I no longer want to personally select who demo’s at our events. As well our current approach of relying on audience applause to select who receives the Crowie is flawed at best. I’m turning both of these responsibilities over to you since it’s your event.

I need three volunteers with these qualifications/requirements:

• Attended at least one, preferably more, DemoCampGuelph events so you know what we’re doing.
• You’re not demo’ing at our next event.
• You’re not a sponsor (I’m not 100% sure this matters but we’ll start here…).
• You will attend next event.
• You aren’t currently contributing to DemoCampGuelph in some other fashion.

What will this commitment entail?

• A meeting with me and this group where we review submissions and select who will demo at upcoming event.
• Watch all demo’s at the event and decide with this group who receives the Crowie.

[UPDATE: Thanks for all the volunteers, we have our board] If you’re interested in contributing to our event by taking this on, please contact me directly. We need three of you please.

I can ask for help when it involves community efforts like demoCampGuelph or our park. Historically I have a barrier, however, when it comes to efforts I make money at and that’s a line I’m not sure should exist.

A great friend of mine owns a restaurant here in Guelph called The Cornerstone. Their wood floors are crap, they won’t serve me meat and their windows are often made of wood instead of glass. Even with all those warts, it’s still the first place I think of for a coffee or a pint.

Why? Well because The Cornerstone is mine, or more importantly it’s ours. From day 1, or technically day -234, Mark has engaged his friends and his community to help design and build his restaurant. Many of my friends spent late nights painting, sanding and doing whatever it took to open the doors 8 years ago. To this day, on the few holidays they’re closed you’ll find Mark and a gaggle of locals fixing up all the things you can’t when you’re open 7 days a week.

There’s some talk in Guelph these days about tech, about business and about whether the two can build a home here. Some hope organizations like Communitech come to town, others feel we need a clubhouse like the accelerator center and others are firing up their own efforts to help. Clearly I don’t know the answer, I do know that any tech-biz success in Guelph is a success for us all. I have no idea what I’ll be doing next year but the truth is I may be working for steal the deal, well.ca or bootcampmedia so it’s only in my best interest to see them succeed.

More success = more jobs = less people commuting = more time with families and friends = more better Guelph.

We all need to start talking and sharing more if we hope to pull this off, and believe me I’m speaking mostly to myself when I say that. I’ve met and know a lot of you and the honest truth is we have the skills to pull this off and doggone it, I like me. We have more personalities and brains in this town than is required to do this. Realizing that this is less about our companies and more about our community will allow us the humility to seek out the help we need, and offer ours to others.

My Offer: If you’re willing to share what you’re up to then let’s talk. It doesn’t have to be technology related. Great ideas often come from someone who doesn’t spend their days in your sandbox. You never know, I may be able to help your landscaping or bread baking business grow this year. It may be as simple as offering ideas and feedback or I may be able to do some real work for you.

My Request: I need your help. My day job is building products at Brainpark and I want it to thrive, grow, provide jobs and ultimately be a success story for our community. If you’re willing to help with that, in anyway, please let me know.

We’re set for April 14th for lucky DemoCampGuelph 13. As always, please point your family and friends to http://next.demoCampGuelph.com for details and signing up to attend.

I’m excited to have Rob Hyndman joining us as our invited speaker. While I don’t normally recommend going to see lawyer’s speak, Rob’s the exception. He always offers a useful perspective on how much, or how little, legal lifting you may need depending on where your project’s at.

As always, talk up our event and let people know what we’re up to.

Observing the closed approach of selecting people to attend tedxWaterloo combined with having some people be surprised to learn they didn’t receive a demo spot at next week’s demoCampGuelph have lead to this post. To be clear, there’s confusion because of a lack of clear message from me. I don’t communicate so well….

First off, please understand that DemoCampGuelph is a entirely volunteer run event. No one, including myself, makes any money running this and it does take real time and energy away from our jobs, lives, families, etc. Could the messaging and process be better? Yes and please talk to me directly if you’re offering to shoulder some of that work because I’m all ears. Second, I do my best to convey that you can apply for a demo spot at DemoCampGuelph which is why the site says “Contact me directly to apply for a demo spot!!”.

