Just as we were approaching our 2nd anniversary in October, we hit the threshold of 500 members. Today, just two months later, we’re effectively at 600 members (or at 600+ by the time this post goes live), another 20% growth.
This is truly remarkable and spawns the question, how many members will we have at our 3-year anniversary? Because of what we’re collectively accomplishing, today we had an article published about Silicon Halton in the Oakville Beaver (link: http://bit.ly/sHAd26). Cool. The Silicon Halton community continually inspires Chris and I to carry the message about the great hi tech stuff going right here, in our back yards. – Rick
There have been many papers and articles written about the importance of R&D, continued product development and the role of constant innovation within a company; however, without top-line revenues, all those R&D efforts are in vain.
We have seen and been involved in a number of start-ups that built a product, and rather than pushing hard to sell and market the product they have chosen instead to put sales and marketing efforts on the back burner while they continue to put the majority of focus and limited cash flow into further developing or in some cases “perfecting” the product. The latter rarely ever happens because even the best products continue to get better over time. One analogy to live by is that if you are not slightly embarrassed by your first product, you have not sold it soon enough.
The number of companies that have spent time burning their start-up investment, whether self-funded, angel or VC, on R&D and then with 6 months of cash left decide they need to start generating revenue is very, very long. Don’t be one of these firms. Revenue generation should be more than just a thought, it should be integrated into the entire lifecycle of your R&D efforts – you should always be selling. In some cases, this may mean searching for pilot project opportunities or networking to seed the market or simply doing some work on social media to create a buzz. Then assume over the initial 12 to 18 months sales revenues will be limited, so give yourself enough time to get ramped up. No matter which way you cut and slice it, and even if you are really lucky, it will take 12 to 18 months to see the results of a sustained sales and marketing efforts, particularly around B2B products. Buying cycles are long; decision makers leave, corporate priorities change and in the midst of this, you still need to keep pounding away with the game plan of building a big enough sales funnel that you don’t care who closes, someone will due to sheer numbers. We are huge believers that sales is a process and a science much more than it is an art.
Ultimately, your success will hinge on you generating revenue, so don’t get stuck in the R&D rut, get your product to a point that it works and can be sold and then start doing just that – selling it! Once you get some traction and clients, work to continue to better it.
If you read this and the situation sounds familiar and you need some sales and marketing horsepower to help, call us. We would love the opportunity to discuss how we may be able to help.
For more information on Venture Accelerator Partners and how we can help with your sales and marketing efforts, visit our website.
In 1994, Robin Smith and Scott Beaver started Virtual Logistics Inc. in Montreal to continue a business that a division of CN was walking away from. They assisted companies in integrating the data from their EDI-based financial transactions into a variety of accounting software systems. In fact, Virtual Logistics was one of the first to enter the EDI integration game. But soon a series of “clouds” came upon their business and they needed to learn to respond quickly if they were going to continue.
One of the minor annoyances in OSX is its error messaging. We’re all used to seeing error messages like:
The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -1309).
Thanks. That’s helpful.
The message tells us nothing, but it turns out that it’s pretty easy to learn more from the error number. All you have to do is type one line into Terminal. Open Terminal (in Applications > Utilities) and type the macerror command followed by the error number:
macerror -1309
The macerror command for error -1309 returns:
Mac OS error -1309 (fileBoundsErr): file’s EOF, offset, mark or size is too big
This gives us a hint that the file we’re trying to work with is actually too big for the filesystem to handle (a very big file indeed considering that the old Mac HFS filesystem had a file size limit of 2 gigabytes, FAT32 is limited to 4GB and Mac HFS+ is limited to 8 exabytes – so big as to be practically unlimited). We can’t do much about the filesystem limit, but at least we can stop banging our heads against the desk trying to figure out why that file won’t open.
The macerror command may not decipher every error number you encounter. If it fails, you can always search for the error in MacErrors.h.
Give these tools a try next time you run into a mysterious error. You’ll save yourself some time and headaches and you might learn a little more about your Mac.
Silicon Halton member – Javelin Technologies – officially opened its new Oakville headquarters on Tuesday, August 23rd, giving clients and other interested parties a look at some of the amazing things happening within the 12,000 square-foot facility…… Read more in the Inside Hatlon news story
I’ve been asked how I decided on an Android phone and how I finally settled on the Atrix. For me, it was a pretty short selection process.
I need my business email, I need access to my client’s exchange email, I use GPS a LOT, my focus is not playing ‘games’ or ‘social media’ but getting work done. I want a reasonably priced plan. Lots of minutes and because I live on the phone for my job, no extra long distance charges are a must. This helps me budget my phone expense and typically I spend between landline and cell phone about 2500 minutes a month on the phone.
Over the past year, I have been increasingly upset by the lackings of my RIM and even more disappointed at the upcoming potential replacements. I have had 3 RIM’s and I noticed that RIM just was not keeping up with the Joneses. It really is pretty much the exact same phone, with the exact same features that I have had for 6 years. I have read a number of recent reviews stating that RIM has consistently underpowered their devices. I think the big hit to RIM was when one of my clients loaded the new OS6 and it broke most of the features on his phone. When he called for support he was told “Sir, your phone is almost a year old”. While my RIM device did some things great in my opinion, RIM just did not keep pace with the market. I’d almost go as far as saying that it has become out of touch with the consumer and unfortunately too big to react quickly. I decided in September that my next device would not be a RIM product.
