Big Idea Social Entrepreneur: The New 21st Century Career

Late last year I wrote on this blog about my frustration with the lack of Big Ideas driving innovation. My rant was stimulated by a New York Times article on the grim underbelly of the “an app for everything” culture: people who were working on “small ideas,” and losing their shirts in the process. I also shared the thoughts of other entrepreneurial leaders, investors, and journalists, also bemoaning the fact that we seem to have lost our way, and are no longer thinking BIG. This morning I stumbled on a post on the HBR Blog Network, entitled “Idea Entrepreneur: The New 21st Century Career.” I took some editorial license and added the words “Big” and “Social” to my blog post, simply because the author was actually making the case for Big Ideas and Social Entrepreneurship, and the hopeful sign that there may be a re-emergence of people who care about Big Ideas. Read my original post here, followed by the HBR Blog post.

The concept of “social entrepreneurship” has noticeably taken off with this generation of young people. While there some debate about the definition of “social entrepreneurship,” I am comfortable with the following explanation.

A social entrepreneur is a person who pursues novel applications that have the potential to solve community-based problems, both large and small. These individuals are willing to take on the risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives.

Examples of social entrepreneurship include microfinance institutions, educational programs, providing banking services in underserved areas and helping children orphaned by epidemic disease. Their efforts are connected to a notion of addressing unmet needs within communities that have been overlooked or not granted access to services, products, or base essentials available in more developed communities. A social entrepreneur might also seek to address imbalances in such availability, the root causes behind such social problems, or social stigma associated with being a resident of such communities. The main goal of a social entrepreneur is not to earn a profit, but rather to implement widespread improvements in society. However, a social entrepreneur must still be financially savvy to succeed in his or her cause.

I had the good fortune of working with the global social entrepreneurship NGO, Enactus and a group of my students from the UBC Faculty of Management. We interacted with other social entrepreneurship groups as far afield as Perth, Australia, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands to develop our own project. Enactus categorizes projects by the potential for the project to become self-sustaining by the participants, and the original project volunteers working themselves out of a job. Our project was designed to meet the highest categorization within Enactus. We designed a roof-top hydroponic vegetable garden project that would produce high yield cash crop fruits and vegetables for the homeless community, managed by a local housing organization. The end goal was to enable the homeless volunteers to take over the operation, generate income for themselves, and collaborate with the charity organization to enter into simple permanent housing.

“Big” Idea Entrepreneur: The New 21st Century Career

Reblogged from the HBR Blog Network

by John Butman | 10:00 AM May 27, 2013

There is a new player emerging on the cultural and business scene today: the idea entrepreneur. Perhaps you are one yourself — or would like to be. The idea entrepreneur is an individual, usually a content expert and often a maverick, whose main goal is to influence how other people think and behave in relation to their cherished topic. These people don’t seek power over others and they’re not motivated by the prospect of achieving great wealth. Their goal is to make a difference, to change the world in some way.

Idea entrepreneurs are popping up everywhere. They’re people like Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO and author of Lean In), who is advocating a big new idea from within an organization. And like Atul Gawande (the checklist doctor), who is working to transform a professional discipline. Or like Blake Mycoskie (founder of TOMS shoes), who has created an unconventional business model.

In my research into this phenomenon (which forms the basis of my book, Breaking Out), I have been amazed at how many different kinds of people aspire to be idea entrepreneurs. I have met with, interviewed, emailed or tweeted with librarians, salespeople, educators, thirteen-year-old kids, marketers, technologists, consultants, business leaders, social entrepreneurs — from countries all over the world — who have an idea, want to go public with it, and, in some cases, build a sustainable enterprise around it.

The ones who succeed — whether it’s disrupting an established way of doing business as Vineet Nayar has done with his company or bringing a mindset change to a small community like Maria Madison has done in Concord, Massachusetts — share the following methods:

They play many roles. They are manager, teacher, motivator, entertainer, coach, thought leader, and guru all rolled into one. Think Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-Up of You), Daniel Pink (author of Drive) or, in India, Kiran Bedi, leader of a worldwide movement to transform prisons and root out corruption.

They create a platform of expressions and generate revenue to support their social activities. Idea entrepreneurs have to be exceptionally good at expressing their idea, and usually do so in many forms. They give private talks and major speeches, write books and blogs and articles, participate in panels and events, engage in social media — activities that can generate revenue (sometimes in considerable amounts), through a combination of fees, sales of their expressions, and related merchandise. Jim Collins has created a long-lasting enterprise supported by the sale of books and media, as well as fees for consulting, speaking engagements, and workshops.

They offer a practical way to understand and implement their idea. Because people have a hard time responding to an abstract idea, the idea entrepreneur develops practices (and personally models them, too) that lead people to the idea through action. Bryant Terry, an “eco-chef” who argues that good nutrition is the best path to social justice, embeds his ideas in cooking methods and suggestions for social interaction around good food.

They draw other people into their idea. The idea entrepreneur gathers people into the development, expression, and application of their idea. They form affiliations, build networks, and form groups. Al Gore created the Climate Reality Project Leadership Corps to bring his ideas about environmental sustainability to people around the world. Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual leader and author of The Power of Now, has established the online Eckhart Teachings Community with members in 130 countries. This inclusion of many people in many ways creates a phenomenon I call respiration— it’s as if the idea starts to breathe, and takes on a life of its own.

They drive the quest for change. It is all too common that people with an idea for an improvement or a change to the world are satisfied to point out a problem, propose a solution, and then expect others to execute. The idea entrepreneur, however, sees the expression of the idea as the beginning of the effort — and it can be a lifelong one — in which they will continue to build the idea, reach new audiences, and offer practices that lead to change. Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, based in Delhi, believes that world-class sanitation is necessary for India to realize its full potential. In forty years of idea entrepreneurship — spent in writing, speaking, travelling, network building, and technology development — he has influenced the way millions of people think and act.

People who have shaped our thinking and our society over the decades, even centuries, and continue to do so today — from Benjamin Franklin to Mohandas Gandhi to Hannah Salwen, an American teenager who modeled a disruptive approach to philanthropy — have followed the path of the idea entrepreneur.

These days, the model is well-defined and, thanks to the amazing range of activities we have for creating and sharing ideas, is within reach for just about anyone. If you have an idea, and want to go public with it, idea entrepreneurship can be one of the most powerful forces for change and improvement in the world today.

Management Communication: How Not To Embarrass Yourself

Some years ago, the British comedian and Monty Python member, John Cleese participated in a series of sales and management training videos. To this day, I still laugh remembering one of them, “How Not to Exhibit Yourself.” “How Not to Exhibit Yourself” focuses on trade show behavior and particularly how to effectively connect with potential customers, but in my mind, the humorous lessons offered by Cleese could just as easily apply to networking with people in general. My key point in this post is that regardless whatever field you work, your ability and skill in relating to people and communicating effectively will be crucial to your success.

Some years ago, the British comedian and Monty Python member, John Cleese participated in a series of sales and management training videos. To this day, I still laugh remembering one of them, “How Not to Exhibit Yourself.” There are other videos in this series, all of which remain very relevant. “How Not to Exhibit Yourself” focuses on trade show behavior and particularly how to effectively connect with potential customers, but in my mind, the humorous lessons offered by Cleese could just as easily apply to networking with people in general. This further caused me to recall an equally relevant and recent Wall Street Journal essay, “Networking for Actual Human Beings.” My key point is that in whatever field you work, your ability and skill in relating to people and communicating effectively will be crucial to your success.

My UBC Management students and graduates know the importance I place on interpersonal and public speaking in management, and particularly also in engineering and entrepreneurial roles. I like to repeat Warren Buffett’s endorsement of public speaking as the most important skill he learned as a young man. No matter what you do, you will need to be able to clearly, comfortably and effectively communicate the ideas or projects you are promoting in order to succeed in life. Yet you may not know that speaking with others is the most difficult and intimidating thing for most people.

People I talk with often tell me how much they hate networking or simply meeting new people. The truth is, deep down, so do I and many other people. Recent research has shown that people feel that explicit business networking makes them feel as if they are insincere or manipulative. The result is that much networking is unsuccessful, and people will naturally gravitate to speaking with people they already know. I often convince myself that I have an excuse to not attend a networking event or to meet a new contact.

