Typical Ottawa recipients of the provincial programs are later stage start-ups (post Series A) and well into follow on rounds. Know of a couple of pre-seed and seed based start-ups that have applied for assistance but none have been successful. Other than what is on the MRIO website, the OCE administered programs (IAF and IDF) locally are a bit of a mystery and not particularly well understood by the start-up community. One size doesn't fit all.

If you are going to build a vibrant tech scene in Canada you need to do it one village at a time. This is why regional based economic development is so important for early stage start-ups. If the community needs require better service then it is important to advocate for improvements.

Because we're small, the level of resources we need to provide one-on-one mentoring and feedback for all tech startups is something manageable. We can do it, and we do. We're small enough that the entrepreneur services group at Communitech can work with most startups in the region, and at a pretty substantial depth in many cases. In 2007, Waterloo Region had six companies close seven-figure seed or early-stage rounds of funding (i.e. pre-A-round), and not only were all six of them Communitech clients, but I think we can say that members of our team played a significant role in helping two-thirds of them close their deals. It's very unlikely that anyone could duplicate that breadth of coverage in a big area like Toronto.

And since I'm now apparently talking about Waterloo's secret sauce rather than Toronto's, I also think that our 'mainstream' support networks here (i.e. not StartupCamp-type grassroots initiatives) are more inclusive about what kinds of companies we help-probably because we CAN be, because we're smaller. Whether you're a 22-year-old university dropout working on a new website or a 45-year-old professor trying to commercialize some discovery you made, we're just as happy to see one as the other. In some other communities I get the feeling that the university prof would have a much easier time being taken seriously.

Ottawa is caught in the middle. Not big enough for Toronto's approach, and probably too big for Waterloo's. We have three main high-tech hubs in the province, and each one is so different from the others that what works in one community may not work in the others, at least not without a lot of localization. It's a challenge I'm starting to see with the new provincial programs added over the last year or two. The government would prefer to see single programs rolled out province-wide, and that's looking more and more like the wrong approach. Because the government is Toronto-based, they've picked Toronto organizations to head many of these initiatives, and some of them don't get Waterloo at all-to what would be a laughable degree if we didn't have to rely on them for funding . then the laughter isn't so hearty.

I am suspicious of people who see a community and try to profit from it. I think that is part of the reason for the Toronto Tech Week backlash. The community is learning to immunize itself from opportunists and value-suckersâ„¢ who don't know how to contribute.

It is pretty easy to spot someone who 'gets' it vs someone who is there to benefit.

A profit motivation is great, I encourage it, but sometimes it is also sad, especially when a few rag tag volunteers do a better job by each contributing an hour or two of their time.

The truth is, we all have a profit motive. Most of us want to get better at running our startups, so we have a huge motivation to be part of a community that can support that. Others have a motivation to improve the coding, UX or UI skills and so they have an interest in pushing that part of the community forward.

By first building a strong and resilient community, places like Toronto will no longer have to worry in the same way about the next downturn or even as much about how many 'successes' there are being produced here. During the coming downturn the Toronto community will only strengthen because instead of destroying the community, people will be able to turn to the community for support.

Industry associations or other groups will never have the incentives to see people through equally tough times.

I admit, I have always hated the 'toronto rah rah rah' center-of-the-universe crap, but this is a case of where I think something novel and worthwhile is finally happening.

The other point is that French, like Jane Jacobs before, has identified cities as the drivers of innovation & in large part because they foster the interaction between diverse groups, allowing self identification & connection to strengthen nascent groups and boundary interaction to transfer approaches between groups. The core driver of this idea transfer is the interaction between people.

I believe that communication infrastructure now provides the ability for this type of connection to occur at a regional level. We've all seen the emergence of community out of blog discussion and Demo/BarCamps & I'd like to see what would happen if this connection became a more permanent part of a regional plan & with streaming and video interaction from a much broader set of industry meet-ups.

Just like in a traditional city what this does is provide a framework to identify people and ideas that resonate with you & and because it's regional it allows the opportunity for personal connection that's necessary to build business's and exploit opportunities. Sure there is a lot of stuff to work through to make it work & but it's doable & and it offers the opportunity to increase the diversity of connections because the base increases both in population and diversity of industry.

Ali & I'd love to learn more about what Communitech does that makes it special & and how it got there.

The other point is that French, like Jane Jacobs before, has identified cities as the drivers of innovation & in large part because they foster the interaction between diverse groups, allowing self identification & connection to strengthen nascent groups and boundary interaction to transfer approaches between groups. The core driver of this idea transfer is the interaction between people.

I believe that communication infrastructure now provides the ability for this type of connection to occur at a regional level. We've all seen the emergence of community out of blog discussion and Demo/BarCamps & I'd like to see what would happen if this connection became a more permanent part of a regional plan & with streaming and video interaction from a much broader set of industry meet-ups.

Just like in a traditional city what this does is provide a framework to identify people and ideas that resonate with you & and because it's regional it allows the opportunity for personal connection that's necessary to build business's and exploit opportunities. Sure there is a lot of stuff to work through to make it work & but it's doable & and it offers the opportunity to increase the diversity of connections because the base increases both in population and diversity of industry.

Ali & I'd love to learn more about what Communitech does that makes it special & and how it got there.

We work in the middle of Toronto and Waterloo, so we've had the benefit of working with organizations on both sides. No community organization compares to Communitech in terms of bringing real value.

Communitech delivers on its promise of assisting new startups with big-name mentors, real connections to angel and VC financing, etc. And of course there's lots of talent in Waterloo.

The only thing Waterloo startups are jealous of about Toronto, from what I see, is the lack of diversity. There are 10 startups in T.O. for every 1 in Waterloo.

I wish we could find a way to combine the startup diversity of Toronto with the real-value support present in Waterloo.

The tech downturn was particularly harsh on Ottawa because the vast majority of companies prior to the bubble bursting were telecom based and when the bubble burst telecom was one of the industries hardest hit. This isn't to say things are bad, in fact, the melt down has created fertile grounds for start-ups and my rule of thumb is that on average I learn of a new knowledge based start-up every business day. Ottawa has a very rich start-up scene that is starting to find a common sense of purpose.

In the past 18 month I have probably meet with ~400 area entrepreneurs. Based on my discussions with these individuals the concept of TheCodeFactory was born, which is essentially a start-up club house. I have secured a space in downtown Ottawa and am in the midst of fitting up the place, which is a bit like living in a home renovation show. Anyway the space should be open in 4 & 8 weeks and is receiving favourable reviews from many in the start-up community. In fact Marc-Andre and Aydin Mirzaee have agreed to hold Ottawa's first web weekend there.

I believe this has a lot to do with emerging web tech companies growing up during a period of rapidly declining costs of R&D and acceleration of tech change. The institutional structures simply can't adapt quickly enough.

Something we SHOULD be thinking and talking about in more depth are intentional 'network organization' models built from the ground up on the DNA of the social web world. Our institutional partners can really help here. Is there an interest in this conversation? I'm curious.

(p.s. Thanks for putting Florida and me in the same sentence! That drink's on me!)