Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important principles for what he considered was good design. (Sometimes they are referred as the ‘Ten commandments’.)

Good design:

• Is innovative - The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

• Makes a product useful - A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

• Is aesthetic - The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

• Makes a product understandable - It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

• Is unobtrusive - Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.

• Is honest - It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

• Is long-lasting - It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today's throwaway society.

• Is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

• Is environmentally friendly - Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollutionthroughout the lifecycle of the product.

• Is as little design as possible - Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

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`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 

`I don't much care where--' said Alice. 

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. 

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'"

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On November 2nd in Ottawa, the Embassy of the United States will be presenting a conference on innovation and entrepreneurship, entitled The Canada-U.S. Partnership: Enhancing the Innovation Ecosystem. To mark the event, the Embassy partnered with Canadian policy think-tank Canada 2020 to hold a contest for youth and potential entrepreneurs.

The contest asked for written or video descriptions of product or idea that are not only socially or commercially viable and innovative, but that also enhance or is enhanced by the close Canada–U.S. relationship.

After carefully reviewing the submissions, two winners have been picked:

• TitanFile.com, a new process for sending and receiving confidential documents. The service allows users to transfer and store files over a secure connection, notifying users when their files have been accessed and ensuring that all recipients are verified before they gain access.
• FloorNav3D, an interactive 3D program that allows visitors to "virtually visit" a location or property from their web browsers. The program is scalable, and can be used for anything from product demonstrations, to interactive showrooms, to blue prints and floor plans, to larger projects like golf courses and amusement parks.

Full text: http://canada.usembassy.gov/news-events/2011-news-and-events/october-2011/24-october-2011-innovation-competition-winners-announced.html

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The Workers

And the darkness was upon the face of the workers

as they spake unto their Group Head saying:

"It's a crock of shit and it stinketh."

The Group Heads

And the Group Heads went unto their Section Heads and sayeth:
"It's a pail of dung and none may abide by the odor thereof."

The Section Heads 

And the Section Heads went unto their Managers and sayeth unto them:

"It is a container of excrement. And it is very strong. Such that none may abide by it."

The Managers

And the Managers  went unto their Director and sayeth unto him:

"It is a vessel of fertilizer. None may abide it's strenght."

The Director

And the Director went unto Vice President and sayeth unto him:

"It promoteth growth and is very powerful."

The Vice President

And the Vice President went unto the President and sayeth unto him:

"This powerful new Plan will actively promote the growth and effciency of the company."

The Policy

"And the president looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good, and the Plan became Policy."

(From "Repositioning") 

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TitanFile had some good coverage in this Weekends Financial Post 

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I just received an email message from paypal, subject was "Milan Vrekic, visit PayPal's new Merchant Learning Centre today"

This is a great example of an excellent, actionable message subject so let's look at it:

"Milan Vrekic, visit PayPal's new Merchant Learning Centre today"

It starts with personalization, they get my attention by putting my name first "Milan Vrekic". It is then followed by a call to action "Visit paypal's new merchant learning centre" and finally a time constraint is applied to the end of the subject line "Today!" (might have as well be "now!" or "right away!").

This is a great trick to apply to activation emails. Think "John Doe, activate your accoung and start using AWESOMESERVICE today!"

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eMail I received from Dal this morning:

"Your Job Posting ID # 19175 has expired. 

If you have selected to receive your applications through myCareer, login to your account to:

view applicants
repost your job
select interview candidate(s)
request an interview date
Thank you for recruiting at Dalhousie."

Telling me that my "Job posting 19175" has expired tells me nothing. Especially if I have several postings listed.

Acceptable and much more friendly version would be:

"Your Job Posting ID # 19175 (Senior Python Developer Wanted) has expired, with the posting ID linked.

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To get the web site up quickly: PHP
To program in expressive and powerful language: Python
To hang around programmers who call themselves rockstars: Ruby
To really learn to program: C
To reach nirvana: Scala
To get depressed: SQL
To devolve: Visual Basic
To get a guaranteed, well-paying job in a cubicle with your own stapler: Java
To do the same thing with acronyms and certifications after your name: C#
To achieve magical sense of childlike wonder that you have hard time differentiating from Megalomania: Objecive C

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Milan Vrekic, Mojo Labs Co. & TitanFile Inc., @truejebus, Halifax, NS, CYBF Mentor

Six out of 10 businesses with drastically change their direction in the first year of existence.

