EQ Journal Archive 6

https://www.eqjournal.org/?paged=6

         Great Art        

       
   Posted on
       Monday 9 April 2012  
     
   
       

At TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) 2011, U2′s
Bono made an offhand, almost throwaway  comment that stopped me in my
tracks. He said something like this: ‘The difference between good, maybe even very good art and great art is HUGE.‘

Entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs would do well to keep
this in mind. Steve Jobs was not satisfied with good, he clearly wanted
great, insanely great. Filmmaker James Cameron is the same– before he
re-released Titanic (in 3-D this time) for the 100th anniversary of that
famous ship sinking, he went back into the studio at the urging of
noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to fix the night sky behind
Rose DeWitt Bukater (played by Kate Winslett) while she is floating on a
puncy raft (a piece of wreckage really) on a freezing North Atlantic
holding onto young Jack Dawson’s hand (Leo DiCaprio) who happens to be
in the process of dying at that moment from hypothermia.

All eyes are on Kate and Leo but not Dr. Tyson’s who correctly
pointed out that James had used two halves of a night sky which were
identical and, anyway, the night sky in 1912 and 1997 (when the film was
released) are NOT the same. Star positions will have moved in the
intervening 85 or so years…

So Cameron asked Dr. Tyson for the correct starscape and went back
into the studio and fixed it for the subset of astrophysicists in the
world who: a) have seen his version of Titanic, b) have noticed the flaw
and c) who care about it.

So to recognize these insanely great artpreneurs including the indomitable Bono, I created a Venn diagram for comedic relief:

To me, great art is a combination of the unpredictable (genius), the
authentic (folk art) and well executed (professional). As readers of
this Journal will know, I like ideas but without execution, they are
pretty useless.

Also, this generation (I’m talking Gen Y here) seems to seek
authenticity almost above all other values and I tend to agree with
that. You can almost always tell a phony from the real thing.

I realize that it is all the rage these days to talk about MVP–
Minimum Viable Product. I agree that it is important to get into contact
with the marketplace early and often. Still you must create large scale
value for clients and patrons and you mustn’t tarnish your brand.

Your personal brand and your enterprise’s brand are crucial to
building trust in all that you are so it won’t do to
publish/paint/write/draw/design/build/create a piece of crap.

@ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 3:53 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Advertising

and

Art and Architecture

and

Artpreneur

and

Asymmetric Information

and

Branding

and

Corporate Culture

and

Creativity and Value

and

Differentiated Value

and

Education

and

Entrepreneur Skill Set

and

Franchise and Concession

and

Future Vision and Technology

and

Goal Setting

and

Intrapreneurs and Intrapreneurship

and

Jokes (General Audiences)

and

Leverage

and

Pixie Dust

and

Political Economy

and

Product Management

and

Quantum Entity

and

Rules? There are no rules in entrepreneurship.

and

Thought Experiment

and

User Experience

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Value Proposition

and

Venn Diagrams

and

Why Businesses Fail

No Comments

         Looking Back to Look Forward        

       
   Posted on
       Saturday 7 April 2012  
     
   
       

To find out if your startup is really going to be of any
real use, take a few moments to perform an Einsteinian thought
experiment. Ask: If my product or service had been around ever since Jan 27, 1756 (Mozart’s DOB), what would it be worth today?

Imagine YouTube, for a moment, having been around circa the latter
half of the 18th Century. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a YouTube video of
Mozart’s last concert or Albert Einstein’s speech when he won his Nobel
prize in physics in 1921. What would that video archive be worth today?

What if Pinterest.com had been around since the 1800s and you could
see what interested James Watt the inventor of the steam engine (other
than mechanical engineering). Or what if you could go back even further
to see the interests of Chris Columbus or Leonardo da Vinci. What if
Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Krishna or the Prophet Muhammad had been able to
pin their interests to an electronic bulletin board? What would that
mean to their followers? Quite a bit I would think.

What if Ottawa Business News (a company I founded, now known as
Ottawa Business Journal) had been started in the 19th Century instead of
the 1980s? Would it have helped tie the Ottawa business community more
closely together and make it stronger? Would its archive be worth more?
Would it have deeper roots in that community? I think ‘yes’ to all three
questions.

If you want to take it a step further, ask yourself: If I could
travel back to any point in time I wanted to (breaking all of Einstein’s
Laws I’m afraid) and introduce my new enterprise then, what kind of
changes would it produce in the fabric of our society today? Would it be a better world? If the answer is ‘yes’, well, you have your answer.

So to know if an enterprise you are creating is likely to be any good, think backwards first before looking forward.

@ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 7:48 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Build and Hold

and

Business Models

and

Creativity and Value

and

Development Economics and Entrepreneurship

and

Differentiated Value

and

Entrepreneur Skill Set

and

Franchise and Concession

and

Future Vision and Technology

and

Intellectual Property

and

Leverage

and

Livable Cities and Neo-Urbanism

and

Personal Business for Life, PB4L

and

Political Economy

and

Product Management

and

Rules? There are no rules in entrepreneurship.

and

Thought Experiment

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Value Proposition

and

Why Businesses Fail

and

Writing, Research and Experimentation

No Comments

         Advanced Business Models, MBA6298 I        

       
   Posted on
       Saturday 31 March 2012  
     
   
       

Telfer School of Management Course Outline, April 2012

Professor: Bruce M. Firestone, B. Eng. (Civil), M. Eng.-Sci., PhD.
E-Mail: bmfirestone @ exploriem.org
Office Hours: After class for one hour
Class Location: DMS4170
Class Hours: Monday April 16th to Saturday April 21st, 2012 from 9 am to Noon

Advanced Business Models/MBA 6298 I/Winter 2012

Course Deliverable/Due Date/Weight on Final Grade

Record Elevator Pitch Explaining Value Proposition: April 17, 2012 20%

Construct Business Model and all Business Model Outputs: April 21, 2012 50%

Final Presentation: April 21, 2012 30%

Course Description

The Telfer MBA trains its students to found and create new high
growth enterprises or create new products, services or divisions with
high growth potential from within existing organizations. Recent
research demonstrates that one of the key building blocks to such
success is the business model.

The business model has progressed from a one page pictogram (or
flowchart) of the ‘engine of an organization’ to a many faceted model
that fully describes the entire ecosystem in which any enterprise
exists.

Business models are not only important to for-profit businesses but
also to Not-For-Profits, NGOs and charities. Those organizations are
held to a high standard and managers there will seek to use their funds
efficiently.

MBA6298I examines case studies of contemporary enterprises to
understand the essence of these organizations—successful as well as
unsuccessful ones.  Appropriate elements are incorporated into student
entrepreneur business models prepared by teams of MBA students.

This course is of interest to student entrepreneurs and also to those
who will be intrapreneurs; persons who have the skill set of the
entrepreneur but who work within established, often large-scale,
enterprises. Product Managers and intrapreneurs who know how to deploy
the entrepreneurs’ skill set are more likely to have their projects and
products green lighted and more likely to be promoted.

Steve Jobs revolutionized the mobile phone industry when he launched
the Apple iPhone—he insisted that AT&T give Apple a share of
subscriber revenues in return for a two year exclusivity on the device.
Cell phone manufacturers, specifically Apple, went from selling a
‘shrink wrapped’ device for a one-time payment in a brutally competitive
market with poor margins that was racing to the bottom to a model with
multiple sources of revenues including advertising on the iOS platform,
iTunes downloads, application store sales and revenues, search fees,
streaming and bandwidth charges, subscriber revenues, as well as the
sale of the device itself. Some of these revenues streams are recurring
which makes any enterprise more sustainable.

Research has shown that Apple’s IRR, Internal rate of Return, from
the iPhone is in the order of 288% p.a. and is largely responsible for
the rapid run up in the capitalization of that company. Wired.com (https://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/iphone-att-q4-sales)
reports that the iPhone represented 80% of all AT&T smartphone
activations in the last quarter of 2011 during which they added 9.4
million new subscribers, 50% more than in any previous quarter in
company history.

Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM told BusinessWeek (April 3rd, 2006)
why he placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of business
model innovation: “…with product innovation, it’s a certainty that your
competition is shortly going to copy what you have done. With
business-model innovation, though, if you can come up with a unique way
of doing things, it’s much tougher to react to.” Mr. Palmisano spent
approximately 40% of his time as IBM CEO on their business models.

MBA6298I provides its students with tools to build world-class business models.

The pedagogical approach includes a series of lectures by the
Professor and guest lecturers, workshop sessions with the Professor,
in-class and after-class exercises/assignments as well as practice with
tools needed to create complex and complete business models. Students
are also required to submit written material as well as provide both
video and oral presentations.  

Links to the Telfer School of Management MBA Learning Goals

This course links to Telfer MBA Learning Goal 2, 3, 4 and 5:
Understanding and Integrating Business Functions, Developing a Strategic
Perspective, Developing Leadership, Communication and Teamwork Skills
for High Performance Organizations and Unlocking the Value of
Globalization.

More specifically, the course provides students an understanding of
how to integrate business functions from supply chain to customer as
well as a marketing dimension. Strategic relationships that perhaps can
only be discovered in the process of building complex models and
communities based on these are also a crucial outcome.

Students work in teams and learn to lead or follow as the case may be.

Focus is on high growth enterprises—ones that are sustainable and provide significant value for its stakeholders.

Course Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

1.     Design a business model for the 21st Century that is scalable and is sustainable in the face of competitive threats.
2.     Self capitalize new enterprises or products and services where appropriate.
3.     Effectively connect with client and customers via advanced marketing strategies.
4.     Understand and discover new relationships in their enterprise’s ecosystem.
5.     Understand their own capabilities with respect to delivering high growth products and services.
6.     Present their value proposition as well as quantify it.
7.     Understand their enterprise’s financial model including its cash conversion cycle.
8.     Introduce sources of leverage into their business models to enhance its profitability.
9.     Provide a clear written summary of the above that succinctly sums up their model and its outputs.

Methods Used to Evaluate Student Performance

Record Elevator Pitch Explaining Value Proposition 20%

Each team will record its elevator pitch explaining its value
proposition. These will be uploaded to YouTube and may either be public
or unlisted.

Guidelines: The video should be no more than two minutes and may include props and data as required.

Expectations

Examples of previous MBA students include Crowd Angels:

For additional reference, students can download: How to construct an Elevator Pitch,
https://dramatispersonae.org/HowToMakeAGreatElevatorPitch.doc

Grading Rubric

Personal Pitch—

Strength of presentation: conveys confidence, enthusiasm and professionalism /5

Demonstrates strong skills and background necessary to launch and operate a venture       /5

Stimulates interest and/or ability to maintain interest /5

Explains opportunity succinctly and understandably /5

Total /20

Notes:

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Idea Pitch—

Value proposition – problem being solved/differentiated
value/negative cost for customer/innovation or ‘pixie dust’/competitive
advantage /5

Size of opportunity /5

Cost of customer acquisition/use of guerrilla or social marketing /5

Cash conversion cycle—ability to generate cash /5

Ability to execute /5

Scalability/network effects/reversing out the work to customers or suppliers/custom outputs from standard inputs /5

Total /30

Notes:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Grand Total ____/50

Video Capture

The pitches will be recorded and may be placed on the Internet for
the purposes of education. If any participant is concerned about this,
they should not make the pitch for their team.

AV Requirements

           Projection Screen
           PC and Projector
           Access to Internet
           Sound
           Video camera
           One wireless lapel microphone plus one wireless hand-held microphone
           Lapel mike and hand-held mike to be connected to video camera
           Laptop showing online egg timer/stopwatch set to 2 minutes:
           https://www.online-stopwatch.com/eggtimer-countdown/full-screen/

Creativity

Each team is encouraged to add their own ideas to their value proposition—experiment and innovate.

Leadership and Acting

The elevator pitch is designed to develop leadership skills. Student entrepreneurs must be able to lead to be successful.

Leadership is different than management. Management skills are
necessary for an enterprise to function well on a day-to-day basis.
Student entrepreneurs also need to be sound managers. Leadership,
however, is about the ability to: “create and sell an alternative vision
of the world, a better one in which we are an essential part.
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote that Churchill idealized his countrymen
with such intensity that in the end they rose to his ideal,” Warren
Bennis said in The Essential Bennis.

