We turned a particular corner with DemoCampGuelph events last year that personally makes my life a whole lot simpler, that being that we now consistently have more people applying to demo than we have spots. The plus for me is that I don’t spend the week of the event begging every human I know who owns a computer to demo something. The down side is that we don’t get to see all the demos possible and we have to say no to some people. I thought I’d take a few minutes to write up a few tips on how to increase your odds of being selected to demo.

First a brief primer on the event itself, in case you haven’t seen enough from me yet. I’ll start by deferring to seyDoggy: “At DemoCampGuelph everyone is a pony and they eat rainbows and poop butterflies…I mean DemoCampGuelph is geeks, beer and startup. It’s all good!”

Ok, I’m not sure what that means but it hits all the sweet spots, those being ponies, rainbows, butterflies, and beer. How about this? “DemoCampGuelph is for anyone in and around Guelph interested in software, the web and technology! Startup junkies, wage slaves, consultants, students, indie professionals, engineers, designers, money and marketing guys. If you want to see and talk about some interesting things, and get to know other people in the Guelph tech community, come on out! You don’t have to demo to attend.”

As you were conditioned when completing your phd, please pay particular attention to the emphasis! Tell us why your demo matters to techies in and around Guelph. This is demoCampGuelph. There, I’m done with that point.

Beyond that, shorter is better for your pitch as my brain can no longer seem to read beyond the 140 character point. As expected, our audience is up on technology and they’re connected, both within our attendees and without. Where DemoCamp‘s differ from other events is that it isn’t about you as the demo’er, it’s about us, the audience.

Yes it’s a great opportunity for you to market an upcoming, or existing product. Yes, it’s a great chance to find a funder or a job but the only reason this event exists is because we all love attending. We will always favour people who recognize that and demo things we want to see. So, picture yourself giving up a few hours of your possibly precious time on a work night to drag your butt to a bar and listen to some random stranger talk to you about computers, what would you want them to talk about? Getting a demo spot is your opportunity to give something back to us lowly wage slaves who climb out of our closets every few months so treat it precious and use it well

Oh, and from experience, puppets can only help…Looking forward to seeing you all January 27th!

A few weeks back, our mayor here in Guelph wrote on her blog about IT in the downtown. There are several interesting thoughts in her post but I want to focus in on “Perhaps an IT Accelerator Centre right in the downtown is what we need to achieve two important goals – downtown revitaliztion and job creation”

I realize the mayor wasn’t being literal here, however, it’s the ‘outside saviour’ mentality that scares me. You can sense some of this in the comments as well, “Provide major incentives to IT corporations (Oracle, CISCO, Microsoft, google, Adobe) to open R&D centres here. I would say make a plan and go to them directly with incentives.”

Waiting on AC or some tech ‘knight in shining armour’ to ride into town with jobs and bags of gold coins is the wrong solution. Not to mention it’s disempowering, bordering on disrespectful, to us kids slogging it out in Guelph tech today. As someone who’s created jobs in Guelph tech, including recruiting people to move here to work, most outsiders don’t get Guelph. That’s not elitist as I assume the same applies to any city. My point is let’s at least start with the people already at the table. People who have already bought homes here, built companies here and made a long term commitment to Guelph. I once read a quote that character is formed by what you commit to. If that holds water then let’s start with the people who form the character of Guelph today.

We aren’t Toronto, we aren’t San Fran and we are not Waterloo. What worked in those cities may not work here. Does that mean AC, Microsoft, google etc should be kept out or not play a role? Hell no, they just aren’t a saviour we need to wait around for.

Instead of chasing outsiders, let’s go directly to existing local companies who have a track record of building tech in Guelph. Let’s go to companies like Innosphere, well.ca, RKD, Barking Dog, etc and provide them incentives and tools to take the next step on their journeys. What do those companies actually need? My guesses…

Be A Customer
These companies need projects. I’m not suggesting protectionism but local companies can help by taking a longer, harder look locally when it comes to spending their IT dollars. I’m looking at you City of Guelph. I have a hunch you’re spending something on IT next year. How much of that is going to local companies instead of choices that ‘no one can get fired for’?

