I've recently found myself getting frusrtated at products that don't close the loop - meaning they don't come back around and solve their original purpose. Here are three quick examples and my recommendations on how to fix them. If you're a product designer on any of these products, please feel free to implement any of these features and charge me more for the product - these fixes would be worth higher prices to me.

Google 411

Google 411 exists to solve the problem of not having immediate and easy access to a phone number. The voice-activated interface is easy-to-use, and it does a great job of putting you in contact with your target, but it fails in the home stretch - it doesn't eliminate the root cause: the lack of easy access to a phone number. As much as Google 411 may be easy, it's slower and more lumbering than simply looking up the number in your phone book. Google could close the loop by automatically sending me a text message with the phone number (like Canada 411 does) or even better - by sending me a vCard with the address & phone number. In fact, I would go so far as registering my phone number and email address in my Google account if Google would then email me a vCard.

Bluetooth Headsets

Bluetooth headsets exist so you can keep your hands unfettered, and your eyes on your road/sidewalk/papers/etc. There's a dissapointing trend towards single-button control systems for bluetooth headsets (like these motorola headsets) - you hold the button till a light flashes to connect, hold it longer till the light flashes in a different pattern to disconnect/pair/etc. The issue is that for the 5-10 seconds that you're holding down the button and watching flashing lights, you can't be holding a steering wheel or watching where you need to be. Slap a slide-switch on there, and we're good to go - hands back on the wheel in a couple seconds and eyes never leave the road.

Events Registration Systems

I'm an avid user of EventBrite and Guestlist, but both solutions (and everything else I've tried) fall short of the mark. People run events to help an audience engage with eachother and/or with the facilitators. Events registration systems do a great job of collecting my information, but they fail to actually help with the engagement. For example, why not automatically include a feedback survey after the event, or reach out to me (as an attendee) to help me reconnect with other attendees? Even easier, why not ask the admin what hashtags are going to be used, and create ScribbleLive-like feeds? As it is, to run a web-savvy event and retain the audience, I likely need to use a combination of Event Registration + Engagement (Newsletter or User Survey or Live Blogging) - a tool that actually took me past simple data-collection would be a huge boon.

Tonight I attended an interesting meetup of young arts/culture enthusiasts, where the topic of discussion was the Waterloo Region Creative Enterprise initiative and the local cultural scene in general. Although there was some great discussion and debate - here are a couple of the highlights for me:

• It was suggested that in the efforts to build a more vibrant community, that the University of Waterloo is both our largest asset and our most potent enemny. Although I agree for the most part, I'd further suggest that it's not the University as a whole, but the co-op program specifically that's to congratulate and blame.
   
• There seemed to be great support for a book club of sorts (less the books). The idea is a group that agrees to collectively visit at least one significant cultural event per month, and to meet for coffee or beer afterwards to discuss and chat. Note - if you're interested in participating in this, comment on this post or drop me an email (I'll be coordinating). Or, you can just sign up for the first event.
   
• A lot of the attendees will be attending CultureCamp, and afterwards meeting at the Kitchener City Hall Williams to discuss how this informal "young influencers" group can help forward a creative community agenda. Should be a good chat!

There were also a lot of questions, but I'm hoping that ongoing meetups like this will help answer some of them, and provide further food for thought. In the meantime, it's given me some fantastic new people to connect with over coffee, and some interesting ideas that will need further investigation.

And yes, if you'd like to join this Culture Club idea, drop me a line and get an invitation.