I have had a Windows CE based phones in the past, and unfortunately when we heard the Windows Phone 7 presentation a few months back, the number of “it’s not ready but it will be coming soon” items – especially features that for me were critical need – brought up old bad memories. I’m sure that by 2012, it will be amazing, but I needed a solution now.
I don’t know why, but I absolutely hate the iPhone. I have listened to friends and colleagues. They either LOVE the iPhone or they HATE the iPhone. There seems to be no middle ground. I think what may be my stumbling block is the idea that I bought something and now the vendor tells me what I can and cannot do and locks me into what they think is best for me. Yea, I could jailbreak it, but that is at best a nuisance, and at worst an affront to my technical savvy. When the new iPhone 4 came out, a colleague dropped the phone and the entire casing shattered. It seems that they have made the front and back from glass to get that special iPhone 4 look and that to me was a recipe for disaster. There have been some sacrifices to durability in favour of a really cool look. Conversely, another person I have spoken to loves the iPhone because he does not have to do anything, it just works out of the box.
I started looking at Android devices in January, and I liked what I saw. My brother had just got the new Samsung Galaxy S and it was pretty nice. I was thinking I might have found my new phone here. I spent the next couple months reading reviews and invested in an Android tablet to see what the platform could do. I liked what I saw, but was still not completely sold as I wanted better graphics, better power, more memory – the typical IT techie stuff. The Dual Core Motorola Atrix has a responsive platform, amazing graphics and with 16 GB onboard and another 32 GB available by micro SD, it seemed to be a good option.
From here, I hit the review boards to learn everything I could about alternatives, but kept coming back to the Atrix. For my needs, the device looked like it would meet both wants and needs. Now, almost 2 months in, it continues to amaze me. Since the last newsletter, Android surpassed Apple on “Free” apps in its app store, and is rapidly gaining ground on the paid apps.
It also leverages the technology in ways that are reminiscent of something from science fiction. It is, in my opinion, a “bleeding edge” device. I know that alone will turn many people off as there are always issues with being at the front of the curve. For me, right now anyway, it is as much about the making it do what I want as the serving my needs.
Will I still feel the same in 2 years? Only time will tell how good a choice this has really been. See the first post on this topic here.
About the Silicon Halton Blogger
Joel has 33 years experience consulting on data integration, B2B, B2C, EDI, ERP, and specialized software solutions for small business in Canada, USA, and throughout the Caribbean. He has experience with retail supply chain, franchiser software, metered billing and homegrown software solutions. Joel Baines, PMP. joel.baines@cogeco.ca
It has been about a month now, and I am enjoying my new Android based Motorola Atrix. For those who keep score, Google announced April 28th that the Android Market just surpassed the number of free apps in the Apple App Store. [Just like with Apple however there are a lot of apps that I personally have no use for and subscribe to what I call “The Because I Can School Of Development”.] Pretty much, most of what Apple has available in the app store is also available in the Android Market. There are however 3 additional app stores out there so unlike Apple, I have choice where I shop.
My new phone has a fingerprint security system, handles my email (including Exchange) needs, has all kinds of kitchy gadgets for the techy and I find it just plain fun. It also has a great feature for those of us who tend to lose things. Even when in silent mode, I can send a signal to my phone to ‘ring loudly’ to help me find it. If it is stolen, I can either wipe the system remotely and/or even brick it.
My phone is location aware [seeing as the GPS chip in all phones has been reporting my location for years – now I get something] When I get into my car, it turns off my WI-FI and turns it back on when I get out. When I am home, it connects to my home WI-FI and at the office my business WiLAN to save on my mobile data. It knows when I am at my trailer and shuts down WI-FI and the ringer for anyone but family and friends. It knows what day of the week it is and blocks calls except for family and friends [and flagged clients]. At night, it does not ring or ding any alerts except from family. Alarms however are unaffected, so I can always get a wakeup call or a meeting alarm reminder.
It reads and updates word, excel and powerpoint files as well as reading PDF’s with a nifty inexpensive app and it, as I found out yesterday, sends me Environment Canada weather alerts thru Weather Bug if hazardous weather conditions are anticipated [again tailored to my phone’s location at the time].
There is lots of power behind this Dual Core machine and apps are quite responsive. Battery life could be enhanced, but I am told that a patch was just released for AT&T Atrix users that improves things people complained about. I suspect Bell will get the patches after Verizon and T-Mobile. As with any new bleeding edge technology there are glitches, but I am finding that the pluses outweight the minuses.
The unit can be hooked to a display or TV thru a HDMI cable and can play video in full 1080p resolution. The display screen is clear for a handheld device and is also capable of incredibly clear crisp video.
I’m not sure if the Android Phone is for everyone, I’d actually hate to think it is. Nevertheless, my technically challenged sister has got one as well and I guess it can’t be all that hard if she is embracing it. Like hard core Apple, Windows Phone 7 & Blackberry users, Android has a particular following. I have been a hardcore BB user for about 10 years, but this phone has won me over to/from the dark side [depending on your point of view].
About the Silicon Halton Blogger
Joel has 33 years experience consulting on data integration, B2B, B2C, EDI, ERP, and specialized software solutions for small business in Canada, USA, and throughout the Caribbean. He has experience with retail supply chain, franchiser software, metered billing and homegrown software solutions. Joel Baines, PMP. joel.baines@cogeco.ca
There are many reasons why Halton is a great place to live and work and the “Reasons Why Series” of blog posts will share some with you. I’ve lived in Oakville for 18 years now and it’s one of the best places I’ve ever lived to raise a family. As it turns out, according to Today’s Parent:
as two of the best places to live and raise a family.
