We are getting quite a few requests to check out our new space at 100 Gloucester. Therefore, we have decided to offer anyone interested a sneak peek.

You can sign up for the FIELD TRIP here!

Photo Attribution: Memo Angeles/Shutterstock.com

The date, coincidentally, is the fifth anniversary of signing our original lease here at 246 Queen Street, which was Leap Day February 29, 2008. Many of our existing tenants will be on site too, so this gives you a chance to meet some of our existing and growing community.

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Sincerely hope you can make it.

Ian Graham

IMG_7585 by themaxson's

Hard to believe it has been almost five years already … wow time flies.

A lot has happened here at 246 Queen Street since May 26th 2008 on opening day. Almost every user group in the Ottawa web and mobile space started, reformed or touched down here at some point. The downtown tech scene has really blossomed since those early days and there is now so much going on that it is really difficult to keep track of. TheCodeFactory is proud of having helped facilitate many of the groups and played an active and hands-on role.

Why are we moving?

I think our new location will actually service our clients better … we are closer to Elgin Street, a little farther away from the government part of downtown and closer to more amenities.  

We are expanding. Our new space is 50% larger than our Queen Street location and it gives us the opportunity to go from TheCodeFactory 1.0 to 2.0. Time stands still for no one and our business has evolved a lot in the past few years. There are so many lessons learned (many of them related to clauses in leases) but, that is a story for another day.

Where is the new location?

We’ll announce the location on the blog in a few weeks.

Ian Graham

There are likely fewer catalysts that will accelerate economic change as fast as either the US fiscal cliff or the Euro financial crisis. The US fiscal cliff is the expiry of certain spending programs set up by the George W. Bush administration that end in December of 2012. There are some significant ideological differences between the Obama administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. However, this is likely the greater of the two evils, but less likely to occur. The Euro financial crisis on the other hand, according to world leading economists, is inevitable.

Preikstolen by Helico

First let’s address the US fiscal cliff. Dr. Larry Summers recently spoke at the Chateau Laurier two days after the US election on the impending US fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff hinges on essentially three problem categories: ensuring recovery, sustainable finances and economic structural changes. The third problem category is economic structural changes which are long-run solutions and beyond the scope of this blog post. This blog post will address the first two categories of ensuring recovery and sustainable finances which are the key short-run fiscal cliff challenges.

If you consider the scope of the fiscal cliff, it is bounded on either end by increasing revenue by 1/6 or cutting entitlements by 25% … the final solution lies somewhere in between, separated by the political ideologies of Democrats and Republicans. Therefore, short-term budget action requires a combination of revenue increase and reduction of entitlements. The solution to the fiscal cliff involves broadening the tax base with such measures as increasing taxation on the wealthiest segment of the US population. In 1965 the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the US earned 10% of the total national wealth … today the top 1% earn 25% of the national wealth.

Rising health care costs are the largest single contributor to the burgeoning cost of entitlements. Expect to see reductions in planned increases in this sector. This is a market vertical ripe for efficiency improvements and technology; however, healthcare is a laggard market and very difficult to change due to the highly bureaucratic nature and complex administrative and approval process. The economic crisis may be the necessary impetus for reform to gain traction.

In my opinion the US fiscal cliff has the potential for greater impact on the global economic recovery, however, is far less likely to occur than the Euro Financial crisis.

About a year ago I wrote a post “Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” regarding Martin Wolf’s speech on the Euro crisis. We are a year further ahead, no significant decisions of consequence have been made and the runway to avert a Euro financial crisis is shortening. In my opinion, the Euro financial crisis will likely be the most significant news story of 2013.

Ian Graham

We are thrilled to invite you to our Festivus Open House, where our tenants will be doing demos of their products here at TheCodeFactory!

Please join us on Thursday, December 13, from 4pm to 5:30pm here at TheCodeFactory (246 Queen Street, second floor). You can register for your free ticket here.