This year's Entrepreneur Week in Waterloo was a blast (kudos to Communitech for running a great program), and coming out of it, a number of things struck me:

• Too many of the events sold out
• Many people missed the round-table sessions like the "chapter" events in the past
• StartupCamp was absolutely packed

So from that, I propose we add a couple of things to entrepreneur week next year: a camp-a-night program, and/or a StartupWeekend to kick off the week. So here would be my ideal schedule of "unconference" events to run in parallel with all the speakers and sessions that we already have scheduled:

Friday-Sunday: StartupWeekend
Monday: FailCamp
Tuesday: Hall Of Fame Un-Gala (simulcast the event to a local bar/restaurant and enjoy some drinks)
Wednesday: StartupCamp
Thursday: ProductCamp

Yes, that ignores the final Friday, but I figure that by then, the organizers of the camps will simply want to sit with a good beer or glass of wine. If you're interested helping run these events, let me know by posting a comment. Here's why I've chosen the specific events above.

StartupWeekend: This event would address the "get one-on-one advice" element that I think was missing in this year's program. In past years we had a giant round-table session that was similar to an open spaces camp event (however it was pre-scheduled). I'd like to get some of that back and run a weekend where some of the local startups could get some great feedback and some real help from local experts and enthusiasts.

FailCamp: I believe that learning from failure is a key part of being an entrepreneur. Celebrating great failures (and the lessons learned) is a very applicable event. That, and I think it would be great to get out some of the companies that have closed/failed/morphed to hear their stories too.

Hall of Fame Un-Gala: The gala for celebrating the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame inductees is a great event - this year it sold out. So, rather than simply running an event in-tandem to the gala next year, I'd rather let more people enjoy the successes of the inductees, the keynote adress, and perhaps a less formal venue where we can still joke and laugh if we don't want to listen to the presentations ;)

StartupCamp: This year's startup camp was awesome. Perhaps some of the startups from StartupWeekend would present?

ProductCamp: ProductCamp has a focus on software product marketing and product management. These two topics are very important to tech entrepreneurs (look at the success of Communitech's 3 marketing and product management P2P groups). An event that focused on this would give new entrepreneurs a great push in the right direction.

Finally - the reason I'd love to have these events is that it would allow more people that can't make it to day-time events to show up and participate.

It's been a long and tumultuous road, but a few days ago Jesse Rodgers and I opened the curtains on a project that we've been working on with Thom Ryan at Communitech: http://Waterloo.TechStartup.ca

It's a simple idea - we're trying to answer the questions "What's going on?" and "Who's doing it?"

The site is intended to be a one-stop-shop for anyone trying to get involved in the tech startup scene in waterloo region. Starting your own business? Visit the Resources section to access a best of class list of helpful links. Want to know what events are coming up? Visit the Events Calendar and peruse the local startup events scene.

All told, there are a number of helpful tools, and throughout them we've tried to keep the following in mind:

Automation is awesome: most of the content on the site is automatically generated by pulling in various RSS and iCal feeds, and monitoring activity from Twitter.

Focus on people: there is a directory of People on the site (anyone can add/edit an entry) and we are tracking the activity of individuals mentioned in the community (for example, try searching "Ali Asaria")

Track as much as possible: under the hood, the platform is tracking a lot of activity (who's posting, who's mentioned, what's being clicked, etc) so we can make good decisions going forward.

We have a lot of ideas for features and ideas, and when we demoed last night at StartupCamp we were given more. Although I can't commit to specific delivery dates, here are some of the features that we're working on and/or were suggested by others:

• 1. Questions/Requests board (post startup needs, partnership opportunities, requests for help)
• 2. Better branding/exposure for startups (ideally through better integration to Startup Index, Crunch Base or something similar)
• 3. Highlight "key" people, based on the news/blog/twitter activity about them
• 4. Emailed daily and weekly digests
• 5. Automatically determining what's "hot" by social engagement and viewing activity

So, what we're looking for are additional RSS feeds to follow, more local tweeps to follow (visit @WatTechStartup) and additional ideas/feedback. Oh yeah - and be sure to tell your startup friends about it!

Since working on Tribe, I've found myself reading more human resources blogs than ever. A common theme among them is "understanding Gen-Y employees". I find it ironic that although so much effort is being spent discussing how to communicate with members of Gen-Y, very little attention is being paid to using these channels to discuss the flipside of the issue: helping Gen-Ys work with other generations.