Up until one or two events ago, the process consisted of me spending a significant amount of time chasing people to demo because we never had enough people willing to demo. There was never a need for a selection process as it was only a dream of mine to have that need.

Today we’re in the lovely position of having more people wanting to demo than we have time for. That’s huge and the last thing I want is for people to be discouraged at not getting a spot and stop applying. If that happens then we’re back in the above position which means more work for me.

So, the process as it stands today? Anyone can submit a pitch for a demo spot up until the week prior to the event. At that point we’re closed to new submissions. Then Ali and myself meet, review the submissions and select six demos. How do we choose? It’s not a science but I’ll do my best to convey our approach. We’re biased towards Guelph. It’s demoCamp so we prefer code and working technology over pitches and powerpoint. We love people who demo things that people in the crowd benefit from, meaning they could literally build something with it tomorrow. That means frameworks, services, tools, etc.

Beyond that, we do our best to talk to people during/after each event, hear what people like and don’t like and factor all that into the decisions. It’s very important this remains a credible event which means I’ve never personally demo’d and if you’re a close friend of mine then unfortunately you likely never get a spot either. Honestly, you should choose your friends more wisely.

Bottom line, if you don’t get a spot it’s likely not a reflection of your demo but choices need to be made. Our only intent is to deliver a relevant event and connect tech folks in Guelph. If things keep going as they have been with this event then we’ll likely strike a committee of regular attendees who will take on this selection process, ie have the community choose.

See you all next week!

We turned a particular corner with DemoCampGuelph events last year that personally makes my life a whole lot simpler, that being that we now consistently have more people applying to demo than we have spots. The plus for me is that I don’t spend the week of the event begging every human I know who owns a computer to demo something. The down side is that we don’t get to see all the demos possible and we have to say no to some people. I thought I’d take a few minutes to write up a few tips on how to increase your odds of being selected to demo.

First a brief primer on the event itself, in case you haven’t seen enough from me yet. I’ll start by deferring to seyDoggy: “At DemoCampGuelph everyone is a pony and they eat rainbows and poop butterflies…I mean DemoCampGuelph is geeks, beer and startup. It’s all good!”

Ok, I’m not sure what that means but it hits all the sweet spots, those being ponies, rainbows, butterflies, and beer. How about this? “DemoCampGuelph is for anyone in and around Guelph interested in software, the web and technology! Startup junkies, wage slaves, consultants, students, indie professionals, engineers, designers, money and marketing guys. If you want to see and talk about some interesting things, and get to know other people in the Guelph tech community, come on out! You don’t have to demo to attend.”

As you were conditioned when completing your phd, please pay particular attention to the emphasis! Tell us why your demo matters to techies in and around Guelph. This is demoCampGuelph. There, I’m done with that point.

Beyond that, shorter is better for your pitch as my brain can no longer seem to read beyond the 140 character point. As expected, our audience is up on technology and they’re connected, both within our attendees and without. Where DemoCamp’s differ from other events is that it isn’t about you as the demo’er, it’s about us, the audience.

Yes it’s a great opportunity for you to market an upcoming, or existing product. Yes, it’s a great chance to find a funder or a job but the only reason this event exists is because we all love attending. We will always favour people who recognize that and demo things we want to see. So, picture yourself giving up a few hours of your possibly precious time on a work night to drag your butt to a bar and listen to some random stranger talk to you about computers, what would you want them to talk about? Getting a demo spot is your opportunity to give something back to us lowly wage slaves who climb out of our closets every few months so treat it precious and use it well

Oh, and from experience, puppets can only help…Looking forward to seeing you all January 27th!