Unfortunately, business plans can take a take a long time to write and are seldom updated as often as they should be. When we start writing our business plans we do not have all the right answers. We make assumptions about financial performance, market conditions, etc. Often, by the time we finish writing a business plan, the business has already changed and parts of the plan need to be updated.

Despite these shortcomings, forsaking business plans to rely only on intuition is not good either. You need to be able to document your assumptions and guiding hypothesis in order to effectively explain your business to an outsider.

To ensure your business plan is adaptable, it is critical for you to pinpoint the areas with the most risk and uncertainty because these are the areas that are most likely to change in your plan over time. Remember that which areas are considered most risky depends on your industry. In the technology industry for example, people often focus on product development when they should be paying closer attention to market forces.

No one wants to spend six months building something that will not be useful. To keep your business plan working for you, be sure update it regularly as your market and your company change and address risk and uncertainty with confidence.

Original article here: http://cybf.ca/socialmedia/?p=2235

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From the Wind in the Willows; said by the Water Rat:

"....there is NOTHING--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on dreamily: `messing--about--in--boats; messing-----about in boats--or WITH boats,'.......'In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TitanFile

4MP9CZQ2X8U4

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65.6% of Graduates from Bachelor degrees graduate with student loans. That number goes up dramatically for those doing masters or PhD studies.

Lets assume together that we have a profile of a student as a young engineer. He just graduated university and is considering turning his school project into a startup company. Only option he has is taking out a personal business loan from a government funded agency (having no assets, bank would laugh him out to the street) or going after one of the few and far inbetween angel investors with limited experience funding technology companies.

Knowing that 9 out of 10 startups fail, our graduate now has to weight options of likely failure against potential for huge gains. Being young, he plans to have a house, car and/or a family, so prospect of failure would most likely mean filing for bankruptcy and inability to fulfil those goals for a long time.

If he moves to Toronto or Vancouver, he can get a decent paying job and be appreciated for what he does so getting a house and a car becomes simple matter of time - So why risk it he says. Last thing an ex-student with a student loan needs is another loan.

Atlantic Canada does not look favorably on "good" failure and learning from failure is critial for success of any technology based venture. In the valley launching a startup means trying to reach for the stars. Many try. Those few who succed are celebrated and those who fail are urged to learn from the failure and try again.

If you survive the death valley, that is the period between having an idea and making your minimum viable product (MVP), all is good right?

Yes. But only for a while.

If you somehow manage to bootstrap and hustle your way to the MVP you will find a lot of geniune support and help from local community and organizations.
And it is pure awesome. I love it, and it works. People start taking notice of you and asking how can they help. Paying clients start lining up too.

But then you need to start growing, and that talent we spoke of in the begining of the story is now in Toronto, Vancouver or somewhere in the US. Those few good ones that stayed - local startups are now fiercly fighting over. So the startup packs it's bags and moves to Toronto, Vancouver or the US - chasing that talent. And once they move, they are not considered Maritime companies any more.

Can we solve this?

Yes. We need a true early stage fund to gap the death valley (idea to MVP stage). I am not advocating throwing money at everything and seeing what sticks. But creating a review panel (that will not consist only of people from Academia as it seems to be a custom here, but from seasoned industry veterans as well) that will review application and provide small, non-repayable funding ($10-$30k) and incubation (space + mentoring) to those selected. Goal for approved projects should be to complete customer discovery and create a minimum viable product  within 6 to 12 months. After that they should be ready to "fly or die" by generating early revenue and pitching for angel funding. This program should promoted by universities as well.

We also need program to attract talent to the province. Recent PIP (Productivity Investment Program) program is clearly targeted towards manufacturing. PIP will cover
employee training costs (up to $10k) for as long as you continue paying employee salaries during the training period. In an early and fragile stage, Startups cannot afford having employees away from work. Time is critical.

We just "imported" a developer to work full-time on TitanFile with us and a local company recently moved here an employee from BC and another 4 from the UK. Money they spent getting them here is a lot of money for a startup. This should be a true win-win situation where a province gets a new taxpayer (mind you, these are not $10/h jobs) and a company gets a highly skilled employee.  While it is important to try and keep talent here, it is as important to try and attract talent to the Maritimes.

Why not create a program that will reimburse companies for part of the moving expenses after the new employee spends a year working in Nova Scotia?