I have some recommendations on how I overcome these issues:

Persevere. Just Do It! This is the hardest part. I am at my core an introvert. Invariably I do not want to go, but force myself to go, even telling myself that I will find an excuse to leave early. Rationalize however you want, but do it. In my case, after the encounter, I surprise myself with the results. Suggestions to avoid networking events altogether and to focus on people you already know may make you feel more comfortable, but you will not grow in your self-confidence. You can still devote time to renewing your existing connections which will become even easier and productive.

Begin by going off topic. Be conversational not business focused. Think of some topic bound to be of conversational interest. Literally, avoid discussing business or the other person’s details. Before you enter the event, take some time to think of some conversation starters unrelated to all the obvious “groaners”: your job, goals, education or the other person’s details. This is also a crucial key to successful public speaking. What is your opener to grab the audience, one person or many? “Did you see that post today by Larry Page on Internet privacy?”

Let the conversation evolve organically. Don’t force it. Just enjoy the moment, and if the person opens up to you, you can seamlessly move into direct business. If not, you may still have made a new friend.

Whatever you do, be yourself. Be candid. You will feel better about yourself in the process. It may not always work, but if the person doesn’t appreciate your openness and honesty, you have just saved yourself a lot of valuable time.

Know that not every encounter will work. That’s normal, inevitable and perfectly OK. However, if you do suck it up and try novel new approaches to speaking with people and building their interest and trust, you will improve your success, and success breeds success.

I don’t agree with all the points in the following Wall Street Journal essay, but I accept that there are other points of view on the tough topic of fear of networking and public speaking, and some of the discussion below may be helpful to you.

Source: Networking for Actual Human Beings – WSJ

Silicon Valley Is Suffering From A Lack of Humanity

The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College, the pre-eminent Liberal Arts college in North America. To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Deep Down We All Know Silicon Valley Needs The Humanitarian Vision of Steve Jobs

The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College. With the deep ethical problems facing technology now, we need Jobs vision more than ever.

To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.

Decades later Jobs flew around the world in his own corporate jet, but he maintained emotional ties to the period in which he grew up. He often felt like an outsider in the corporate world, he said. When discussing Silicon Valley’s lasting contributions to humanity, he mentioned in the same breath the invention of the microchip and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” a 1960s counterculture publication. Jobs’ experience rings with my own experience in the Santa Clara Valley at that time. Jobs and I were both deeply affected by Stewart Brand, the visionary behind The Whole Earth Catalog. Stanford professor Fred Turner has documented this period in his book “From the Counterculture to Cyberculture, Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.

For me this journey also began with the extraordinary vision of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian professor of communications, who literally predicted the emergence of the World Wide Web and “The Global Village,” like some kind of modern day Nostradamus.

Stewart Brand is also featured in Tom Wolfe‘s book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” along with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and The Grateful Dead. I had the great good fortune to formally meet Brand at a COMDEX Microsoft event in a hangar at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas and was immediately impressed by him, as was Jobs. Not surprisingly, Brand was an invited guest at the Microsoft event, having already seized on the importance of the personal computer and the prospect of a networked World. Recently, in another anecdote on that time, Tim Bajarin shared a wonderful story about Job’s counterculture friend and organic gardener who remains the manager of the landscape at the new Apple campus, retaining the feeling of the original Santa Clara Valley orchard economy, that some of us can still remember.

It is important to think back to that time in the Bay Area and the euphoria of the vision of “digital utopianism.” It grounds me and helps me to understand where we have gone so terribly wrong.

Digital utopianism is now dead. I have written about its sad demise on this blog. The wonderful vision of digital utopianism and the Web has been perverted by numerous authoritarian governments, now including our own, resulting in a Balkanized Web and a dark Web pandering all kinds of evil. This is the problem we face and the urgent need for greater emphasis on ethics. What about human life, culture, and values? So many areas of technology are on the verge of deep philosophical questions. Uber has become the poster child for everything that is wrong with Silicon Valley. I ask myself, “What would Steve Jobs have said about Travis Kalanick and Uber?” I think we know the answer. Ironically, Silicon Valley has a center for research and study in ethics, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Mike Markkula was an Intel marketing guy who quit Intel to join with two crazy long-haired guys in Cupertino.

I am a Liberal Arts & Humanities graduate myself, including graduate study at Oxford University. When I returned from England I asked the obvious question: Now how do I make a living? As it happened, I very improbably landed my first real job at Intel Corporation. When I asked why I was hired, the answer was that I was judged to have the requisite talent and aptitude if not the technical knowledge. I later developed a reputation for being very “technical” by the process of “osmosis,” by simply living in a highly rarified technical culture and receiving whiteboard tutorials from friendly engineers. I was thrown into a group of Ivy League MBA’s. We wistfully shared a desire to have the others’ educations, but simply working together made us all more effective. Amazingly my career grew almost exponentially and I attribute my success to that cross-fertilization.

While with Intel in Hillsboro Oregon, someone approached me to represent Intel at a talk with Reed students. I was cautioned that few if any Reed students would be interested in working for Intel, but they would be very intellectually engaging. That proved to be a significant understatement. In the end, I believe that perhaps two dozen “Reedies,” as they are known, joined Intel, one of whom went on to a stellar career as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. A significant part of my later career has been devoted to using my Humanities education background to assess and translate deep technology in human terms for the benefit of both management and potential customers.

Today, nothing of my story would ever happen, but the influence of the Humanities and Arts in business seems more sorely needed than ever.

Trump’s radical new foreign policy portends much worse to come

As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out this week in the Washington Post and on CNN GPS, we now have a Trump foreign policy doctrine, and it is not reassuring for the World. Obviously heavily influenced by Bannon, who many had thought had been relegated to backseat status by McMaster, we have been fooled again. As Trump demonstrates his RealPolitik admiration for authoritarians like Putin, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, and Duterte, more sinister scenarios begin to crystallize. Trump’s speech justifying the withdrawal of the United States from the COP21 Paris Climate Change Agreement is a frightening exposition of this new Trump Doctrine. It is Trump thumbing his nose at the World. It is the United States against the World, led by a coterie of plutocrats and their money. The reality is that the evidence points to an ongoing seizure of executive power by Trump that destroys our Constitution in the name of our national security. The question is what we can do about it.

Trump Blows Off the Rest of the World

Trump Climate Change Speech More About Political Power Than Climate Change

Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

Fareed Zakaria has pointed out this week in the Washington Post and on CNN GPS, that we now have a Trump foreign policy doctrine, and it is not reassuring for the World. It is openly declaring its intent to destroy the World as we know it. New York Times Conservative columnist David Brooks reached the same conclusion. Obviously heavily influenced by Bannon, who many had thought had been relegated to backseat status by McMaster, we have been fooled again. As Trump demonstrates his Henry Kissinger RealPolitik admiration for authoritarians like Putin, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, and Duterte, more sinister scenarios begin to crystallize. Trump’s speech justifying the withdrawal of the United States from the COP21 Paris Climate Change Agreement is a frightening exposition of this new Trump Doctrine. It is Trump thumbing his nose at the World. It is the United States against the World, led by a coterie of plutocrats and their money. It was moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. Koch and David H. Koch, the Kansas-based billionaires who run a chain of refineries (which can process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day) as well as a subsidiary that owns or operates 4,000 miles of pipelines that move crude oil. The reality is that the evidence points to an ongoing seizure of executive power by Trump that destroys our Constitution in the name of our national security. The big rhetorical question is what we can do about it?