According to Bennis most “leaders acquire greatness when a role
requiring it is thrust upon them.” It is interesting that he uses the
word ‘role’ because leadership is partly about acting the role of a
leader. Most of us are not born leaders; we have to learn how to be one.

Bennis points out that leaders need:

·                  to be able to leap into the unknown;
·                  to accept the risk of failure;
·                  to show adaptability;
·                  to create and sell their vision;
·                  to inspire the people around them;
·                  be authentic;
·                  be consistent.

These are useful attributes to demonstrate when making an elevator pitch or any presentation.

Team Project—Construct Business Model and All Business Model Outputs (50%)

Teams will produce an elite level business model and accompanying outputs demonstrating:

·        Ability to execute
·        Differentiated value
·        Low value or negative cash conversion cycle
·        Benchmark
·        Self Capitalize
·        Effective marketing dimension
·        Building cashflow
·        Mass customize/integrate the Internet into business processes

Document instructions:

1.A one page Business Model Flow Chart
2.One page spreadsheet showing how value is created for one individual client or customer
3.A second spreadsheet is required that provides you with a Financial Model of your enterprise
4.Cash Conversion Cycle spreadsheet
5.2-munite video of your Elevator Pitch
6.Build leverage into your business model
7.Summary of your Business Model that is 2-pages or less

Grading Rubric

Business Model Evaluation

1.     Executive Summary – The executive summary is thorough and
informative as a stand-alone document. It encourages and entices the
reader to read more. Maximum of two pages.

2.     Industry & Organization – The industry and competitors are
clearly understood.  The enterprise, concept, business model, product
or service are clearly described. It has high growth potential.

3.     Market Research and Marketing- The market size and trends are
understood. What is the company’s value proposition? The model provides
linkage between supply chain, enterprise and customers.  Pricing
scenarios are realistic, as are marketing tactics.  Is there demand for
the product/service?

4.     Innovation and Differentiated Value – Does the business
concept demonstrate innovation and creativity? The competitive
advantages of the specific opportunity are well articulated. Is there a
short time to market and high growth potential? There is a clearly
articulated entry and growth strategy.

5.     The Economics of the Business – There is clear and logical cost, margin and profitability.

6.     Financial Model – the financial model presented links customer acquisition to top line and bottom line performance.    

7.     Ability to Execute – Why you and your team? Founders have skills and experience appropriate to the opportunity.

8.     Capitalization – Feasible for entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial startup?

9.     Mass Customization – Scalable, high growth enterprise?  

10.  Viability & Overall Impression – Reflects overall quality
and articulation of model. Is the enterprise going to be around in 5, 7,
10 years? The venture makes sense and could be a real business.

Due Date: April 21st, 2012

Practice Assignments

Each student will complete assignments in IRR, CCC, NCM (Negative Cost Marketing). CPM (Optional).

Final Presentation (30%)

This will be held on the final day of class in teams.

Date: April 21st, 2012

Grading Rubric

Marking Scheme

Each team is scored on the basis of the following criteria using a
scale of 1 to 10 where 10 represents perfection. These criteria are
guidelines and other factors may be given weight in final grading.

Team Participants:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Project Name: ____________________________________________________________

Presentation Skills
Did the presentation tell a complete and cogent story
Did the presentation inspire confidence in the principals and their plan
Score:___________

Presentation Materials and Business Model—quality and completeness
Score:___________

Business Model, Overall Viability, Self Capitalization
Score:___________

Originality
Score:___________

Degree of Difficulty
Score:___________

Q & A—ability to think-on-your-feet
Did the responses adequately address the concerns that were raised
Did the responses inspire confidence in the principals and their plan
Score:___________

Size of Opportunity
Score:___________

Internet Integration
Score:___________

Marketing Viability
Score:___________

Other
Score:___________

Total
Score:___________ /100

Comments:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Textbook/Course Package

Entrepreneurs Handbook II. Cost of $35.00 + HST. Reference manual. Available from Professor.

Course Schedule/Topics/Readings

Lecture 1
Business Modeling in the 21st Century—Integrating the Internet into the business model of your enterprise https://dramatispersonae.org/SlideDecks/L1-GTBMR.Finished.pdf

Lecture 2
Case Studies of Self-Capitalized Enterprises—Creating Powerful,
Innovative Value Propositions and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
through Differentiation.
https://dramatispersonae.org/SlideDecks/L2-Case-Studies-Of-Self-Capitalized-Enterprises.pdf

Self-Capitalization for the Modern Enterprise
https://dramatispersonae.org/SlideDecks/L3-Bootstrap-Finance.pdf

Lecture 3

Strategic Partnerships/Guest Lecturer—Ted Wagstaff

Lecture 4

Effective Customer Acquisition
https://dramatispersonae.org/SlideDecks/L4-TurnSellingIntoBuyingBruceFirestonePresentation.pdf

Startups and Business Law Basics/Guest Lecturer—Harley Finkelstein

Slide Deck: https://dramatispersonae.org/harley-finkelstein-MBA-6298-I-startups-business-law-basics.ppt

Lecture 5

Corporate Organization and Structure for Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and high growth
enterprises

https://dramatispersonae.org/SlideDecks/L5-creditor-proofing.pdf

Lecture 6

Student Entrepreneur Presentations/ Submission of Business Model and Related Outputs

Course Pre-Preparation

1. Please get a Twitter account and follow: @ProfBruce. We will be using the hashtag #MBA6298. Please read Twitter Nation (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2080).
2. Take the ECQ Test (https://dramatispersonae.org/ECQTest/ECQ(ns)TestAuto.htm). Send your score to tscholtes @ exploriem.org.
3. Give thought to the Business Model you wish to build during this course. Please read: The Complete Business Model (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=692).
The more of these elements that you can incorporate in a new or
existing model, the more you are likely to build a sustainable
enterprise.
4. Practice using our online Business Model Generator: BMG (https://www.dramatispersonae.org/bmg/)
5. Get ready to make a 2-minute YouTube elevator pitch video (public or
private) by reading ‘How to Make a Great Elevator Pitch’: Word Doc (https://dramatispersonae.org/HowToMakeAGreatElevatorPitch.doc)
6. Please also read: Should Every Person on the Planet have a Personal Business For Life (PB4L)? https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=421

Bibliography (Additional Reading)

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, 2005.
Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers, The Future of Competition, C.K.
Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, Harvard Business school Press, 2004.
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, Geoffrey A. Moore, Harper, 1999.
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Tony Hsieh, Hachette Books, June 2010.
Entrepreneurs Handbook II: You can Think your Way to Wealth a lot Faster
than You can Work your Way There, Bruce M. Firestone, Exploriem
Publications, 2012.
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape our Decisions, Dan Ariely, Harper-Collins, 2008.
Quantum Entity, We Are All One, Bruce M. Firestone, Exploriem Publications, 2012.
ReWork, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Crown Publishing Group, New York, 2010.
Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal, Mark W. Johnson, Harvard Business School, 2010.
Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive, Erik Wesner, Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated, 2010.
The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House, New York, 2007.
The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, Michael E. Gerber, HarperCollins, NY, 1995.
The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting
the World, David Kirkpatrick, Simon and Schuster, NY, 2010.
The Ingenuity Gap: How can we solve the Problems of the Future, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2000.
The Power of Nice, How to Negotiate so Everyone Wins–Especially You!,
Ronald M. Shapiro and Mark A. Jankowski with James Dale, Revised
Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NY 2001.
The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell, Little Brown and Company, 2000.
What They Don’t Teach You at the Harvard Business School, Mark H. McCormack, Bantam Books, New York, 1984.
What They Don’t Still Teach You at the Harvard Business School, Mark H. McCormack, Bantam Books, New York, 1989.

Beware of Academic Fraud

Academic fraud is an act committed by a student to distort the
marking of assignments, tests, examinations and other forms of academic
evaluation. Academic fraud is neither accepted nor tolerated by the
University. Anyone found guilty of academic fraud is liable to severe
academic sanctions.

Here are a few examples of academic fraud:

•        engaging in any form of plagiarism or cheating;

•        presenting falsified research data;

•        handing in an assignment that was not authored, in whole or in part, by the student;

•        submitting the same assignment in more than one course, without the written consent of the professors concerned

In recent years, the development of the Internet has made it much
easier to identify academic plagiarism.  The tools available to your
professors allow them to trace the exact origin of a text on the Web,
using just a few words.

In cases where students are unsure whether they are at fault, it is
their responsibility to consult the University’s Web site at the
following address, where you will find resources, tips and tools for
writing papers and assignments: https://web5.uottawa.ca/mcs-smc/academicintegrity/home.php

Persons who have committed or attempted to commit (or have been
accomplices to) academic fraud will be penalized. Here are some examples
of the academic sanctions, which can be imposed:

•        a grade of “F” for the assignment or course in question;

•        an additional program requirement of between three and thirty credits;

•        suspension or expulsion from the School.

Please be advised that professors have been formally advised to
report every suspected case of academic fraud. In most cases of a first
offence of academic fraud, the sanction applied to students who have
been found guilty is an “F” for the course with an additional three
credits added to their program requirements. Repeat offenders are
normally expulsed from the School of Management.

Finally, The Telfer School of Management asks that students sign and
submit with their deliverables the Personal Ethics Agreement form.  Two
versions of this form exist: one for individual assignments, and one for
group submissions. Assignments will not be accepted or marked if this
form is not submitted and signed by all authors of the work. We hope
that by making this personal commitment, all students will understand
the importance the School places on maintaining the highest standards of
academic integrity. The forms are accessible on doc-depot:  

En français: https://doc-depot.gestion.uottawa.ca/ (et suivez le lien ‘Intégrité Académique’)

In English: https://doc-depot.management.uottawa.ca/ (then click on ‘Academic Integrity’)

@ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 4:57 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Business Models

and

Courses

and

Education

No Comments

         How did Ross Video Experience 21 Consecutive Years of Growth?        

       
   Posted on
       Saturday 31 March 2012  
     
   
       

(Portions of this article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, March 30, 2012: https://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Bruce-Firestone-5444.)

The sky is falling, the sky is… Many observers of Ottawa’s tech scene
seem to think it’s the end of Silicon Valley North but try telling that
to David Ross, 90% owner of Ross Video. The other 10% is owned by
family and an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan).

“Tech unemployment in Ottawa is something like 2.2%,”
athletic-looking, 40-something, father of two teenage girls Mr. Ross
says. “So it’s hard to hire in Ottawa—it takes longer. But we are
building one of the best companies in the world so they want to come
here. I mean, we grew revenues by 47% last year and invest 23% of sales
in R&D, where else can you go where they do that?” David is a
Waterloo-trained computer engineer.

Ross Video has a 100,000 square foot plant in Iroquois, Ontario where
they manufacture many of the company’s products. The real estate is
owned by them as well. Their R&D campus on Auriga Drive in the south
end of Ottawa is rented accommodation as is their newly acquired Kanata
location—they bought the old Norpak company and are using its premises
for part of an overall workforce that has now grown to over 400
employees. They had just 25 in 1991. They use Norpak technology to embed
information into broadcast streams so advertisers know what people are
watching. Nielsen uses their system to produce its TV ratings.

Last year they hired about 100 people and expect to add a similar
number this year (they signed up 40 new staff in their Q1 2012 alone).
They do all their manufacturing in-house and currently have about 160
engineers on staff.

Prof Bruce interview with David Ross:

David won’t disclose sales but given that many of their products are
expensive devices like robotic cameras, it’s a reasonable guess that
they are north of $100 million. That division, now called Ross Robotics
is based in Belgium; they recently bought a company there which together
with one they purchased in Melbourne, Australia (which does video
routing—like an old telephone switch only for video) gives the business a
broad international reach. Another company purchased in the Netherlands
in 2009 forms the foundation for Ross Europe. David wants to be more
like Apple than Wal-Mart—sell high end gear that works seamlessly with a
great brand to a diverse group of customers in many geographic markets
instead of every day low prices.