You want strong, diverse, innovative tech in Guelph? Excellent, then put your exciting projects in the hands of local companies. Take a few risks on some companies that may not be the lowest bidder or strongest contender on paper. Give a company a project that may be out of their comfort zone. Help them add to their portfolio and their bottom line. Be the first customer. Think of it as the 100 mile tech diet, well maybe not 100 miles but you get the point.

Participate
I’ve long felt that we’ll eventually realize commuting doesn’t work. The problem is most individuals don’t feel they have any choice but to drive into Waterloo or Toronto to work in tech. We have the minds already in this town. The problem is most of them get into their cars and drive to another city to use those minds. Not to mention, buy their lunches, do their shopping, etc.

If you’re commuting, start looking into companies and the scene in Guelph. It may not happen overnight but there’s a job in town for you here. Or talk to me and I’ll help find you one or help you create one. Come out to events like DemoCampGuelph, Coffee and Code and participate. Find a way to contribute. This goes for companies as well. Find ways you can contribute and grow the Guelph tech ecosystem.

Grow Talent
If you’re running a company, start explicitly mentoring people in your company to build their skills up to running their own show someday. Put yourself out of a job by building your team up to take over your company so you can start your next company. Growing the next generation of tech talent is a race that changes daily and is far from won. I guarantee you that even the rockstar tech cities are worried about this one.

I’m posting this almost verbatim from an email Regg sent out today. There are increasing opportunities to participate in the Guelph tech scene so pick your spot and get involved.

These are exciting times to work and live in Guelph.

• 3 years ago business leaders formed the Guelph Business Technology peer to peer network:
• DemoCampGuelph was established in 2007 and now boasts attendance of 100+.
• Guelph Chamber of Commerce established a technology committee in fall of 09
• Guelph Tech Business Community will be hosting a large technology conference at the newly opened “FRANK HASENFRATZ CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN MANUFACTURING”.

We are now becoming a centre of technology innovation and would appreciate your input on the potential development of a technology cluster. Please fill out this survey and feel free to pass the link on to others.

DemoCampGuelph12 is booked for January 27, 2010 at The eBar. Moving forward, next.demoCampGuelph.com will always get you to our upcoming event.

Tara Hunt will be our invited speaker. Tara “simply has no idea what the big ideas of January 2010 will be as of yet”, ie she’ll say something but she’s not sure what yet.

The list of demo submissions is already looking great for this event as well as the 58 peeps already signed up to attend. Contact me directly if you’re interested in demo’ing at this evening. Make sure you tell me not just what you’re demo’ing but why the crowd needs to see your demo.

There’s some non-tech folks in Guelph talking about tech a little more these days, including our mayor who is signed up to join us in Jan.

Item#3 on Bob Sutton’s “Leading Innovation: 21 Things that Great Bosses Believe and Do” list almost entirely sums up why I spend some of what little spare time I have helping to organize DemoCampGuelph events:

3. Look for and build “intersections” places where people with diverse ideas gather together. And when you go there, talk to the people you don’t know, who have ideas you know nothing about, and ideas you find weird, don’t like, or useless.

It references Halloween at the Intersection by Frans Johansson.

This is only a variation on what’s been written many times but I like the idea of intersections. I’m often asked what DemoCampGuelph is or why it exists. The answer is simple, to create intersections. It’s a successful event if we’re a place where “people with diverse ideas gather together” resulting in an opportunity for intersections. The key being “opportunity”, it takes effort on your part.

