Tag: Community

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Camping! Leading! Scoring!

As I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks back, July is full of great events here in Waterloo (and nearby Guelph). Last week featured two of them and I’m happy to to have made it out to both.

Communitech held a day-long Tech Leadership conference last Wednesday, which I somehow neglected to mention in my earlier post. Highlights included a presentation by author and Harvard professor Clayton Christensen on business and product innovation, an engaging talk by Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor, and a variety of breakout sessions. There was also a Tech Expo featuring displays from several local tech start-ups. I was happy to see Alex and Chris from Snapsort there, as well the gang from Tiny Hippos. In fact, the tiny chocolate hippos from Tiny Hippos enabled me bring home a small part of the event for my sons to enjoy. Thanks, P.J.!

The ninth edition of StartupCampWaterloo was also held last Wednesday at the Accelerator Centre. Oddly enough, while the turnout was about as robust as at previous events there were only four demos. All were interesting, though the one that stood out for me was ReserveMe, a product that enables clients of salons to book their own appointments online. While they have a lot more work to do, they showed a polished initial version that solves a real problem and they appear to be off to a good start.

As an aside, milestone of a different kind was reached over the weekend in our family. As I wrote at the beginning of the summer, I’ve enjoyed three seasons full of soccer with my sons this year. My middle son wrapped up his soccer season with a tournament this weekend, and even scored a goal in their final game. As my youngest son had already finished his very first season some weeks ago, that leaves just my oldest son with remaining soccer games this summer. In addition to playing, all three boys enjoyed watching World Cup games on television back in June. Soccer makes for an interesting way to mark the passage of time this summer.

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July yields a bumper crop of local events

Speaking of events that exist due to a community of people who share generously, July is shaping up to be a month full of fun events. Here are a few that I hope to attend.

First up is StartupDrinksWaterloo tomorrow night at Chainsaw in Uptown Waterloo. The conversations are fun and it’s a great group. If you haven’t been before, do come out and see what you’ve been missing.

Update: And, of course, the third Ignite Waterloo event is this Wednesday evening, July 7! Thanks for the reminder, Joseph.

On Wednesday July 14 is StartupCampWaterloo at Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. The demos and discussions are always worthwhile.

Just a week later on Wednesday July 21 there’s DemoCampGuelph at eBar in Guelph. As with the Waterloo event, the demos and discussions are always worthwhile.

Every month the UX Group of Waterloo has an event lined up. This month it’s on July 22 at Accelerator Centre, and we’ll be getting European conference reports from a couple of members.

As ever, a great way to keep on top of this stuff is the Waterloo Tech Startup site, which includes a calendar among other handy tech-oriented resources. There’s more going on than I’ve highlighted here.

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Yet another demonstration that beer and user experience go well together

We had a great discussion (or, rather, series of discussions) at this month’s UX Group event at the Huether Hotel in Waterloo last night. We started off talking about iPad, which was certainly in the spirit of our announced NUI discussion, but soon wandered off down various interesting conversational side roads. From business models, to retail user experience, to music and movies in the digital age, and more, it was a terrific night. Thanks to everyone who came out and made the event so special. And here’s to a speedy recovery for co-organizer Bob Barlow-Busch, who was too ill to make it out. You missed a good night, Bob!

The current plan is to try to assemble a group post that represents our collective take on the evening. Check back at the UX Group blog for more on that.

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Digital Media Boot Camp

A group of people working through a design challenge

On Monday and Tuesday this week I hosted a Digital Media Boot Camp at Canada 3.0 in Stratford, Ontario, on Canada’s digital media future. The goal was to come up with some concrete ideas around how to move forward on the vision of being able to do anything online in Canada by 2017, the country’s sesquicentennial year.

I was struck by a couple of things.

First was the diversity of people that showed up for what was essentially the “general public” stream of Canada 3.0. The range of experiences and backgrounds represented resulted in some great discussions.

The second was the recurring theme that emerged that access to the online world remains, in 2010, a real issue in Canada for a variety of reasons: economic disparity, urban/rural divide, fear, inexperience — all prevent full participation in Canada’s digital present. Ironically, technological barriers were emphasized at the conference, where both WiFi and mobile access were severely constrained.

(As an aside, there was also the irony, visible in the accompanying photo, of talking about a digital future using decidedly analogue markers and flip charts!)

There’s a lot of work to do to make a future a vision a reality.

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This boot camp needs you, no marching required

Next week is the Canada 3.0 conference in Stratford, Ontario. I mention it because I’ll be there on the afternoons of Monday May 10 and Tuesday May 11, facilitating/hosting DigitalMediaCamp from noon until 4:00pm. The great thing is that DigitalMediaCamp is free, courtesy of The Record. All you need to do is register for either Monday or Tuesday and then get yourself to Stratford.

What should you expect? As it says on the site, “the DigitalMediaCamp will allow participants to interact with others, experience new software and provide input to decision makers shaping the future of Digital Media in Canada.” DigitalMediaCamp registrants are also entitled to attend the morning keynote presentations that are part of Canada 3.0, and to explore the showcase booths and more.

Sounds like fun to me. Tell your friends, get thinking, and bring your ideas and an open mind to Stratford. Take the opportunity to work with others to help build a digital media vision for Canada.