Read more: Gary Cohn and H.R. McMaster Wall Street Journal editorial: The New Trump Foreign Policy Doctrine

Read more: Fareed Zakaria Washington Post editorial: Trump’s radical departure from postwar foreign policy – The Washington Post

Read more: David Brooks New York Times editorial:

University degree no longer comes with promise of stable job

The unwritten promise of a post-secondary education has been to earn a degree in an applied field such as engineering and you’ll end up with a good, stable job, but the millennial generation is finding that can no longer be counted on. I have been thinking about this issue for some time. Last year, I posted an article on this blog by Robert Reich, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. I was stimulated to share that article by what I was seeing with my own students from the University of British Columbia, and contrasting that with my own experience years ago, walking into my Silicon Valley dream career by sheer chance. That simply no longer happens. Grads must begin plotting out a plan early, no later than the beginning of their third year, and begin to execute on it in order to find an entry-level position commensurate with their education. Networking and cold calling is imperative, but as this article points out, even that may not guarantee solid employment.

The unwritten promise of a post-secondary education has been to earn a degree in an applied field such as engineering and you’ll end up with a good, stable job, but the millennial generation is finding that can no longer be counted on. I have been thinking about this issue for some time. Last year, I posted an article on this blog by Robert Reich, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton. I was stimulated to share that article by what I was seeing with my own students from the University of British Columbia and their struggles, and contrasting that with my own experience years ago, walking into my Silicon Valley dream career by sheer chance. That simply no longer happens. Grads must begin plotting out a plan early, no later than the beginning of their third year, and begin to execute on it in order to find an entry-level position commensurate with their education. Networking and cold calling are imperative, but as this article points out, even that may not guarantee solid employment.

Source CBC News/Business: ‘It’s not a guarantee’: University degree no longer comes with promise of stable job

‘The millennial side hustle,’ not stable job, is the new reality for university grads

Recent graduates are finding a post-secondary education is no longer a guarantee of stable employment

By Nick Purdon and Leonardo Palleja, CBC News Posted: Mar 12, 2017 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 12, 2017 5:00 AM ET

Christian McCrave, 21, stands in front of his parents' house in London, Ont. He moved back in when he couldn't find a job after graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Christian McCrave, 21, stands in front of his parents’ house in London, Ont. He moved back in when he couldn’t find a job after graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering. (Nick Purdon/CBC)

Twenty-one-year old Christian McCrave feels like he did his part.

He got good grades in high school and completed a four-year degree at the University of Guelph in southwestern Ontario. He studied mechanical engineering, in part because he thought it would land him a job.

It hasn’t.

“I actually thought that coming out of school that I would be a commodity and someone would want me,” McCrave said. “But instead, I got hit with a wall of being not wanted whatsoever in the industry.”

McCrave says he believed in the unwritten promise of a post-secondary education: work hard at school, and you’ll end up with a good and stable job.

Now, he’s not so sure.

“Being unemployed while having a degree is kind of a kick in the face,” McCrave said. “If anything, it’s a setback. You have all this debt and this degree, and everyone has one, but it doesn’t get you further in life sometimes.”

Since graduating last year, McCrave has applied for 250 engineering jobs, but he’s only had four interviews and no job offer.

McCrave isn’t alone. More than 12 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed and more than a quarter are underemployed, meaning they have degrees but end up in jobs that don’t require them.

The latest numbers from Statistics Canada show that the unemployment rate for 15-to-24-year-olds is almost twice that of the general population.

McCrave has expanded his job search to include retail and recently applied to work at the local Sobeys grocery store near his parent’s house in London, Ont., where he has lived since soon after graduation.

“It’s a job. Something to feel accomplished from,” said McCrave. “As much as an engineer can be accomplished by cutting deli meats.”

Co-ops, apprenticeships key to employability

The challenge McCrave faces is experience: namely, he doesn’t have any. The most recent work experience on his resume is sales associate at Winners.

Sandro Perruzza, the chief executive officer at the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE), is familiar with graduates like McCrave.

Christian McCrave 2

Since graduating, McCrave has applied for 250 engineering jobs but hasn’t had a single offer, he says. (Leonardo Palleja/CBC )

“He could have applied for co-ops or apprenticeships while he was at school — even if it delayed his graduation,” Perruzza said. “We strongly advocate co-ops. The fact is because of the sheer number of applicants these days, the ones who get the jobs have some kind of experience.”

Should McCrave land one of the retail jobs he’s applied for, he’ll achieve one of the hallmarks of his generation: underemployment.

‘With millennials, the idea is that we are lazy and that we don’t work hard and stuff is given to us.’– Christian McCrave, 21, engineering graduate

A 2014 Canadian Teachers’ Federation report found nearly a quarter of Canada’s youth are either unemployed, working less than they want or have given up looking for work entirely.

The number of engineers in Ontario who are underemployed is 33 per cent, according to the OSPE.

Still, McCrave says he often hears it’s his own fault that he’s unemployed.

“With millennials, the idea is that we are lazy and that we don’t work hard and stuff is given to us — the idea of the participation award,” McCrave said. “We didn’t want the participation award. We didn’t want to be told we are not good enough but here’s an award anyways. We want to compete; we want to succeed.”

‘The millennial side hustle’

Fast forward a few years in the job trajectory of the millennial generation, and you’ll find Clair Parker. Parker, 26, has a political science degree from Carleton University in Ottawa and a certificate in public relations from Humber College in Toronto.

“I live in an apartment, I have three roommates, and I don’t have benefits,” said Parker. “If I were the exception, I would feel upset about that because I would feel that I had done something wrong, but I am not the exception. I am the norm.”

Clair Parker

Clair Parker might not be making direct use of her political science degree at her job as a bartender at a small Toronto brewery, but don’t call her underemployed. ‘It implies just the [job] title means more than what is going on in the workplace,’ she says. (Nick Purdon/CBC)

Parker’s bartending job doesn’t pay enough to make ends meet so she cobbles together enough money to live in Toronto by also working at a yoga studio and house sitting.

“I joke with my friends all the time about the millennial side hustle,” Parker says. “We all have different side hustles that we do to get money. So many people who would have worked in-house for a company before are freelancing now.”

The millennial side hustle (also known as the gig economy) means no steady job but also no safety net.

“If you have a toothache now and you are 24 years old, you freak out,” says Parker. “That’s going to be a couple of grand when you go to the dentist for the first time. I think people are going to feel really disenfranchised by the workforce and uncared for by the workforce.”

Parker works primarily at Halo brewery in Toronto, bartending and doing whatever else is needed to keep the small business running.

Kimberly Ellis-Hale again

‘Being precariously employed takes its toll,’ says Ellis-Hale. (Leonardo Palleja/CBC)

“On paper, I am a bartender,” Parker says. “But anyone who has worked with a small business understands that it’s kind of an all hands on deck situation. You have a lot of opportunities to learn a lot of different things.”

Parker bristles at the suggestion that she is underemployed.

“I am not underemployed, and I kind of get offended when people say I am underemployed,” Parker says. “It implies that they know more about my situation than I know about my situation. It implies just the [job] title means more than what is going on in the workplace. It’s a huge assumption.”

While Parker probably could have gotten her job without five years of post-secondary education, she says her education will allow her to grow along with the business. She is banking on potential — her own and the company’s.

The university enrolment boom

The promise of higher education is alive and well in Canada. There are more university students than ever before. In 2015, there were more than two million students enrolled at Canadian universities and colleges, compared to almost 800,000 in 1980.

Kimberly Ellis-Hale 1

Kimberly Ellis-Hale has been teaching at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., since 1998 but still has to re-apply for her job every four months. (Leonardo Palleja/CBC)

“With a good education, you will have a good future. With a good education, you will have a good job,” said Kimberly Ellis-Hale, an instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., who teaches sociology and other subjects. “And I think for past generations, it may have been [the case]. I think for future generations, it’s not a guarantee.”

Even though economic indicators that track employment reveal a trend toward more precarious jobs, Ellis-Hale says most of her students don’t see that as their future. She didn’t either, but that’s how things turned out.

‘I teach in a place that sells education as the path to a better and more secure life, and I don’t have a part of that life.’– Kimberly Ellis-Hale, contract faculty, Wilfrid Laurier University

Ellis-Hale is contract faculty, and even though she’s been teaching university courses at Laurier since 1998, she has to re-apply for her job every four months.

“I have very little job security,” Ellis-Hale said. “And being precariously employed takes its toll.”

Ellis-Hale’s two children are now grown up and live on their own, but she vividly remembers standing in the pharmacy when they were young trying to decide which child needed antibiotics the most.

