Chris’ Weekly Journal for Week of Sep 23/18

by | Oct 1, 2018

We’re Here to Help Each Other

I don’t care what anyone tells you, business is personal and emotion does factor into what you do as a professional. Maybe not every waking minute of the day but often, very often! Last week, more than anything, was about helping people in our community. Whether it was helping a member get more experience in QA, initial planning for a diversity initiative or a member’s company giving the green light for next years TU20 fellowship program… it’s all about us helping each other. 

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups user experience has changed (again) and as far as I’m concerned it’s a major step in the wrong direction. Since 2010, LinkedIn, has taken away key features and functionality that made groups useful. I wrote about it eight years ago where I asked the question: “What Was LinkedIn Thinking” [read it here]. The same question applies today! I’ve posted a discussion in our LI group to get SH members thoughts [discuss it here].

Local Tech Matters and So Does Lower Power Wide Area Networks

Over the past year I’ve been recommending that local municipalities engage with the local tech community early and often when it comes to Smart Cities [read our series here] and the Internet of Things. Our local technology and entrepreneur ecosystem are leaders in this space and larger companies in the “smart cities” and IoT space like Siemens, Cisco and WPP should be more involved with the local tech scene and not compete against it. Silicon Halton member Lisa Denis [LinkedIn] recently covered McRock Capital’s IIoT Symposium and in her recap post “Wonder and the Importance of an Ecosystem” [read it here] she drives this point home. There is NOT ONE company that can make a city smart. There is NOT ONE company that is the answer to IoT. There are many!

One key company in our ecosystem that matters is, Oakville based, Quaenet [post and interview here] who are deploying Lower Power Wide Area Networks in North America and Italy. Their network is built off of LoRaWAN™ networking protocol [definition] which based on a recent LPWAN report is seeing widespread adoption.  

Reality Check on Alphabet and Blockchain

For those who know me I’m a huge fan and advocate of emerging technology and the professionals and companies that are working in and on bleeding edge technologies and business models. What I’m not a fan of is unproven and unchecked hype and a lack of understanding and dedication Canadian leaders have towards supporting made in Canada solutions. 

We need to keep an eye on the Quayside project, and Google to make sure that if the project proceeds that it’s very clear what Canadians are giving up in exchange for working with Alphabet. Municipalities are like Dominos. If one goes with a solution they tend to follow. Do you want Google to be your smart city partner in your city or town? 

It’s very early days when it comes to Blockchain and from what I can tell the only people making money are those putting on events about it! 

What’s Next in Our Community?

This week’s goings on include a bunch of stuff happening at MEVIC (Milton Education Village and Innovation Centre) including our Silicon Halton Day, an IoT Peer2Peer session and workshop on GDPR.  [Learn more and register here].

We’ll be back in Milton on October 9th for meetup 108: “Is Your AI Invention Patentable” presented by Bereskin & Parr [See who’s presenting here]. 

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