While the tickets for this event are free, we'd like to ask that each attendee bring a contribution to either the Ottawa Food Bank or Toy Mountain.

The Ottawa Food Bank provides food to more than 45 000 people each month, and with their partnerships, they are able to turn every dollar donated into $5 worth of food for those who need it. 

Toy Mountain helps give less fortunate children in Ottawa the holiday they deserve. This year, they expect to give toys to 16 000 children in the Ottawa area. Any donation to either of these wonderful charities helps, so please do what you can to help spread the holiday cheer :)

During the Festivus Open House, Arkalumen, Blindside Networks, Exocortex, Insight Design Labs, and many more will have awesome demos of their products - don't miss out! 

We hope to see you all on December 13!

Have a wonderful holiday season,

Kelsey

Localization is very likely to be the dominant macro-economic trend; however, placing a close second and underpinning what should necessitate a significant paradigm shift in economic policy development is Japan-style slow growth for at least the next decade. The days of G8 GDP growth in excess of 2% will not return within the next decade in my humble opinion. Government policy to facilitate economic development in a growth economy will not work in a slow growth economy.

Tokyo Stock Exchange by Dick Thomas Johnson

The best term I have heard to describe the latter part of the industrial revolution is the “TV Industrial Complex” as coined by marketing genius Seth Godin. The TV industrial complex describes an economy driven by manufacturing with demand creation via TV as the broadcast media and fulfilment largely by retail outlets. This model reigned supreme from the 1950’s to the turn of the millennium.  Growth of the TV Industrial Complex was largely fueled by the baby boomer demographic. For more details on the effect of demographics phenomenon David Cork penned The Pig and the Python. This book describes the significant impact that baby boomers have had on the economy. As the baby boomers become senior citizens they will become more of a drain on the economy than an asset to it.

I would speculate that the majority of growth in the western economy has been linked directly to the progression of the boomers as a demographic group from babies to children to young adults. When this large demographic segment of boomers was at the base of the age pyramid (youngest on the bottom, oldest on top) it was a tremendous boom to the economy fueling growth. However, what has started to happen is now the biggest segment of demographics in the western world is quickly approaching the top of the pyramid. Without enough young people at the base of the pyramid this will cause all kinds of strain on western economies. The net result will be Japan-style slow growth for at least the next decade as the US demographics lag Japan by approximately a decade. Check the picture in appendix toward the end of this post.

There is an interesting phenomenon related to the aging population in terms of a vast amount of parked relatively low risk capital looking for deal flow. Basil Peters, Exit Coach and Angel Investor, has a great four-part series of videos that do a wonderful job of describing the implications of boomers on the investment community.

I recently had the opportunity to see Larry Summers speak at the Chateau Laurier as part of a Canada 2020 event - certainly a great speaker and visionary. I would agree with 99% of what he had to say at the event and this is an entire blog post or series in itself. It is difficult to argue with the success of avoiding a total economic collapse in 2008 by the deft and timely propping up of the US Central banks. However, the one key bit that I had a divergence of opinion is on the future US economic growth prospects. Mr. Summers indicated that many of the assumptions the Obama government economic policy on is a return to 2.5% plus GDP growth. Based on demographics as a primary driver of growth in my humble opinion this is a flawed premise with potentially significant consequences if used as one of the key assumptions for crafting economic policy for the next decade. There is a very good YouTube video (which is actually audio only) of Paul Krugman debating Larry Summers in Toronto at the Monk Debates on Japan-style slow growth the future of North America.

I am firmly of the opinion that North America will indeed face Japan-style slow growth GDP of 2% or less for the next decade. For governments in the western world to base economic forecasts and revenue projections on growth rates in excess of 2% is somewhat misguided in my opinion. Economic policy in the new economy must learn to adapt to a slow growth model. Couple a slow growth economy with Localization and you have a recipe for even more significant economic disruption. We live in interesting times.