“I couldn’t afford to purchase both of them,” Ellis-Hale says. “And how do you live with that? I teach in a university. I teach in a place that sells education as the path to a better and more secure life, and I don’t have a part of that life.”

Turning the promise into a guarantee

The University of Regina’s UR Guarantee program, launched in 2009, turns the unwritten promise of post-secondary education into an actual guarantee. If a student enrolled in the program doesn’t get a full-time job in their field within six months of graduation, they can return for a year of undergraduate study tuition-free.

“The reason we do this is we know that if students do all the things that are part of the program, they are going to be successful,” said Naomi Deren, associate director of student success at the university.

Naomi Deren

Noami Deren is the associate director of student success at the University of Regina and runs the school’s UR Guarantee program, which lets graduates return for a free year of study if they don’t get a job in their field within six months. (Leonardo Palleja/CBC)

Students from any department can enrol in the program and must complete career development training, including resume reviews and job interview seminars.

In their final year, students are required to network and complete a labour market overview in their chosen field. Their job search begins while they are still at school.

‘The average student doesn’t … do that preparation, isn’t thinking about their career in second year and is sort of left scrambling at the end of it.’-Naomi Deren, associate director of student success, University of Regina

“I really think that the average student doesn’t do all of that stuff, doesn’t do that preparation, isn’t thinking about their career in second year and is sort of left scrambling at the end of it,” Deren said.

Of the 120 students who have participated in the program only two have come back for the free year.

“Honestly, everyone else has found what they were looking for,” Deren said. “We have students who are teaching — they got full time contracts right out of university … We have students who are working in marketing, communications. We have a reporter for the Leader Post.”

Keeping students from dropping out

Jenna deBoth, 21, is in her fourth year of an education degree program at the University of Regina and all she can think about is graduating.

“I am so excited. I can’t wait to actually get out there and get a job,” she said.

Jenna deBoth final

Jenna deBoth, 21, says that without the University of Regina’s UR Guarantee program, she probably would have dropped out of university. Now, she’s about to graduate with an education degree. (Nick Purdon/CBC )

Still, deBoth, from the small town of Hudson Bay, Sask., almost didn’t make it past her first year of university. She credits the UR Guarantee program with keeping her from dropping out.

“I was absolutely terrified to be on campus because even though Regina is a small city, to me, it was huge,” deBoth said.

‘If I don’t get a job in my field? Well, I am gonna keep trying.’– Jenna deBoth, 21, 4th-year University of Regina student

DeBoth happened to see a poster advertising the UR Guarantee program. She signed up and within a few months, she was volunteering and had a growing circle of friends.

“We see ourselves in the beginning as high school guidance counsellors,” Deren said. “We make sure students are successful and are retained here at the university.”

Deren says retention rates among UR Guarantee students are 10 per cent higher than those of the general student population.

DeBoth hasn’t yet found a teaching job for the fall, and she admits she’s nervous about what’s out there.

“If I don’t get a job in my field? Well, I am gonna keep trying,” she said. “This is something that I am passionate about. I have made sure I have skills that will help me no matter where I go.”

Vancouver Technology Industry On Verge Of New Era

The Vancouver technology industry may well be on the verge of an extraordinary period of growth. Global, national, and regional factors appear to be aligning in ways that could create an extraordinary economic opportunity for the Lower Mainland which could not have been anticipated. Vancouver has been an endless topic of discussion about its comparability (or not) to Silicon Valley, the historical Canadian investment conservatism, and the lack of other resources necessary to create the “secret sauce” that makes a region achieve critical mass. That may be changing if only the convergence of factors is grasped and exploited.

In an expansion of regional cooperation, the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington today announced the establishment of the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative.

Universities establish joint centre to use data for social good in Cascadia region

Media Release | February 23, 2017

University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and University of British Columbia President Santa J. Ono at the Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference in Vancouver, B.C., September 20, 2016.

In an expansion of regional cooperation, the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington today announced the establishment of the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative to use data to help cities and communities address challenges from traffic to homelessness. The largest industry-funded research partnership between UBC and the UW, the collaborative will bring faculty, students and community stakeholders together to solve problems, and is made possible thanks to a $1-million gift from Microsoft.

“Thanks to this generous gift from Microsoft, our two universities are poised to help transform the Cascadia region into a technological hub comparable to Silicon Valley and Boston,” said Professor Santa J. Ono, President of the University of British Columbia. “This new partnership transcends borders and strives to unleash our collective brain power, to bring about economic growth that enriches the lives of Canadians and Americans as well as urban communities throughout the world.”

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to use data to help our communities make decisions, and as a result improve people’s lives and well-being. That commitment to the public good is at the core of the mission of our two universities, and we’re grateful to Microsoft for making a community-minded contribution that will spark a range of collaborations,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce.

Today’s announcement follows last September’s Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference in Vancouver, B.C. The forum brought together regional leaders for the first time to identify concrete opportunities for partnerships in education, transportation, university research, human capital and other areas.

A Boston Consulting Group study unveiled at the conference showed the region between Seattle and Vancouver has “high potential to cultivate an innovation corridor” that competes on an international scale, but only if regional leaders work together. The study says that could be possible through sustained collaboration aided by an educated and skilled workforce, a vibrant network of research universities and a dynamic policy environment.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, who helped convene the conference, said, “We believe that joint research based on data science can help unlock new solutions for some of the most pressing issues in both Vancouver and Seattle. But our goal is bigger than this one-time gift. We hope this investment will serve as a catalyst for broader and more sustainable efforts between these two institutions.”

As part of the Emerging Cascadia conference, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark and Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed a formal agreement that committed the two governments to work closely together to “enhance meaningful and results-driven innovation and collaboration.” The agreement outlined steps the two governments will take to collaborate in several key areas including research and education.

“Increasingly, tech is not just another standalone sector of the economy, but fully integrated into everything from transportation to social work,” said Premier Clark. “That’s why we’ve invested in B.C.’s thriving tech sector, but committed to working with our neighbours in Washington – and we’re already seeing the results.”

“This data-driven collaboration among some of our smartest and most creative thought-leaders will help us tackle a host of urgent issues,” Gov. Inslee said. “I’m encouraged to see our partnership with British Columbia spurring such interesting cross-border dialogue and excited to see what our students and researchers come up with.”

The Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative will revolve around four main programs:

The Cascadia Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) Summer Program, which builds on the success of the DSSG program at the UW eScience Institute. The cooperative will coordinate a joint summer program for students across UW and UBC campuses where they work with faculty to create and incubate data-intensive research projects that have concrete benefits for urban communities. One past DSSG project analyzed data from Seattle’s regional transportation system – ORCA – to improve its effectiveness, particularly for low-income transit riders. Another project sought to improve food safety by text mining product reviews to identify unsafe products.

Cascadia Data Science for Social Good Scholar Symposium, which will foster innovation and collaboration by bringing together scholars from UBC and the UW involved in projects utilizing technology to advance the social good. The first symposium will be hosted at UW in 2017.

Sustained Research Partnerships designed to establish the Pacific Northwest as a centre of expertise and activity in urban analytics. The cooperative will support sustained research partnerships between UW and UBC researchers, providing technical expertise, stakeholder engagement and seed funding.

Responsible Data Management Systems and Services to ensure data integrity, security and usability. The cooperative will develop new software, systems and services to facilitate data management and analysis, as well as ensure projects adhere to best practices in fairness, accountability and transparency.

At UW, the Cascadia Urban Analytics Collaborative will be overseen by Urbanalytics (urbanalytics.uw.edu), a new research unit in the Information School focused on responsible urban data science. The Collaborative builds on previous investments in data-intensive science through the UW eScience Institute (escience.washington.edu) and investments in urban scholarship through Urban@UW (urban.uw.edu), and also aligns with the UW’s Population Health Initiative (uw.edu/populationhealth) that is addressing the most persistent and emerging challenges in human health, environmental resiliency and social and economic equity. The gift counts toward the UW’s Be Boundless – For Washington, For the World campaign (uw.edu/boundless).

