The first Ignite Ottawa is tomorrow night! Doors are at 6 pm at the Velvet Room in the Market.

The lineup of speakers and topics looks awesome…

Adele McAlear – Death and Digital Legacy
Jairus Pryor – How I Stole $15M from the Canadian Mint
Ian Graham – Coworking
Sue Murphy – Online Community
David Akin – Media and Technology

INTERMISSION

Kris Joseph – Shakespeare and Oral Culture
Scott Annan – You Inc.: We’re all freelancers now
Nick Charney – Public Service Renewal in 5 Minutes
Al Connors – Improv and Everyday Life

It looks like there aren’t any tickets left…if you have tickets but can’t make it, let the event organizers know so that they can make them available for others.

The official hashtag for the event is #igniteott (tagged tweets will appear on the screen live at the event).

It’s gonna be great!

This is a message from Kelly Rusk:

I just wanted to drop a quick line and let you know Scott and I have finally got things back up and running. And it’s a good thing too, because there are TONS of great new social media books out now.

Last email I sent was about our intent to cover The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt. I’d still like to review this book… would you? Please visit our brand new site and leave a comment with your thoughts (or email me directly if you prefer).

The new site is:

http://www.ottawasmbookclub.ca

You can register as a subscriber or subscribe to RSS to keep updated. I’d like to get a more formal email list going as well if you prefer email. You can also subscribe via Twitter via this new account:

http://www.twitter.com/ottsmbookclub

Which will basically just tweet when the blog is updated.

Also, unfortunately I could not get contact info from Meetup.com so I only have a handful of our members. I’m hoping you could please spread the word so we can at least gain most of our membership back. Our new year resolution will be to give the book club more TLC!

Any other thoughts, suggestion or comments, feel free to leave a comment on the blog.

If you don’t know Claude, check-out this event…he’s a really nice guy doing great things at OCRI.

Luc Lalande, Director of the Innovation Transfer Office at Carleton, is looking for help identifying these companies. If you have information on some of them, please contribute to the list or contact Luc via Twitter or e-mail (luc_lalande [at] carleton.ca).

Here is a guest post by Natasha D’Souza of VirtualEyeSee …

For the first time ever in Ottawa, a collection of the most powerful women’s networking groups will unite to NETWORK, COLLABORATE, BE INSPIRED and GET MOTIVATED!

Connect the Dots will bring women in business together at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on November 12th and 13th, 2009.

*Why a PJ Party?*
Our goal is for women to come together, connect and create a memorable first meeting where they laugh, dance and relax! They will be entertained by comedienne Zandra Bell and Sex Therapist Sue McGarvie! Registrants can take dancing lessons and be pampered by local women entrepreneurs offering products and services such as manicures, pedicures, eyebrow waxing, makeovers, hair consultations, massages, chocolate and much, much more.

Attendees can win a trip for two to the Dominican Republic simply by attending the event and sharing their favourite PJ Party story on a new forum designed to connect women globally, www.Goddessnet.com.

*Conference Day*
Participants should be ready to grow their businesses to the next level of success on November 13th by collaborating and learning from other business women from across the Ottawa region. Some of Ottawa’s prominent business women will be showcased and will cover topics such as money, networking and collaboration, social media, business success strategies, million dollar secrets and much more.

See http://connectthedotsottawa.com for updates and further information.

Believe it or not, there are only 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. You should make sure you have the time to start a new business, or a user group, or a new hobby, or a tribe, or anything that’s “new” and you’re passionate about.

Last weekend I went through a very simple exercise to make sure I really had the time to work on my project. I made a list of all the important things that I need to allocate my time to: work, sleep, family, friends, chores, travel time, learning, rest and relaxation, meals, exercise, commuting etc. I concluded that I had 10 hours per week to spend on my project. I’ve been using Bubbletimer to test my assumptions.

Is ten hours a week enough time to start something new? David Heinemeier Hansson created Basecamp in 10 hours per week, and by the way, he also created the Ruby on Rails framework at the same time. Believe me, 10 hours per week is a lot if you’re focused.

There’s also “hidden time”. I plan and strategize while I run; I catch up on reading while I’m sitting on the bus; I listen to audio books; I listen to music or catch up on important family time while I’m in the car; I catch up on work while waiting in the airport terminal.

What if you’re on a team with 3 others and everyone is spending 10 hours a week on a project? That’s 40 hours per week – the equivalent of a full time employee. Actually, if you think about it it’s really more than the equivalent of a full time employee.

Your circumstances may be different. You may be a full time student. You may be starting a family. You may have a 60-hour work week. You may have other more important priorities.

Just trust me, go through this simple exercise: do you have 10 hours per week to do something that you are passionate about?

          By: Chris Schmitt

You can register online here…

Or read more about it on the Flow Ventures Blog. Hope to see you there.

When:  November 3rd

Times: 8:00 am – 3:00 pm

Where: OCRI – 2625 Queensview Dr., Suite 200 – Ottawa

Cost: $195 (e2 Alumni: $50)

Register Here

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Speakers:

Natasha D’Souza, Digital Media Strategist and founder, Virtual EyeSee

Rick Radko, Social networking and web application architect, founder of R-Cubed

Scott Lake is the founder of ThinkSM and SWIX and a co-founder of Shopify and StartupOttawa

You will learn:

• how companies like Dell and Jet Blue are using social media
• about leveraging on-line social networks, consumer generated content, blogs, podcasts, wikis, video, and RSS feeds to better deliver your message
• how to create relationships with potential clients
• how to use social media to drive direct and indirect sales
• ways to improve customer service and increase customer satisfaction
• about campaign killers and online faux pas
• how to save your organization a great deal of money by using open source applications 

Take aways:

• Leave the workshop with cutting-edge skills for using social media to build your brand online.
• Ideas to get your website social media ready.
• Ways to implement a social marketing program on any budget.