On the other side, I often hear critiques about the event. They’re typically some variation of “ah, one of the demos was sort of interesting but overall not that great”. I don’t listen to those reviews and here’s why. I’ll let you in a little secret if you promise not to twitter about it, the actual demos aren’t the point of the event, they’re the gravy. If you’re attending for the demos then you’re missing a great event. To that end, here’s my simple how-to in order to get the best out of your next DemoCampGuelph event, or any related community event:

• Sign up, take some time to browse the list of attendees and what they’re up to. Chances are slim that you won’t quickly have a list of people you want to meet.
• Go out of your way to meet those people and others, ie create some intersections. Take a look around the room, pick the person in the crowd you’re least interested in meeting and go meet them. Do NOT just talk to the same people you talk to at every event.
• If the above doesn’t work because you happen to know everyone on our planet then be a connector and create intersections between people you know. Ask people who you can introduce them to.
• Arrive early, stay late, socialize.

My name’s Brydon and I’m addicted to email.

I have a long standing, ongoing battle with email. I’m happy to report I haven’t checked email today and intend to only check it twice today. It’s the intend part that’s difficult to hold up. At Brainpark we think a lot about productivity in the enterprise. Email feels like one of those areas we have far more freedom and control than we need. To that end, I’m going retro. I’m reconfiguring my email client back to the nineties.

In many ways email worked better in the days of dial up when I was paying per minute to be connected to the internet. In those days, email clients were offline most of the time and we had outboxes. Sending an email meant typing it entirely and then ‘sending’ it which put it into your outbox where it waited to be truly sent. A couple of times per day you would connect to the internet and send all the emails in your outbox while receiving all your new mail. You only did that a few times per day because it cost you real dollars.

Today I have more choice, more freedom and it’s all email all the time. My retro mode changes will be to only retrieve new email twice per day. As well, I’ll type new emails and save them to drafts in order to send out only twice per day. Why only send twice per day? It’s about expected behaviour. If I’m emailing you all day long yet only receiving your emails twice per day, you’ll start to think I’m ignoring your emails as it’s clear from my sending behaviour that I’m checking email.

Enforced Scarcity

If that doesn’t work, I’ll create a new user profile in my OS that I only use for email, twitter, etc. That way I have to explicitly login to that separate profile.

Now to take it up a notch. I’m going to pitch an experiment to the Brainpark team in Guelph. We all uninstall email, IM, twitter clients from our computers. We then setup an email booth in the office which is a single shared computer. We each create user profiles on that machine where we setup email etc. When you want to check email, you have to use that computer. Clearly only one of us can do that at a time. We’ve created scarcity of that resource as well as social pressure and awareness around usage. If I’m using email a lot today, someone in the office will notice and likely call me on it.

Hmmm, maybe we should have email chips as well? How are you dealing with email and other digital distractions?

Thanks to Waterloo Record for featuring Brainpark in their 2009 Tech Spotlight. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the magazine. Lot’s of great interviews and familiar faces. It’s nice to see a local paper pointing their spotlight, literally, at some up and coming local businesses. Honestly, I would have worn shoes had I known my feet would end up in the photo.

As well, a massive thanks to Communitech for their screwup in awarding me one of their 2009 Tech Impact awards:

“The awards recognize individuals and organizations who have demonstrated unparalleled leadership and support for the growth and success of the Waterloo Region technology industry.”

To be included in a group with Jim Estill and Steve McCartney could only be a clerical error. So to Brandon Gills, Ryan Gilies, or whatever the name of the person who was meant to receive this award, apologies but now that I have it, I’m keeping it.

My wife’s a photographer. That business is going through a major transition. Everything going digital was just the start of the commodification. These days, the wedding guests and photographer assistants typically have better gear than the photographers. Why? Well because those people have day jobs.

“Wow, is that the Nikon D300? I can’t afford it because I’m a photographer!!”

For me, as someone who spends too much time thinking about technology and business, it’s an interesting problem. There’s clearly been a massive shift in the entire framework that the current wedding photography business model was predicated on. That being limited access to resources in the form of camera gear and a darkroom. Yes skill etc comes into play but what’s primary is camera and darkroom. So I’ll ask you, what do you do?

For me, I start looking for the value in the new environment. What clearly has no value is having a great camera, access to darkroom, etc. Weddings are filled with great cameras today with hobbyists behind them. All that really matters is staging the shot and capturing the data. I have to manipulate the data into a pretty picture even if I’m the one who shoots it.