Press also needs to change their attitude a bit and start covering some startups and not only established companies. Only by shining light at what we have here we can attract funding from investors outiside Maritimes.

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So we went to Atari and said "Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? We we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you." And they said, "No." So then we went to Hewlett-Packard and they said, "hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet."

Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

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Machiavelli's "The Prince" is one of my favorite books (read it close to 20 times) and I find it even now, 500 years later, very applicable to corporate world and governance.

"...hence it is to be remarked that, in seizing a state, the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure then, and win them to himself by benefits... For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavor of them may last longer."

...

"A prince is also respected when he is either a true friend or a downright enemy, that is to say, when, without any reservation, he declares himself in favor of one party against the other; which course will always be more advantageous than standing neutral; because if two of your powerful neighbors come to blows, they are of such a character that, if one of them conquers, you have either to fear him or not. In either case it will always be more advantageous for you to declare yourself and to make war strenuously; because, in the first case, if you do not declare yourself, you will invariably fall a prey to the conqueror, to the pleasure and satisfaction of him who has been conquered, and you will have no reasons to offer, not anything to protect or to shelter you. Because he who conquers does not want doubtful friends who will not aid him in the time of trial; and he who loses will not harbor you because  you did not willingly, sword in hand, court his fate"

- Niccolo Machiavelli

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There is a perception in media and our industry that there is not much to marketing business. A parasite that dangles from the belly of the business beast.

A side business that does not really produce anything on it's own. A side business where it's all flash and no substance and where people dressed in hand pressed suits peddle snake oil to the gullible.

Whoever is spreading this stereotype should spend half an hour at a marketing agency.  Every office on every floor is occupied by someone intensely focused on improving the client's day to day business; By sharpening the business focus, widening the market and even advising on product improvement.

Those half an hour would also be enough to convince anyone that you cannot sell a product to a person who has no need for it - or someone who cannot afford it.  It should also be enough to show you how no amount of marketing can save a bad product.

Marketing is not an offspring of capitalism, marketing is a cornerstone of capitalism.

Chances are that a lot of you are reading this while drinking a coffee in Starbucks. That is just another success story of marketing. Same goes for the Coke you will drink while you are having lunch. Those are some of thousands of examples of producers and marketeers coming together to bring a product, and with it jobs and industry - to life.

Marketing is key ingredient of mature and competitive economy and marketing is here to stay.

Why most of it still sucks is yet to be determined....

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There are few tricks I picked up over time on company and product naming that I would like to share.

1.) Pick a name with "verb potential" Checking your company name idea can complete this phrase "_______ it" as in "Google it", "TitanFile it", "Mobify it"

2.) Always go for .com unless you rely only on search engies to bring in the bacon. When you tell people the name of your company they will by default associate it with .com. So if you run CoolCompany.net, people will remember the CoolCompany part, go home and sure enough, type in CoolCompany.com in your browser. The only worse thing is if there actually is CoolCompany.com that is in the same business as you. If there is, they should send you a "thank you" note for driving business to them.

3.) If you can, pick one word. Chances are all of these would be taken and you will need to either purchase a domain name (and any rights associated with it) or come up with a new word. You can pick a word from a foreign language (aside from picking a word that sounds cool, make sure that you know the meaning of the same and that it is not offensive in native language) or you can make up a new word. Some examples are "Aberee","Helpioso", "Medioso" itd. Another trick is to use "slightly" misspelled words such as "Meester", "Taytan" etc.

4.) If you cannot come up with one word - use two, but in this case make them relevant to what you do. Examples "HealthRecord","FastCompany","MetalWorks" etc. Using more than two words makes it hard to remember and long to spell and type (hello mister johnatan@canadianentrereneurshipsupplies.com).

5.) To get some ideas and inspiration - use freely available tools! Some of my favorite free tools are nameboy.com and bustaname.com

6.) Avoid using numbers. 6rooms.com looks good on the screen but if someone hears the name of your company they will have no idea if they should use numerals (6rooms.com) or letters (sixrooms.com) to look you up!

7.) Finally, pick a name with initial character that is early in the alphabet. These companies will show up on top of the lists at trade-show exhibitor lists, directories, indexes etc. Avoid using X or Z as the first letter of your company or product name. If you hear "Xoom" do you think it's spelled as "Zoom" or "Xoom"

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