About the Author
Chris Herbert is the founder of Mi6. Mi6 is a B2B (Business to Business) marketing agency and network dedicated to helping companies build their brands and develop commercial relationships. He is the founder of ProductCamp Toronto and the new Hi-tech “unassociation” Silicon Halton. He tweets under the handle @B2Bspecialist
Canadian VC’s on Tech Start-ups and the Changing Climate for VC Funding in Canada
Deloitte, one of Canada’s leading professional service firms, which conducts an annual Global Venture Capital Survey, published some disconcerting numbers last fall when they released the results of the 2010 edition. The survey measures the opinions of VC’s from around the world, and asks each one about their country’s investment climate and future outlook. The survey identified perhaps the biggest challenge facing the start-up industry in Canada: fewer investors with less capital.
After speaking with people like Martin-Luc Archambault at Wajam, a successful entrepreneur/angel investor, I was getting a sense that there was another side to Canada’s start-up investment story than we being told in the survey results and in the news: a much more positive story. But I needed more validation.
Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner at iNovia Capital, and Board of Directors Observer at Well.ca, helped break down the negative overtones of Canada’s start-up climate for someone like me… a writer with very little VC investment know-how.
In the VC survey, two thirds (66%) of Canadian respondents expect the number of venture firms in Canada to decrease between now and 2015, while a great majority of VC’s in China, India and Brazil anticipate adding more venture firms in their country during the same time frame. And half of the Canadian survey respondents saw a decline in the size of investment funding from venture capital over the next five years. In fact, 11% predicted a decline of more than 30%, the second worst outlook of any country surveyed.
“The Canadian VC industry is changing,” Chris explains. “The composition of the teams that form the general partners of Canadian funds being raised today are somewhat more entrepreneurial than in the past, and more driven by their own experiences as operators than by financial backgrounds.”
He says its true that Canada is seeing less new VC funds being formed. Yet, Canada is also seeing VC funds come together with way more industry expertise in the teams and these new fund managers also have more capital under management than in the past. “So less VC’s, but more expertise, reach, and capital that goes at work into promising Canadian tech companies.”
The advantage Canada has, as Chris sees it, is that we are still a small community, highly educated, and driven by innovation in a country that has been built by entrepreneurs. He believes we need to pool our resources to support Canadian entrepreneurs and build global companies, starting right here in our backyards. Just the sort of thing Sprouter, Maple Leaf Digital Lounge, Wajam, Well, Pushlife, Mobisandbox and Tokii are working together to do.
These last few weeks, I’ve spoken with experienced VCs and fresh thinking CEOs on my way to discovering more about the start-up climate in Canada. The many driven, creative and experienced people committed to helping start-ups find funding here in Canada all seem share the spirit that things are changing for the better.
This is a big year for Tokii, and we’re glad that we’re not going it alone. We want to thank all of our friends and partners in Canada and around the world who are helping turn this little Canadian start-up into a global phenomenon. Tokii is all about relationships, and we have already made some great ones.
About the Guest Blogger
Anton Tolstoy is a member of the BC College of Teachers and enjoys passing on his knowledge of Social Studies and Humanities. He knows how to dig deep behind the front page to discover the facts, and is passionate about intellectual freedom and the power of words to make real change in people’s lives. Anton is a guest blogger for Oakville based Tokii, and his other posts can be found at blog.tokii.com. The posts here are reprinted with permission.
Homegrown Start-ups That Prove You Don’t Have To “Move Out” To Be Successful
Tokii loves Canada. We’re not ashamed to admit it.
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and thriving across Canada. I believe it is part of our Canadian identity. Just look at the long list of successful Canadian inventors and entrepreneurs.
Through the efforts of groups like Maple Leaf Digital Lounge and Sprouter, Canadian entrepreneurs are getting better at working together and getting more support than ever before. This week, I want to introduce you to some of the Canadian entrepreneurs behind the invigorating start-up spirit in Canada.
In Guelph, ON Ali Asaria, a former Research In Motion software engineer who created the famously addictive BlackBerry game BrickBreaker, embarked upon his own start-up Well.ca in 2007. Canada’s largest online health and beauty store was actually created in a closet in the back of Ali’s dad’s pharmacy. The next year Well.ca received the National Angel Organization award for being the best angel-funded start-up in Canada.
With support from Managing Director of Facebook Canada, and co-founder of Thunder Road CapitalJordan Banks, Well.ca has become on of the fastest growing companies in Canada.
In Montreal, Martin-Luc Archambault, CEO and Co-founder at Wajam.com may have an edge up on many Canadian start-ups because he doubles as an angel investor at Anges Quebec. Wajam is an ingenious service that merges your social networks like Facebook and Twitter to your searches in Google or Bing. So if you search for say “location-based apps” and a friend or contact Tweeted a link to a great location app earlier, it will appear above Google’s search hits. Brilliant!
Martin-Luc says that Canadian start-ups often struggle to find investors with the capital to make those large but often risky investments and sees a stronger Canadian start-up community as way to establish those connections. “U.S. companies are great at cross-promoting,” Martin explains. “They create momentum by using, and talking about each other’s products.” By adopting a similar culture of cross-promotional support, Canadian VC’s will be more willing to take risks on someone who is supported by a strong community of successful entrepreneurs.