So, to put my keyboard where my mouth is, here are my 5 Workplace Lessons for Gen-Ys.

Disclaimer: Please don't take these tips as canon; I'm simply speaking from having watched friends and peers struggle from both sides of this challenge.

1. Much of the workforce doesn't share your values: This point may seem obvious, but it is an important reality to internalize. You may be clear on what you want (e.g. clearly defined job descriptions and responsibilities, regular feedback and reviews, skills development opportunities, friendly work environment, etc). However, what's often missed is that the above benefits truly hold no value for some of your coworkers. Some people don't want reviews, don't want to take classes and don't care if they have a well written job description. Some people want a job that is task-based, are happy with their current responsibilities, and pursue their personal development outside of the workplace.

It's important to understand and believe this, because it is much harder to communicate with someone if you incorrectly assume they share your values. If you can acknowledge that many of their values are different from yours from the start, your interactions will go a lot more smoothly.

Ditto if you can accept that neither set of values is "better" - they are just "different". Don't condemn your co-workers because they don't want reviews or don't want responsibilities. When you do pass a negative judgement (even internally) people can tell and it makes you look close-minded.

2. Don't underestimate experience: I've seen many Gen-Ys hired for specific current expertise (e.g. programmers, community managers, business grads, etc.). Because of their special skills, they are placed in the position of a "specialist" within their organization. The danger of being given the role of expert, is that it becomes easy to discount the input and feedback of others.

Let's face it, knowing how to post something to Twitter or write a blog are skills with a limited shelf life. The world is changing too quickly and skills become out of date almost instantly. In this climate of change, what's far more useful (and exceptionally hard to train) is the ability to work with analogies and transfer learnings: the ability to take past experiences and figure out how to successfully apply them to a new situation. Thinking in terms of analogies is inherent, although it comes easier to some people than others. Honing this ability makes you an adaptable, agile and innovative thinker (a.k.a. a more valuable employee).

The underlying point of this is that people with more experiences have more analogies to apply to a new situation. Rather than immediately discounting the feedback of your more experienced peers (which also makes you look close-minded), try considering that they may have past experiences that are providing unique insights to current situations.

3. Get on LinkedIn. Most managers acknowledge that Facebook, Twitter, etc. are great tools. Beyond these (largely social) tools, most professionals understand the value of LinkedIn. A lot of employers, in their efforts to work with Gen-Y, are adopting more web-based tools, and LinkedIn is one of the tools they use the most. If you want your employer to work with you in the ways you find comfortable, you should extend them the same courtesy. Build your LinkedIn profile and network. You'll be happy you did when you look for your next job.

4. Bone up on "Change Management". A lot of the Gen-Ys I know have strong ideas on elements they would like to change in their workplace. Some of them keep these thoughts to themselves, while others rail against the short-sightedness of management. I see very few taking a planned approach to changing their workplace.

It's unproductive to simply complain about how an organization needs to change. Rather than trying to change your organization by sheer force of will, you may find more success if you take a structured (and more gradual) approach to the change. Many concepts from structured change management processes can be applied to changes you want to make in your workplace, and many managers are comfortable with the concept of a managed change approach.

Yes, this will likely slow down the change process, but it will make the change more palatable to your co-workers and managers (and more likely to happen!).

5. Worry less about doing things the "right" way. In projects that engage multiple generations, a pattern I see repeated is that older team members often rely on what was done before, while younger team members advocate doing what's "right". When we examine what was done before, the reason usually comes back to a gut reaction or an unspoken process. Past experiences get rolled into a hard-to-rationalize recommended course of action. On the flip-side, when we examine the word "right", it often translates into something like "the most secure", "the cleanest process", or "best governance". If you're a Gen-Y employee in this situation, try considering what's "optimal" for the situation instead of what's "right". "Right" often implies an extreme somewhere on a scale, whereas "optimally" implies a maximum benefit, while balancing all factors.