A few weeks back, our mayor here in Guelph wrote on her blog about IT in the downtown. There are several interesting thoughts in her post but I want to focus in on “Perhaps an IT Accelerator Centre right in the downtown is what we need to achieve two important goals – downtown revitaliztion and job creation”

I realize the mayor wasn’t being literal here, however, it’s the ‘outside saviour’ mentality that scares me. You can sense some of this in the comments as well, “Provide major incentives to IT corporations (Oracle, CISCO, Microsoft, google, Adobe) to open R&D centres here. I would say make a plan and go to them directly with incentives.”

Waiting on AC or some tech ‘knight in shining armour’ to ride into town with jobs and bags of gold coins is the wrong solution. Not to mention it’s disempowering, bordering on disrespectful, to us kids slogging it out in Guelph tech today. As someone who’s created jobs in Guelph tech, including recruiting people to move here to work, most outsiders don’t get Guelph. That’s not elitist as I assume the same applies to any city. My point is let’s at least start with the people already at the table. People who have already bought homes here, built companies here and made a long term commitment to Guelph. I once read a quote that character is formed by what you commit to. If that holds water then let’s start with the people who form the character of Guelph today.

We aren’t Toronto, we aren’t San Fran and we are not Waterloo. What worked in those cities may not work here. Does that mean AC, Microsoft, google etc should be kept out or not play a role? Hell no, they just aren’t a saviour we need to wait around for.

Instead of chasing outsiders, let’s go directly to existing local companies who have a track record of building tech in Guelph. Let’s go to companies like Innosphere, well.ca, RKD, Barking Dog, etc and provide them incentives and tools to take the next step on their journeys. What do those companies actually need? My guesses…

Be A Customer
These companies need projects. I’m not suggesting protectionism but local companies can help by taking a longer, harder look locally when it comes to spending their IT dollars. I’m looking at you City of Guelph. I have a hunch you’re spending something on IT next year. How much of that is going to local companies instead of choices that ‘no one can get fired for’?

You want strong, diverse, innovative tech in Guelph? Excellent, then put your exciting projects in the hands of local companies. Take a few risks on some companies that may not be the lowest bidder or strongest contender on paper. Give a company a project that may be out of their comfort zone. Help them add to their portfolio and their bottom line. Be the first customer. Think of it as the 100 mile tech diet, well maybe not 100 miles but you get the point.

Participate
I’ve long felt that we’ll eventually realize commuting doesn’t work. The problem is most individuals don’t feel they have any choice but to drive into Waterloo or Toronto to work in tech. We have the minds already in this town. The problem is most of them get into their cars and drive to another city to use those minds. Not to mention, buy their lunches, do their shopping, etc.

If you’re commuting, start looking into companies and the scene in Guelph. It may not happen overnight but there’s a job in town for you here. Or talk to me and I’ll help find you one or help you create one. Come out to events like DemoCampGuelph, Coffee and Code and participate. Find a way to contribute. This goes for companies as well. Find ways you can contribute and grow the Guelph tech ecosystem.

Grow Talent
If you’re running a company, start explicitly mentoring people in your company to build their skills up to running their own show someday. Put yourself out of a job by building your team up to take over your company so you can start your next company. Growing the next generation of tech talent is a race that changes daily and is far from won. I guarantee you that even the rockstar tech cities are worried about this one.

I’m posting this almost verbatim from an email Regg sent out today. There are increasing opportunities to participate in the Guelph tech scene so pick your spot and get involved.

These are exciting times to work and live in Guelph.

• 3 years ago business leaders formed the Guelph Business Technology peer to peer network:

• DemoCampGuelph was established in 2007 and now boasts attendance of 100+.
• Guelph Chamber of Commerce established a technology committee in fall of 09
• Guelph Tech Business Community will be hosting a large technology conference at the newly opened “FRANK HASENFRATZ CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN MANUFACTURING”.

We are now becoming a centre of technology innovation and would appreciate your input on the potential development of a technology cluster. Please fill out this survey and feel free to pass the link on to others.

DemoCampGuelph12 is booked for January 27, 2010 at The eBar. Moving forward, next.demoCampGuelph.com will always get you to our upcoming event.