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Startup Lessons Learned Conference

Jim Murphy has organized a fun looking event for next Friday, April 23 from noon until 9:00pm at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. It’s a simulcast of the Startup Lessons Learned conference happening in San Francisco. From Jim’s event description:

Startup Lessons Learned is the first event designed to unite those interested in what it takes to succeed in building a lean startup. The goal for this event is to give practitioners and students of the lean startup methodology the opportunity to hear insights from leaders in embracing and deploying the core principles of the lean startup methodology. The day-long event will feature a mix of panels and talks focused on the key challenges and issues that technical and market-facing people at startups need to understand in order to succeed in building successful lean startups.

Enjoy the thought provoking presentations and panels from San Francisco, and talk about it with like-minded people here in Waterloo. All that, and it’s free! What are you waiting for? Go sign up!

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A busy couple of weeks

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I appear to have neglected the blog. Here’s a quick roundup of some of what I’ve been up to.

The most recent edition of StartupCampWaterloo was two weeks ago already, and it was another fun edition with a variety of demos and great conversation. My former Primal Fusion colleague Alex Black showed off the cool stuff he’s been doing at his newest venture, Snapsort. It was fun to see the great progress that he’s made.

Last week I had the great fortune to hear a talk by Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives at Google. Inspiring stuff, and there’s clearly a lot of great work being done at Google in general and at the Waterloo office in particular.

This month’s edition of StartupDrinksWaterloo was last night, and while the free pizza was certainly a plus, it was the conversations and connections that remain the big attractions.

Meanwhile, in between these events and a variety of productive conversations with people, I’ve been chugging away on a product prototype as part of an informal project with some friends. I have to say that the recent warm weather has reminded me of the joys of coding away on the front porch and bringing an idea to life. Looks like I’ll remain heads down on design and prototyping for a little while anyway!

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What I’ve learned on my current vacation

The week before last I wrote about my interest in opening up the thinking process around next steps in my career. I felt like I needed to keep an open mind following my departure from Primal Fusion and, more importantly, get as much input as possible during this discovery phase of my new adventure. Since then I’ve enjoyed a number of conversations with friends and colleagues, old and new, who have been generous in sharing their thoughts and listening to mine. There are, of course, various moves that would make sense and my job is to sort out the right next step.

I have to confess that, at the moment, the most interesting possibility that has emerged is creating a new startup company with a couple of like-minded friends. We’ve had some great conversations already and have even managed to get our creative juices flowing with some initial product work. Fun stuff guys!

I’m still talking with people and maintaining my open mind, though this week I’m more focused on home life as my sons are off school for March break. It continues to be a fascinating journey of discovery for me, and I’m looking forward to more conversations and learning. My thanks go out to everyone who has taken the time to talk and to listen.

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Ignite Waterloo 2 was a mid-week treat

A bin full of varied and colourful Lego pieces

Ignite Waterloo hosted another great evening of talks last night. It was the second local event, but this time it was part of the much larger Global Ignite Week. The Waterloo speakers presented talks on a diverse range of topics, and the large audience was engaged, and engaging, throughout the night. It’s great fun to help organize this event.

Highlights for me included Alex Matan’s accordion workout, Erica Waugh’s directions on how to drive in a roundabout, Jeff Henry’s practical advice on working with politicians, and Sunshine Chen’s storytelling story. My favourite, though, as Brendan Lowther’s talk on Geocaching. It wasn’t so much for the topic, but for his passion and for the aplomb that he showed when confronted with slides that didn’t seem to be displaying all his pictures. He made it into a fun thing and demonstrated that, in the end, a successful talk is about the speaker, not the technology.

Finally, the Lego building competition was also a fine succes, though I missed much of it as I was working the door while the competition was on. At the end of the night, though, while helping to clean up I was able to take the accompanying picture of one of the contest entries after it had been returned to the large bin of Lego pieces. Pretty cool entry!

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After the split, what’s next?

Having left Primal Fusion, I’ve been giving some thought to what’s next. At the moment, I’m really in discovery mode — thinking about possibilities, talking to friends and colleagues, and generally trying to keep an open mind. It’s a liberating state to be in, as is the beginning of any new adventure, though it’s obviously not without its moments of uncertainty.

Having said that, I’m still pretty committed to living and working in the Waterloo area. There’s a great technology and startup community here with a lot of thoughtful, engaged, and passionate people who share their knowledge and experience through a variety of activities. And, Waterloo is also a fine place to live — as I’ve written previously, there are many reasons why my family and I enjoy living here.

Which brings me to what feels like quite an odd request.

I’d like to hear from anyone who would like to share any ideas on how I might think about what’s next. Let’s get together for coffee, or talk at a community event, or exchange email or tweets, whatever. I’m always impressed by the depth of knowledge, the wisdom, and the generosity of spirit that I’ve encountered in people in our community, and I want to find out whether its possible to tap into that at this stage in my adventure. It’s not quite crowd-sourcing a next career move; it’s more like seeing what I might learn by opening up the thinking process. For that matter, I’m also happy to share my own thoughts with anyone who has their own career questions and would like to chat.

For context, I hope that it’s clear from my various posts on this blog what my interests, skills, and experiences are (user experience, software products, startups, etc.).

Beyond this blog, I write in much shorter bursts on Twitter as @uxMark; reading my tweets there may or may provide more clarity! Connect with me there, or send me an email. My email address is my first name [at] connollydesign [dot] com.