Is it the last day of June already? Perhaps it whooshed by because we were so hard at work, writing about what it takes to bring technology to market. This month, we told you about bridging the investor-entrepreneur gap, accelerator programs for startup mentorship, how to become an investor magnet, the right circumstances for bringing tech to market, how to accelerate women’s involvement in tech, the importance of food in making good decisions, incubation, the role of champions and making effective use of social media, among many other pearls of wisdom.
In case you missed anything, here is a recap of our posts from June, beginning with, in chronological order, the latest installments in our ongoing series, The Commercialization Ecosystem.
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This is the next contribution to this blog by Associate Bob Bailly, a Calgary-based neuro-marketing practitioner
By Bob Bailly
I remember several road trips as a teenager travelling with my parents and my younger brothers and sisters to California from Calgary. Back then it was a three-day journey for us, stopping in Idaho Falls, Las Vegas and a final day across the desert to Los Angeles. My mother was normally a trouper, but the heat, the kids and perhaps my dad made these journeys for her a challenge. I remember she would pop her head out of an open car window, reminding me of a dog with his tongue flapping in a hot breeze.
This is when I first discovered a very interesting trick my father would use when discussions about anything became a little testy during the drive. He’d stop talking and would start looking for a restaurant. “First we’ll eat – then we’ll talk,” he said on more than one occasion. Once said snack was secured, mom’s testiness disappeared and her world certainly seemed more sublime.
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By Linda Forrest
Reading yesterday’s post about the role formal education plays in entrepreneurship, I was reminded of an article I read a few months ago about the “real reason women quit engineering.”
In Stemming The Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering, two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors report on their survey of over 3,700 women with engineering degrees. They found that just one in four women who had left the field reported doing so to spend more time with family. One third left “because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture,” while almost half departed due to “working conditions, too much travel, lack of advancement or low salary” (respondents were allowed to check more than one reason). The researchers also found that among women who got engineering degrees but never entered the field, a third made that decision “because of their perceptions of engineering as being inflexible or the engineering workplace culture as being non-supportive of women.” And, unsurprisingly, “Women engineers who were treated in a condescending, patronizing manner, and were belittled and undermined by their supervisors and co-workers were most likely to want to leave their organizations.”
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By Linda Forrest
This past weekend, my family went to the Canada Science & Technology Museum. I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t been there since I participated many, many moons ago in Encounters with Canada, but was pleasantly surprised that some of the things I remembered and liked were still there but that most of the museum had been updated since my last visit, nearly 20 years ago.
My young son marvelled at the train cars and the space exhibits, but the display that most moved me and will always stay with me is that of the Phoenix capsule, the feat of engineering and proof of the power of human determination that carried 33 trapped Chilean miners from over 2,300 feet below ground to the surface as the world watched. The men had survived for a record 69 days underground.
When we initially made plans to go to the museum, we didn’t know that the capsule would be there. It’s a travelling exhibit and kudos to whomever was responsible for getting Ottawa on the tour.
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By Anil Dilawri
Anil Dilawri is managing director of Save it like Sully, an executive presentation coaching and training company.
Have you ever seen a bad presentation before? Of course you have, everyone has. The next time you see a bad presentation, and I’m guessing it will be soon, take 20 seconds and write down three adjectives to describe the presenter. My guess is, they probably won’t be very flattering adjectives. The point here is that when bad presentations happen, the presenter’s reputation suffers. Whether we like it or not, our personal reputations are on the line every time we present.
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Is it the last day of June already? Perhaps it whooshed by because we were so hard at work, writing about what it takes to bring technology to market. This month, we told you about bridging the investor-entrepreneur gap, accelerator programs for startup mentorship, how to become an investor magnet, the right circumstances for bringing tech to market, how to accelerate women’s involvement in tech, the importance of food in making good decisions, incubation, the role of champions and making effective use of social media, among many other pearls of wisdom.