If you watched the Grammys this year or the Academy Awards, all the
titles you see on screen are produced by Ross Video products, software
and services. ABC recently bought 3,000 of their fiber cards to move
video and audio between their buildings in New York. Ross Video has
mastered the art and science of fiber transmission partly thanks to some
ex-JDSU engineers who work there.  All this is to say that despite some
competition from Japan (mainly Sony) and some from Brits as well, Ross
Video gear finds its way into pretty much every nook and cranny of the
broadcast industry.  Companies like JVC (and 29 others) act as resellers
for Ross Video technology—they use Ross Video gear as part of their
systems—slapping their own label on it.

In just three days at the 2011 National Association of Broadcasters
show in Las Vegas, Ross Video sold 63 Carbonite switchers at a list
price of $40k each. That’s like a car dealer selling 63 cars on a long
weekend. They showed it as a prototype, discussed delivery dates then
shipped over a month early. They’ve now sold over 500 of these
switchers.

Their video servers are like home PVRs on steroids and are for
professional use by broadcasters, universities and stadiums. as well as.
They are widely used by major touring acts and were also used for
broadcasting the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Their equipment is on the ISS
(International Space Station) too where it is used to convert video from
analogue to digital so it can be transmitted from the space station to
terrestrial satellite receivers.

More down to Earth, they make automated production control systems
that allow one person with a mouse to produce a live newscast that used
to take a room of people to do. 200 TV stations have gone to air with it
including ABC’s Word News Tonight with Diane Sawyer and Good Morning
America.

Mr. Ross is majority owner, President and CEO, Chairman of the Board.
He was CTO too but gave that up in 2011. Ross Video was started by his
Dad, John, in 1974 with $3,500 which he raised by selling his plane.
They have never taken a dime of Angel or VC money.  Through recession
and currency fluctuations, they have had 21 consecutive, internally
funded years of growth.  

David does not want to be like RIM which basically has one
product—the Blackberry. “It’s too easy to knock off,” he says. “We sell
high complexity, low volume stuff with a lot of customer support and
service. It’s not something that the Chinese can easily do, at least not
yet, so we’re safe for now. With our robotic cameras you can get shots
that were never possible before. Our cameras know where they are and
where they are pointed at to an accuracy of one part in a million.  We
can insert virtual reality into moving images in real time with our
equipment. Try that with a human-held camera!” he adds with a boyish
enthusiasm for all things Buck Rogers’ish.

Next up is So You Think You Can Dance and there are other fields to
conquer. Closer to home, they are redoing Scotiabank Place’s
infrastructure so that the Senators will be able to drive their new
digital high def screen to the max. “You haven’t seen anything yet, Sens
fans,” David says.

Probably his biggest challenge came when they went from 50 employees
and one building to more than one location. “Hey, when you are a small
company with one plant, the CEO can control pretty much everything by
wandering around. But when you get to two buildings and 80 people things
start to go wrong.”

So one day, in about 20 minutes, a frustrated David wrote down the
opposite of everything they were doing which became the basis for their
code of ethics and conduct. It is the foundation for their corporate
culture and, after that, things improved. Why I ask?  “That code allowed
people to self correct. Instead of needing to hear from me or their
manager, all they had to do was refer to the code. Is this consistent
with our code or not? If not, don’t do it. Our organization completely
changed—it became one with even higher quality products and stronger
ethics.”

@ProfBruce

Professor Bruce M. Firestone is entrepreneurship ambassador for the
University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management,; founder of the
Ottawa Senators; executive director of Exploriem.org and a broker at
Century 21 Explorer Realty. Follow him on Twitter @ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 4:37 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Asymmetric Information

and

Bootstrap Capital

and

Bootstrap Entrepreneurs– Case Studies

and

Branding

and

Build and Hold

and

Business Models

and

Co-branding

and

Co-opetition

and

Corporate Culture

and

Creativity and Value

and

Customer Service

and

Differentiated Value

and

Franchise and Concession

and

Future Vision and Technology

and

Gadgets and Gizmos

and

Human Resources

and

Intellectual Property

and

Marketing

and

Media

and

Sell

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Value Proposition

No Comments

         Special Thanks        

       
   Posted on
       Friday 30 March 2012  
     
   
       

Adrian Salamunovic, Chris Rayburn and fast growing CanvasPop.com came to our rescue and processed some substandard images for us for my new novel, Quantum Entity, We Are All One.

They can take the poorest resolution images you have ever seen and
create beautiful wall art out of them on their 100-year (guaranteed!)
canvases.

Here is an example of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ processing of an image
of Roman ruler, Constantine I’s hand (which I refer to as the ‘We Are
All One’ hand signal in the novel). They made it into something that
could be published.

Canvas Pop’s biz model is seemingly straight forward– take photos and
transfer them to canvas that you can hang in your office or at home.
But taking poor quality images posted to, say, Facebook and blowing them
up into wall size art is non-trivial. They sell direct to customers but
are also working on a reseller model– letting architects, interior
designers and others buy from them at wholesale prices and resell to
their clients.

They have grown from zero to millions in sales in just three years
with operations in both Canada and the US– in Ottawa and Las Vegas,
joining companies like Zappos.com there in a fast growing new industry
for Nevada– fulfillment. Turns out LV is not only located in a place
which is reasonably central, it (now) has cheap real estate (both
commercial and residential), a willing workforce and huge capacity for
shipping via air cargo. They have just completed refitting a 20,000
square foot warehouse there.

Many thanks to all the staff at Canvas Pop.

@ProfBruce

Before:

After (this is not a full resolution image yet you can see marked improvement):

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 12:11 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Differentiated Value

and

Quantum Entity

No Comments

         CV Writing (Part 2)        

       
   Posted on
       Thursday 29 March 2012  
     
   
       

Writing a CV is not as easy as you might think. As the saying goes, the shorter the resumé, the more important the person.

It’s all part of building your personal brand which is incredibly
important to entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs. Marketing
(i.e., writing/creating your CV) creates a personal brand (for you)
which creates trust (in you) which creates an opportunity to sell
(yourself, your ideas, products, services, art, time, what have you) in a
separate sales process because people like to buy from people they like and trust which is what marketing and branding does, right?

It is quite sufficient if you are POTUS, say, to just have the seal
of the President of the United States of America with your full name
underneath. That’s it, that’s all. For everyone else, a bit more is
needed.

Recently, Murray McGregor (@MurrayMcGregor),
editor of my new novel, Quantum Entity, We Are All One (Book 1 of a
trilogy coming out in June 2012), challenged me and the world to reduce
their CVs to 140 characters, the size of one tweet.

I took up the challenge. Here is mine:

@ProfBruce: entrepreneur/Sens founder/Exploriem.org ed/real estate guru
& broker/novelist/peerless husband/5kids+1grandson/EQJournal.org.

See if you can do better!

@ProfBruce

ps. I also created a one page CV ‘About the Author’ for the book.
It’s quite sparse but seems to cover enough bases. You can use it as a
sample for your own resumé writing. Here it is:

Bruce M. Firestone, B. Eng. (Civil), M.Eng-Sci., PhD.

Bruce M. Firestone is best known as a professor, entrepreneur and
founder of NHL hockey team, the Ottawa Senators and their home
Scotiabank Place.

In May of 2006, Dr. Firestone joined the University of Ottawa’s
Telfer School of Management at as its first Entrepreneur-in-Residence.
He has previously taught or studied at McGill University (Bachelor of
Civil Engineering), Laval University, Harvard University, University of
Western Ontario, University of New South Wales (Master of
Engineering-Science, Traffic and Transportation), Australian National
University (PhD in Urban Economics) and Carleton University.

Firestone is Executive Director of Exploriem.org, a Canadian
registered Not-For-Profit corporation focused on educating and mentoring
entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and artpreneurs in Canada and around the
world.

Firestone has launched or helped launch more than 168 startups in
fields including tech, real estate, design, art and services. He advises
clients on business modeling, self-financing, smart marketing,
differentiated value, harnessing the Internet, urban design and real
estate development as well as issues related to entrepreneurial
companies and organizations including not-for-profits and charities.

Prof Bruce has been an operations research engineer, real estate
developer, hockey executive, professor of architecture, engineering,
business and entrepreneurship, real estate and mortgage broker, writer
and now novelist. He is a peerless husband and father of five great kids
and one fine grandson.

You can follow him @ProfBruce and read his blog at www.EQJournal.org.

pps. I wrote a bit more on the subject of CV writing. It is at: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=3411.

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 10:46 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Advertising

and

Branding

and

CV/Resumé

and

Differentiated Value

and

Entrepreneur Skill Set

and

Franchise and Concession

and

Guerrilla Marketing

and

Intellectual Property

and

Marketing

and

Personal Business for Life, PB4L

and

Political Economy

and

Product Management

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Value Proposition

and

Writing, Research and Experimentation

No Comments

         IOE, Institute of Entrepreneurs        

       
   Posted on
       Monday 12 March 2012  
     
   
       

IOE5100, Advanced Business Models
Exploriem.org’s Institute of Entrepreneurs presents IOE5100,
Advanced Business Models for Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and
Artpreneurs, an MBA level course (For available dates and times as well
as more information, please contact: Ms. Theresia Scholtes, tscholtes @
exploriem.org or @tclsholtes)

Come study with Prof Bruce,
a leader in designing and building business models for the 21st century
that allow you to compete and win in a tough competitive world.

Prof Bruce

Prof Bruce is best known as Founder of the Ottawa Senators,
Scotiabank Place and Ottawa Senators Foundation but he has also
participated either as principal or advisor in 168 other startups and
counting. He has taught entrepreneurship, urban economics, urban design
and real estate development at University of Ottawa, Carleton University
and the Australian National University. He is a civil engineer from
McGill University in Montreal and has his Masters of Engineering-Science
from the University of New South Wales in Sydney and his PhD in Urban
Economics from the Australian National University’s Urban Research Unit
in Canberra.

He has been at times an engineer, a real estate developer, a hockey
executive, University Prof, consultant, art collector and benefactor,
broker, writer, columnist, futurist and novelist as well as Executive
Director of not-for-profit Exploriem.org dedicated to assisting
entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs everywhere.

In less than a week, he will help turn you into a creative, focused
entrepreneur, intrapreneur or artpreneur with a world class business
model that will allow you to compete with the best in the world.

“I’m really glad my partner (Josh Garellek) took this IOE course
in the Dominican. I had been pushing him to do a couple of things and
when he came back from the course, he had a business model that included
all of them and more plus as a bonus we weren’t going after a huge
amount of venture capital either so no undue stock dilution,” Avi Davis, Co-Founder, Artic Empire, April 13, 2012.

“Prof Bruce, I just wanted to take a couple minutes to thank you
for the honor of sharing a classroom with you. Even though I will have
to revisit some of the concepts that you shared with us during six
intense days, I feel that I got more from your class than any other I
have taken during my MBA and that there is no better time (probably in
history) than today to be an entrepreneur. To tell you the truth, I had
kind of lost that entrepreneurship spirit but what you did and said in
class rekindled the entrepreneurship light in me. I wish you the best,”
David Serpa, April 2012.

Schedule and Content

In six lectures, you will learn/study and do the following:

L1, Business Modeling in the 21st Century—Integrating the Internet into the DNA of your Enterprise. Slide deck: PPT file, PDF file

(Lecture 9 am to Noon, followed by one hour workshop focused on
producing first ‘draft’ 2-minute elevator video pitch for YouTube of
your value proposition, public or unlisted, then lunch)

L2, Part 1, Case Studies of Self-Capitalized Enterprises—Creating
Powerful, Innovative Value Propositions and Sustainable Competitive
Advantage through Differentiation. Creating and improving new products
and techniques in existing established companies. Slide deck: PPT file, PDF file

L2, Part 2, Self-Capitalization for the Modern Enterprise—You are
never too big a company to use Bootstrap Financing techniques. Slide
deck: PPT file, PDF file

(Lecture 9 am to noon, followed by one hour workshop focused on producing one page ‘draft’ pictogram of biz model and lunch)

L3, In-class review of biz models with Prof and  reminder of all outputs to be produced by student entrepreneurs for L6.