Appendix Japan (RED) versus US (Blue) Demographics 1950 and 2010

Source:

I am currently checking out Chris Anderson’s new book “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution” and finding he has many similar views to myself on the trajectory of the world’s economy.  Back in August of 2008 (prior to the onset of the Great Recession) I wrote a series of blog posts on the forces of economic change in the world today: Business Model Migration, Life Cycle versus Long Tail and Rise of the Micro-multinational. IMHO these trends continue to be pervasive in the world today and account for likely 80% of the global economic momentum.

Abandoned railroad power house in Jersey City by Boroda

These forces of change: business model migration, life cycle to long tail and rise of the micro-multinational, are now even more pronounced because of what I like to refer to as change accelerants. There are three key accelerants to change: Localization, Velocity of Knowledge and Learn Rate.

Localization is the ability of census metropolitan areas to basically become self-sufficient. The key contributing enabler of localization is open source hardware. Open source hardware is today where open source software was in 2003 to 2005; however, open source hardware will have an even greater impact on society than open source software. Open source hardware is likely a decade away from becoming main stream.

Open source hardware consists of 3D printers, maker movement, hardware hackers, shared design and the ability to make small run manufacturing profitable … this is a huge development and a game changer. This movement is in its infancy and the primary participants currently are crafts people and artisans.

The most significant change that Localization will drive is essentially business model migration for hardware based companies and manufacturing. Manufacturing globally is going to change significantly and migrate from hierarchy to ecology. This is such a massive change that it will have business repercussions that are difficult to forecast and imagine today. I have a few ideas on the trajectory of change; however, let’s keep those for a later post.

Escalating energy and transportation costs will only add to the importance of Localization. The world’s finite supply of energy resources will continue to diminish. The global demand for energy is only going to increase. Demand will be most pronounced in emerging BRIC economies and competition for scarce resources will increase. This will drive up energy and transportation costs and further necessitate the need for Localization.

Therefore, Localization will be the single biggest driver of change in the global economy for the next decade.

Ian Graham

Where in the world is the economy going? Much depends on where you are looking.

Wall Street Signpost by Rob Young

There is little doubt that the global economy is in a time of great transition and uncertainty. The key macro-economic factors affecting the world today IMHO are:

- New Industrial Revolution

- Japan-style slow growth for the G7

- Impending US and Euro financial crisis

- Social Geo-political destabilization

          - Arab Spring

          - Syria

          - Iran

I’ll write a post or two (already have many of them written) on each of the four factors over the coming weeks.

Ian Graham

SNS-14 Blog Post – Announcing the Start-ups

We are very happy to announce that we have confirmed the six start-ups that will be participating in Students and Start-ups 14!

Don't forget, the event will be taking place next Monday, November 19 from 6pm to 8pm here at TheCodeFactory, If you're a student and you haven't signed up yet, you can still do so here!

Without further ado, here they are:

Photo Attribution: http://www.arkalumen.com/

"Arkalumen was established to develop and commercialize LED innovations in order to enable lighting manufacturers to more easily transition from legacy lighting technologies to cleaner and more energy-efficient LED based products. Our high-performance LED light engines and intelligent controllers are engineered to address many of the challenges that have so far impeded the wider adoption of this sustainable lighting technology.

The vision of Arkalumen is to provide high quality light for people while they live, work and play, as well as reduce the energy consumption and negative environmental impacts of traditional lighting."

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Photo Attribution: http://www.aroundtowngifts.com

"AroundTown is a web and mobile marketing tool for local businesses. We unite customers with independent shops that offer unique, high quality products in trendy shopping districts." 

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Photo Attribution: http://www.blindsidenetworks.com/

"Blindside Networks is a company dedicated to helping universities, colleges, and commercial companies deliver a high-quality learning experience to remote students. We do this by providing commercial support for BigBlueButton, an open source web conferencing system for distance education.

Blindside Networks started the BigBlueButton project in 2007."

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Photo Attribution: http://ictinus.net/

"Ictinus is a design studio that focuses its activities at the intersection of the visual arts, education, communications and computer science.  We produce visual and interactive solutions for traditional medias, the web, smartphones and public installations."

