Tired of Juicy Fruit? Looking to expand your chewing gum horizons? Check this out:
Click the image to see the original on Flickr.
(Big deal, I say. In my opinion, cats are just egg rolls waiting to happen.)
If you’re based in Montreal (Billegible, I’m lookin’ at you!), the guy who took the picture says he got this pack at the cigar/magazine store at the corner of Bleury and Ste-Catherine.
If you like this sort of thing, you’re in luck: this is just one of several gum packages offered by Blue Q.
We’ve got just over a week to go until Blogstravaganza, the Toronto blogger get-together taking place on Friday, December 8th at 8:00 p.m. at Fiddler’s Green (27 Wellesley Street East, just across the street from Wellesley subway station). We’ve got the entire second floor reserved just for this gathering, which means that we’ll get our own server, pool tables, couches and space to chat with our fellow Toronto-and-area bloggers. If you’ve got a blog (or LiveJournal, MySpace or some similar thing, we’d like to see you there!
Blogstravaganza is being organized by:
Bob wrote this about the event:
As in the past, it usually makes sense to start showing up a little after 8 – but there’s people who work downtown who will probably be there earlier to grab dinner, so pretty much show up whenever the hell you want. And if you don’t recognize anyone at first – don’t leave. Just ask around, we’ll eventually find you. Last time around, we did a pretty damn good job at packing place, with people from across the political spectrum, along with bloggers who don’t have time for politics and cover everything else under the sun – wherever you stand, whatever you blog, read or talk about – come on out. We need bloggers from the left! The right! The centre! People who hate politics! people who blog about cats! And every! Body! In! Be! Tween! It’ll be good times.
I’ll be there a little before 8, and will have the accordion on hand. Perhaps I’ll even do a number in the karaoke room downstairs…
I’ve seen all sorts of variations of business card, but this one’s new to me: it’s for local trainer Poul Nielsen:
Once again, it’s Miss Fipi Lele coming through with the photos!
My heartfelt congrats to Emily and Matt, who gave birth to Ethan, a healthy baby boy. Yes, even urban hipsters reproduce!
(Deenster, you’re next!)
This morning, I attended a Technology Innovators Breakfast session at the Toronto Board of Trade as a guest of Alicia Bulwik, Project Manager of ICT Toronto. It’s a suit-y affair, held at the Toronto Board of Trade’s dining room, deep in the heart of suitland: First Canadian Place at the corner of Bay and King Streets, the centre of the Canadian financial universe.
This breakfast gathering is one of a new series in which interested parties can “hear Toronto’s industry leaders expound on their own personal success stories – why Toronto is their company’s chosen location to expand their business, and what their forecast is for the next wave of technology.” Today’s speakers were:
By my count, the event was attended by about 100 people, with a good number of IBMers in attendance, and the major banks well-represented. I sat at the ICT Toronto table, joined by a number of the ICT Toronto regulars, including my TorCamp brain trust compatriot Jay Goldman.
I found the event useful — it’s good to break out of the nerd world every now and again and see what the suits — particularly the big players like IBM, Accenture and the major financial institutions — are up to. After all, tech centres thrive when nerds meet rich people. I’d be more than happy to attend another one of these breakfast sessions and learn more.
The following is a transcription of the notes I took during the presentations. If you attended the breakfast and I missed anything in these notes or made a mistake, let me know in the comments!
And before I begin, I’d like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to Alicia Bulwik for inviting us to join the ICT Toronto table at the event. I know that I’ve been critical of ICT Toronto’s early efforts, but I look forward to assisting them reach their goal of making Toronto a world-class centre for high tech.
our technical know-how
only $10 million went to information and communication
technologies firms.
specifically for technology: 0
of the ICT community”
Even Brainhunter’s “B- and C-caliber candidates” are getting
multiple offers.
For them, merely getting a paycheque isn’t enough;
they want interesting, challenging work.
On the hiring side, there’s a high level of specificity
in what companies want: specific skills, experience and
expertise.
an obstacle.
Finding clients used to be a chore for contractors 10
years ago; now it’s a matter of calling up your favourite
recruiters. Companies like BrainHunter also help contractors
with the matter of getting paid — their HireSafe program
managed $30 million in salaries this past month. Contract working
is now a safe, viable option.