Tara Hunt will be our invited speaker. Tara “simply has no idea what the big ideas of January 2010 will be as of yet”, ie she’ll say something but she’s not sure what yet.

The list of demo submissions is already looking great for this event as well as the 58 peeps already signed up to attend. Contact me directly if you’re interested in demo’ing at this evening. Make sure you tell me not just what you’re demo’ing but why the crowd needs to see your demo.

There’s some non-tech folks in Guelph talking about tech a little more these days, including our mayor who is signed up to join us in Jan.

Item#3 on Bob Sutton’s “Leading Innovation: 21 Things that Great Bosses Believe and Do” list almost entirely sums up why I spend some of what little spare time I have helping to organize DemoCampGuelph events:

3. Look for and build “intersections” places where people with diverse ideas gather together. And when you go there, talk to the people you don’t know, who have ideas you know nothing about, and ideas you find weird, don’t like, or useless.

It references Halloween at the Intersection by Frans Johansson.

This is only a variation on what’s been written many times but I like the idea of intersections. I’m often asked what DemoCampGuelph is or why it exists. The answer is simple, to create intersections. It’s a successful event if we’re a place where “people with diverse ideas gather together” resulting in an opportunity for intersections. The key being “opportunity”, it takes effort on your part.

On the other side, I often hear critiques about the event. They’re typically some variation of “ah, one of the demos was sort of interesting but overall not that great”. I don’t listen to those reviews and here’s why. I’ll let you in a little secret if you promise not to twitter about it, the actual demos aren’t the point of the event, they’re the gravy. If you’re attending for the demos then you’re missing a great event. To that end, here’s my simple how-to in order to get the best out of your next DemoCampGuelph event, or any related community event:

• Sign up, take some time to browse the list of attendees and what they’re up to. Chances are slim that you won’t quickly have a list of people you want to meet.
• Go out of your way to meet those people and others, ie create some intersections. Take a look around the room, pick the person in the crowd you’re least interested in meeting and go meet them. Do NOT just talk to the same people you talk to at every event.
• If the above doesn’t work because you happen to know everyone on our planet then be a connector and create intersections between people you know. Ask people who you can introduce them to.
• Arrive early, stay late, socialize.

My name’s Brydon and I’m addicted to email.

I have a long standing, ongoing battle with email. I’m happy to report I haven’t checked email today and intend to only check it twice today. It’s the intend part that’s difficult to hold up. At Brainpark we think a lot about productivity in the enterprise. Email feels like one of those areas we have far more freedom and control than we need. To that end, I’m going retro. I’m reconfiguring my email client back to the nineties.

In many ways email worked better in the days of dial up when I was paying per minute to be connected to the internet. In those days, email clients were offline most of the time and we had outboxes. Sending an email meant typing it entirely and then ’sending’ it which put it into your outbox where it waited to be truly sent. A couple of times per day you would connect to the internet and send all the emails in your outbox while receiving all your new mail. You only did that a few times per day because it cost you real dollars.

Today I have more choice, more freedom and it’s all email all the time. My retro mode changes will be to only retrieve new email twice per day. As well, I’ll type new emails and save them to drafts in order to send out only twice per day. Why only send twice per day? It’s about expected behaviour. If I’m emailing you all day long yet only receiving your emails twice per day, you’ll start to think I’m ignoring your emails as it’s clear from my sending behaviour that I’m checking email.

Enforced Scarcity

If that doesn’t work, I’ll create a new user profile in my OS that I only use for email, twitter, etc. That way I have to explicitly login to that separate profile.

Now to take it up a notch. I’m going to pitch an experiment to the Brainpark team in Guelph. We all uninstall email, IM, twitter clients from our computers. We then setup an email booth in the office which is a single shared computer. We each create user profiles on that machine where we setup email etc. When you want to check email, you have to use that computer. Clearly only one of us can do that at a time. We’ve created scarcity of that resource as well as social pressure and awareness around usage. If I’m using email a lot today, someone in the office will notice and likely call me on it.

Hmmm, maybe we should have email chips as well? How are you dealing with email and other digital distractions?