The Collaborative also aligns with the UBC Sustainability Initiative (sustain.ubc.ca) that fosters partnerships beyond traditional boundaries of disciplines, sectors and geographies to address critical issues of our time, as well as the UBC Data Science Institute (dsi.ubc.ca), which aims to advance data science research to address complex problems across domains, including health, science and arts.

Find other stories about: Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative, Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference, Microsoft, University of British Columbia, University of Washington

Source: Universities establish joint centre to use data for social good in Cascadia region

Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Culture Destroys It’s Own Goals

UPDATE: KALANICK VIDEO SURFACES. Suffice to say, people are angry with Uber, and things aren’t getting better. This is actually deja vu all over again. We have seen this before in Silicon Valley. The hubris of a company founders or founders creates an ugly overly aggressive and unrestrained culture in its employees and before long things begin to unravel. This has been quietly observed at Uber for some time, and can be gleaned by its own actions as reported in the press. Now, new self-inflicted cracks are appearing. More than 200,000 people have deleted the UBER app off their smart phones in the past month. After former employee Susan Fowler Rigetti published a detailed blog post about the sexual harassment and discrimination she allegedly experienced at the company, people began deleting the ride sharing-app again. As more and more employees have spoken out about the alleged poor working conditions, Uber’s customer base is dwindling … and the company is getting desperate.

How Corporate Culture Can Trump Strategy For the Worse

As Uber suffers blow after blow to its reputation, users are deleting the app.

UPDATE: As if to underscore the point of this post, only days after the New York Times published the story below, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was captured on an Uber driver’s dash cam, engaging in a heated argument with the Uber driver over lower pay that has driven the driver into bankruptcy. Kalanick has today issued a formal apology to all Uber employee’s saying that he needs to “grow up” and get “leadership” help.

See the video here: Kalanick Loses It With Uber Driver

Suffice to say, people are angry with Uber, and things aren’t getting better. This is actually deja vu all over again. We have seen this before in Silicon Valley. The hubris of a company founders or founders creates an ugly overly aggressive and unrestrained culture in its employees and before long things begin to unravel. This has been quietly observed at Uber for some time, and can be gleaned by its own actions as reported in the press. Now, new self-inflicted cracks are appearing. More than 200,000 people have deleted the UBER app off their smart phones in the past month. After former employee Susan Fowler Rigetti published a detailed blog post about the sexual harassment and discrimination she allegedly experienced at the company, people began deleting the ride sharing-app again. As more and more employees have spoken out about the alleged poor working conditions, Uber’s customer base is dwindling … and the company is getting desperate.

A few weeks ago, people boycotted the company after Uber provided rides at New York’s JFK airport during a taxi strike over President Donald Trump’s immigration ban. More than 200,000 people got rid of the Uber app and the #DeleteUber hashtag began trending on Twitter. Then, anger boiled again over Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s position on Trump’s advisory board. He eventually quit the board.

SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets, being “obsessed” with the customer, and “always be hustlin’.” The ride-hailing service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there.

Those values have helped propel Uber to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest success stories. The company is valued at close to $70 billion by private investors and now operates in more than 70 countries.

Yet the focus on pushing for the best result has also fueled what current and former Uber employees describe as a Hobbesian environment at the company, in which workers are sometimes pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers.

Interviews with more than 30 current and former Uber employees, as well as reviews of internal emails, chat logs and tape-recorded meetings, paint a picture of an often unrestrained workplace culture. Among the most egregious accusations from employees, who either witnessed or were subject to incidents and who asked to remain anonymous because of confidentiality agreements and fear of retaliation: One Uber manager groped female co-workers’ breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas. A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee’s head in with a baseball bat.

Until this week, this culture was only whispered about in Silicon Valley. Then on Sunday, Susan Fowler, an engineer who left Uber in December, published a blog post about her time at the company. She detailed a history of discrimination and sexual harassment by her managers, which she said was shrugged off by Uber’s human resources department. Ms. Fowler said the culture was stoked — and even fostered — by those at the top of the company.

“It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor’s job,” Ms. Fowler wrote. “No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: They boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like.”

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, has taken several steps since a former employee’s accusations of discrimination and sexual harassment by managers. CreditMarlene Awaad/Bloomberg

Her revelations have spurred hand-wringing over how unfriendly Silicon Valley workplaces can be to women and provoked an internal crisis at Uber. The company’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has opened an internal investigation into the accusations and has brought in the board member Arianna Huffington and the former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to look into harassment issues and the human resources department.

To contain the fallout, Mr. Kalanick also began more disclosure. On Monday, he said that 15.1 percent of Uber’s engineering, product management and scientist roles were filled by women, and that those numbers had not changed substantively over the past year.

Mr. Kalanick also held a 90-minute all-hands meeting on Tuesday, during which he and other executives were besieged with dozens of questions and pleas from employees who were aghast at — or strongly identified with — Ms. Fowler’s story and demanded change.

In what was described by five attendees as an emotional moment, and according to a video of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Kalanick apologized to employees for leading the company and the culture to this point. “What I can promise you is that I will get better every day,” he said. “I can tell you that I am authentically and fully dedicated to getting to the bottom of this.”

Some Uber employees said Mr. Kalanick’s speedy efforts were positive. “I am pleased with how quickly Travis has responded to this,” Aimee Lucido, an Uber software engineer, wrote in a blog post. “We are better situated to handle this sort of problem than we have ever been in the past.”

As chief executive, Mr. Kalanick has long set the tone for Uber. Under him, Uber has taken a pugnacious approach to business, flouting local laws and criticizing competitors in a race to expand as quickly as possible. Mr. Kalanick, 40, has made pointed displays of ego: In a GQ article in 2014, he referred to Uber as “Boob-er” because of how the company helped him attract women.

That tone has been echoed in Uber’s workplace. At least two former Uber workers said they had notified Thuan Pham, the company’s chief technical officer, of workplace harassment at the hands of managers and colleagues in 2016. One also emailed Mr. Kalanick.

Uber also faces at least three lawsuits in at least two countries from former employees alleging sexual harassment or verbal abuse at the hands of managers, according to legal documents reviewed by The Times. Other current and former employees said they were considering legal action against the company.

Liane Hornsey, Uber’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement, “We are totally committed to healing wounds of the past and building a better workplace culture for everyone.”

While Uber is now the dominant ride-hailing company in the United States, and is rapidly growing in South America, India and other countries, its explosive growth has come at a cost internally. As Uber hired more employees, its internal politics became more convoluted. Getting ahead, employees said, often involved undermining departmental leaders or colleagues.

Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member, was brought in to look into harassment issues and the human resources department.

Workers like Ms. Fowler who went to human resources with their problems said they were often left stranded. She and a half-dozen others said human resources often made excuses for top performers because of their ability to improve the health of the business. Occasionally, problematic managers who were the subject of numerous complaints were shuffled around different regions; firings were less common.

One group appeared immune to internal scrutiny, the current and former employees said. Members of the group, called the A-Team and composed of executives who were personally close to Mr. Kalanick, were shielded from much accountability over their actions.

One member of the A-Team was Emil Michael, senior vice president for business, who was caught up in a public scandal over comments he made in 2014 about digging into the private lives of journalists who opposed the company. Mr. Kalanick defended Mr. Michael, saying he believed Mr. Michael could learn from his mistakes.

Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global all-hands meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said.

At the Las Vegas outing, Mr. Kalanick also held a companywide lecture reviewing Uber’s 14 core values, the attendees said. During the lecture, Mr. Kalanick pulled onstage employees who he believed exemplified each of the values. One of those was Mr. Michael.

Since Ms. Fowler’s blog post, several Uber employees have said they are considering leaving the company. Some are waiting until their equity compensation from Uber, which is restricted stock units, is vested. Others said they had started sending résumés to competitors.

Still other employees said they were hopeful that Uber could change. Mr. Kalanick has promised to deliver a diversity report to better detail the number of women and minorities who work at Uber, and the company is holding listening sessions with employees.

At the Tuesday all-hands meeting, Ms. Huffington, the Uber board member, also vowed that the company would make another change. According to attendees and video of the meeting, Ms. Huffington said there would no longer be hiring of “brilliant jerks.”