(Workshop 9 am to 1 pm, followed by lunch and afternoon adventure tour)

L4, Turn Selling into Buying—Effective Customer Acquisition using
Negative Cost Selling, Guerrilla Marketing, Social Marketing and Earned
Media. Slide deck: PPT file, PDF file Assignment (Blue Heron Storage Case Study): https://dramatispersonae.org/NegativeCostSellingBlueHeronStorageExercise.doc. Blue Heron Storage Corp Blank Spreadsheet: PDF file, Blue Heron Storage Corp Answer Spreadsheet: PDF file, XLS file

(Lecture 9 am to Noon, followed by one hour workshop focused on
negative cost selling assignment, IRR, Internal Rate of Return,
calculation, CCC, Cash Conversion Cycle, calculation and CPM, Critical
Path Methodology (for advanced product managers) and lunch)

(All assignment materials can be found in the following folder: https://www.eqjournal.org/Assignments/)

L5, Corporate Organization and Structure for Entrepreneurs,
Intrapreneurs and high level management—Creditor Proofing Yourself.
Slide deck: PPT file, PDF file

(Lecture 9 am to Noon, followed by one hour workshop focused on presentations and lunch)

L6, Student presentations 9 am to Noon, celebratory lunch with prizes/surprises

“These IOE courses are a great addition to the education scene,
connecting young entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to world class
MBA-level courses presented by global leaders in business; they are a
must for any up and coming businessman or woman,” Matt Slaman, aka @CaptainMurky.

Next Available Dates:

Come to beautiful Strathmere (1980 Phelan Road West, North Gower near
Ottawa, Canada) to study with Prof Bruce from Monday July 23rd to
Saturday July 28th, 2012.

Strathmere near Ottawa

“This course was the most interesting and educational course to
date in my MBA program.  As a public sector employee, I took this
elective to step out of my comfort zone, unsure exactly what I would
learn. Wow! What an eye-opener to business opportunities that exist.  

The focus on the ‘business model’ as the engine of the enterprise was
an entirely new concept and took my understanding of business to a new
level, beyond traditional focus of  ‘mission statements’ and ‘business
plan’ to truly understanding the central operating system.  

Creative solutions exist to overcome barriers to becoming an
entrepreneur; they were eye-opening to say the least.  Moreover, this
course opened doors to many resources and networks that I plan to tap
into in the future. The handbook is an exceptional resource – clearly
written (academic clutter put aside) and incredible value for $35!

Our group assignment forced an immediate application of the
tools (all quite practical and easy to grasp) and encouraged creative
thinking. I also appreciated Prof Bruce’s early feedback on our business
concept and suggestions for altering our biz model which our team was
able to integrate into the final product,”  Tara Preston, April 2012.

Learning Outcomes

What we are going to do together in just under one week is to take
you on a voyage to help you create the most compelling business models
for the 21st Century. We are going to look deep into the past (as far
back as the beginning of trading economies circa 10,000 B.C.) as well as
show you models from the decade past and the new one we are currently
in that may amaze you—ones that generate cash on three sides (not only
getting cash from customers but from suppliers and marketers too).

You will learn how it is now possible to reverse out much of your
work, to create mass customization in products and services, turn
products into services and vice versa, engage in negative cost selling
and negative cost marketing and much more.

We will give you the tools to take a larger share of the value you
create so that ‘death isn’t a career move’ for artpreneurs and that
creative entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are rewarded; first, far more
than if they just had a J.O.B. or, second, with a promotion and greater
pay, benefits, responsibility and authority.

Outputs

You will complete these assignments:

A. Build/Improve/Adjust your Business Model (50%)
B. Produce and record your 2-Minute Elevator Pitch on YouTube (public or unlisted) (20%)
C. Present your Business Model with all  outputs (30%)

Student entrepreneurs should refer to the following marking grid so
they will better understand what is expected from their presentations: https://www.dramatispersonae.org/ElevatorPitchMarkingGrid.pdf.

For more on outputs, please see postscript below.

Ten Reasons to Attend IOE5100

Are you a talented entrepreneur, intrapreneur, 3rd, 4th or MBA-level
student, product manager, executive, supply chain manager, high level
manager/executive or enterprise founder? If so, here are ten reasons why
you or someone from your organization should take this course:

1. Receive an IOE Certificate for course work in a condensed one-week period.
2. Create and improve your Business Model so the harder you work, the more money you make.
3. Craft and improve on your value proposition and then turn it into a fantastic elevator pitch and YouTube viral hit.
4. Learn and expand your knowledge about self-capitalization for modern
enterprises, effective customer acquisition using Negative Cost Selling,
Guerrilla Marketing, Social Marketing and Earned Media.
5. Take advantage of personal mentoring by Prof Bruce during the retreat
as well as a 6-month and 1-year follow up with Prof Bruce! Access to
IOE Newsletter only available to former IOE students.
6. Surround yourself with competitive individuals who share your passion for entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.
7. Learn the entire entrepreneur skill set—A to Z.
8. Take a one-week, learning, guilt-free ‘vacation’ and escape deadly routine.
9. It’s held in friendly, world-class resorts! Includes: adventure tour
and cool takeaways, YouTube Elevator Pitch, Biz Model, Graduate
Certificate and signed copy of Quantum Entity, We Are All ONE, a novel
about an extraordinary group of young people who found, grow and then
defend a globe-spanning tech company*).
10. It’s cost effective-special introductory price. It’s world class.
It’s team building. It’s adventure. It’s fun. It’s networking.

(* To read the Foreword of Quantum Entity, We Are All ONE, please go to: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2932.)

Takeaways

Here’s what you will take away from IOE5100:

A. Entrepreneurs Handbook II (Read the Foreword here: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=3179 Get a copy from: Lulu)
B. Student Entrepreneur Business Model
C. 2-minute Elevator Pitch video on YouTube (if public) or unlisted (if not)
D. Masters-level Certificate
E. Advance copy of Quantum Entity, We Are All One, a novel written by
Prof Bruce to be released in June 2012 and signed by the Author.

Follow up Mentorship

IOE provides each of its students with 6-month and 1-year individual follow ups with Prof Bruce.

Course Pre-Preparation

1. Please get a free Twitter account and follow: @ProfBruce. We will be using the hashtag #IOE. Please read ‘Twitter Nation‘.
2. Take the ECQ Test. Send your score to tscholtes @ exploriem.org.
3. Give some thought to the Business Model you wish to build during this course. Please read: The Complete Business Model. The more of these elements that you can incorporate in a new or existing model, the more you are likely to prosper.
4. Practice using our online Business Model Generator: BMG
5. Get ready to make a 2-minute YouTube elevator pitch video (public or
private) by reading ‘How to Make a Great Elevator Pitch’: Word Doc
6. Please also read: Should Every Person on the Planet have a Personal Business For Life (PB4L)? https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=421

More about Prof Bruce

Bruce M. Firestone
B. Eng. (Civil), M. Eng.-Sci., Ph.D.

Professor Firestone is perhaps best known as founder of the Ottawa
Senators, Ottawa Senators Foundation and Scotiabank Place. In May of
2006, Dr. Firestone joined the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of
Management as its first entrepreneur-in-residence. He is now
entrepreneurship ambassador there. In addition, Dr. Firestone is a real
estate broker with Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc, a commercial and
residential real estate group with six offices located in Ottawa and
Eastern Ontario.

Dr. Firestone is also known for his work as Executive Director of
Exploriem.org, a Canadian Registered not-for-profit corporation focused
on educating and mentoring entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in Ontario
and around the world. He is also a columnist with Ottawa Business
Journal and author. His most recent activity includes publishing
Entrepreneurs Handbook II and Quantum Entity, a learning outcome novel,
the first book in his new trilogy. Both are due out in May 2012.

Prof Bruce has been an operations research engineer, a real estate
developer, a hockey guy, a professor of architecture, engineering and
business as well as entrepreneurship, a real estate and mortgage broker,
a leader of a not-for-profit organization, founder of a charity, author
and, of course, peerless husband and father of five great kids and one
handsome grandson.

Prof Bruce has launched, helped launch or contributed to more than
168 startups. He has studied or taught at McGill University, Laval
University, the University of New South Wales, the Australian National
University, Harvard University, University of Western Ontario, Carleton
University and the University of Ottawa.

You can follow him on Twitter at @ProfBruce and read his blog at www.EQJournal.org. His current motto is “Making Each Day Count”.

Special Introductory Price

Costs for the course, meals and adventure tour as well as all takeaways and outputs are:

Course cost is $585 for students or not-for-profits/charities/NGOs and $835 for everyone else + HST.

A limited number of scholarships are available.

Pre-Admission and Pre-Preparation

To apply for admission and prepare, you need to do the following:

1. Provide us with two reference letters; one personal and one from a past employer.
2. Take the ECQ Test (https://dramatispersonae.org/ECQTest/ECQ(ns)TestAuto.htm) and send us your score.
3. Please read: Twitter Nation (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2080), Personal Business for Life, PB4L: The Road to Financial Security and Independence (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2020) and The Complete Business Model (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=692).
4. Run your preliminary business model (the one you would like to work
on during the course) through our online utility, the Business Model
Generator (see: https://dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModels/BusinessModelGeneratorLandingPage.htm and https://www.dramatispersonae.org/bmg/) and bring the outputs with you.
5. Provide us with a link to your
Twitter/Blog/YouTube/Business/Facebook/LinkedIn and other relevant
social media tools. If you don’t have one, get a Twitter account and
follow @Prof Bruce and @exploriem as well as @tclscholtes. Twitter is
the fastest way to integrate you to a worldwide, learning network of
entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.
6. Record a 2-minute Elevator Pitch* and put it on YouTube (public or
unlisted) Your pitch is the product/idea you or your company would like
to develop and launch to complete or improve your business model and
increase revenue. To improve your value proposition and elevator pitch,
please read: How to Make an Elevator Pitch (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=339) and Elevator Pitch Workshop (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=361).

(* You will compare your preliminary business model and your initial
2-minute Elevator Pitch with the final ones you will create during the
course—to measure your progress and evaluate outcomes.)

Testimonials

“Basically, you can’t be running a startup in Ottawa and not have
benefited from Prof Bruce’s wisdom in some way. His credentials would
take a whole page to write but in a nutshell, he is Founder of the
Ottawa Senators, is Executive Director of a business incubator called
Exploriem.org and with his knowledge and experience he is one of the
best advisors I ever had!” Vahid Jozi.

“This course filled a hole in the MBA program – business modeling is
an essential skill for all MBA grads regardless of whether he/she is an
entrepreneur or manager. The experience was enhanced by Prof. Bruce’s
innovative teaching style. Of the 20 MBA courses I’ve taken, this one is
in the top two!” J. Krenosky.

“Startup DNA was different from any MBA course I have taken to date.
It provided me with both a practical understanding and creative outlook
on the how to’s of building a business model. Prof Bruce equips you with
the knowledge and the courage to stop ‘thinking’ about entrepreneruship
and start ‘doing’ it – all the while reviving your entrepreneurial
spirit. Thank you Prof Bruce!” Ziad Geagea

“Entrepreneurialist Culture is invaluable to anyone interested in
becoming an entrepreneur, intrapreneur or wants to create a start-up and
reap the benefits. It forces you to think in business models,
relationships and ecologies, to take ideas and turn them into strong
value propositions for individuals, and to stand alone; looking at a
market and measuring yourself in the success you create with your ideas,
determination and leadership. You don’t only learn how to work hard,
but how to reverse out the work as well. It changes the way you think
about business and the possibilities beyond just a carrier, but a way of
life and thinking,” Craig Schoen.

What Steve Jobs and Sam Palmisano Think about Biz Models

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs figured out how important biz models are before he
launched the iPhone when he insisted that AT&T* give him a share of
their subscriber revenues in return for a two year exclusivity on the
device. With that, he revolutionized yet another industry’s biz model.
Cell phone manufacturers went from selling a ’shrink wrapped’ gadget for
a one-time payment in a brutally competitive market with poor margins
that was racing to the bottom to an industry with multiple sources of
revenues (ads on the iOS platform, iTunes downloads, app store sales and
revenues, search fees, streaming, subscriber revenues, sale of the
device itself), some of which are recurring: the holy grail of techdom.