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Photo Attribution: http://mymusic.com/

"MyMusic was founded by three guys who love music but hate mindlessly scouring the web to unearth the best content available. We want all the great music content that we know is out there to come to us. We want it sifted, sorted and filtered so that we get exactly and only the stuff we are interested in. We also want a beautiful way to access all that content, anytime we want, anywhere we are. We couldn’t find anything like that online, so we built MyMusic."

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Photo Attribution: http://www.projectspeaker.com/

"Over the years, I've sat with many of my public speaking friends about their universal desire to share messages that have changed their own lives. I was always impressed how they displayed the same level of passion I had seen from my photographers. Ultimately, the conversation would turn to their frustrations at not be able to widely share their message.

I reached out to planners and discovered they too were frustrated at how difficult and resource intensive it was to locate the perfect speaker. Further research uncovered a number of speaker directories had come and gone and even those still out there were quite passive on behalf of their speakers.

 ProjectSpeaker on't be passive! We've created a platform that engages planners by providing value-added project management functionalities and leveraging technology to reduce the resources required to search, manage and engage with speakers.

On the flip side, we are providing speakers with a complete suite of tools, including time-proven marketing techniques and extensive analytics, in order to increase their visibility. Best of all, we're employing a recent but growing business model that allows us to offer all this at no cost to either the planners or speakers."

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Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, and we hope to see you all there!

- Kelsey

We are excited to announce that another series of Students and Start-ups events will be taking place at TheCodeFactory this fall!

Students and Start-ups 14 will be a Software Edition, and will take place on Monday, November 05, 2012, from 6pm to 8pm at TheCodeFactory. There are a limited number of spots available, so if you’re a software student and you’re interested, don’t hesitate to sign up!

For those of you that may not have heard of Students and Start-ups until now, here’s a quick background:

Students and Start-ups aims to connect students who are searching for relevant and meaningful employment with start-ups who are looking for energetic and enthusiastic employees. There are three different Editions of SNS: Software, designed for students interested in computer sciences, computer engineering, and web and mobile development; Hardware, geared towards students interested in electronics and telecom; and Business, perfect for students with an education in marketing, administration, or sales.

The Software Edition tends to be the most popular, but we also offer the Hardware and Business Editions when the demand is there. The deciding factor for which Edition comes next is what YOU, the students and start-ups, want!

Team games at Students and Start-ups 12

We like to measure our success rate with hires and smiles, and in 13 events to date, we are proud to say that we’ve had 28 hires and more than 300 smiles. With SNS-14 just around the corner, we can’t wait to see those numbers grow!

Of the 28 hires, we’ve filmed a few success story testimonials to give new participants a glance at what made the event not only a success, but fun for the students and start-ups who have participated in the past. Just a few weeks ago, we filmed the latest video, starring Mike and Abhinav from SNS-12 -  you can check it on our YouTube channel.

Can’t wait to see you all there!

- Kelsey

This is my first blog post in a couple of months. Primary reason would be the lack of creative energy. With fall here and a bit of a recharge from summer holidays and an awesome three-day canoe trip to Algonquin Park, the creative juices are flowing again. This post will highlight a number of the activities TheCodeFactory will be pursuing in the coming months. 

First of all, we are very excited to announce the launch of our incubation program. This is something we have been working on for a couple of years now, and with all of the pieces in place, Program Launch will be in October 2012. We have an upcoming information session on September 26 that you can sign up for. Expect more news on this real soon.

Students and Start-ups is back baby and better than ever. We will be working in partnership with Ottawa Young Entrepreneurs to provide even more value.  We plan on having three events this fall and have a shiny new website you can check out to sign up for our mailing list and get more information. The premise of Students and Start-ups is that students want meaningful and relevant employment, and start-ups are looking for energetic and enthusiastic employees. This event is unique in that it targets very early stage start-ups looking to hire early employees. This provides students with an opportunity to have a real impact on the business. To date we have had 13 events and 28 successful hires, and our latest events are averaging 4 hires each. Expect a few more video testimonials in the coming weeks. More news on this real soon, or you can check out our website www.studentsandstartups.com  and our YouTube Channel for testimonials.