So what about those VC’s? What do they have to say about Canadian start-ups and our entrepreneurial spirit? Stay tuned for the second half of my interviews with Canadian CEO’s and VC’s as I have them weigh on our investment climate in Venture Capital 2.0: Canadian VC’s ON Tech Start-ups And The Changing Face of Canada VC Funding.
About the Guest Blogger
Anton Tolstoy is a member of the BC College of Teachers and enjoys passing on his knowledge of Social Studies and Humanities. He knows how to dig deep behind the front page to discover the facts, and is passionate about intellectual freedom and the power of words to make real change in people’s lives. Anton is a guest blogger for Oakville based Tokii, and his other posts can be found at blog.tokii.com. The posts here are reprinted with permission.
The iPad app referenced in the article is a client for VMware’s “VMware View” virtual desktop application. This VMware offering competes with similar offerings from HP, Citrix, Oracle, Microsoft, Netware, and a number of others. VMware View has been around for a few years now and offerings from competitors pre-date that. It is not a virtualization environment for iPad the way VMware Desktop is a virtualization environment for desktop or laptop computers.
The VMware View client connects to a VMware View Server over whatever network infrastructure is available. The main idea behind virtualized desktops is similar to benefits incurred through most virtualization. Instead of having to maintain a fleet of “fat clients” or full-fledged computers, an enterprise would deploy a series of “thin clients” which only have enough resources to communicate mouse moves, keystrokes, and screen refreshes between the thin client and the back end server. The processing is done on a virtual desktop environment hosted on the server. This is very much like accessing a regular server via Remote Desktop Protocol, except in this case, the point is to access a full desktop environment where an end user can do all their work instead of just performing administration tasks on the server. Having all the “desktop environments” – really like virtualized PC’s – together on a server offers advantages for maintenance, security, and disaster recovery that all translate into cost savings for the enterprise. Further savings come from the fact that thin clients are less expensive to acquire as well as being much easier and therefore less expensive to maintain than full PC’s. They also have fewer security issues as they are designed to give very granular control over what if any peripherals can be interfaced. In fact, USB device support at the local thin client is a relatively recent addition to virtualized desktop environments.
Citrix was the one who really pioneered this market space, as they had a server solution that used a browser client to accomplish this when “virtualization” as we understand it today wasn’t even really on the horizon. Next, the browsers running on full-fledged PC’s were replaced by thin clients. Now that virtualization has become commonplace for servers in the datacenter, it has extended into the desktop environment and converged back into the virtual desktop space.
Virtual desktops are a good solution for many applications, but often don’t scale well enough for things like music and graphics/video processing. The resource-light thin clients often don’t have displays or video interfaces that lend themselves to high-end graphic work. As well, the large amounts of data involved with high-end graphic or video processing tend to stress the network infrastructures that connect the thin clients to the virtual desktop server.
While the article suggests that the VMware View client will allow the iPad to gain ground in the business environment, I believe that this is only partly true. Definitely, some job functions would benefit greatly from having a tablet-based mobile device from which you can access a full desktop environment, but certainly not all. It’s really a question of the interface. For example, any function which requires a lot of data input requires a physical keyboard, unless the input can be presented in a standard format with pick lists and very little actual free-form text entry. Yes, there are portable Bluetooth keyboards that can bridge this gap for tablets, but then why not have a lightweight laptop or even a netbook? All you lose is the touch interface. A great deal of the video presentation in the article focuses on how certain control keys are translated into the touch interface of the tablet. Remember that even though it’s virtualized, the desktop environment remains the same as the desktops on full PC’s and was designed for a keyboard-and-mouse interface.
Tablets have some distinct advantages and are currently “the latest thing” in IT. Their intuitive touch interfaces do very well in applications where the main focus is on accessing and presenting information. When tasks start to involve editing or creating content – especially text content – things start to change. I predict that, similar to the netbooks of recent experience, people will find that their application is not universal. They will work very well in some applications, but will not be selected for others. There will be the matter of personal preference where some people will prefer the touch interface of a tablet to the keyboard and mouse interface of a laptop or desktop. As an aside, I think it will be interesting to see if touch screen laptops and PC’s will make inroads into traditional market share. It really is the touch interface that creates all the buzz. Tablets are portable, but so are laptops and netbooks – it just depends on your resource requirements and your budget. My chiropractor has set up her office using touch screen PC’s running an integrated practice management suite. That’s just one example of where a touch screen works well. I wouldn’t see it working well in an environment like the rank-and-file workers in a law firm where the business needs to create and edit large volumes of documentation for contracts, legal filings, etc.
While this news is exciting for some, it is not necessarily practical in a wider context.
About the Author
Silicon Halton member Paul Robinson is Infrastructure Manager with Avante Solutions, Inc with 25 years experience in IT, hardware and software solutions.
In a survey conducted by CareerBuilder 45% of Employers said they use social media to research job candidates. So how do you turn the tables and use these same tools to research employers, market yourself effectively and professionally build and leverage your network? In this recent presentation to IEEE group members, coordinated by Silicon Halton member Leyden Martinez-Fonte, my colleague Ashley Stevens and I addressed these questions.
Avoiding the Perils of Social Media
Social media can be a powerful tool that can be used to create a marketing campaign to promote you, your career accomplishments and your expertise and as many unemployed Facebook users can attest, it can also be very detrimental when not used with a proper filter. In the same CareerBuilder survey 35% of Employers responded that they have chosen not to hire candidates based on content they found on their social networking profiles. So how do you leverage these tools and avert the minefields?
