Posts Tagged: Toronto

Articles — 3 Comments
15
May 12

Blogging More

I wrote my first blog post for DavidCrow.ca, roughly 11 years ago on the day Douglas Adams passed away from a heart attack.  It is hard to believe that I have been doing this unsuccessfully for 11 years. Strangely, I had my heart attack roughly 5 years later on May 30, 2006, maybe heart trouble is the common thread through my blog.

I need to get in the habit of blogging more. I have been woefully neglectful of my blog. Unlike Joey, who seems to have found time to blog multiple times per day. I need to follow the advice of Mark Suster and Fred Wilson (more), and just make blogging part of my daily activities. (I probably need to try to make other things like a walking desk part of my daily activities too). I’ve written a lot of posts for StartupNorth, but I haven’t been as dedicated to my own blog.

Here are some of my favorite posts:

 Back to it I guess.

Articles / Canada / Conferences / Toronto — 2 Comments
23
May 11

Mesh is TO’s most important DIY conference

Mesh Conference is Toronto’s most important DIY conference.


Copyright All rights reserved by geoperdis

That’s right Mesh Conference is a DIY event. It’s the Do-It -Yourself endeavour of small dedicated group of individuals. And you can see each of their personalities and interests in the schedule and speakers. Rob Hyndman (@rhh), Stuart MacDonald(@stuartma), Mark Evans(@markevans), Mathew Ingram(@mathewi), and Mike McDerment (@mikemcderment) have been working very hard since 2006 to build a world-class that has attracted renown speakers, mayors, and attendees. The secret is that Mesh is an event that all of them want to attend. The reason they invest time and effort into this event is because it is really for them.

Ingram, Hyndman, Evans, MacDonald - missing McDerment
Copyright All rights reserved by photojunkie

Why is Mesh Toronto’s most important DIY event?

There are great events ranging from my DemoCamp to EcommerceCamp, from MakerFaireTO to Open Toronto, TechTalksTO to HackTO.  There are a great number of local events that have emerged. The thing about Mesh is that it started in 2006. Over 5 years ago, shortly after the first BarCampToronto. And since the very first Mesh, it has always had an air of professionalism that others should strive to obtain. Mesh from the very first event was an event that was world class. It was Canadian in size (about 1/10th the size of a US event). But it has always been DIY, it has never felt DIY.

Rob, Stuart, Mark, Mathew, Mike and Sheri deserve true accolades for building an event that defines the emerging technology, emerging culture, emerging policy in Canada. Thank you!

I hope to see everyone at the Allstream Centre this week.

Articles / Toronto — Comments Off
10
Mar 11

Inside the Lean Startup

Very late notice, but I have been busy running a startup. I’m joining my friends Leila Boujnane (@leilaboujnane) and Satish Kanwar (@skanwar) tonight at the Inside the Lean Startup event at MaRS. We’ll be chatting about our startups. The customer development process. And some of the tools we use. If you’re not in Austin for SxSW, and you need to get out of the garage/basement/office and chat with others that are struggling/succeeding/striving/doing it to. Come out tonight.

You might also consider checking out the AppSumo Lean #SxSW Bundle which includes access to a set of tools I use including:

Plus there are some new tools that I’m excited to try:

The 2 books that are not included in the Lean SxSW Bundle that are must reads:

 

Articles / Startups — 1 Comment
2
Jun 10

Outsourced play

Hockey Fan

Photo by shuck

I learned about the idea of outsourcing play from Alex Manu’s book The Imagination Challenge. I’m guilty of outsourcing play from Formula1 to UFC (don’t ask, but it’s cathartic and I feel a little schadenfreude). Evidence of the continued outsourcing of play is the continued meteoric rise of fantasy sports.

“It is estimated that 26 million Americans play some form of fantasy sports league, a fact that has created an industry worth close to $1 billion a year according to the U.S.-based Fantasy Sports Trade Association.

“The average amount that each of these players spends on their hobby might be $500 per year or so, moreover, these figures appear to be growing — even in a down economy — at near-double-digit annual rates.”