(* Wired.com (https://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/01/iphone-att-q4-sales)
reports that the iPhone represented 80% of all AT&T smartphone
activations in the last quarter of 2011 during which they added 9.4
million new subscribers, 50% more than in any previous quarter in
company history. We estimated that the iPhone is returning a phenomenal
288% p.a. to Apple making the platform and the device perhaps the single
greatest tech profit generator ever. Please see: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1714.)

Sam Palmisano

Sam Palmisano, when he was CEO of IBM told BusinessWeek (April 3rd,
2006) why he places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of
business model innovation. He said: “…with product innovation, it’s a
certainty that your competition is shortly going to copy what you have
done. With business-model innovation, though, if you can come up with a
unique way of doing things, it’s much tougher to react to.” Mr.
Palmisano spent approximately 40% of his time as CEO on IBM business
models.

For More Information about the Course about IOE

Ms. Theresia C.L Scholtes
Assistant Manager
Exploriem.org
LINCOLN FIELDS SHOPPING CENTRE, 2525 CARLING AVE, SUITE 23, OTTAWA ON K2B 7Z2
Tel.: 613.422.6757 ext. 204 Fax: 613.422.2807
Internet: Exploriem.org/about-us/institute-of-entrepreneurs-mission/ioe/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tclscholtes

Comparables from Schulich Executive Learning Centre

Masters Certificate in Business Analysis/Program Fee: $9,450 CDN + applicable taxes

Program fee includes full 9-module program tuition, all teaching
materials, iPad 2, lunches, and refreshments. Schulich Executive
Education Centre’s liability is limited to reimbursement of paid tuition
fee.

Masters Certificate in Supply Chain and Logistics Management/Program Fees:
• SCL members: $10,550 CDN + Applicable taxes
• Non-members: $10,950 CDN + Applicable taxes
• Program fee includes program tuition, teaching materials, lunches and refreshments.
• It also includes a six-month membership in Canada’s leading supply
chain & logistics association – SCL Canada – for non-members who
register.
• Schulich Executive Education Centre’s liability is limited to reimbursement of paid tuition fee.

Location: Schulich Executive Learning Centre, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario

Postscript: More on Biz Model Outputs

Your Complete Business Model should include:

1. A one page Business Model Flow Chart. Start by using our online Business Model Generator, BMG (https://www.dramatispersonae.org/bmg/)
to get a sense of what your final model might look like. Then improve
it and let it evolve to describe using a pictogram the entire ecosystem
that your new enterprise will live within. Your Business Model will show
your ECQ Test Score,
your ‘Pixie Dust’, source of Bootstrap Capital and Guerrilla
Marketing/Social Marketing ideas, your Guerrilla Marketing Test Score
and your Business Model Test Score. The BMG will lead you through this
process. Try to select the right idea for your next startup (read Ten
Things Startups Forget to Do: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=335).
Create a business model for the 21st Century that will produce great
results so that the harder you work, the more money you make and so you
can compete effectively with hard charging entrepreneurs from China,
India and other Tigers by having a business model that can not be easily
duplicated or dislodged and gives you a lasting, sustainable
competitive advantage and concession or franchise.

Understand not only your clients and suppliers but the whole network
or ecosystem: clients of your clients and suppliers to your suppliers.

Becoming part of your business ecosystem is one of the keys to
longterm sustainability for your enterprise. Add some differentiated
value, innovation and ‘pixie dust’ to your business model.
Self-capitalize (bootstrap) your new enterprise so that you end up
owning it and not a VC firm or other investors or partners (please see
Bootstrap Capital, the Last Word: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1162).
And use some smart marketing (guerrilla marketing and social marketing)
so you can acquire customers and clients cost effectively (please read
Guerrilla Marketing Basics: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=643).

2. You will also need to develop a one page spreadsheet showing how
value is created for one individual client or customer. Here are some
examples of how to demonstrate your Value Proposition: Value Proposition of a Residential Realtor, the spreadsheet, Value Proposition for a HR Professional, the spreadsheet.
You are demonstrating in a clear and concise way how your new
enterprise/product/service/division creates either lower costs or higher
revenues (or hopefully some combination of both) for one customer.

3. A second spreadsheet is required that provides you with a
Financial Model of your enterprise. Having done quite a bit of work in
the field of urban economics, it has always amazed me that most cities,
for example, don’t have a financial model that can tell them what the
fiscal implications are of one more resident or, for that matter, one
more firm locating in their town. Most cities have budget processes that
are a mess. I produced a financial model for a backorder domain name
service that you can use online: https://public.sheet.zoho.com/public/profbruce/backorderdomaincorpfinancialmodel.
From this model, the firm can see what impact each additional client
has on the top line of the firm. The firm is also able to test the
sensitivity of its top line to changes in the success rate of backorder
capture, changes in its COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) and other variables.

Your value proposition for your clients and their impact on your
business (which is measured in your financial model) are mirror images
of each other. We complete the business ecosystem when your suppliers
provide you with their value proposition and you also insist that they
have a financial model of how your business impacts them. Why should you
care if your supplier’s have a workable financial model? Well, the long
term viability of your firm depends in part of a stable supply chain
and it won’t be stable if your suppliers are failing on a frequent
basis.

4. Make sure you also understand what a Cash Conversion Cycle is and how to calculate it for your enterprise. Please read Cash Conversion Cycle,
CCC: How the CCC Affects Your Internal Rate of Return, The Power of
Leverage to Work for You and Against You, and Effectively Manage your
Enterprise by Measuring your Cash Position. Here is a spreadsheet
example for calculating the CCC: https://www.dramatispersonae.org/BusinessModels/CashConversionCycleMeasurement.xls.

5. You will produce and record a 2-munite video of your Elevator
Pitch and load it to YouTube ( public or private) for viewing in class.
See: https://dramatispersonae.org/HowToMakeAGreatElevatorPitch.doc and https://dramatispersonae.org/ElevatorPitchWorkshop.doc. Here is a sample elevator pitch given by student entrepreneur, Daniel Beachamp: https://blog.avitu.com/2010/07/30/elevator-pitch-time/. Sean Wise has a humorous but useful take on what makes a good elevator pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0tan49rmc&feature=related.

6. If you can build leverage into your business model, a means to
multiply the force exerted by your own efforts, time and brains, you
will have a greater opportunity to succeed. Leverage in your business
model comes primarily from these principal sources:

i. great HR,
ii. using OPM,
iii. forced savings,
iv. innovation,
v. capital equipment,
vi. location,
vii. network effects,
viii. marketing channels that reduce the problem from one to many to one to a few,
ix. branding, co-branding, co-opetition and co-creation,
x. inflation.

Test your biz model: ask yourself do you have great HR, are you using
OPM, benefiting from forced savings, innovating, do you have a great
location or brand, does your enterprise benefit from network effects or
marketing channels that allow you to connect cost effectively with your
clients or customers and reduces that task from one to many to one to a
few and is your capital equipment top notch/best-of-breed & do you
benefit from inflation? If so, you are probably maximizing your
leverage.

Readers of this blog will know that I think that after your decision
to actually start a new enterprise, your next most important decision
arrives when you hire your first employee.

It’s talented people that produce revenue streams not assets so
always try to hire ‘up’. I look for people with the right set of skills
and experience but I am also looking for people with ‘good hearts’.
These folks won’t quit when the going (inevitably) gets tough. To read
more about this, see: https://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=96.

Here is what the Oracle of Omaha had to say on the issue. It may take a few seconds for the lesson to become clear.

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities:
integrity, intelligence and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the
other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire
somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy,”
Warren Buffett.

Leverage using OPM is increased when the project’s or business’ rate
of return is higher than money you borrowed. Or when you use bootstrap
capital, say, trade credit, where a supplier gives you credit at low
interest or no interest to buy from them or a customer gives you a
deposit on an order on which you pay no interest, you are then
leveraging your own efforts and capital with theirs.

You also get leverage when other people are paying off your debts.
This happens when, for example, you own rental property. Every time a
tenant pays their monthly rent and you pay off some of the principal
using their rent, you experience a form of forced savings and a wealth
effect.

I have spoken to the need to have some type of innovation in your
business model; as we saw above, Steve Jobs proved that you can think
your way to wealth a lot faster than you can work your way there. That’s
big-time leverage…from ideas.

It would also appear self-evident that having top notch capital
equipment provides greater leverage for your employees and means higher
productivity.

You also get leverage from your location and your brand. In real
estate terms, if you occupy a particular location, it obviously means
that no one else can, so make it a good one. I

Some people think that having a great brand is nice, actually it’s
essential. A strong brand creates trust and trust creates the
opportunity to sell. Think about it? Ever bought anything from someone
you didn’t like and didn’t trust? If you did, it was only once.

But a brand does other things for you. For example, Apple’s
incredible brand, its reputation for building insanely great products,
allowed Steve Jobs to cajole out of AT&T a share of their monthly
subscriber revenues for the launch of the iPhone, something that no
other telecom had ever granted to a cell phone manufacturer before.

Cell phone manufacturers went from selling a ’shrink wrapped’ gadget
for a one-time payment in a brutally competitive market that was racing
to the bottom to an industry with multiple sources of revenues, some of
which are recurring: the holy grail of techdom.

Imagine how much harder Steve Jobs and Apple would have to work and
how much lower their productivity as measured in revenue per employee
would be without recurring revenues from iPhone app sales and revenues,
advertising revenues on their mobile platform, downloads of paid content
from iTunes and a share of their carriers’ subscriber fees.

From a simple question, asked by Steve Jobs, and a tweaking of his
business model flowed great benefits. The harder they work, the more
money they make and, in Apple’s case, this relationship has become
geometric.

(Jobs has created radical change in industry after industry: personal
computing (the Mac), animation (Pixar), music (iPod), cell phones
(iPhone) and now book/newspaper/magazine publishing (iPad) plus perhaps
television and film (Apple TV). It is truly a remarkable record of
achievement.)

I was almost tempted to add a 11th form of leverage: the power that
comes from co-branding, co-opetition and co-creation. Co-branding is
poorly understood and vastly under-exploited. Here’s a simple example.
If I was responsible for marketing BMW cars, I would ask my self what
else people who buy BMWs also buy. For guys, maybe it’s a Harry Rosen
suit and a Rolex watch. So perhaps my TV commercials would show men
dressed by Harry Rosen looking at their Rolex watches as they step out
of their BMW before playing Texas Holdem for multi-million stakes. These
four brands might share marketing costs but more importantly, they
leverage off each other. People who like to play Texas Holdem get
introduced to BMWs and vice versa.

If I was marketing say promo products, I would use co-branding a lot.
Suppose you want to sell mouse pads to golf pros to give out to their
clients. Club pros usually don’t have much money but some of their
students such as lawyers and accountants do. So co-brand the mousepads
with all three. The lawyers and accountants will pay for it (because
they want to put their names in front of a golf-playing public and this
is a cost effective way to do that) and golf pros will hand them out
(because it’ll be sitting on someone’s desk basically saying: ‘Wouldn’t
you rather be golfing?’ and ‘Learn from the best! Call me now for your
next lesson at 613.mmm.nnnn!’).

Recently, I was advising S3, Select Start Studios on how to build
their newsletter list (see: https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=3052). My
advice? Invite third party content.

At Exploriem.org, we get a tonne of stuff from people in our
ecosystem for our monthly newsletter: entrepreneurs with new products or
services, Profs who’ve come up with clever new algorithms or pieces of
research ready for commercialization, providers who cater to our market
(entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs/product managers) with new services to
announce…

They not only provide us with more cool content, they become
ambassadors for our newsletter– they have a stake in it and a stake in
getting more readers for it. This is also a form of co-branding and
there absolutely needs to be more of it because it provides big leverage
for both. Basically, it introduces our entire ecosystem to our
suppliers’, clients’ and partners’ separate but overlapping ecosystems
that will almost never be entirely either one or the other.