Building Your Personal Marketing Campaign
Shaping and building the public image you want to portray to potential employers is much like designing a marketing campaign or selling a product. Make a list of your features and benefits, determine your customer (employer) demographic and decide how you want to strategically promote yourself and create your brand. Building a resume or a LinkedIn profile is a great place to start. By taking a step by step walk through your career history and accomplishments you are able paint a better picture of what you’ve done and what you can do. LinkedIn is an effective, professional promotional platform that has multiple tools that allow you to display your expertise and build a strategic network that can connect you to the Hiring Manager or influencer at the company you are seeking employment from. In addition, when an Employer or Recruiter is searching for their next hire, the time you’ve invested into building a full profile and marketing yourself could increase your chances of getting found and making an impactful first impression in what has now become the 1st phase of the interview stage.
Always Remember (more than ever) Big Brother is Watching
Regardless of whether you choose to Tweet, Facebook or Link up to promote yourself and find your dream job, always do so conscientiously. Indiscriminate pictures and comments you post anywhere on the internet can be searched on and found long after you’ve hit the delete button and assumed they dissipated into cyberspace. Despite the potential for negative press, social media has provided incredible empowerment to the job seeker to provide a full 360 degree view of their capabilities and individuality as opposed to being just another piece of paper to be shuffled through on an Employer’s desk. Take advantage of Social Media by leveraging all the available tools to promote yourself strategically and professionally.
Our Presentation to IEEE: Job Hunting Web 2.0 Style
Tanya Lunshof is a member of Silicon Halton. She is an Accounts Representative with Waggware, an IT Talent Management & Services company focused on the Utilities Industry. Tanya has 10 years of Customer Service and Sales experience in Retail, Transportation & Staffing & 3 years of Recruitment expertise. She utilizes Social Media extensively to Recruit, Network &Prospect. You can connect with Tanya on Linkedin & Twitter.
I’m a digital dad with one main focus – I want to provide opportunities for my son and daughter to discover and become who and what they want to be.
I’m also very selfish
I want to know what my kids are doing, be interested in it and be excited about it.
I want them to understand how to work through problems and discover new ways of thinking.
I want to help them celebrate their successes and be there when they need a little help or a nudge in the right direction.
I want my kids to do something they love.
I want them to spend their time accomplishing things they are proud of, growing their own families, and having lunch with me.
I want to share ideas with my kids, compare notes on cool stuff and have them teach me about all the amazing things they discover in their virtual and real world travels.
I want them to outgrow my interests and my limitations.
I want them to help me discover new ideas.
I want them close to home. Now. When they are in college or university. AND when they are adults creating opportunities for themselves and for others.
I like robots
I like robots. So do my kids. I still remember my first robot, it sucked the power out of a stack of ‘D’ cells in about 10 minutes. It lit up like a Christmas tree and walked in a straight line across the floor. It bumped into walls and got stuck under furniture. It didn’t do much, really, but it was amazing. It was the future. It was space travel. It was ‘Martians landing in the living room’. It was fun to take it apart. It was fun to figure out how it worked. It was fun to put it back together. I’m a nerd.
Can parents inspire?
As parents, we want to think we can inspire our kids to greatness. But to inspire, we need to be great teachers. Sometimes we are, but sometimes we’re not smart enough, or good enough, or patient enough. That’s when we need to understand our limits and look for help.
Fast-Forward
Fast-forward a few years … while looking for a suitable venue for our son’s 10th birthday party, my wife and I came across a place in Oakville called FastCats. We walked in and … wow! They had an amazing indoor remote control race track — it was huge, and it looked like a lot of fun. We signed up and the party was a big hit. Not long afterwards, FastCats started a new club called eBots – they offered summer camps focused on building Lego® robots. Enough said.
My kids are nerds, I blame it on eBOTS
It’s four years later. My 14 year old son and 13 year old daughter are still:
Designing, building and programming robots
Preparing and presenting detailed projects that aim to provide solutions to complex transportation and medical problems
Working closely with like-minded techno-kids
Learning about and engaging in skill-enhancing teamwork
Documenting projects and posting details in photos, blog posts and videos online
Researching and learning from experts in many different fields (many are parents of other eBots kids!)
Sharing insights and discoveries with the community
Taking part in regional and provincial competitions
Learning through trial and error
And loving it. They are growing fast, gaining confidence through meeting and exceeding technical and creative challenges. Every week. About 15 minutes from home in Oakville. They’ve learned problem solving skills and a ton about technology, but, more importantly, they’ve learned how to lead and be part of a team. They’ve been inspired.
A little about eBots
The race never slows down at eBOTS / FASTCATS
I caught up with John and Pam, owners and operators of eBots and FastCats, a few days after 3 of the 4 teams they entered in First® Lego® League competitions walked away with the top 3 honours (out of 50 competing teams) at the provincial finals, taking trophies as Provincial Champions, 2nd Place Grand Champions and Robot Mechanical Design winners.
Like so many small, entrepreneurial businesspeople — with or without a technology focus – John and Pam are constantly busy, simultaneously running, promoting and growing their business. Hot on the heels of the FLL competition wins, John and Pam were “getting ready for [a trip to] Florida, madly programming and running Friday night Lego™ club, plus, the next day, running a full day of club sessions AND 3 remote control racing birthday parties”.
Even with all of this on the go, they found a little precious time to answer a few questions and help me tell you what eBots is all about.
BILL: How did eBots get started?
