With all the talk of Canadian brain drain to the United States and the lack of a strong tech startup ecosystem in Canada, it's great to hear about companies like San Francisco-born A Thinking Ape moving the opposite way.
Founded by three twenty-something Canadians who met in the Bay Area, A Thinking Ape relocated to Vancouver in January with the blessing of their three Silicon Valley Angels. A Thinking Ape is "creating the future of social gaming experiences online" and their first title is the popular Kingdoms at War massively multiplayer online game.
Co-founders Kenshi Arasaki, Wilkins Chung, and Eric Diep are excellent examples of what happens when you don't make it easy for talented entrepreneurs to move to a country, start new businesses, and ultimately create jobs.
Arasaki and Chung originally arrived in the Bay Area to work together on Y Combinator-funded Chatterous and met Diep along the way - it's amazing how Canadians always seem to find their fellow countrymen when working abroad.
While Diep's claim to fame is creating the first Facebook App (Quizzes), his recent hassles in trying to remain in the United States are well documented. He was profiled in a video called GeeksOnaPlane: A Tale of Two Erics along with Eric Ries talking about the Startup Founders' Movement.
So what's next for Vancouver's newest social gaming company?
A Thinking Ape is working with Mochi Media and their new social gaming platform that will allow them to build social features into Kingdoms at War and future gaming properties.
Arasaki sees Vancouver as the ideal place to start-up in the social gaming space. He believes that while Vancouver is deep in engineering and programming talent, the convergence of games and social platforms has yet to heat up competition locally for that talent.
And, of course, they're very eager to take advantage of all the government programs that Canada has to offer.
If you're passionate about creating amazing software and working on a team of like-minded visionaries at an early stage startup, A Thinking Ape is currently hiring Engineers.
A Thinking Ape, creators of the popular Kingdoms at War massively multiplayer online game, is a company of young technology entrepreneurs based in... [more]
As a professional in the technology or social media space, chances are that you are an independent contractor or are considered a small business owner.
A new online business solution is now available to those of you whose most dreaded job is accounting and bookkeeping: Wave Accounting.
Kirk Simpson is the President and Co-Founder of Wave Accounting:
There are 1.8 million small business owners in Canada with less than five employees. We’ve designed an accounting tool that will help them understand and take control of their financial management in an easy and straightforward way. Wave Accounting is specifically designed for the business owner and not for an accountant or bookkeeper. We want to encourage business owners to give up their spreadsheets and really take charge of their business.
Unlike many desktop applications, Wave Accounting is web-based. As a result, Wave Accounting offers the benefit of being able to enter data from anywhere and at any time from any computer. An added feature allows multiple users to collaborate on the same account, entering figures and conferring on reports.
For a free 30-day test drive of Wave Accounting please visit their site at www.waveaccounting.com.
Wave Accounting is aimed at small business owners who hate doing accounting. It’s been designed to be easy and to give business owners a view of... [more]
In the past, Chris Taylor has been mistakenly referred to as Chris Anderson, which although is not a cardinal sin (he suffers fools gladly), it does make the conversation a little bit more awkward for him to relate some of his rich experiences.
After all, not many people can claim to have rubbed shoulders with Seth Godin, or have crushed goals and grapes (in that order) with Gary Vaynerchuk, that too, in personal, private face-to-face interviews. And that's only a start.
As the President and Co-Founder of Toronto's Goose Educational Media, Chris has managed to funnel his love for business literature into building up a company, and a personal brand, that's dedicated to helping businesses accelerate their personal development and tweak business processes towards higher grades of efficiency.
He ploughs through some of the leading business and personal development books released on the market, gleans the core messages from them, and then works on them to turn them into actionable insights for businesses to adopt. Using this knowledge, and his site, he then offers consultancy services to businesses that want to push themselves towards more efficient operational activities.
I recently got in touch with Chris - long enough for me to fire 5 questions at him.
As the President and Co-Founder of Goose EMI, you regularly generate synopses of influential business books, and interview key players and thought leaders in the business and marketing disciplines - how has being in regular contact with these influential figures shaped your worldview?
Speaking and working with some of the big name authors of our time is inspiring, but not in the way I'd originally assumed it would be. Getting to spend some time with these people reminds me constantly how we're all human - we all have fears, concerns and aspirations. The people who rise to the top are those who are crystal clear in their objectives and push through the fear. Since starting "The Goose", I've seen countless examples of Zig Ziglar's quote, "You can have anything in life if you help enough people get what they want." Success truly goes to those who are passionate enough about their cause to help others around them whenever they can. I strive to live that philosophy every day.
Are there any sources of inspiration or key figures who have significantly influenced both your personal and professional lives? How?
Seth Godin has been a hero of mine since I read Tribes 2 years ago. His approach to life is one that I aspire to emulate as much and as often as I can. One of the biggest things I picked up from him during our time together in January {link to interview} was the fact that he spends a solid portion of his day not doing; not responding or developing. Instead, he consciously chooses to disengage from his work and look at it with perspective and an inquisitive mind. His work, as a result, is always poignant and built with laser focus. I have a lot of respect for that ability and willingness to constantly look for ways to improve the effectiveness of his message.
You attended the Art of Marketing conference a few weeks ago, were you introduced to any new insight and thought-processes that were new to you, but were logical and actionable enough to stick with you immediately? How do you plan to proceed with them?