Another form of co-branding is actually also a form of co-opetition
and a source of leverage. Why do Starbucks, McCafé, Second Cup and local
Bridgehead Coffee all tend to gather near the same geographic
locations? It’s so that: a) that area gets branded as a coffee haven and
when people feel the need, they think of a place where they have a wide
choice, hence overall market grows, b) marketing by any one of these
enterprises benefits the others in the group, c) unsatisfied demand is
reduced (for example, if lineups are too big at Bridgehead, they can go
to Starbucks and vice versa.)

Here’s how it works in the home building biz: two builders construct
model homes across the street from each other and ‘compete’. One is a
stucco builder, the other brick. They both advertise like heck. Someone
comes to see Builder A (the stucco guy). “Ugh,” they say. “I hate
stucco.” So they cross the street and buy a nice brick home. Someone
else comes along and says: “Brick is like so like last century” so they
go buy a stucco home.

Now if Builder A was alone, maybe he sells 1 out of 3 clients. The
other two wonder off to some other part of the city. Builder B is
experiencing the same thing. But if they co-locate and co-brand (even if
it’s really a form of co-opetition), 1 of 2 unsatisfied clients crosses
the road (going both ways) and their success ratios have changed from 1
in 3 to 2 in 3. So the equation 1(3) + 1(3) = 2 sales (read ‘1(3)’ as a
success rate, i.e., ‘one of three’) has now changed to 2(3) + 2(3) = 4
sales. THIS IS HUGE LEVERAGE, right?

Co-creation is what happens in the Apple universe when you open up a
platform like the iPhone or iPad to app developers. It turns out that an
active, broadly developed app marketplace is essential to the sale of
iPhones and iPads and one of the reasons for Apple’s wide lead in
smartphones over previous leader RIM and Blackberry. By leveraging the
talents of a huge number of unpaid (by Apple) developers, they extend
their brand and significantly boost the utility and revenues of their
devices sharing some of that bounty with third part app providers.

Microsoft decided (unintentionally) to do just that after launching the Kinect:

“Within weeks of launching Kinect, someone had hacked it and there
was open source code on the Internet. Instead of freaking out, they
decided to run with it and create a software development kit. It’s
thinking like this that will make personalization and co-creation a key
driver for how brands and companies create closer relationships with
their customers,” Sondre Ager-Wick, Head of Design Strategy and
Foresight, Nokia, December 14, 2011
(https://nokiaconnects.com/2011/12/14/5-incredible-ways-mobile-design-will-change-in-the-next-5-years/).

Threadless does something along these lines by inviting artists to
submit T-shirt designs for production after a voting process takes place
amongst their community. Biz models are developing or discovering new
and interesting sources of leverage that have never been possible
before.

The most obvious example of network effects is the facsimile machine.
I was actually one of the first people in Ottawa to get a fax machine.
The problem was: what if you had no one to send a fax to? I had to work
hard to get my law firm to install one. They asked me: “Why do we need
it? We have couriers for that?” “But imagine if I could send you to
documents in minutes instead of hours?” I responded. “How cool would
that be.”

Having the only fax machine in a town or having a fax machine that
uses a communications protocol that is different that everyone else’s,
is pretty useless. Having a video player that works with Beta isn’t much
use if all the tapes are VHS.

More recently, network effects are apparent in Apple’s app store,
Google’s search engine algorithm, Skype’s video calling, in fact,
anything that verges on becoming a standard can also create the
potential for network effects to take hold. You can read more about how
standards are creating wealth, please refer to:
https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1366.

Leverage is also generated in Business Models that somehow manage to
reduce the one to many marketing problem to one to a few. This is done,
for example, by developing sales channels that include resellers. We
worked on this for Amy Yee’s EventBots business. You can see our
handwritten notes on this at:
https://dramatispersonae.org/StartupDNA/event-bots-biz-model-redesign-march-2011-notes.pdf.
Essentially, practically everyone on the planet will have at least one
event in their lives that they will want to record; e.g., their
weddings! So, in theory, EventBots could market to 7 billion people. Not
very practical.

Instead, we worked on a model that would see EventBots selling to
Wedding Planners, Event Managers, Hotels, Convention Centres, Marketing
Agencies and Media Companies, political organizers, anyone who might
want to record in a meaningful way some event they host or organized.
This builds plenty of leverage in Amy’s model.

Your marketing efforts also generate leverage for you when you use a
non-linear selling model:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Non-Linear%20Selling.

Lastly, if you are in an industry that is experiencing price
inflation, you are benefiting from asset value increases without putting
in any effort of your own, i.e., more ‘free’ positive leverage for you.
That is why it is almost always better to enter into buoyant sectors
where ‘all boats are rising’.

7. Lastly, you will need to write a Summary of your Business Model that is 2-pages or less that summarizes:

a. Your value proposition including its ‘pixie dust’ (https://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=9)
or differentiated value and how you can create a sustainable
competitive advantage. Make sure that you are abundantly clear about the
costs and benefits that you are creating for each customer.
b. How you can acquire customers and clients, including pre-launch
clients, in a cost effective manner through guerrilla marketing, social
marketing or direct marketing. Explain how you might use negative cost
selling to achieve this: https://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=425.
c. How you integrated the Internet into your business model. (See: https://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=1609).
d. How you can bootstrap your business and self-capitalize it (https://www.eqjournalblog.com/?p=1162).
e. How you will build cashflow and create a cash conversion cycle that is workable (https://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2257).
f. Why you and your team are the right people to execute this model.

@ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 9:21 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Awards

and

Bootstrap Entrepreneurs– Case Studies

and

Business Models

and

Cash Conversion Cycle

and

Competition

and

Corporate Culture

and

Creativity and Value

and

Creditor Proofing

and

Education

and

Elevator Pitch

and

Entrepreneur Skill Set

and

Ethics

and

Franchise and Concession

and

Future Vision and Technology

and

Goal Setting

and

Guerrilla Marketing

and

Guerrilla Marketing Research

and

Institute of Entrepreneurs

and

Intellectual Property

and

Internet– the Internet is Eating a Hole in the Global

and

Intrapreneurs and Intrapreneurship

and

Investing

and

IOE

and

IRR

and

Launch Clients

and

Leadership

and

Leverage

and

Mentoring

and

Negative Cost Marketing

and

Personal Business for Life, PB4L

and

Political Economy

and

Pre-selling, Finding New Clients, Keeping Existing Ones

and

Product Management

and

Rules? There are no rules in entrepreneurship.

and

Spreadsheet Use

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Why Businesses Fail

No Comments

         Why I Wrote Quantum Entity        

       
   Posted on
       Thursday 8 March 2012  
     
   
       

Here below is the dedication I wrote for the upcoming
release of the first book in my new trilogy, Quantum Entity, which will
be available later this year. Below that I include the Foreword.

Dedication

I wanted to write a great mid-21st Century story, a trilogy as it
turned out, focused on five themes—entrepreneurship/science, science
speculation, science fiction and engineering/politics and the law/action
and adventure/love story with plenty of learning outcomes too. Then a
sixth appeared—it became a mystical and spiritual tale as well.

Our hero, young Damien Bell is not only a quantum physicist but also
an engineer. As such, it is not sufficient for him to examine the
surface meaning of the things happening around him—he wants to
understand his world at a pico scale. His journey takes the reader not
only on a wonderful adventure that entertains, it hopefully educates
too. Hence, we have created what can only be described as a ‘learning
outcome novel’.

I wanted to dedicate this trilogy to all my students but especially
Gen Y. These kids aged 19 to 32 are building not only great enterprises,
some of them world-spanning, global altering ones like the one I
describe in my trilogy, but also contributing to building better
communities through vision, talent, focus and hard work as well as
finding innovative ways of giving back to society. It’s peculiar that
entrepreneurs today who are in it only for the money, have none while
those that are building insanely great products and services plus
contributing to their communities, have it all.

Gen Y could be the real successors to perhaps the greatest Generation
ever—those who lived and worked from 1914 to 1969, who took us from
buggies to planes and to the Moon, who faced two World Wars, a Great
Depression, the Nazi menace and the long Cold War. Gen Y, it’s your turn
now.

@ProfBruce, Ottawa, Canada 2012

Foreword

When young Damien Bell, physicist and engineer, and his business
partner, the fabulous Ellen Brooks unleash Damien’s twin creations, a
new artificial life-form he calls Quantum Counterparts and she calls
Quantum Entities—because she believes they may be sentient beings—and
the Quantum Phone, their delivery system for Quantum Counterparts, they
revolutionize the communications and search industries of their mid 21st
century world.

Damien and Ellen with their new company, Quantum Computing Corp,
introduce an era of quantum economics, a condition where scarcity is a
thing of the past. Together they build a great new globe-spanning,
ultra-fast growing tech enterprise that somehow gets away from them.

Damien is distracted from his scientific and startup work by
performance artist and world superstar, Miss Nell, whom he first meets
at Nuit Blanche in Toronto. Their adventures take them to Four Corners
and a mystical place called Third Mesa in Arizona, Boise and the Salmon
River in Idaho, Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Palos
Verdes, California, the Big Smoke (Toronto), San Pedro Town and Marco
Gonzalez on Ambergris Caye in Belize, then Boston, New York City,
Washington DC, Langley Air Force Base, San Quentin State Prison and
finally San Francisco where their group will, of necessity, transform
itself into the largest protest movement the US has seen in almost 90
years.

What does it take to start, build and then defend a great new
enterprise? How do you extend human rights to a new non-human life-form
when such rights barely apply to people in these troubled days of the
Republic, a time when the United States has fallen from first among
nations to third after Imperial China and the European Union, with the
AU (African Union) closing in on them fast?

Inevitably, they come into conflict with entrenched business and
political interests. Are Quantum Entities truly friends to human beings
or are they, as the US Government maintains, a threat to national
security?

@ProfBruce, Ottawa, Canada 2012

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 12:26 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

Art and Architecture

and

Bootstrap Entrepreneurs– Case Studies

and

Development Economics and Entrepreneurship

and

Education

and

Entrepreneur Skill Set

and

Future Vision and Technology

and

Intellectual Property

and

Litigation

and

Political Economy

and

Product Management

and

Quantum Entity

and

Rules? There are no rules in entrepreneurship.

and

Thought Experiment

and

Venture Capital

and

Why Businesses Fail

and

Work/Life Balance

and

Writing, Research and Experimentation

No Comments

         How, Why and Whether to Write a Media Release        

       
   Posted on
       Thursday 8 March 2012  
     
   
       

Understanding the simple arithmetic of how blogs, Twitter, FB, Digg, Reddit and YouTube are cratering mainstream media

In case you missed it, I added Exploriem.org’s media release about 2012 Bootstrap Awards winners to this blog. See below.

Writing media releases is tricky to do and these days many people are
saying that they are less relevant as mainstream media fades. That is
true and also not true.

The media release shown below is a good example of how to write one
that both tells a story and creates a history of an event. I should
recognize the excellent work by Ms. Alana Kennedy in putting it
together.

It’s still true you can talk to more people in a few seconds on say ABC World News with Diane Sawyer
than you can if you gave a speech before a live audience of 1,000
people for 7,950 days in a row*. That’s almost 22 years of live
engagements just to match 10 seconds on Diane’s show.

(* ABC reports that for November 2011 sweeps, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer delivered 7.95 million total viewers.)

So coverage by mainstream media still matters; for how long, no one
knows. But one thing is clear, it matters less than it once did.

Say instead of getting yourself on Diane’s show*, you reached 1,000
influential bloggers instead. Blogs like the one you are reading right
now have more than 52,000 individual IP addresses accessing it. So let’s
assume you reach 1,000 like it, i.e., who each have 52,000 readers. By
engaging the blogosphere, you could potentially deliver 52,000,000
viewers, far more than what Diane can do. So now you have a better
understanding of what blogs, Twitter, FB, Digg, Reddit and YouTube are
doing– they’re cratering mainstream media, in part, because they are
inexpensive, authentic (for the most part), democratic and non-elitist.

(* This might be a net negative for you given today’s preference by
infotainment programmers to feature comfort-the
afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable stories which means you are either
afflicted with something horrible or you are inflicting something bad
on others. Anyone who tells you that any news, even negative news, is
good news as long as they spell your name right, is an idiot. Your
image, your brand, your reputation are hugely important and anything
that tarnishes that is not good for you or the people who depend on
you.)