Why The Biggest Tech Companies Are Not In Canada

Mayo0615 Reblog from July 22, 2013

It dawned on me that my blog post from July 2013, still has particular relevance to the current situation in Canada. I discuss the longer term structural issues confronting Canadian entrepreneurs and Canadian venture capital. Boris Wertz, founder of Vancouver’s Version One Ventures is also crucial to this discussion. When I first arrived in Canada, I learned quickly that the Vancouver startup ecosystem was nothing like what I knew from Silicon Valley. My personal case study was Mobile Data International, a pioneering company in wireless data, well before WiFi and Bluetooth, that could have led the market and the technology. Instead, the company was taken public much too early. MDI was bought by Motorola Canada for $39 Million, in a hostile takeover, and was essentially moved out of Canada and shut down. Later, in 2012, I had another opportunity to be up close and personal with Canadian innovation, as a participant in the Canada Foundation for Innovation deliberations in Ottawa. These two experiences have played a major role in the development of my views on this topic.

The following reblog raises the tough questions that are holding Canada back.

From July 2013:

In 2013, ContentDJ founder Jerry Tian published a blog post addressing the issue of “Why Canada Has No Big Tech Companies” – Nortel is dead and RIM is quite obviously dying, he points out. Tian, who was himself responding to an interview with Boris Wertz, founder of Vancouver’s Version One Ventures, offers a thought provoking theory and one that applies to a large degree to all up-and-coming startup ecosystems.

The founder questions the commitment and willingness of Canadian investors and entrepreneurs to devote the ten years or more that it may take to build an independent multi-billion dollar company with staying power, rather than flipping that company for an eight, nine, or even ten figure exit – typically to Silicon Valley acquirers – and exporting that future innovation and wealth building. It’s a charge that could be applied equally well to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Boulder, and dozens of would be international startup hubs.

“’Silicon Valley is not a place but a state of mind,” Tian writes, quoting KPCB General Partner John Doerr. “Some of these insights are collaboration, competition, openness to innovation, failures and experimentation. Probably the most important one is the long term commitment behind technology companies.”

Of course, Tian and Doerr are spot on. What emerging startup hubs often miss when trying to “become the next Silicon Valley” – a flawed mission in and of itself – is that the grandaddy startup ecosystem is more than its physical infrastructure of entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, investors, service providers, universities, and the like. Equally important are the systematic irrationality and a feedback loop around the willingness to turn down the quick buck and go for the massive once-in-a-generation success story.

This isn’t the case with every company, founder, or investor, but it exists in enough density in the San Francisco Bay Area, and based on results to a lesser extent in Seattle, that these are the only two areas areas in the country that have led to multiple ten billion dollar plus technology and internet companies – the true giants that transcend their local ecosystems and seep into the lives of average consumers.

It is these companies, with their ability to attract talent, make acquisitions, invest in long-term R&D, and create systemic wealth that make ecosystems. And with very rare exception, getting to this scale requires a decade or longer commitment and a willingness on the part of founders and investors to turn down near and mid-term paydays. Similarly, it requires a vision and an ambition to build something that will be around forever.

Tian writes:

So, why is nobody talking about these acquisitions? I think it’s simply because investors are getting filthy rich off these deals.

And that’s exactly what not to do if you want to create the next Silicon Valley. You cannot sell the hen that lays the golden eggs for a few quick buck [sic]. Technology companies take 10 years to really manifest the value. To really build a billion dollar company, it takes tremendous multi-decade commitment. And that’s the biggest missing piece in Canada.

Like or hate Zynga founder and former CEO Mark Pincus, one has to respect him for saying that he wants to build a “digital skyscraper,” a company that would be around for 100 years. Pincus went further to say that he views serial entrepreneurship as failure and that he wants to run Zynga for the rest of his career. Ironically, he recently replaced himself as CEO, personally recruiting Don Mattrick for the role. But Pincus made the ego-busting move in an effort to return Zynga to its former glory and to get it back on that century-long track.

In his somewhat controversial on-the-ground reporting on the Chicago ecosystem last summer, Trevor Gilbert delved into “the Midwest Mentality” and the impact it has on the types of companies that are built there. Gilbert called Chicagoans “pragmatic.” Lightbank partner Paul Lee offered an example of this pragmatism, saying that Chicago startups typically focus on generating revenue from day one, rather than building a massive, but unprofitable user base, a la Facebook and Twitter pre-monetization. Profit is all well and good, and should be the ultimate goal of any business that wants to be around for the long term, but focus on it too intently early on and it can be impossible to invest in growth. It takes a special kind of vision and fortitude to look past the short term and make the big bets required to create massive companies.

This is not to pick on Chicago. A similar phenomenon seems to exist in LA where companies race out to a low nine-figure valuation and then either stall out in that vicinity or sell for sub-one billion dollars to a larger out of town acquirer. Call it the curse of the big-little deal – maybe everyone here just wants to see their name in lights. In a market that is desperate for success stories and validation, these medium-sized exits are hailed as “wins” – and they are, given the difficulty of building a hundred-million dollar company – but they often rob the ecosystem of potential multi-generational tentpole companies. This is a mentality that appears to have changed in recent years, but that change has not yet bore fruit in the form of LA’s answer to Google, Amazon, or Facebook.

New York has seen its own version of this phenomenon, with the ecosystem’s biggest success stories, DoubleClick and Tumblr, being exits to Google and Yahoo respectively. Local darling MakerBot followed suit, selling for $600 million in June. New York does have Fab, Gilt, and Foursquare all shooting for the moon but these companies and the ecosystem as a whole still must prove that they can sustain this ambition and parlay it into a giant company.

As Tian points out, part of the blame for these exits falls on investors. It’s not that investors aren’t interested in massive outcomes – they most certainly are. But not all non-Silicon Valley investors are equipped for the financial and time commitment it takes to create them. These investors, many of which operate out of first- or second-generation funds, often have smaller pools of capital to invest out of.

Write a $2 million check at a $10 million valuation out of a $100 million fund, and a 50x return looks pretty good, returning 98 percent of your fund. Make that same investment out of a $1 billion fund and the impact on fund economics is decidedly less interesting. This is one of the few arguments in favor of mega-VC funds. But it also benefits firms that are on their fourth, fifth or sixth fund and have less to gain reputation-wise with solid base hits.

Returning to Tian’s piece, he closes by writing, “If you are wondering why Canada doesn’t have the [sic] billion dollar company, it cannot be more obvious than this. Too many people are in it trying to get rich quickly off entrepreneurs. Not enough people have the gut [sic] and commitment to create or help create something truly meaningful.”

Tian paints with a broad brush, yes, which ignores many of the subtle nuances and external factors that contribute toward building massive technology companies. But there’s little arguing that people in Silicon Valley think differently. Armed by decades of case studies and social proof, the ecosystem has developed a healthy disregard for rationality.

Mark Zuckerberg famously did just that when Yahoo came calling. He was just 20 years old and Facebook, at less than two years old, was unprofitable with just $30 million in revenue. Yet Zuckerberg and Facebook’s board, which included Peter Thiel and Jim Breyer, turned down Yahoo’s $1 billion offer. When the elder advisors tried to convince the young founder that his 25 percent of that offer would be a big number he said, “I don’t know what I could do with the money. I’d just start another social networking site. I kind of like the one I already have.”

Israeli social mapping company Waze just made the opposite decision, selling to Google for slightly more than that mythical $1 billion. Sarah Lacy cautioned Israel-bulls to “reconsider too much high-fiving over Waze.” While legendary local angel investor Yossi Vardi likes to compare Israeli startups to tomato seeds which need more experienced farmers to grow properly, Lacy believes that the country has the potential to build and sustain globally dominant Web companies without selling, offering MyHeritage as an example.

None of this is to say Silicon Valley is immune from this syndrome. There are thousands of entrepreneurs in the Bay Area who would rather flip their company than do the long, hard work of building something sustainable. But the sheer density of the ecosystem means that a dozen or so each year choose the road less traveled. Also, given the scale of the Valley ecosystem, building a big company is the only way to move the needle and attract talent and capital. Everyone in line at Philz coffee is working on the next “billion dollar business.”