For example, in some situations you need to optimize for ease-of-implementation, sometimes you need to optimize for speed-to-market, and other times optimizing means reducing the effort required to create change. This may mean you need to forgo some features today, or take a less direct route, to obtain the best outcome in the long run. Your more experienced co-workers can often recognize what you're optimizing for (even if it's subconsciously) through their past experiences – if you can temporarily let go of "right" and instead work with the team to determine what's "optimal" you may find it easier to get to a solution that's supported by all sides.

If you have any suggestions for lessons that I should add to this list, please drop me a line (or add a comment to this post), I'd be happy to flesh this out further.

Here's an interesting event coming up: it's being held at the Accelerator Centre and it's a fundraiser for the local arts scene.

Brush with Art Fundraising Event
Reception and Silent Auction with Refreshments
Date: Thursday November 5th, 7pm - 9pm
Location: Accelerator Centre, Room 240
Cost: $25

There's no official website that I could find for it - but here are the details:

The November 5th event is a reception and silent auction with refreshments. In the course of the evening Brush with Art will be presenting the proceeds of last year's fundraising film premier to the recipient organizations. The cost to attend the reception is $25.00 per person. One of the items featured in the silent auction is a very special outing with KW|AG's own Director General, Alf Bogusky-have a look:

On The Road With Alf

Join KW|AG Director General Alf Bogusky on an early morning drive to some of his favourite countryside locales, including a few of the sites featured in our 2008 Geoffrey James' Field Notes exhibition. Alf's countryside ramblings provide him with insight and inspiration. Come and share your ideas with him, and generate some new ones along the way, while enjoying the beautiful Waterloo County landscape. Round out your morning with breakfast at Angie's, another of Alf's favourite haunts. Trip to be arranged at a mutually convenient time, within a one-year period

Over its history, Brush with Art has raised over $150,000 to support the visual arts in Waterloo Region. The funds they raise are given to the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (KW|AG), Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery and the Cambridge Galleries to enhance their education programs for 1,000's of children in our Region. As well Brush with Art has created an endowment managed by the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation through which a grant is given annually to a worthwhile visual arts project in the Region.

If you would like to go, tickets are on sale at the front-desk of the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (519-579-5860)

For the last few weeks I've been experimenting with what it feels like to read a print newspaper every day. I chose to use the National Post for this experiment (although I occasionally swap it out for a Globe & Mail). Today, unequivocally, I'm reverting to my online-only habits.

The reason? Simply put: the local print papers make me ill. The sheer volume of negative news that fills the pages leaves me physically unwell. Here's a sampling of the articles in today's paper:

"Windsor raid lands son of Imam slain by FBI"
"Crowd looks on as girl, 15, gang raped, police say"
"Daytime murder in Naples remains unsolved"
"Rwandan sentenced to life for Genocide"
"British Columbia's Macabre Mystery"
"Pair planned to kill classmates with Molotov cocktails, court told"
"Crop protection - Booby traps, armed guards getting common"

And I haven't even made it to page 10.

I'm not contending that bad news doesn't exist or that it should be hidden from the public - I recognize that bad news does sell more papers. However, personally, I'd rather believe that I live in a world that has more news worth celebrating than news to fear. In a society where we people are information-rich and attention-poor, we need to pick and choose our sources of information and I am reverting to my online sources. For those that are interested, here are some of the tools I use to better tailor my incoming feed of news:

http://www.dailyperfect.com (they predict the news you're interested in - very cool)
http://www.twitter.com (yes, I use it for my news)
[AgnosticPlatform] (a locally developed app that will be open to the public mid-november. exciting)

Sorry National Post, but your generic sensationalism has overwhelmed my desire for local updates. Instead, I will continue to crawl the web looking for more satisfying fare. 

Yesterday I presented at the Creative Community Forum (if you have no idea what I spoke about - here is a blog post with my thoughts). After the talk I was asked "Then what would you change?" Here's my answer:

Fundamentally, this is a communications problem. Additional services (like an Arts Accelerator) will help, but it won't make a difference if we don't change the way we communicate. At the core of this issue is that Waterloo Region's demographic and cultural makeup has changed, but the communication methods used by our arts community (on average) hasn't.