What has value? The staging of shots and the cat herding that’s required to get people paying for their photos to cooperate. The deft skill required to make the overall day a pleasant experience, ie bedside manner. As well, the long hours spent in photoshop after the wedding, editing the good shoots into great ones.

My photography 2.0? Hire me to shoot your wedding. I won’t bring a single camera of my own to the event. Instead I’ll coordinate the multitude of cameras and photographers at your event. I’ll have a memory download/storage device with me that I’ll download any and all camera memory to at the end of the event. Then I’ll edit and put together 200 high quality proofs for you, attributing the person who took the shot. All this for a fraction of what I’d charge to actually shoot your wedding.

Dumb idea? Likely but what would you do? This massive shift pattern is occurring more and more, as an exercise, what’s your wedding photography 2.0?

I’d write a summary of the night but luckily it’s done. The quick bits: Mathew Ingram spoke about how the Globe tries to run like a startup. Then we had demos from TribeHR, Declan Whelan, Steve Hanov, Don Walsh, Arni Mikelsons, and the audience favourite this time around Harry Scanlan.

Get your demo ready for #12 coming in December or January. Sign up to our google group linked off DCG site to stay up to date. My tip for demos? Treat them the same as pitches. I believe it was Austin Hill who summed it up best, hearts, minds, wallets.

Hearts: Tell me a story so I feel the pain you’re going to solve. Even in a technical demo you can pull this off. “So you’re up until 2am once again trying to cobble together yet another build by hand”. All you want is to get to the question “ok, I know what you’re talking about, but how are you going to solve that for me?”

Minds: Get into the techie bits of how you’re going to solve the problem you’ve now got me feeling, “my build tool will manage all your builds by…..”. The goal here is to get me to think “ok, I like that solution, how much?”

Wallets: How much, pricing model etc? Or if you’re raising money from me, how much and what are the details?

Mess up that order and you likely won’t get through it all or I’ll tune out. Most demos start with minds, then the crowd pushes them through questions to wallets and they never get to the hearts. Go for the heart first, make me cry first and then you’ll have my attention!!

I subscribe to a Canadian workshop magazine that runs a contest in each issue. The contest is simple, they print a photo of some ancient, odd looking device and you have to guess what that device is.

The contest is called “Learn How to Run a Tech Startup”. Ok, no it’s not but it should be called that. One of, if not the, biggest challenge of every business is connecting a real problem with your solution. Why is this more of an issue with startups rather than ‘traditional’ businesses? Tech startups often start with a solution, or a tool, not the problem or the customer. At some point the smart ones realize building a tool isn’t enough, you need someone to use it.

We startups often operate like that contest, in that we hand strangers wacky looking tools expecting them to fill in the blanks. Worst case they don’t give our tool a second look. If we’re lucky, they look at it, maybe play with it for a bit, then put it on a shelf to gather dust. Maybe, just maybe, some day in a distant future that person is struggling away with a task and has a revelation. They shout “hang on! I think I have something that’s just right for this” as they run to the basement to hunt for that wacky tool only to realize their son used it as an ornament for the spaceship he built last summer.

Now contrast that with this story. Picture a woman standing in front of a massive overgrown hedge on her property holding her grand-dads rusty pair of garden clippers with a look of despair on her face. You walk up and hand her your company’s nifty electric hedge trimmer all plugged in and ready to go. With a smile she breezes through her chore, writes you a cheque and runs up the street with your trimmers shouting “hey guys! you have to check this out!” Ignoring the liability of her running with your trimmers in hand, that’s a dream experience for a business.

Simple right?, yet rarely achievable. You must identify a real problem a real person has. Then conceive, create and build the right solution, AND show up in the instant when real people are experiencing the problem you solve? The opportunities to fail along that path are monumental and an easy trap is to focus on products and technology instead of customers, their problems, their business, etc.

Some related recent reading: The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution, The Customer Development Modal.