PAM: “We owned FastCats [an indoor remote control race track] and needed to bring in some extra summer revenue — racing was quiet in the summer months, the building sat empty for the days of July and August — so I suggested to John that we either rent the space out to a summer camp or do one of our own. John had experience with programming and technology, and we had experience with Lego® robotics from opportunities our children had taken advantage of at River Oaks Public School in Oakville. So it was a natural fit to set up eBots and give it a try.”
BILL: What do kids learn at eBots?
PAM: “We assume that the children who sign up will already love to build with Lego®. But, our mission is to engage children in designing, building and programming a Lego® robot through active, creative and meaningful learning. We enable kids to explore science, technology, engineering and math in a fun, hands–on way while allowing them to excel in their ability to problem solve, stimulate critical thinking, communicate and work in groups. Our intent is to create a life-long hobby that combines learning and play! We’ve received many comments from parents about how different their children’s approach to a problem is after working through a variety of programming issues. It’s great, we want the kids to be challenged and encounter ‘problems’ so they can learn and discover real life applications in the results. We spend a lot of time on teamwork too – providing situations where social interaction and ways of dealing with conflict help develop collaboration skills.”
BILL: How do kids apply what they learn at eBots?
PAM: “The logical order of programming leads naturally into so many other areas of life — organization, problem solving, time management, strategy, construction and design principles — there is always something new to learn! Our hands-on approach has so many advantages — we firmly believe that in order to truly learn science, the kids must ‘do’ science. It must be fun and clearly result in developing the curiosity, competency, creativity and caring of the kids that are involved in it. And it doesn’t stop when the kids go home — they often work in groups on school teams, projects and homework assignments. As their skills grow, the kids can get involved in our First® Lego® League competitive teams as well. They can even work their way up to mentoring other teams as they get older — many of our more experienced kids volunteer with us in the summer and become expert enough to, potentially, extend their interest into helping a neighbourhood school or Lego® club. “
BILL: What is First® Lego® League (FLL)?
PAM: “The First® Lego® League website at http://www.firstlegoleague.org sums it up pretty well.” From the First® Lego® League website:
“Every year in September, FLL releases a Challenge, which is based on a real-world scientific topic. Each Challenge has two parts: the Robot Game and the Project. Teams of up to ten children, with one adult coach, participate in the Challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game) and developing a solution to a problem they have identified (Project). Teams may then choose to attend an official tournament, hosted by one of our Operational Partners. Past Challenges have been based on topics such as nanotechnology, climate, quality of life for the handicapped population, and transportation. By designing our Challenges around such topics, participants are exposed to potential career paths within a chosen Challenge topic, in addition to solidifying the STEM principles that naturally come from participating in a robotics program. Team members also learn valuable life and employment skills which will benefit them no matter which career path they choose.”
BILL: How would you describe the experience your students gain from taking part in First® Lego® League?
PAM: “This is HUGE — I think they get everything we’ve talked about and more. They work closely together for 11 weeks to prepare both a robot and a team project. The teamwork aspect is one of the most important parts of the competition – more important, in fact, than the performance of the robot. Time management becomes more and more important as weeks progress – they really have a very limited amount of time. But I think above all, the kids want, and in some cases, feel a strong need to do well and excel, certainly with the senior teams this is there! The competition is very important to them, being able to measure themselves against the others, really feeling proud of what they have accomplished. And they love being surrounded by other children who think the way they do. At the competitions, hundreds of robot lovers gather … to play, learn and enjoy. “
BILL: How do you think your work with kids may be contributing to building Halton into a global hub for technology innovation and entrepreneurship?
PAM: “We offer what we wish every child had the opportunity to get in school, like our children did. For those that cannot take part in a Lego™ club at school, we are here. At the very least we hope we are turning more kids on to the idea of ‘thinking’ as an alternative to passively watching TV and playing video games. In our clubs, kids can design and built robots that perform specific tasks and meet specific goals, then play with them, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and work to make them better. They can take their robots apart and rebuild them as many times as they want. They learn through doing – trying and failing, and trying again. And they see that failing is often the only way to make progress and succeed in the end. They are challenged and have fun at the same time!”
Great People, Big Hearts, Great Insights….Fantastic Teachers
The work Pam and John have been doing with kids is going to go a long way towards not just inspiring, but actually building the next generation of technology innovators, pioneers and champions in Halton. They inspire kids, and they inspire parents, working tirelessly to prepare kids for First® Lego® League competitions. Even after the competitions, the learning never stops. We need to uncover more technology gems like eBots, close to home.
Are you a Techie?
Are you a techie? Are your kids techies? What do you like to do with your kids? How do you inspire them? How do they inspire you? Are they future technology entrepreneurs? Please leave a comment and let me know.
About John, Technology and eBOTS
John is the NXT brick at the heart of eBots, an Oakville-based club that teaches kids problem solving skills, teamwork and how to design, build and program robots. John started as a programmer after attending the University of Waterloo in computer studies. He taught computer classes for children and adults at the Ontario Science Centre in the early 80’s, then worked as a contract programmer for a short time before joining MacKenzie Financial Corp. as a full time programmer in 1990. At MacKenzie, John’s people skills and team management style helped him rapidly progress to the position of Chief Information Officer. He set aside corporate pursuits in 2007, after 17 years of dedicated service, diving headfirst into a successful side-business — FastCats race track in Oakville — taking a long-needed break and a couple of years to figure out what to do next. During that time, eBots was born
eBots courses run after school and on Saturdays in the Fall, Winter and Spring, with full and half-day camps in the Summer. eBots and FastCats RC birthday parties are located at 220 Wyecroft Rd., Unit 101, Oakville. For more information, contact info@ebots.ca or call 905 337 1299.
