20yes

Have a look at the #g20yes hashtag on twitter, there is a lot of info there but certainly worth digging through. Also Tom Jenkins Fireside Chat was posted on the National Post.

On the last evening event one of the VeloCity teams that are part of the Entrepreneur Bootcamp had an opportunity to show off their work and meet delegates from all over the G20. I didn’t get a picture (there are official ones somewhere) of when Minister Peter Van Loan (Industry Minister for Canada) dropped by but I grabbed one of when they had folks from Russia, Canada, and the EU at the table.

Overall I am really impressed with what CYBF put together and the delegates that have attended. Really looking forward to what an effort like can do to help influence government policy, open up different markets to Canadian entrepreneurs, and help build a more extensive mentorship and support network.

How to screw up the higher education system in Ontario

The Ontario Premier made his speech the other day that gave a big nod to the need for a stronger education system (no mention of the money to do it btw) but along with nod came some silly goals that demonstrate a clear misunderstanding with the state of higher education in Ontario. The globecampus.ca blog outlines some issues but I think it misses the point, we need revolution in education not just more bums in seats.

Here’s my view of the world (simplified/generalize for effect):

• Universities are tooled to create more academics, other outcomes besides professional accreditation are unintentional.
• The government has given money to build buildings over the last 10 years – not lecture halls but buildings – and no money to maintain the buildings.
• Budget cuts have peeled away operating budget of departments over 10 years but the pressure to deliver more has seen staff being hired without the flexibility or ability to look at how things fit within the larger organization.
• Staff are better educated than in the past and in many cases more skilled than the academics yet are seen as second class citizens within the organization.
• Most academics want to teach, do research, and focus on their vocation – they do not want to recruit, do marketing or communications, manage staff outside of their research group, or be a department chair, associate dean, or dean.
• Research funds rarely contribute to the well being of the institution or teaching. Heck they likely don’t pay for the power consumption of the toys they buy.
• Academic time and process rewards mediocracy and we all know mediocre products are crap (I say this while looking at my UW degree).
• Students are paying way too much in tuition and have earned the right to view higher education as a service not an earned place that expects, requires, and rewards hard work (not with a job but with that little warm feeling you get, currently most students think only about jobs).
• Like all of the publicly funded jobs, the leaders are gone or in the process of being chased out. As we head out of the recession a new exodus of the employable from public service will most certainly occur.

To tackle these things takes breaking out of the mediocre and into some pretty crazy thinking. We need to take risks, experiment, and challenge the establishment that is almost dysfunctional outside a few pockets of brilliance. What the Ontario government is offering is more of the same—rhetoric, promises, and likely funds earmarked and the established system not a revolution.

Of course that isn’t for the government to dictate. We need to figure this out and we need the leaders within higher education that are willing to do so. I see glimpses of it but I fear we won’t really go for it as there is little appetite or motivation to break out of the crisis management culture and throw away status quo. However, if I was king of higher education this is what I would try:

• Remove administrative or managerial positions that are just appointments of academics—make them apply against other professionals
• Create a product management office, force them on the world with a mandate to train people to think about their products and projects.
• Put post-docs in the classroom, formalize a new class of research focused academics which they are associated with and require them to ship a new product or service every 2-3 years
• Create a hybrid of distance education and intense campus education along with co-op
• Move staff from the silos of departments to special team pools that can charge out for services and rotate throughout campus (modern take on secretarial pools)—that way you can rally on time sensitive pushes and build expertise along with campus wide perspective
• Service Level Agreements
• More programs and services to students that are not related directly to academics but tied more to the local community (build more VeloCities).

Could be all crazy ideas but I would like to try at least one or two of them We need to think differently about higher education and how we function institutionally. If we continue down the cut backs, hand outs, and status quo we will surely self destruct within a generation.

Disclaimer: I would say this openly on campus and I am pretty sure it may offend some but these are thoughts being thrown out there. We need to start thinking and trying things.