“International Business Machines” and the “IBM” acronym.
are in the Toronto area.
Canada’s largest software development facility, with
2,500 people and $350 million in R&D spending.
to transition to become a services company.
proprietary standards, they now want open solutions
built on open standards.
Think of RFID tags, home appliances, shipping containers,
roadways…
Brazil/Russia/India/China — countries)
if it were, we’d see everything in tech being commoditized
and work flowing in one direction only.
different channels, even totally different industries!
doubled in the last year.
coupled with business insight.
right here:
people in the world, and a large portion of
them are here
we have many immigrants with post-secondary
degrees.
students get started
that knowledge and experience don’t get lost when
people retire
ideas and points of view, creativity flourishes.
organization: do they all always have to be
physically located within your office?
it’s possible to simultaneously be partners, competitors,
clients and suppliers.
of them said that the majority of ideas for innovation
came from outside their companies.
and a strong ICT community is key:
do some risk-taking and risk-sharing, and collaborate.
Q [RBC Innovation person] How can the little guys — the 100-man,
200-man shops — “plug and play”, or participate in the ICT sector?
A [Dan Fortin]:
they’re the ones who’ll have more trouble adjusting to a more
collaborative environment, especially if their corporate culture
doesn’t favour collaboration.
to collaborate with.
Q [Power Logic person]: Regarding the earlier statement on how little
angel money is being spent on tech — what can leaders do to change
this situation and increase angel investment? We need that, because
it’s those “skunk works” projects that are the sources of change.
A [Dan Fortin]:
research and development and how to help government understand
the funding requirements for ICT
A [Alizabeth Calder]:
is the “fear factor”: they feel held to ransom by the techies
they invest in.
in a way that business people can understand.
(Commenter: We also need tax incentives to reduce the “fear factor” of
angel investors.)
Q [Person from Ottawa]: How do we get investors past what seems to
be their fixation — that of the “early exit”, where they want to invest in a
technology just to make some quick money and then bail? There seems to be
a low level of interest in actual commercialization, and as a result, the
attention is moving away from technology out of frustration.
A [Dan Fortin]:
through to commercialization is that there are so many stories
about terrific opportunities that eventually don’t pan out.
the $250,000 briefcase, but you held out and walked away with
a $45 one.”
A [Alizabeth Calder]:
had principals that we could look in the eye.
Q [Dave Craig, PricewaterhouseCoopers]: What’s ingredients
is Toronto missing for ICT success?
A [Dan Fortin]:
but I strongly recommend against that. Take the example of
the problem with the Detroit/Windsor corridor, through which
35% of the goods between the US and Canada flow. They did
a 4-year study of the problems, and the end result is
a task force with a 5-year window to make recommendations!
This story was being told by a Canadian Pacific Railway
exec who reminded the audience that once upon a time,
“it took us only 4 years to build a friggin’ railway
across the country!”
take on themselves.
A [Alizabeth Calder]:
without worrying whether or not they’re proprietary.
ICT community to meet each other.
Q [Host]: What do you think of the idea to close the Gardiner?
A [Dan Fortin]:
Who knew that recommendation engines could be funny? This made me laugh out loud.
Go to the Philips Norelco BG2020 Men’s Bodygroom page at Amazon.com and take a look at the “Customers who bought this item also bought” section:
Click the image to see a larger version.
(Mondo thanks to Miss Fipi Lele for the link. I cross-posted to Global Nerdy.)
One of the fun parts of my job at Tucows is coming up with interesting technology demonstrations. Here’s one called the Duke of URL, a little web app that suggests up to 100 available domain names based on a word or phrase that you provide it. You can either visit the Duke of URL page and enter your own word or phrase, or see what the Duke suggests for the following:
The Duke is written in PHP (PHP 5, but it’s compatible with PHP 4) and makes use of Tucows’ OpenSRS API for provisioning and managing domain names. I wrote it to showcase the NAME SUGGEST API call that was recently added to OpenSRS and to demonstrate one possible use. Over the next few weeks, I plan to post the code along with explanatory notes as well as upgrade the Duke to some other possible applications, including mash-ups, over at the Tucows Blog.
If you use the Duke and find a domain name you’d like to buy but don’t know how to order one, drop me a line and I’ll give you a hand.