By Leo Valiquette
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been speaking with a number of entrepreneurs, executives and others with a stake in Ottawa’s economy on topics ranging from international trade and building an export-oriented business to financing. The common theme has been what business owners must do to get out of their own backyards and make things happen.
There are, no doubt, those who take miserable comfort in pining away for the old days of high-volume VC and the glory that was Nortel. They would rather spend more time complaining about what’s lacking in the commercialization ecosystem than engage in a more productive exercise to find a workaround. I really wasn’t interested in getting mired in those perspectives. The world is what it is – deal with it.
Our focus must be on how we (define “we” in whatever way works for you) learn to operate in the new normal or in the absence of any normal. We must be focused on the future with an appreciation for the fact that big changes can’t happen overnight. It requires a long-term effort that is consistent and, most importantly, collaborative.
I found myself thinking these weighty thoughts following a chat with Walt Hutchings, one of the new guard at the Economic Development Agency Formerly Known as OCRI – Invest Ottawa.
Hutchings worked at EDC for almost 30 years in various senior roles that were largely focused around building bridges between Canadian companies and foreign markets. As Invest Ottawa’s managing director of investment and trade, he is now tasked with building a team that will have the domain expertise and contacts to help Ottawa companies expand overseas and attract foreign interests to consider Ottawa their foothold in the Canadian and North American markets.
In our discussion, he outlined a focused and strategic game plan to fulfill his mandate. On the investment side, the emphasis is not just on helping local startups secure capital, but also to help local firms invest in some fashion overseas.
I liked what I heard in our discussion, but we can’t expect results to materialize overnight. As we explored with CEO Bruce Lazenby several moons ago, Invest Ottawa has a lot of hard work ahead of it, not the least of which is distancing itself from the tarnished brand that was OCRI.
But this is not to suggest that there isn’t a need to show progress in the near term. Progress is best demonstrated by examples of how traditional divides in this town are being broken. Mayor Jim Watson and other stakeholders in the local economy have made plenty of noise about the need for collaboration instead of competition. There is no place in the new Ottawa, we have been told, for the silos, even egos, that traditionally kept the local chambers, city hall, our post-secondary institutions and the old OCRI working at cross purposes, often duplicating each other’s efforts.
In my recent travels, I have spoken with a number of the senior individuals across town who need to be talking to each other. It seems that this collaborative dialogue is starting to happen. On the other hand, I still pick up the odd grumble – it will take some time for the old mindset of “us vs. them” to fade away, but fade it must.
‘Innovation’ has never been at issue
While OCRI’s name change is symbolic, it is nonetheless important. I can only shake my head when I see on local LinkedIn Groups bittersweet longings for the good ol’ days of OCRI under certain of its former head honchos and nitpicking over the fact that the new name “Invest Ottawa” falls short because it doesn’t contain the word “innovation.” This is the one word, some people insist, that somehow conveys everything that Ottawa was.
I couldn’t agree more. Under the wing of Nortel, Ottawa was a hotbed of innovation. Innovation has never been our problem.
But as we have said repeatedly on this blog, innovation matters less than commercialization. A great idea is, well, great, but in the absence of a strong plan to build a sustainable business around that idea, the idea itself is style without substance. Investment is what it is all about – investing in new ideas, new markets and new industries to build great companies with the chutzpah, global market awareness and business chops for investors of whatever stripe to see them as a worthwhile risk.
I even still receive emails from people who I haven’t spoken with since my time as editor of the Ottawa Business Journal, people who are eager to revisit topics tied to the telecom meltdown. I did and still do empathize with anyone who has been disenfranchised by job cuts – been there! But we need to be focused on where we are and where we need to go. The only preoccupation we should have with what happened more than decade ago is keeping sight of the hard lessons that were learned about irrational exuberance and the need for economic diversification.
Only time will tell if Invest Ottawa will live up to its bold ambitions. But it does appear to be off to a good start with a new mindset and the welcome addition of new faces like Walt Hutchings. The onus for Ottawa’s economic future, however, rests with everyone who is part of the local value chain for getting tech to market, not just the team at 80 Aberdeen St. It’s hard to move forward if we keep looking back.