A really cool event is being held at The Code Factory from 6-8pm on Wednesday. The Lumenera team is getting together to talk about startup life and to give the audience a view on what they learned in building up their company. Sounds like an awesome event. Check out the details below:

October 28th 6-8 @ The Code Factory

The Code Factory is excited to introduce a new series of events called “The Buddy System” designed to introduce entrepreneurs/start-ups to experienced, successful entrepreneurs in order to learn from their expertise. The first installment of The Buddy System, taking place on October 28th from 6-8 pm at The Code Factory. The event is produced in collaboration with Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP and will feature Huw Leahy – Lumenera President, Greg Bell – Lumenera Vice President Business Development, Andrew Nelson – Vice President Engineering and Kevin Mayer – Chief Technology Officer.

We encourage participants to register for the event, however, drop-ins are welcome.

http://thebuddysystematthecodefactory.eventbrite.com/

Lumenera is a company that was started during the depths of the economic downturn and successfully bootstrapped all the way to acquisition with $0 in external funding. An inspiration for all Ottawa area entrepreneurs / start-ups with some incredibly valuable lessons learned along the way that the founding team would like to share with the audience.

Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur which is a French word meaning one who undertakes an endeavour. Entrepreneurs assemble resources including innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods. The newest workshop being offered by TheCodeFactory is presented in an entrepreneurial co-learning style. The Code Factory, firmly believes that experience is the best teacher and that in order to know how to teach someone how to start their own company it is important to have done it yourself first!

A few weeks ago my co-conspirator in Betidings, Kenton White, suggested that we put ourselves forward to participate in a DemoCamp. My immediate feeling was trepidation, that turned to excitement as I understood more about the intent of DemoCamp. We were in a perfect stage to participate, as we had some basic functionality coded and tested around our idea and wanted to seek external validation to help us understand whether to continue our adventures, rejig, refine or abandon. Preparations continued apace in advance of the night. Close friends and supporters were enlisted to test out the site and my demo, each practice run helped me to become more relaxed and refine my answers. It’s an excellent chance to practice out loud answers to those business questions we think about all the time. My friends now know more than they ever wished about our value proposition, competitive landscape and business models. Thanks guys!

We arrived with plenty of time on the evening and started meeting other presenters and the organisers. Everyone did a fine job of helping to put me at ease. Public speaking is exhilarating to me, the pre-speaking jitters are more than offset by the high of getting up there and doing it. All of the presenters seemed relaxed and comfortable, I envied them. The first big task of the evening, at least from my perspective, was determining the order of the demos. First or third were my options. I figured that if I went first I would be able to relax and enjoy the other presentations (and a beer as well). So there I was, committed to that first slot. The room was humming, it was a full house, the countdown began.

Those of you who attended know how the demo went. I hadn’t practiced with a mic – that was a challenge to me as I usually gesticulate a lot when I talk. Trying to keep the mic in a useful location, operate the laptop and not trip-up was interesting. My next interesting moment was when I launched into my demo and lost my network connection. Arghhhh (and a selection of assorted expletives that I learned on a UK rugby pitch) went through my head. Ok, need to fix this quickly. Should we switch to our local host copy of the site or try to repair the network connection? Phew, network repaired, let’s keep moving along (rinse and repeat, damn network). Yup, not as smooth as I had hoped for, but at least I didn’t have to resort to the requested dance. Have you seen me dance?

By the end of the demo it was just questions left. Every speaker knows that this is the most exciting and scary moment of the talk. Will there be any questions? Will I be able to (a) understand and (b) answer them? Will our idea be lauded or flamed? It’s the moment of truth. It can also be the most entertaining part, interaction with the audience and a real chance to think on your feet. Here goes – yay, there are questions, even better I can answer them too. Each question is delivered slightly differently, some a little more directly than others, I am so focused on hearing the question and formulating my response that I don’t reflect much on the delivery style and would hardly be able to recognise anyone in a identification parade. Ohhh, that’s a pretty blunt question about our UI, no problem to answer, of course we’ll be working on it. Curses, that would’ve been a really good spot to solicit some help. Typical, only coming up with that thought after the fact, very Seinfeld-esque. Finally the demo and questioning have wrapped up. I’m wired, and happy to be done, time for that beer. My regret is not being quick witted enough to make a Big Bang Theory reference during my presentation. Happily for you all, not only did I refrain from dancing, I also didn’t crack any quantum mechanics jokes (ok, so I only have one and it’s pretty lame).

What did we gain from presenting at DemoCamp? A huge amount. We received feedback on the idea – it’s strengths and shortcomings. We have greater insight into our target audience, core focus and next steps. Many members of the community shared their thoughts and efforts in the event discovery and calendar space. In fact, post demo conversations were a most rewarding part of the evening. We know some potential collaborators and champions. We have validated that it is an interesting problem to work on; one that hasn’t been satisfactorily addressed yet. Most of all, we received enough support and encouragement to continue to pursue our adventure. Thank you.

So don’t be afraid, jump in and share your product idea with DemoCampOttawa. A deadline to present works wonders for your focus and progress. You’ll meet great people, receive plenty of feedback and, even if it is a little intimidating to get out there, just do it. Seriously, what is the worst that could happen? You may be surprised by how much you get out of it.

               -Treena Grevatt