If those figures continue at that pace, fantasy will soon overtake reality. Professor Quinn points out that, by comparison, the National Hockey League’s (NHL) total attendance is 25 million per year, bringing in close to $3 billion in the process.” – James Montague, CNN

InGamer SportsThere are a number of new startups attacking this growing market space. There are some changing dynamics with the availability of real-time data that offer a change in the game play that has been the weekly engagement model of traditional fantasy sports pools. There is a Toronto-based startup, InGamer Sports, that is building a new game using the realtime statistics for baseball and hockey to engage players. They launched during Game 1 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals with The Hockey News. Nic Sulsky provided metrics about their launch. 

InGamer Numbers from Game 1 (Nic says “small but powerful”)

  • 0$ spent marketing only a link on TheHockeyNews.com
  • 113 Unique Visitors
  • 40:19 Average time on site
  • 52 Games created (46% conversion)
  • 37 Registered Games
  • 18 Unique Taunters
  • 228 Taunts
  • 28 people had their browsers open to the end of the game

I don’t have any ability to judge the metrics, i.e., I’m not an expert at the existing traffic or conversation rates for fantasy sports and The Hockey News. It’s a fun game, you pick 5 players who get points for their performance. You have the option to select new players that change at each period. You can then in real-time taunt and challenge your compatriots. The interaction is currently 100% web-based but it’s not a huge stretch to see the UI move beyond the browser to mobile in particular. Great fun, too bad it’s not Toronto (like the Leafs are making it to the Cup, pipedream) and Calgary I can hear John Bristowe taunting Mark Relph in real-time.

It’s great to see InGamer build an application that extends the impact that leagues and players have with their fans. It’s a great opportunity to build deeper experiences and help get fans to that flow state of engagement while watching their favourite teams. It’s not full baked and they are changing based on customer data.

Interested?

You can play tonight during Game 3, and the best part the Sutter family will be playing InGamer. Check out http://hockey.ingamersports.com/ or http://playerscup.thehockeynews.com to play.

Articles / Development / Toronto / Waterloo — 3 Comments
14
Apr 10

HackTO & DevHouse

HackTO registration has opened with support from Idee, FreshBooks, CanPages and PostRank. Who it turns out all have APIs to use their services:

It’s a great opportunity to bring your laptop, bring your dev environment, connect with other developers, and learn how to build connected applications.

SuperHappyDevHouse

Image by Derek Yu on SuperHappyDevHouse

The PostRank team is hosting DevHouse Waterloo on April 26 (this is the 18th DevHouse).

Dev House Waterloo is an event giving programmers and designers the opportunity to meet other creative people and learn from each other – whatever the topic may be. You can bring an idea, or a project you’ve been working on, and present it to the group for feedback or help. Bits will be flowing (wifi is provided), projector will be available, food will be served, and space is provided by PostRank.

Another great opportunity for developers to get together and show off what they’ve been working on.

Articles / DemoCamp / Events / Toronto — 2 Comments
23
Mar 10

DemoCamp Ramen Edition

Photo by frippy

It’s time again for DemoCamp. There are a few tickets remaining. But this is DemoCamp Ramen Edition. Why ramen? Well it’s pretty easy. The first is an homage to being ramen profitable. The last event with Gurbaksh Chahal was great, my only complaint was that by 9pm I was hungry. The great folks at Liberty Noodle have offered to help us out. They are providing take out boxes of noodles or rice as part of the DemoCamp registration. Hopefully this should make it more tenable to spend time watching a stellar line up of local startups and a keynote. This is all made possible by our friends at SIFE Ryerson, who have recently launched StartMeUpRyerson to be the SVASE of Canada, go have a peek.

April Dunford is keynoting.  April is one of my favourite marketers in the world. She has lived in big organizations (IBM, Nortel) and at small organizations (DataMirror, Infobright, VersePoint). She has a wicked grasp of customer development  and this #leanstartup thing. April has agreed to talk about the myths of product market fit. Well at least the challenges about figure out if you’ve got product-market fit and how to know when to begin to transition to go-to-market. This will be a must attend discussion for startups about products, marketing and corporate development. (Don’t worry if you miss April at DemoCamp, you can see Sean Ellis at MeshU).

There is an outstanding line up of startups:

I’ve seen a few of these demos, and they are fun. It’s exciting to get to see world-class technologies and startups here in Toronto (Ottawa and Montreal). I’m looking forward to hanging out with everyone, learning from April and watching the best demos.