So why go to the trouble of writing media releases at all? I think
the most important reason might just be to record in a systematic and
careful way the history of your event. Once done, make sure you link it
to your website, it appears prominently in your mobile app, is available
to your staff, clients and suppliers plus, of course, appears on your
blog. Also, they need to be available to mainstream media should they
ever decide to bother with you.

Prof Bruce

Media Release: Ottawa Celebrates 2012 Bootstrap Awards

OTTAWA (February 23, 2012) – Exploriem today
announced the winners of the 2012 Bootstrap Awards which celebrates
local self capitalized entrepreneurs. Winners in the 11 categories were
narrowed down from a record pool of 93 nominations received in the last
six weeks.

“The quality of this year’s winners is an inspiration to all local
entrepreneurs” says Bryan Haralovich of Welch Chartered Accountants LLP,
“the 2012 winners demonstrate the diversity of Ottawa talent that
continues to grow” added Andrew Arnott of Royal Bank of Canada who are
co-title sponsors of the awards.

Winners of the 2012 Bootstrap Awards:

Best Business Model (sponsored by Nitro IT Business Solutions)

1- CanaFlora

2- Dual Code

3- LoonieGames

Innovation in Engineering and Technology (sponsored by Babcock Canada)

1- Crack Semiconductor

2- V+I Composites

3- Giatec Scientific

Lead to Win for Women (sponsored by Lead to Win for Women)

1- Amanda R A Lunan | Auntie Loo’s Treats

2- Elizabeth Lance | InGenuity Group

3- Hana Abaza | Wedding Republic

Bootstrap Capital (sponsored by FaveQuest)

1- Apption Corporation

2- OPIN Software

3- Nuvyyo

Best Guerilla Marketing (sponsored by Business Development Bank of Canada)

1- Toletta

2- Mold Busters

3- Openera

Community Impact (sponsored by Canadian Youth Business Foundation)

1- Shepherds of Good Hope

2- HUB Ottawa

3- First Place Options

Green Award (sponsored by Telfer School of Management)

1- Rumidifier Home Comforts Inc.

2- CarbonSolve Inc.

3- RIPP

Best Mobile App/Website (sponsored by Select Start Studios/Shopify)

1- Spoonity Inc.

2- DawnSuite Communications Inc.

3- iPricedit.com

Best Customer Service (sponsored by Babcock Canada)

1- Blue Rabbit Machines

2- Movingboxes.ca

3- Reno Rescue

Best Sales/Value Proposition (sponsored by The Connelly Group)

1- LavaBlast

2- Chide.it

3- Tindr

People’s Choice (sponsored by IronGate Server Management & Consulting)

1- Dermis Advanced Skin Care

2- GremlinsGold.com Inc.

3- Major Craig’s Chutney

The finalists for the Fastest Growing Start-Up Award (sponsored by
Ginsberg Gluzman Fage & Levitz, LLP) were announced. In alphabetical
order, they are: Renaissance Repair and Supply, StoneShare and
YOUiLabs. The winner of this event will be announced at the Ottawa
Business Journal event, later this year.

Mayor Jim Watson and local businesses were led through the event by MC and Ottawa entrepreneur Rob Woodbridge of Untether.tv.

“It takes a unique mindset and determination to succeed as an
entrepreneur – self capitalization is a tough journey. These awards were
created to showcase those businesses who took the leap and now inspire
others considering entrepreneurship” says Dr Bruce Firestone, Executive
Director of Exploriem and business mentor.

Winners left the event with tools to promote their win – Ottawa based
Liverpool Court who manage all of the audio visual for Bluesfest – will
be providing all winners with a video vignette about their company,
including footage of their win and acceptance speech.

Exploriem would like to thank all event and category sponsors for
supporting local entrepreneurs and growing the mentor and business
support network.

-30-

Notes to Editors (synopsis on winners follows)

Please email kennedy.alana@gmail.comor call 613 315 4537 to obtain a
quote from or an interview from Exploriem/sponsors or the winners.

About the Winners:

Best Business Model – CanaFlora

Canaflora started with the vision of one man. The owner moved here
from his home country of Ukraine and looked for a new start, and what
better way to start something than with flowers. At first he began
contacting local flower shops, explaining his vision, and getting them
on board. A few years later, he opened some of his own flower shops
while still working with local businesses. He didn’t want to become
another Teleflora or FTD, he wanted to preserve the high quality local
florists bring, but to spread it out on a national level. This is
exactly what he’s done. After 3 short years, his vision is becoming
clearer and clearer. Now able to deliver flowers almost anywhere in
Canada, Canaflora makes joy bloom on people’s faces when they receive
one of our bouquets.

Innovation in Engineering and Technology – Crack Semiconductor

Crack Semiconductor develops advanced Silicon Intellectual Property
for Public Key security. Founded in 2002, Crack Semiconductor is
privately owned and is committed to the development of the optimal RSA,
ECC and PKA processors in Silicon IP.

Lead to Win for Women – Amanda R A Lunan | Auntie Loo’s Treats

Auntie Loo’s Treats made its debut in 2004 at Ottawa’s infamous
Ladyfest “Not your Grandma’s” Craftsale. The profit that Mandi Loo
turned that day rivalled the 2-week pay check she was about to receive
from her barista job. She quit, and enrolled full-time at Algonquin
College’s School of Business to begin developing the idea and dream of
baking for a living.

When the physical location at 507 Bronson opened its doors in October
of 2009, it became Eastern Ontario’s first 100% vegan bakery. Over the
holiday season of 2011, the space was renovated to accommodate a modest
seating area and coffee and tea to patrons.

Bootstrap Capital – Apption Corporation

Since 2005, Apption has helped large organizations by creating
high-value application modernization solutions that streamline their
businesses and better prepare them for the future. Their innovative
frameworks and client collaborative approach results in the optimal
blend of existing systems and new development.

Over the years, Apption has received numerous industry
awardsincluding ranking on the Profit Hot 50 List in both 2008 and 2009,
winning the coveted 2008 Microsoft Code Award for Top Development Team
in Canada, and recognition for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the
Year 2009 award.

Best Guerilla Marketing – Toletta

Founded in 2009 by a husband and wife team, Toletta is a premium
brand of paper seat covers. They now have a strong network of
distributors and have been featured in many magazines including
Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Vogue.

Community Impact – Shepherds of Good Hope

The Shepherds of Good Hope community strives to create an environment
which fosters equal treatment for all clients, residents, staff,
volunteers and board members. Inclusion and openness to all faiths is an
important element of their philosophy.

Green Award – Rumidifier Home Comforts Inc.

Inventors of a brand new, unique, patented product line of Room humidifier – Rumidifier.

Best Mobile App/Website – Spoonity Inc.

Spoonity isa locally focused online loyalty platform that allows
restaurants to implement and manage a customer rewards system easily and
quickly. Spoonity gives restaurants a way to engage and retain
customers in a meaningful way after they have left the restaurant.
Customers are able to sign up for Spoonity once and earn rewards to
build status based on the amount they spend at any restaurant in the
Spoonity community. Restaurants have full control over the status
rewards and have the ability to offer groups of customers exclusive
rewards.

Spoonity is poised to flip the recent shift of power in local
commerce and empower small businesses with the technology necessary to
reach the modern consumer. Spoonity is a compelling business model which
promises to fundamentally change the relationship between restaurants
and patrons.

Best Customer Service – Blue Rabbit Machines

A small engine maintenance, service and repair shop with a big
difference. The team are a bunch of ex-Tech’s who have come together to
create a “working” machine repair shop that appreciates that time is of
the essence for weekend warriors and hobby farmers. They also run a
residential rescue in the Ottawa area if you have a large machine or
just can’t get your machine to the depot.

Best Sales/Value Proposition – LavaBlast

LavaBlast develops software for the franchise industry. Their
product, FranchiseBlast, empowers owners to run a successful franchise
business with easy-to-use operational software. Manage day-to-day issues
with franchisees, see everything happening in real-time, and increase
the level of control they have over their franchise business.

People’s Choice – Dermis Advanced Skin Care

Dermis is the only skin centre in Ottawa to carry a variety to top
tier, globally recognized and proven skin care lines. It is a skin
health concept clinic that works with clients to achieve long term skin
health.

Dermis provides non-surgical cosmetic skincare procedures, like laser
hair removal and clinical microdermabrasion, as well as therapeutic
face treatments – all under one roof. It is led by female entrepreneur
Alifiya Sadikali.

THREE FINALISTS: Fastest Growing Start-Up (Last 3 years) – winners to be announced at the Ottawa Business Journal event.–

Renaissance Repair and Supply

In today’s competitive environment, business and infrastructure costs
are critical and re-used assets are an obvious option to increase
return on investment. Network quality and reliability are paramount to
the success of a business. Renaissance Repair and Supply strives to
provide quality remanufactured assets that allow increased profitability
and reliability to its customers.

StoneShare

StoneShare is the preferred destination in the Ottawa-Gatineau and
Toronto regions for SharePoint specific products and services.

Founded in 2007, they are a Microsoft Gold certified partner and
specialize in the planning, development and implementation of
SharePoint-specific business solutions. Collectively, their team
provides decades of experience in Enterprise Content Management
Solutions, Collaboration Solutions, and Enterprise and Self-Service
Social Applications.

YOUi Labs

YOUi Labs next-generation user interface technology and services
enable tablet, smart phone and personal electronics manufacturers to
differentiate their products by offering a fresh and compelling user
experience. The YOUi Labs platform provides industry-leading graphics
performance that significantly reduces time to market and makes devices
fun and easy to use.

About Exploriem

Exploriem is a registered Canadian not-for-profit organization. It
provides mentorship, conducts events, creates networking opportunities
and provides early stage funding and office incubator space to assist
young entrepreneurs in Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

Today Exploriem is led by its Executive Director, Professor Bruce
Firestone who is best known as the Founder of the Ottawa Senators. He is
also Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Telfer School of Management,
University of Ottawa and Real Estate and Mortgage Broker with Century 21
Explorer Realty Inc.

About the Bootstrap Awards

The Bootstrap Awards and Adawe Trade Show is an annual event hosted
by Exploriem to honour entrepreneurs in the city of Ottawa. The
Bootstrap Awards are unique in that they focus on businesses that use
self-capitalization techniques to fund their enterprise.

For more information contact:

Alana Kennedy

Marketing & Communications

613 315 4537

kennedy.alana@gmail.com

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 9:35 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

Advertising

and

Asymmetric Information

and

Awards

and

Branding

and

Corporate Culture

and

Data Storage

and

Guerrilla Marketing

and

Intellectual Property

and

Media

and

Political Economy

and

Product Management

and

Rules? There are no rules in entrepreneurship.

and

Social Marketing

and

Social Media

No Comments

         CV Writing        

       
   Posted on
       Wednesday 7 March 2012  
     
   
       

Writing a CV is not as easy as you might think. As the saying goes, the shorter the resumé, the more important the person.

It is quite sufficient if you are POTUS, say, to just have the seal
of the President of the United States of America with your full name
underneath. That’s it, that’s all. For everyone else, a bit more is
needed.

I created a 1-page version for moi (shown below). See if you can do better for yourself.

Oh by the way, even a great CV is not enough for potential or
prospective employers, clients, customers, suppliers, media, employees
or mentors or members of your Board of Directors or Advisers, what have
you these days. They also want to see your Twitter micro blog, your
LinkedIn profile, a Facebook page, your main blog… These give them a
much better, more dynamic, in-depth view of the person you really are.

Professor Bruce Murray Firestone
B. Eng. (Civil), M. Eng.-Sci., Ph.D.

Professor Firestone is perhaps best known as founder of the Ottawa
Senators, Ottawa Senators Foundation and Scotiabank Place. In May of
2006, Dr. Firestone joined the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of
Management as its first entrepreneur-in-residence. He is now
entrepreneurship ambassador there. In addition, Dr. Firestone is a real
estate broker with Century 21 Explorer Realty Inc, a commercial and
residential real estate group with six offices located in Ottawa and
Eastern Ontario.