1. Spend less money on newspaper and bus shelter ads. Yes, these work for a certain demographic, but we have immigrant and young professionals that will never see these ads. We need to redistribute some of that marketing budget.
    
2. Make a concerted effort to reach out to the local non-institutional communication groups. We have entrepreneurs and cultural groups maintaining extensive lists specifically to distribute this type of information. We should start syndicating some of their content (let the community know what they are up to) and we should start distributing our institutional content to those list managers in a more organized and consistent way.
     
3. Allocate a small budget for experimental marketing. Have someone responsible for always trying new tools like new magazines that crop up, new technologies, new community groups. We need to be more agile.
    
4. Use Social Media better. I don't mean to develop a comprehensive strategy, rather just make it part of the daily operations. Each of our galleries should be using Twitter to describe their events and programs, and they should be following movers and shakers locally to identify how they can make their programs more relevant to the community.
    
5. Speak specifically about opportunity to the students. Ken Coats, dean of UW Arts admitted that the university needs to be more open. Very much like attracting students to a job, we need to attract these students to stay and innovate. Communitech and VeloCity act like "tech entrepreneurship" recruiters on campus. We should create similar "arts entrepreneurship" recruiters.

Yes, the above answers may not be a comprehensive solution (any and all suggestions are welcome) but I do believe they represent some great steps that are still in line with the Creative Enterprise Agenda.

And, for those that are interested in some louder, more audacious goals - here are some ideas I'd enjoy fleshing out with anyone that would like to chat over coffee:

1. A VeloCity style student residence, with more of a focus on arts & culture
2. Moving the UW fine arts campus to Kitchener Civic Block
3. Starting an arts-oriented venture or angel group

Today was the Creative Enterprise Forum at the Waterloo Inn (if you weren't there, it would be good to read The Record's coverage and Julianna Yau's notes) and I was asked to speak to why it was important to young professionals. It's an interesting topic, because the economic importance of a vibrant arts and cultural sectors seems so, well, obvious. How was I to elaborate on what was already said?

However, as I started to dissect the points and goals, there was a consistent theme: the agenda speaks about attracting and retaining the best and brightest talent to live and work in Waterloo Region, but it was always in the context of creating jobs. Perhaps it was assumed, but regardless the agenda didn't speak to retaining entrepreneurs - people who create ventures be they festivals, theatre companies, films or businesses.

Similarly, as many people at the forum pointed out, the agenda did not do enough to emphasize nurturing the talent that already exists in our region, or that is already coming to our region on its own.

So, to re-frame the goal, I put forward that the agenda should be aiming to nurture the existing in and attract the best creative talent to Waterloo Region.

But this goal still does not sufficiently address the entrepreneurs and innovators, and so I encourage everyone to keep these people in mind. Here is a dissection of my argument.

Why my focus on innovators and entrepreneurs

They are critical because of the economic impact they can have. For example: funding for a contract position or re-training an individual employs one person at a time. Inspiring an innovator or entrepreneur to launch a new festival or keep their software company in Waterloo Region can employ dozens if not hundreds. By specifically nurturing young creative leaders, we are planting the seeds for continued growth here in the region, rather than simply just trying to attract employees from other communities. By attracting people that are passionate and able to attract others to their cause, our efforts will be magnified.

Why focus on talent already here?

Many bright minds are already attracted to our region by our world-class educational institutions and our unmatched entrepreneurial clusters - however once they graduate we're losing them. For some it happens immediately, for others it happens a couple years out. But either way, we have a pattern of attracting ambitious and innovative people, then loosing many of them to other communities.

It's not that they dislike Waterloo Region - it's that we can't help them create the life they want.