About the Silicon Halton blogger
Bill Rasmussen is an anomalous entrepreneurial nerd. He has worked his way through a progression of intensely creative and technical positions (most involving the use of computers in some capacity), from professional musician to draughtsman, designer for theatre, videographer and video editor, business manager, product developer, graphic artist, web designer, web developer and programmer, UX designer, data modeller, project manager, team builder, product manager and marketer. He is currently Digital & eMarketing Manager for a massively successful educational publisher and technology solution provider with over 35,000 brilliant team members grouped conveniently together in offices around the world. Bill occasionally finds time to write meandering posts that are way too long to fit anywhere but on the web. This is definitely not a tweet!
I had the pleasure of attending an educational seminar on December 14th, 2010 hosted by Silicon Halton at Sheridan College. The focus of the meeting was on Doing Business In The US. The main speaker was Mary C. St. Mary, Trade Commissioner at Canadian Consulate General of Buffalo. She spent time telling us about the resources available to Canadian companies who wanted to do business in the US. There was also a panel of individuals from companies who are members of Silicon Halton who conduct business currently across borders who shared their insights and experiences with the group.
One of the topics that came up during the meeting is that rules for doing business on both sides of the border are changing rapidly. The current economic climate is making near bankrupt states and counties look for new sources of revenue. We were all shocked to discover that many states have legislation pending to govern doing business from outside their state. While not explicitly stated, it was implied that other Canadian provinces were also looking at new regulations. These new regulations have come out of the digital age where selling goods and services across borders is a given. If not in place already, many are looking at taxation and representation issues for companies outside their state. Some states are requiring a US presence, if not a direct presence within their state, to ensure that regional and state taxes, as well as federal taxes, are remitted.
Several members do business selling goods or services internationally, usually without actually leaving the country. These goods and services took many formats, but most were in the form of some kind of e-commerce. The tone of the questions they raised was one of “but I am very small, I am probably not even on anyone’s radar. The speaker and panel members responded, “You are probably right … for the moment … but as state and regional governments expand their search for new sources of income you will pop up sooner or later.” The implication was also made that when they come knocking, they could be looking for their due retroactively.
Mary stated that companies and individuals needed to contact the office of the Secretary of State in each state you want to do business [as well as federally] and find out what taxation and business rules applied to them. When it comes to taxation, the rules change not only for the federal aspect, but state to state and even county to county. There are places where the tax rate on one side of the street is different from the other because the county line goes down the middle of the road. If you are doing business state to state, region to region, or country to country, it is your responsibility to find out the rules before the IRS or other state or regional taxation body comes knocking at your door.
Other rules also apply. Doing business in the US also requires that you operate and obey federal and state rules and regulations like the US Patriot Act. If you are a Canadian company or doing business in Canada, you also need to follow Canadian rules, like PIPEDA [Personal Information Protection & Electronic Documents Act]. For the most part, compliance with PIPEDA covers the core of the Patriot Act; however, some sections actually have regulations that are in conflict with the US Patriot Act. These usually come in the format of philosophical undertones – “The Government’s Right To Know To Protect The Public (US)” vs. “The Individual’s Right To Privacy (Canada)”.
One big issue that did not come up which impacts doing business internationally is the requirement that credit card information cannot cross the border without full disclosure. While it seems common sense that a company doing business in the US from Canada the credit card information is going to cross the border to complete the transaction, it is a requirement you explicitly state that this will happen. Since this information passes electronically, you are charged with a responsibility to protect that information thru encryption and secure data channels throughout the transaction. Harsh penalties exist for companies who fail to ensure with 100% certainty that the information is not compromised or intercepted. Many companies outsource these transactions to companies like PayPal so they do not even handle the credit card information themselves mitigating their risk. I believe you will likely find these relationships also evolve so that companies like PayPal also handle the ‘taxes’ and they just become another line item on the invoice.
Whether you are based in Canada, UK, Australia, or even in the US, doing business across borders [be they international or regional] is becoming more complex and costly – but the economic potential is also huge.
About the Silicon Halton Blogger
Joel has 33 years experience consulting on data integration, B2B, B2C, EDI, ERP, and specialized software solutions for small business in Canada, USA, and throughout the Caribbean. He has experience with retail supply chain, franchiser software, metered billing and homegrown software solutions. Joel Baines, PMP. joel.baines@cogeco.ca
Sekey Vincent is the co-founder of Jelly Bean Solutions. Jelly Bean Solutions offers interactive web marketing and ecommerce solutions. Sekey is a member of Silicon Halton.
Here’s what we talked about in this 15 minute interview:
Why the name Jelly Bean Solutions?
Sekey talks about what Jelly Bean offers and makes reference to some recent work including: Rosie’s Tea Party and the Williams Fresh Cafe Coffee Pub Franchise in Oakville.
Sekey describes what her experience has been like as a member of Silicon Halton and the value of joining this hitech community. So far it includes developing a new site for Silicon Halton member Digital Defence and a colaborative project with Mi6 called The Extreme Web Makeover Program.
Special Bonus: Off Air Question
Chris: Can you provide some insights on how companies can use the web today to help grow their business and be more successful? Sekey: Exposing your brand is an important marketing element of your business, but it can also take a long time to accomplish. It takes people a good 10-15 times seeing your logo and branded look before it might actually click in their heads, ‘oh, I’ve seen that before, hmmm, I wonder what they do?’ The familiarity that you are creating as you build recognition towards your brand will create better receptiveness towards using your products and services.