We’ll be heading out for beers afterwards. We’re heading over to the Imperial Pub. And if you haven’t figured this out, let me help you, The Imperial Pub is a great place for a couple of beers, it’s not the place to go for dinner.

Community / Coworking / Toronto — 12 Comments
3
Feb 10

Coworking in Toronto – Camaraderie

Yeah, independents, freelancers, emerging startups, web developers and others rejoice. You have a coworking option in Toronto again. After Indoor Playground “moved” in January 2008, Toronto has been lacking a general coworking space. (Yes I know about the Centre for Social Innovation, but it has mission-based selection criteria that helps create it’s ecosystem and not everyone qualifies). But today, Rachael and Wayne have announced the opening of Camaraderie. I provided some coverage over on StartupNorth, I’m hoping that we can again try to rally around a different office space model that is enabled by this emerging participatory culture.

Camarderie - Coworking in Toronto

Camaraderie is a located at 102 Adelaide St E, Toronto, ON. The doors are scheduled to open on Feb 15, 2010 and the space will be free until Feb 28, 2010. I’m hoping that many of the independents that are looking for a part-time, downtown coworking space will check out Camaraderie. The pictures of the space are still very raw.

The Building 102 Adelaide St E, Toronto, ONOpen WorkspaceKitchen AreaBoard Room

The Details

  • memberships will be $300/mo for unlimited use during business hours
  • we’ll work out keys later, but for now the space will be open 9:00am-6:00pm (or later)
  • free wifi, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate every day
Articles / Conferences / Events / Toronto — 1 Comment
25
Jan 10

Social Media Week + PowerPoint Karaoke

Eli Singer, the team at Entrinsic, and a supporting cast of  people & advisors have organized the first Social Media Week Toronto.

There is a great schedule of events that span the gamut of social media for companies large and small, not for profit, and local case studies. The schedule is a week with independently organized events. Some of the events I’m watching include:

PowerPoint Karaoke is one of my favorite social formats. It is just brilliant. I first saw it executed in 2006 at ETech. And I wrote about as an alternative format to DemoCamp. I’m stoked to see that my friends Tom & Jay are making the effort to make it happen in Toronto. Remember it’s a social event, it’s meant to be a way to have fun!

North by Northeast Interactive

If it feels like there is a push of activities in Toronto, there are.

You don’t need to attend every event, there is lots going on.

Articles / Events / Toronto — 4 Comments
6
Nov 09

DemoCamp Toronto # 24 featuring Gary Vaynerchuk

crushit We’re really lucky to have Saul Colt working his ass off in Toronto. He’s done a great thing. He’s invited his friend Gary Vaynerchuk to come to Toronto and talk to startups about his book, Crush It, and entrepreneurship. That’s right, Gary Vaynerchuk in Toronto on December 3, 2009 for the next DemoCamp Toronto (which will be number 24 for anyone keeping track).

Gary is keynoting SxSW. Here’s your chance to see Gary without the trip to Austin. However, I strongly recommend the trip to Austin if for nothing other than the BBQ and the Shiner Bock.

The event is sponsored by Zoocasa, Saul Colt, Rogers Ventures, OCE, Microsoft BizSpark and StartupNorth are working together on this one.

I haven’t had the chance to read the book yet. Adding it to my queue along with Trust Agents, Six Pixels of Separation and a few other books.

DemoCamp Details

Articles / Entrepreneurship / Toronto — 12 Comments
29
Oct 09

Bright lights, big names

Win7 Employee Event

I’ve been thinking about Toronto. It’s almost 4 years since TorCamp and the first DemoCamp. The tech scene has changed significantly since I first posted BarCamp Toronto in September 2005. People are paying attention to Toronto. Just look at the past few weeks, we’ve had Dave McClure, Steve Ballmer, Hugh MacLeod, First Round Capital, Dharmesh Shah, Joel Spolsky, Yossi Vardi and others all in Toronto. There something going on here.

There are startups. They are raising money. They are hiring. They are doing great work. Have you checked out:

There are a ton of startups in Toronto. We have new corporate venture funds, there are incubator programs, there is something in the water. The best part is that there are great companies in Montreal, Vancouver, Waterloo, Ottawa (all across the country really, I’m looking at you Radian6 in Fredericton). It’s be a great four years since the start of this community thing in Toronto. Canada has always been a great place to live. Now it’s starting to be a great place to be a tech entrepreneur.

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