We have already successfully built a community that attracts bright minds - we don't need to change that process. Rather, the issue is our execution once they arrive. To use a business analogy - our marketing is great, but our customer care program could use some help.

Why is a vibrant cultural scene important? Wouldn't these people create one?

We intuitively know that a vibrant cultural sector makes our community more attractive to potential employees, and we know that a vibrant cultural sector will naturally support an increased number of creative jobs. However, what is just as, if not more, important is that a vibrant cultural sector is required to engage and inspire the creative innovators I mentioned above.

The reason is that a vibrant cultural sector can apply a uniquely compelling argument at a critical point of a young professional's life. There are two elements to the argument: a sense of home and a sense of opportunity.

First, cultural activities build relationships and ties to the region. Things like having a favourite local band, regularly attending events in a public square, ethnic festivals, hot clubs, familiar pubs and volunteering help make a place feel like home. This sense of home is important to both business and arts innovators. If we can make Waterloo Region feel like home to these people, we will retain more of them and those that leave will have a higher likelihood of returning.

Second, beyond a sense of home, young leaders look for opportunity. They go to where their ideas can take root and flourish. Not just ideas about building businesses and careers, but also their ideas about music, about theatre, about hobbies, about community! And this is where we're not doing enough.

For example, we have a strong sense of tech and entrepreneurship. If someone wants to launch a tech start-up, the support systems available are awe-inspiring and it only makes sense for them to stay local. However, if someone wants to write movie screenplays, where would they go? If someone wants to start a band, where would they go? If someone wanted to start a street art club, where would they go? Our creative sector, as it is, doesn't have the capacity to support, or in some cases the exposure to reach, the people who have these ideas. And so, these innovators determine that to create the lives they want, they have to leave Waterloo Region.

If we can build a more nurturing environment for these ideas on top of helping the region become the home of our young innovators, we will retain an incredible pool of passion and ambition: passion and ambition that will lead to cultural and economic growth.

Fred Wilson made a post yesterday describing how  Web Entrepreneurs are the New Urban Architects.  Although he’s correct in many in his observations, I don’t think he has gone far enough. I believe today’s Web Entrepreneurs are the New Citizens.

What unifies the examples Fred gave (Twitter, Foursquare, Outside.in, CitySourced, etc) and other Web Entrepreneurs is that they want to make people’s lives better. Fred’s examples are all very urban-centric, but there are dozens of web entrepreneurs that are focusing on larger-scale initiatives.

The folks behind CharityChamps, for example, are working to help build a system of micro-philanthropy, and the people developing Akoha are running a social reality game to make money while doing good. We’ve seen a blending between For-Profit and Social-Profit organizations.

Where does this come from? I’m by no means an expert, but I think this comes from the democratic nature of the web combined with the relatively low-cost of start-up for web businesses. Web technologies have empowered the public to have a stronger voice and to effect change that they were previously unable to do. This is further supported by initiatives like ChangeCamp in Toronto and the many Government 2.0 initiatives in North America. Similarly, because of the rapid rate of change, it’s possible to launch a web-based business with comparatively less experience (e.g. imagine the experience and connections required to launch a telecom or automotive company), which means younger audience in entrepreneurship than we ever could before. Web entrepreneurs are younger and more socially engaged than their offline entrepreneur counterparts.*

What does this mean? Rather than simply looking to web entrepreneurs for urban planning ideas, we should be looking to them for new thoughts on citizenship as a whole: citizens of a country, of a municipality and even of a company. A large number of web entrepreneurs fit that mould of someone that has the passion to act on great ideas, balanced with an interest and passion for the betterment of society.

Over the next few years we’re going to see the floodgates open and more socially-conscious web plays will hit our radar. More importantly, though, over the next couple decades we’ll see the founders of these companies trying to effect change at a greater and greater level. The next generation of government leaders won’t be actors and athletes– they’ll be entrepreneurs.

*I have absolutely no hard data to back this up - it is based on annecdotal and my own experience. Any data supporting or refuting this point is welcome!