As with all the workshops I attend, books I read and authors I speak with, I find the sheer volume of potentially useful information can be enough to put us in a state of "analysis paralysis". My #1 tip to everyone (myself included) is to takeone message from each encounter and find a way to make it actionable today. It's the small, 1% changes that, over time, can completely rework the way we interact with the world around us. Think about it - if you were to make one small behavioral or attitudinal change every week, you could effectively reinvent the way you interact with the world over the course of a year. I went on that mission in 2008 and it's held me in good stead.
Are there any companies you can cite that have implemented your business insights successfully and rewired their processes for the better?
I get emails regularly from Goose readers who have found ways to increase their enjoyment, performance or confidence in their jobs and lives due to our free weekly articles. It's an honor to be able to take material from leading thinkers, make it actionable (and bite sized) and then hear of real world success from people who have taking the initiative to change their habits.
On your website, you retrace the inspiration that led you to start Goose EMI - what are your future plans for it? Where do you see your business going in the next 3-5 years? Beyond that?
My goal with the Goose has always been to make actionable the core messages from leading business and personal development books. There are some great books out there, but not all of us have time to read them. If I can distill an actionable takeaway that impacts those who might not otherwise have had a chance to find it themselves, I'm satisfied.
I do want to explore new mediums moving into the future. We recently launched the "From the Horse's Mouth" author interview series, where we're travelling around North America and video-interviewing leading authors. I'd like to continue to grow and expand that program. These are some very smart people, and their books - however great - are mere snapshots of their ideas. I'd like to create something less static and more fluid moving forward.
We're also (very soon) introducing a program that will allow team leaders to quickly and easily share (and make actionable) the messages from the Goose articles with their team members. We're calling it InFlight Leadership - employee engagement on the fly, and it will provide people who want to be strong leaders with the tools to do so.
Goose EMI is a company dedicated to simplifying and making actionable the core messages from leading business and personal development books. [more]
Who really provides the best deal in Canada? When it comes to wireless the debate, in public at least, has been going on for years. Rogers Wireless recently called themseves the MOST relieable network. Telus filed a complaint. Now Rogers is just reliable. Did anything really change. Probably not. You still get the same service and the same rates, right?
However, consumers have always wanted to know where can they get the biggest bang for their buck.
With a little help from some friends, Techvibes has been able to source out how much the average customer pays on Rogers, Bell and Telus. According to the latest data, these are the three biggest wireless carriers in Canada.
Tired of being mis-led through their advertising? Want the truth? Let's get down to the real numbers....
Rogers Wireless:
The average Rogers Wireless customer spent $63.23 a month on wireless services in the fourth quarter of 2009. The average post-paid customer spent $73.42 a month versus just $16.39 per month for pre-paid customers. During the same period, the company had 8,494,000 wireless customers which consisted of 1,515,000 pre-paid customers and 6,979,000 post paid customers.
Bell Mobility:
The average Bell Mobility customer spent $51.08 a month on wireless services in the fourth quarter of 2009. During the same period, the company had 6,833,000 wireless customers which consisted of 1,792,000 pre-paid customers and 5,041,000 post paid customers. The average post-paid customer spent $62.47 a month versus just $18.45 per month for pre-paid customers.
Telus Mobility:
The latest numbers Techvibes was able to obtain were from the first quarter of 2009.
The average customer paid $62.73. This resulted in an average decrease in what a Telus cellphone customer spent in 2008 from 2007 of 83¢. That's a -1.3% "growth" in all of 2008 in the amount of money Telus was able to extract from its wireless customers. The reason? KOODO (their discount carrier) apparently took a lot of Telus business.
Telus Wireless had 6,129,000 customers. 4,922,000 post-paid while 1,270,000 pre-paid. The average Telus Wireless customer used 411 minutes per month and spent 15¢ per minute.
How much did you end up paying and which carrier do you use? Do you think there is a benefit or using a pre-paid plan versus a having a contract? We were unable to obtain numbers from other carriers such as Solo, Fido or even WIND. If you use these carries please tell us about your experience.
A special thank you to Rizwan Kheraj for directing us to this data.
Technology is a key enabler for TELUS and our customers, providing advantage and differentiation in the marketplace. By managing the life cycle of... [more]
Bell Canada, Canada's national leader in communications, provides connectivity to residential and business customers through wired and wireless... [more]
We are a diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are engaged in wireless voice and data communications services through Wireless,... [more]
Mitch Joel, journalist, publicist, president of Twist Image - a digital marketing agency - and author of the book Six Pixels of Separation, elaborates on the need for marketers to embrace the paradigm-shift afforded by social media tools.
Joel contends that marketing will never be the same again, and that not only do marketers need to learn to experiment with social media tools as channels through which to ply their trade, but to also enrich and augment their traditional methods through them.
Social media has connected people in ways that they couldn’t have dreamed of before. This presents a huge opportunity for marketers to apply their existing tactics towards a whole new avenue of communication, starting real, meaningful conversations with real people who are willing to be engaged – but only if you make the effort to meet them on their terms.
According to Joel, what marketers need to do is invest a little time and energy into developing their social media presence, and also be prepared to take risks. If they choose to enter the social media sphere, there’s no going back. Indeed, Joel contends that there really is no choice here; in order to keep going forward with their marketing efforts, marketers are necessarily going to need to forget about going back.
And in order to forget about going back, they’re going to need to take a leaf (and a risk) from Hernan Cortes – and burn their boats.
Abandon the tactics of the past, and embrace the strategies of the future.
itbusiness.ca's Brian Jackson recently chatted with Joel and his interview is available online here.