Dr. Firestone is also known for his work as Executive Director of
Exploriem.org, a Canadian Registered not-for-profit corporation focused
on educating and mentoring entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in Ontario
and around the world. He is also a columnist with Ottawa Business
Journal and author. His most recent activity includes publishing
Entrepreneurs Handbook II and Quantum Entity, a learning outcome novel,
the first book in his new trilogy. Both are due out in May 2012.

Prof Bruce has been an operations research engineer, a real estate
developer, a hockey guy, a professor of architecture, engineering and
business as well as entrepreneurship, a real estate and mortgage broker,
a leader of a not-for-profit organization, founder of a charity, author
and, of course, peerless husband and father of five great kids and one
handsome grandson.

Prof Bruce has launched, helped launch or contributed to more than
168 startups. He has studied or taught at McGill University, Laval
University, the University of New South Wales, the Australian National
University, Harvard University, University of Western Ontario, Carleton
University and the University of Ottawa.

You can follow him on Twitter at @ProfBruce and read his blog at
www.EQJournal.org. His current motto is “Making Each Day Count”.

…

“Entrepreneurs follow a moral path when they: first, take care of
their business so second, the business can take care of their families
so that, third, their families can take care of them so, fourth, they
don’t become a burden on society or their fellow human beings, so,
fifth, they can help others so that, sixth, others can help their
business,” Prof Bruce, 2012.

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 11:25 am

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Branding

and

Competition

and

Differentiated Value

and

Leadership

and

Pre-selling, Finding New Clients, Keeping Existing Ones

and

Writing, Research and Experimentation

No Comments

         Internet Pioneer Morphs Business Model to Include Kiosk Stores        

       
   Posted on
       Tuesday 6 March 2012  
     
   
       

(Portions of this article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, March 5, 2012: https://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Bruce-Firestone-5444.)

Rob Hall was into the Internet before there was one. In high school
in the 1980s, he dabbled in web technology and was ready for the
Internet revolution circa the early 1990s. I met him when he was a young
man cabling buildings for one of the first ISPs (Internet Service
Providers) set up in Ottawa which it turned out he owned. This was back
in the day when it was one PC/one modem so Rob had cupboards and mobile
trailers full of them.

He was also ready for the landrush that befell Canada when the dot-CA
was released from UBC control into general use. By that time, he owned
two of major registrars in Canada—Internic.ca and DomainsAtCost.ca—and
had opened up multiple channels to CIRA, Canadian Internet Registry
Authority, a quasi governmental organization that was and is responsible
for managing Canada’s brand on the Internet. Within a few days, Mr.
Hall’s registrars had scooped up tens of thousands of domain names for
their clients and put several million dollars in cash in their bank
account.

Appropriately named Momentous Corp, parent of all of Mr. Hall’s
ventures, was safely launched. Today, 120 people work in a remodeled
30,000 sf warehouse on Auriga Drive previously owned by a major
overnight delivery service. Mr. Hall, believing in diversification of
assets, also owns his real estate. Estimates are that headcount will
double in the next year to about 240 because of fast growth in several
of their four main lines of business which are: registrar group, domain
name backorder and auction service (based around pool.com), DVD home
delivery service (zip.ca) and MAD Inc., which is their digital marketing
agency headed up by energetic Aimee Dezeil, 35 recently promoted to CMO
for the entire collection of companies.

Intriguingly, Rob who is a big believer in Internet-based businesses
is moving their DVD at home delivery service even more into a
traditional retail environment. Of course, they’ve relied on CPC (Canada
Post Corporation) for DVD delivery for years—they move about 40,000
DVDs per day that way—but now they are rolling out hundreds of mini
stores, kiosks really, in locations across Canada. This doesn’t sound
much like an Internet business to me.

Rob corrects me: “First of all you have to realize that $300 million
worth of business is looking for a home now that Blockbuster has shut
their doors in Canada. Secondly, our recommendation engine builds up
individual profiles for each zip customer so we can tell them that if we
don’t have what they want in one of our zip warehouses they can go to
one of our new kiosks near where they live and pick it up from there. We
also know what the right mix is for the 1,020 DVDs that we put in each
of our Flextronics-made kiosks (twice what their competitors have in
theirs). Family films, for example, work well in suburban Barrhaven, not
so well on Rideau Street (in downtown Ottawa).”

So inventory management and demand prediction are crucial as is their
recommendation engine (similar to what Amazon uses to get you to buy
more books) which adds to individual order size. So while it looks like a
fairly straight forward operation, it’s like everything else—there are
‘secrets’ to their success which are a lot harder to copy or knockoff
than you might expect. To an extent, their inventory management reminds
me of Wal-Mart’s—they always get the right number of basketballs to
Nashville stores and hockey skates to Ottawa stores at the right times
too.

I ask Rob if video streaming is in their future. He responds by
saying: “Not this year. Let me explain the economics of this.” He goes
up to a nearby whiteboard and begins to sketch: “We buy a DVD for $20.
People can go to a zip kiosk where average transaction size is $4.
They’re paying $1 for an older film, $2 for a new one. About three or
four weeks after a new release, we start shedding the DVDs out of our
kiosks; they’ll go into zip inventory for snail mail delivery. After
awhile, we’ll sell the DVDs as PV, Previously Viewed, for $5 each.
That’s the lifecycle of a DVD. It’s far more profitable than a streaming
service since Hollywood studios take most of those revenues leaving
services like Netflix very little to work with. We are in a downstream
release window instead where there’s less competition—especially now.”

The other division that Mr. Hall talks about is pool.com. “They’re
going to have one of their best years ever,” he says. “ICANN (Internet
Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers—CIRA’s boss so to speak) has
opened up TLDs (Top Level Domains). Anyone can now apply for a TLD. We
think they’re going to be 500 of them! Pool is the only company on the
planet that has ever done an auction landrush for a new TLD and we’ve
never lost an RFP before either. We just finished launching .XXX.
Hundreds more are coming. You could get dot-Sens or dot-NHL or how about
dot-REALTOR? We know there’s going to be a dot-Berlin and a dot-Cannon,
maybe a dot-NYC and a dot-Apple. Or how about a prestigious and very
expensive dot-Bank, only open to chartered banks, or maybe a less
expensive dot-Pizza?”

Pool is in a position to market all of these TLD sunrises. Rob is
wondering if there might also be a Chinese TLD written in Hanzi that
would trump all of these since China now has the most Internet users
anywhere.

Rob is still a skilled, tough operator who lives by cultural values
that include statements like: ‘Adequate performance will get you an
adequate severance/if you fear change, don’t come here/we are a team not
a family and effort goes to where the profit comes from.’ But they also
live by this: ‘we drink, we swear but we don’t smoke.’ It means they
have some fun too.

When I ask him about the future, he’s quite philosophical: “We are
changing from a manufacturing society to an idea society but can
everyone make that transition? I don’t know. I recently spent some time
with (Twitter co-founder) Biz Stone who said that people are wrong about
opportunity. It needs to be created. You have to actively go out and
make it happen. Entrepreneurs can’t afford to sit around and wait for
opportunity to come to them.”

Professor Bruce M. Firestone, Entrepreneurship Ambassador, Telfer
School of Management, University of Ottawa; Founder, Ottawa Senators;
Author and Executive Director, Exploriem.org; Broker, Century 21
Explorer Realty. Blog: www.eqjournal.org Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ProfBruce

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 2:45 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

25 Steps to Business Success

and

Asymmetric Information

and

Bootstrap Entrepreneurs– Case Studies

and

Build and Hold

and

Business Models

and

Competition

and

Customer Service

and

Differentiated Value

and

Franchise and Concession

and

GTBMR

and

Internet– the Internet is Eating a Hole in the Global

and

Personal Business for Life, PB4L

and

Pixie Dust

and

Value Differentiation and ‘Pixie Dust’

and

Value Proposition

No Comments

         U of O Wes Nicol 2012 Business Plan Competition Winners        

       
   Posted on
       Tuesday 6 March 2012  
     
   
       

Ottawa (March 6, 2012) – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Student entrepreneurs Alex Smith and Chris Spoke take first prize
for their business plan for Liaise, a web and mobile platform that hosts
interactive seminars and video chats, for a fee

The Telfer School of Management and Exploriem.org are pleased to
announce the winners of the University of Ottawa’s 2012 Wes Nicol
Business Plan Competition. Student entrepreneurs Alex Smith and Chris
Spoke took first prize for their business plan for Liaise, a web and
mobile platform that hosts interactive seminars and video chats, for a
fee.

The winning team takes home $5,000 and the chance to compete for the
Nicol Award, against the winning teams from competitions in 15 other
Canadian universities. The Nicol Award is a national program designed to
generate and reward interest in entrepreneurship on the part of
undergraduate students in any faculty or field of study at participating
universities across Canada.

Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Executive Director of Exploriem.org served as
MC for the afternoon competition and remarked that: “We have seen more
student entrepreneurs involved each year as they go through elevator
pitch competitions, business model competitions and finally the Wes
Nicol Business Plan Competition. Many of these go on to found
flourishing Real Life enterprises. It is thanks to the generosity of
people like Wes Nicol that we can host these competitions and encourage
new entrepreneurs in Canada.”

The three judges for the competition were Anna Silverman, Executive
Director Shepherds of Good Hope Foundation; Rick Bédard, successful
Internet entrepreneur and Stephen Daze, President and CEO of the AGAWA
Entrepreneurship Development Corporation.

Unsung Hero’s business plan, presented by Adam Haggart and Rafal
Deren, took second place and a prize of $2,000. The top three was
rounded out by Valued Pets business plan presented Hiam Al-Dhabbi,
taking home $1,000.

-30-

For more information or runners-up or to obtain quotes or interviews from the students or the judges, please contact:
Stephanie Montreuil
Stef.montreuil @ gmail.com or 613-327-8878

About the Winner – Liaise:

Liaise is a web and mobile platform that hosts interactive online
seminars and one-on-one video chats with high profile experts and
celebrities, for a fee.

The platform will include a directory of experts and celebrities, who
will make time-slots available out of their schedules available for
booking, and will determine their own rates for 15-, 30- and 60-minute
video chats, constrained by market forces of supply and demand.

Through this platform, a series of live videoconferencing events will
be listed for users to attend as engaged participants. These events
will be hosted by world-renowned subject matter experts recruited to
address the demand of their expertise and unique insights. Eight spots
will be made available for users wishing to interact in the hour long
events, and all users will be given the opportunity to schedule
one-on-one video chat follow ups.

Acting as a broker to these interactions, connecting users with
sought-after personalities, Liaise would collect a 20% commission on
every seminar and one-on-one chat booking.

About Exploriem.org:

Exploriem is a registered Canadian, non-profit organization. It provides
mentorship, conducts events, creates networking opportunities and
provides early stage funding and office incubator space to assist young
entrepreneurs in Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

Exploriem is led by its Executive Director, Professor Bruce M.
Firestone, who is best known as the Founder of the Ottawa Senators. He
is also Entrepreneurship Ambassador to the University of Ottawa’s Telfer
School of Management and a Real Estate and Mortgage Broker with Century
21 Explorer Realty Inc.

About the Nicol Award:

The central element of the Nicol Entrepreneurial Award is a local
competition held at each participating university. Although the exact
process may differ from campus to campus, in general they follow the
same flow.

Individual students or student teams begin by registering for the
competition and submitting an outline of their plan to their
university’s Nicol Award faculty advisor. Teams whose entries are
accepted are then asked to prepare a more detailed plan, and after
additional review, a set of teams is invited to make a formal
presentation to a local panel of judges. Typically the local judges are
members of the faculty, local business people, alumni, and other
entrepreneurs from the local community.

The local panel of judges selects three winners from that campus, and
cash prizes are awarded to each of these three winning teams as
follows:
• $5,000 for first place
• $2,000 for second place
• $1,000 for third place

The first-place team from each campus is then entered into the National Nicol competition.

       
       
       
     Prof Bruce @ 12:53 pm

Edit This

       
        Filed under:

Awards

and

Business Models

and

Business Plans

and

Competition

and

Mentoring