Finally, Silicon Valley is a magnet for those entrepreneurs around the globe who want to build great technology companies, and the ecosystem surely benefits from this imported talent. This was actually Wertz’s central point in the original interview and is one that Tian touches on briefly. It’s a difficult problem to solve, given the power of knowing someone (or several someones) who has summited the mountain before and who can show you that it can be done. In each of these other markets, someone will have to be the first.

In many cases, it is highly irrational to turn down a nine- or ten-figure acquisition offer. There are real benefits to gaining access to the financial and personnel resources of a larger acquirer, ones that can often make or break the success of a still fledgling company. But, if there’s anything in Silicon Valley that Canada, LA, New York, and other startup ecosystems should aspire to it’s this willingness to roll the dice. Sometimes the shooter rolls a “7.”

The Okanagan Never Has Been, And Never Will Be, Silicon Valley: A Lesson From New Zealand

UPDATE: This post from February 21, 2016, is being republished in the light of the announcement that Club Penguin is closing its doors in March. No amount of PR spin, arm waving, or equivocation can make the bitter truth of this post go away. I note that Lane Merrifeld and Accelerate Okanagan have been conspicuously silent. Before that, it was Silicon Valley company Packeteer, that morphed into Vineyard Networks when Packeteer pulled the plug and was eventually “parked” with Procera in Silicon Valley, which benefited very few in the Okanagan. There is a long legacy of this that need not continue.

Kelowna Innovation Centre

British Columbia and New Zealand share many economic similarities, except that New Zealand has way more sheep, is way better at rugby and has much better sailors. Both economies are focused on natural resource exploitation, tourism, wine, and horticulture. The motion picture industry has been a major factor in both economies, but both are highly vulnerable to foreign exchange fluctuations. Both economies have similar populations though we have more space and are not isolated in the South Pacific. Both economies have made efforts to diversify into high tech, pouring millions into development of startups. Both economies have had modestly successful companies in high tech, which seemingly have mostly been bought out, moved out and any benefit to the local economy lost. The crucial difference may be New Zealand’s pragmatism about how to deal with this economic reality. British Columbia could learn from New Zealand.

Andy Hamilton, the long-time Director of Auckland, New Zealand’s Ice House high-tech incubator shared the following article from New Zealand’s NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW. I first met Andy when I headed up New Zealand’s “Beachhead” incubator facility in Silicon Valley some years ago. The article has significant relevance to our situation in the Okanagan and British Columbia as a whole. The Okanagan has seen high-profile startups like Club Penguin, Vineyard Networks, and Immersive Media bought by much larger foreign buyers, essentially leaving little benefit to the local economy. The founder of perhaps the most successful startup in BC, Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite, admitted that he did not base the company in the Okanagan (he is from Vernon) because he knew he could not attract the necessary talent here. It is well-known that many if not most UBC Okanagan graduates do not stay here. While Vancouver has D-Wave and General Fusion, it has also seen Recon Instruments bought by Intel. New Zealand has dealt with the same reality. Forget the names of the Kiwi companies in the following editorial piece and substitute any Okanagan or BC startup company you feel is comparable. With Kelowna now tarred with the reputation as the worst job market in Canada, it would serve the local Okanagan establishment to give serious thought to the editorial below.

New Zealand: We’re not, and never will be, Silicon Valley

OPINION

BEN KEPES

New Zealand’s Diligent Corporation chief executive Brian Stafford

John Donne famously wrote that no man is an island entire of itself. The same is true for countries, and especially those countries situated in the middle of nowhere and with a relatively tiny population. At the same time, the old adage of not wanting to throw out the baby with the bathwater springs to mind.

All this mixing of metaphors seems timely given the current debate over Diligent Corporation [NZX: DIL] and its likely sale and exit from New Zealand. People on one side of the debate bemoan foreign sales and suggest this is why we should stick to our primary production knitting. Those on the other side suggest offshore sales are fine since the money reenters into the economy via the oft-quoted “rinse and repeat” cycle.

To be honest, both sides simplify things with their arguments and I think it’s time for New Zealand to think a bit more deeply about what we want our economy to look like.

We’re not, and never will be, Silicon Valley.

It frustrates me when people glibly suggest that New Zealand should create a mini-Silicon Valley down here in the South Pacific. Silicon Valley only exists in one place and is a unique creation of a number of factors including a university that was founded on the idea of entrepreneurship. Leland Stanford created the university as a memorial to his 15-year-old son who died of typhoid. The university was to be co-educational (a rare thing at that time) and, above all, designed to produce practical members of society. This wasn’t about research for research’s sake, Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate, wanted to produce research which was focused on commercial possibilities.

Add to that a hub of military research, significant funding streams for startups, a cultural focus on technology generally, and entrepreneurship specifically, and you have a unique place. Silicon Valley the product is very much a product of the crucible of Silicon Valley the place. We’d be advised to remember this.

But there are more reasons beyond viability to not want to recreate Silicon Valley in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. I’m lucky enough to spend a huge amount of time in “The Valley” and while I’d be the first to suggest that it is an exciting and bustling place, I’d also hate to live there. Unaffordable housing that makes Auckland look easy by comparison, ridiculous traffic issues (don’t even bother trying to drive the 101 on a weekday). A slightly weird culture in which 20-year-old entrepreneurs trying to reinvent laundry services or lawn care are seen as more heroic than doctors, firefighters or teachers.

Silicon Valley has something of a culture of “viva la revolution”. Ride-sharing service Uber’s founder, Travis Kalanick, is almost religious in his fervor for making transportation undergo a rapid revolution. Ultimately, he sees drivers as an impediment to this and is actively investing in driverless car technology in an effort to get rid of the very individuals who are currently making his service viable.

Perhaps this is the very reason that we shouldn’t try and recreate Silicon Valley in New Zealand. We have a society that, to some extent, at least, looks out for everyone. We were the first country in the world to give women the vote. We have a social welfare system that provides a safety net for people. When we’re sick in New Zealand we take it for granted that (hospital waiting lists notwithstanding) we’ll get treatment. The Silicon Valley focus on “automation and efficiency above all” forgoes all of this and, while creating a society where we can get our floors vacuumed by robots, our lawns mown as-a-service and even our meals prepared with synthetic meat by robot chefs, also helps create a dystopian world where anyone who isn’t a computer programmer, a robot engineer or independently wealthy falls by the wayside as an “unfortunate side effect of productivity enhancing tools and technological change.”

A final note on this point. Rod Drury, the chief executive of Xero [NZX: XRO], famously chooses to live in Hawke’s Bay where he can enjoy all that the region has to offer. Rod has seized this idea of balance in his working life and has found a way to build a business while not forgoing all possible quality of life. Indeed, this is a theme that Xero has used often when trying to attract talent. Let’s never forget these aspects in the desire to create GDP growth.

Do these technology exits really feed our economy?

All of this talk of quick technology exits funding lots of $100,000 plus software developer jobs here in New Zealand is a nice sound-bite but it arrogantly sidesteps the questions about what all those people who are left disenfranchised by those technologies are going to do. While TradeMe’s exit certainly helped to create companies like Vend, we need to be thinking, as a nation, about what is going to happen to all of those people who actually do things – tradespeople, manufacturing staff etc – once this ultimate in globalized efficiency is achieved.

If we look at the money that has been brought back to New Zealand from the sale of companies like TradeMe, how much has really gone into the economy? Yes, I’m well aware that TradeMe money has gone on to fund Vend, Xero, SLI Systems and a host of other companies. But while these are all interesting companies, doing good things and with (hopefully) a chance of a good outcome, they’re not particularly big employers and hence I’d be keen to see some empirical data about how much the so-called “trickle down effect” from exits like TradeMe actually exists.

True, both Sam Morgan and Rowan Simpson have built big houses that have kept a few tradesmen busy for a while – it would be helpful for some independent economists to really nut out the continuing value from this model. Often this argument is one which is had from a perspective of dogma – we need to really get some clarity as to the economic impacts of the technology industry in New Zealand.