Start-ups to Watch 2012 Blog Post will be coming in the next week or two. This is our annual pick of very early stage start-ups to watch in Ottawa. This is the 9th edition of Start-ups to Watch and we do track the performance of our previous picks. Yes, we have been doing this for a long time and not just because it is currently “hip”, but because start-ups are our passion. Notable picks from previous years are: 2007 Shopify (at the time 4 employees), 2008 Exocortex,  2009 Blindside Networks, 2010 Select Start Studios (acquired). Interesting aside: both Exocortex and Blindside Networks are senior start-up tenants at TheCodeFactory. “Startups to Watch 2012”

Upcoming Blog Post Series Coming to “the road less travelled” blog post in September or October. Check back tomorrow for a post on our upcoming blog posts series: “What I did on my summer holidays” and “My love / hate relationship with Ottawa”.

WE have BIG plans! TheCodeFactory was an early instigator and of the Ottawa web and mobile ecosystem in downtown Ottawa. The downtown web and mobile ecosystem is now very strong and we are starting to think about what is next … our job here has been a success. We love our role as a catalyst and see more opportunities in Ottawa and elsewhere to build more “communities of interest”.  TheCodeFactory is in the early stages of planning a second facility and starting to build a new community of interest. We are happy to chat with anyone in Ottawa or elsewhere interested in having TheCodeFactory-2 in their neighbourhood.

Ian Graham

Everyone has certain moments that stand out as milestones in the journey that is their lives. These moments are often significant life events like a wedding, birth, graduation or death of a loved one. Joyous or painful these moments leave an indelible impression on your psyche.

The inspiration for the picture in this post comes from my friend Kate who had an art show on window panes. Rarely do people take the time to look at or notice the window pane they are looking through. They are either focused on the field in the distance or the room behind. The window pane is a metaphor for the now or moment of your life. Living in the now can often be very difficult for people myself included.

Occasionally you have cause to pause and reflect on the moment. I had one of those moments on Wednesday June 26th. Spencer has been our dog and loyal family pet for almost thirteen years. He was a black miniature schnauzer with the most gentle of temperaments. There was not much that bothered Spencer and he was always patient, kind and very giving of affection. We received a very nice bouquet as condolences from a family friend which said “In memory of Spencer always such a gentlemen.”

I can only hope to become the person that my dog thought I was.

Spencer you will be missed.

Ian Graham

This is the fifth post in the Transitioning to Entrepreneurship and what to expect or employee to entrepreneur series.

Photo Attribution: Creativity is not confined by ChrisM70

One of the key challenges in transition from employee to entrepreneur is being free of the 9 to 5. While this sounds exhilarating and shedding the shackles of cubedom equals true freedom it ain’t necessarily so. There is a bit of an adjustment period required to settle into life beyond the cube farm particularly early on when your office and home are the same place.

If you don’t want to work you don’t have to. Many people really struggle with this aspect of running their own business. Having your own business requires a certain level of discipline to make sure you work when you have to and achieve results. The good part is you have the freedom to decide when to work ... the bad part is no matter what the stuff that needs doing has to get done.

Within a few months of running your business from home you quickly develop cabin fever and want to get out ... which usually results in going to the local coffee shop to work. You can also develop conjunctive pajama-itis. You really do need to get out of the house and build some sort of separation of work and home ... having work and home as the same place often doesn’t work out.

On that note if you do want to get out of the house we have had two start-ups either outgrow the space or their students returned to France. We currently have a couple of hot desks available for immediate rental. Guaranteed to provide that separation of work and home.

“Not 9 to 5” means focusing on “results and adapting” to changing circumstance. It is less about the amount of time you put in and more about getting the job done.

Ian Graham