For those who are committed to their business, getting your brand right and share it early can give your company a competitive edge. Having a website allows your business to communicate information, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The ability for someone to purchase your products or services on-line can be done any time of the day, and with minimal overhead. We have moved into an era where people want instant information and instant results. Websites provide that. When a business is not available on the internet, the marketplace for that business is limited by where it is available, when it is available, and who it is available to. Don’t limit your opportunities. Contact Jelly Bean Solutions for more information about developing your on-line business.
About the Interviewer
Chris Herbert is the founder of Mi6. Mi6 is a B2B (Business to Business) marketing agency and network dedicated to helping companies build their brands and develop commercial relationships. He is the founder of ProductCamp Toronto and the new Hi-tech “unassociation” Silicon Halton. He tweets under the handle @B2Bspecialist
Just as we were approaching our 2nd anniversary in October, we hit the threshold of 500 members. Today, just two months later, we’re effectively at 600 members (or at 600+ by the time this post goes live), another 20% growth. 
One of the minor annoyances in OSX is its error messaging. We’re all used to seeing error messages like:
Silicon Halton member – 
I’ve been asked how I decided on an Android phone and how I finally settled on the Atrix. For me, it was a pretty short selection process. 
Joel has 33 years experience consulting on data integration, B2B, B2C, EDI, ERP, and specialized software solutions for small business in Canada, USA, and throughout the Caribbean. He has experience with retail supply chain, franchiser software, metered billing and homegrown software solutions. 
It has been about a month now, and I am enjoying my new Android based Motorola Atrix. For those who keep score, Google announced April 28th that the Android Market just surpassed the number of free apps in the Apple App Store. [Just like with Apple however there are a lot of apps that I personally have no use for and subscribe to what I call “The Because I Can School Of Development”.] Pretty much, most of what Apple has available in the app store is also available in the Android Market. There are however 3 additional app stores out there so unlike Apple, I have choice where I shop.
Chris Herbert is the founder of 
Anton Tolstoy
In Guelph, ON 
Martin-Luc says that Canadian start-ups often struggle to find investors with the capital to make those large but often risky investments and sees a stronger Canadian start-up community as way to establish those connections. “U.S. companies are great at cross-promoting,” Martin explains. “They create momentum by using, and talking about each other’s products.” By adopting a similar culture of cross-promotional support, Canadian VC’s will be more willing to take risks on someone who is supported by a strong community of successful entrepreneurs.
The VMware View client connects to a VMware View Server over whatever network infrastructure is available. The main idea behind virtualized desktops is similar to benefits incurred through most virtualization. Instead of having to maintain a fleet of “fat clients” or full-fledged computers, an enterprise would deploy a series of “thin clients” which only have enough resources to communicate mouse moves, keystrokes, and screen refreshes between the thin client and the back end server. The processing is done on a virtual desktop environment hosted on the server. This is very much like accessing a regular server via Remote Desktop Protocol, except in this case, the point is to access a full desktop environment where an end user can do all their work instead of just performing administration tasks on the server. Having all the “desktop environments” – really like virtualized PC’s – together on a server offers advantages for maintenance, security, and disaster recovery that all translate into cost savings for the enterprise. Further savings come from the fact that thin clients are less expensive to acquire as well as being much easier and therefore less expensive to maintain than full PC’s. They also have fewer security issues as they are designed to give very granular control over what if any peripherals can be interfaced. In fact, USB device support at the local thin client is a relatively recent addition to virtualized desktop environments. 
Silicon Halton member 
I like robots. So do my kids. I still remember my first robot, it sucked the power out of a stack of ‘D’ cells in about 10 minutes. It lit up like a Christmas tree and walked in a straight line across the floor. It bumped into walls and got stuck under furniture. It didn’t do much, really, but it was amazing. It was the future. It was space travel. It was ‘Martians landing in the living room’. It was fun to take it apart. It was fun to figure out how it worked. It was fun to put it back together. I’m a nerd.
“Every year in September, FLL releases a Challenge, which is based on a real-world scientific topic. Each Challenge has two parts: the Robot Game and the Project. Teams of up to ten children, with one adult coach, participate in the Challenge by programming an autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field (Robot Game) and developing a solution to a problem they have identified (Project). Teams may then choose to attend an official tournament, hosted by one of our Operational Partners. Past Challenges have been based on topics such as nanotechnology, climate, quality of life for the handicapped population, and transportation. By designing our Challenges around such topics, participants are exposed to potential career paths within a chosen Challenge topic, in addition to solidifying the STEM principles that naturally come from participating in a robotics program. Team members also learn valuable life and employment skills which will benefit them no matter which career path they choose.”
John is the NXT brick at the heart of eBots, an Oakville-based club that teaches kids problem solving skills, teamwork and how to design, build and program robots. John started as a programmer after attending the University of Waterloo in computer studies. He taught computer classes for children and adults at the Ontario Science Centre in the early 80’s, then worked as a contract programmer for a short time before joining MacKenzie Financial Corp. as a full time programmer in 1990. At MacKenzie, John’s people skills and team management style helped him rapidly progress to the position of Chief Information Officer. He set aside corporate pursuits in 2007, after 17 years of dedicated service, diving headfirst into a successful side-business — FastCats race track in Oakville — taking a long-needed break and a couple of years to figure out what to do next. During that time, eBots was born
Bill Rasmussen 
I had the pleasure of attending an
Sekey Vincent is the co-founder of