Notwithstanding the economic benefits of these offshore sales, or otherwise, the fact is there is little option for our technology companies. Again, in this respect, Xero remaining, at least to some extent a New Zealand company is very much an outlier.

This talk of the problems caused by companies like Navman, The Hyperfactory, and NextWindow, that have grown, been sold offshore and all the jobs (along with the tax revenue) lost to NZ Inc is simplistic as well. We live in a tiny market, one which makes a domestic focus pretty much impossible for all but the most niche of players. To achieve growth, these companies need to look to customers overseas. In this technology space, the norm is very much to follow a rapid merger and acquisition path.

The very model of the technology industry is for there to exist a myriad of startups, all of whom sprint in order to get ahead of the others. The prize for being at the front of the bunch is generally (with only a handful of exceptions) a quick acquisition by one of the titans of the industry. After which, and other than a general couple of years spent in purgatory working for said vendor, the founders head back and do it all again. Hopefully.

Is there a third way?

Now I’m not suggesting that we shroud ourselves in an isolationist mist. The last person to do that was Robert Muldoon and it was a disaster. But to suggest, as many do, that technology will replace the need for any of our traditional businesses is simplistic. Similarly, the view that it is best to follow these models of building fast-growth software companies to be quickly flicked off to the highest bidder is unhelpful.

So maybe there is a third way. Maybe we can look at what we naturally do well – things like growing grass and turning it into milk and meat, horticulture and agriculture generally, and the technologies that help those industries to be more efficient, ideas that need a unique combination of practicality and DIY-mentality (Gallagher’s fences anyone?) – and apply technology to those things. With the utmost respect to Xero, a company that is a terrific success story for New Zealand, there is nothing about accounting software that we fundamentally have a point of difference with. Xero could have been created out of Bangalore, Silicon Valley or London. The fact that it has been successful out of New Zealand is down to good luck, good timing and some unique factors. Xero is an outlier – a great one – but an outlier nonetheless. It would be a dangerous bet to make to assume that we can create enough Xeros to fund our big, expensive economy.

Ever greater extension of dairy farming isn’t, of course, an option. Our rivers and lakes are already enough of an abomination without more nitrate runoff. But how about celebrating those companies that are attempting to add value to primary production – Lewis Road Creamery is one that springs to mind. But there is a host of exciting new startups in the agricultural technology space as well.

We need a diverse economy, one in which we have small companies making added-value products alongside companies that will grow rapidly and be sold off. If I look at the companies I’m involved with, I certainly invest in the “high-growth and sell offshore” model. Appsecute, a company I was an early backer of, sold a couple of years ago to a Canadian company which, in turn, sold to Hewlett-Packard last year. Companies like MEA mobile, Raygun, ThisData and Wipster will, potentially, follow this model. But other technology companies have a domestic focus or one which favors remaining independent and growing from New Zealand – PropertyPlot, CommonLedger, and Publons are examples. And finally, companies that are involved in real physical products. While it may be totally unsexy to actually make anything in New Zealand anymore, I’m proud to be involved in Cactus Equipment, a company that not only makes awesome products but keeps scores of people employed here in New Zealand – people who are unlikely to become software developers any time soon.

Focus on a diverse NZ Inc

When Sam Morgan suggested that a focus on NZ Inc was unhelpful for companies and would get them killed, he was referring to technology companies specifically. I believe that, as an economy, we should look more broadly at what we do and celebrate both the meteoric risers of the industry, but also the bit players – those who aren’t gunning for a US exit, those who are able to make a living in the traditional economy and those who are trying to add extra value to what we do well.

Christchurch entrepreneur and cloud computing commentator Ben Kepes blogs at Diversity.net.nz.

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The Importance of “Convergence” In Market and Industry Analysis

If You Get Technology “Convergence” Wrong, Nothing Else Matters

I came across this book during my most recent visit to the UBC Vancouver campus. As good as I think this book is at focusing attention, in workbook style, on the importance of market and industry analysis in new venture due diligence, there is an issue that I think is not adequately addressed by any model or theory: not Porter, not STEEP or SWAT. Convergence is the issue.

We can imagine and even potentially envision a very cool business idea, but if the technology to achieve it is not ready, not sufficiently mature, the idea is Dead on Arrival (DOA). I do not mean to pick on young entrepreneurs, but I reviewed a business concept last week that was a superb and compelling idea, but the technology necessary to achieve it simply was not there, either in terms of its capability or its price point. I am confident that it will be there in time, but it is not now. As if to make my point, Apple announced that it was acquiring a company for $20 Million in the exact same technology area: indoor location tracking (no small feat). At this point it is not clear that the acquired company has any extraordinary intellectual property or expertise, and the article primarily focused on the point that this “location identification” technology was “heating up.” It looks like it may be a simple “aquihire.” Global Positioning and geo tagging as in smart mobile phones, radio frequency identification technology (RFID), and inertial guidance are all currently used in various combinations by a host of competitors (too many) to achieve required levels of accuracy, immediacy and cost. A local industrial RFID company has just closed its doors because it simply could not compete and make money. The simple problem was that this company’s idea, as compelling as it was, could not achieve the necessary price point, or possibly would not even work.

So we have the problem of “convergence.” Great idea but the technology simply is not ready….yet.

I have three personal case study examples of the problem of “convergence,” that every potential entrepreneur should study. I have to admit that I was a senior executive at all three of these Silicon Valley companies, one of which actually made it to the NASDAQ exchange. All of them had the “convergence” problem.. Too early for the available technology.

1. Silicon Graphics. Silicon Graphics was founded in the late 1980’s by a pre-eminent Stanford professor, Jim Clark, on the idea that 3D visualization of complex problems would become the next big wave in technology. As a minor side business, it also excelled at computer animation, a growing new market of interest to Steve Jobs and others. It is now obvious that Clark was onto something that has now finally become the Next Big Thing, but at that time, the available technology simply made it too difficult and too expensive. Silicon Graphics no longer exists. Silicon Graphics crown jewel was its enabling software code, the SGI Graphics Library. It does still exist in open form.

2. iBEAM Broadcasting. iBEAM was the precursor of YouTube, but too far ahead of its time. the founder, Mike Bowles, a former MIT professor, envisioned streaming media across the Internet, but this was in 1999. Intel, Fox Entertainment, Reuters, Bloomberg, Microsoft were all involved, some investing significant sums in the company. We tried mightily to make it happen for Mike, but there were technology convergence problems. The Internet at that time simply did not have sufficient reliable broadband capability. In 1999 the vast majority of Internet users still used a dial-up connection. The company, with help from Microsoft and its other big pockets investors turned to satellite transmission, which is immensely expensive. I did learn a lot about the satellite business. Great idea, way too early, and the company failed early.

3. P-Cube. In 2001, I was approached by prominent friends at two downtown Palo Alto venture capital firms to consider joining an Israeli startup in which they had invested. The idea was wildly popular at the time….traffic policy management and so-called Internet traffic shaping. I enthusiastically joined the new company and became its first U.S. based employee. The compelling idea was simple, make money by charging for bandwidth. The background idea was to enable deep IP packet payload snooping to prioritize traffic, but also for its political potential. This is the technology that Dick Cheney employed after 9/11 to snoop all Internet traffic. The only problem was that the technology was simply not yet ready. The P-Cube Internet traffic switch was a 24 layer printed circuit board (hideously difficult to fabricate), with 5 IBM PowerPC chips, 1 Gig of onboard memory (at the time bleeding edge, but today laptops have more memory), a host of “application specific integrated circuits” (ASIC), and to top it off a proprietary software language to program the box. In the end, P-Cube burned up $100 Million in venture capital, and I had great fun traveling the World selling it, but the box never worked, largely because the technology simply was not there.. P-Cube’s assets were bought by Cisco Systems and t0day such capability is built into the boxes of Cisco System, Juniper Networks and others.

The key takeaway lesson from this: do not underestimate the importance of technology convergence with a great idea.

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New Zealand: We’re not, and never will be, Silicon Valley

BEN KEPES

We’re not, and never will be, Silicon Valley.

Do these technology exits really feed our economy?

Is there a third way?

Focus on a diverse NZ Inc

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