By Alexandra Reid
As usual, we covered a lot of ground last month on our blog. We wrote about the Startup Canada launch, introduced a new “born global” startup concept, discussed the future of accelerators, and explored how the Canadian university ‘innovation gap’ is more illusory than real. We championed the Montreal startup scene, envisioned what Ottawa should do to support entrepreneurship at home, and warned that VCs can sometimes be detrimental to young companies. These topics merely scratch the surface of our coverage.
In case you missed any of our posts, here’s a handy roundup:
May 2: Check your baggage at the door by Leo Valiquette
May 14: How to make better inventions: Part 1 by David French
May 22: How to make better inventions: Part 2 by David French
May 28: The ‘born global’ disruption by Tony Bailetti
May 29: Picking up the pieces from an R&D misadventure by Leo Valiquette
And on a related note…
In addition to our series, our associates and guest bloggers were also busy writing on a great range of topics. Here are our other posts from May, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
May 8: Anything they can do you can do better: Competing in social media by Alexandra Reid
May 9: How I learned to stop worrying and love a blank page by Leo Valiquette
May 23: The worst small business social media marketing advice I’ve ever heard by Alexandra Reid
May 31: Canadian university ‘innovation gap’ more illusory than real: Kurman by Francis Moran
May 3: Lessons in entrepreneurship from the Startup Canada launch by Alexandra Reid
May 24: Montreal startup scene continues to rock by Francis Moran
May 15: Managing client expectations throughout an outsourced social media marketing program by Alexandra Reid
May 7: Five old school mistakes creeping into digital and social media planning by Rob Woyzbun
May 30: The future of startup accelerators by Ben Yoskovitz
May 16: The root of all evil by Leo Valiquette
May 18: Dealing with children and sensitive information online by Alexandra Reid
May 1: Why startups should build social media communities before they launch by Alexandra Reid
May 11: Three interesting developments in modern journalism by Francis Moran
Image: marcie scudder
By Tony Bailetti
Most new technology firms first focus on the domestic market and then internationalize slowly, one stage at a time. They become global by emergence, not by design. Recent evidence suggests that the conventional phased approach to internationalization that is widely used to grow new firms is not working as well as it used to. Stage models of internationalization take too long, cost too much, and increase risks for both investors and customers.
Technology entrepreneurs, as well as the academics, educators, service providers, and policy makers who serve them, need to search for better approaches to launch and grow technology firms.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are the Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, ReadWriteStart, Business2Community, Social Media B2B, and CopyBlogger.
‘Secret sauce’ behind Waterloo’s success
How do you build a more entrepreneurial culture in a semi-colonial, don’t-rock-the-boat country such as Canada? That’s the question being tackled by the founders of Startup Canada, an Ottawa-based volunteer movement launched three weeks ago. They’re undertaking a cross-country tour to sound out business owners on how best to unleash Canadians’ entrepreneurial potential. Author Rick Spence brings us up to speed on the movement’s recent achievements.
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By Francis Moran
My day yesterday? Twelve straight hours of startups, speakers, schmoozing and social media as I took in both FounderFuel’s second demo day and The C100’s AccelerateMTL. With what I am sure was more than a wee bit of coordination, one event followed the other in the beautiful and historic Monument-National theatre building at the very heart of this bustling city. The juxtaposition of a 120-year-old 
building with the youth and energy of the startup entrepreneurs was not the least bit jarring, although the canned pre-event PA announcement asking us all to turn off our pagers and cell phones was clearly meant far more for a theatre-going audience than for this crowd bent on tweeting every great line to the outside world.
And there were lots of great lines.
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By Alexandra Reid
Update, May 24:
As you can see from the comments at the end of this post, people have suggested that the comments in this post attributed to Gary Vaynerchuk are not representative. In a Twitter conversation I had with Gary, he told me that the blog post on which I relied for this post misrepresented his presentation and certainly misrepresents his social media philosophy. I’ve invited Gary to weigh in here, and we certainly hope does. Please read this post in this context.
I read a blog post today that annoyed me, the content for which came from a presentation Gary Vaynerchuk gave to more than 600 small businesses and local chamber and association leaders at America’s Small Business Summit on Monday in Washington D.C. His said that small business owners must get on social media right away or else risk getting run over by the “wave” of innovation. It wasn’t his call to small business owners to get started on social media that raised my red flag. It was his sense of urgency, that small business owners should get on social media immediately without asking the right questions and laying out a sound strategy first. This is the ill-advised leap-before-you-look mentality that saps budgets and kills new marketing initiatives before they have had the chance to properly develop.
His advice?
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