Ok, I'm officially on the ropes. Somebody wake me up in 2007. It's been a busy business and social season. Between conferences, workshops, biz-socials, lunch meetings, coffee meetings, dinner meetings, friends visiting from out of town and many friends having holiday socials, it has been a whirlwind. It's a good thing I'm otherwise on the beach, in consultant-speak. (And of course, studies now report that social drinking has positive effects on one's earnings!)
I'm going to have to detox for a while, and I'm looking forward to getting caught up on my research reading list over the holidays, which has been growing rapidly. I will be offline between the 22nd and the 26th, which will certainly try my patience but will probably be good for me. Unplug this season. Happy holidays!
Andrew Coyne's recent column, "Canada's Culture of Begging" got me riled up this morning. Coyne argues that Mayor David Miller's claim to a 1% portion of federal and provincial sales taxes collected in Toronto shows a lack of leadership on Miller's part and is symptomatic of a wider culture of begging that plagues our fair land. What really set me off was the sycophantic cheering section among his commenters.
I say bollocks, because bollocks seems more polite than bullshit. I share my comment to Coyne's blog here, and encourage you to leave your thoughts on Coyne's blog.
Technorati Tags: Canada, cities, Ontario, politics, andrewcoyne, Toronto
I'm sorry, but this is utter bollocks. While the "culture of begging" may appeal to a base Toronto-bashing instinct beloved by many, it is a wholly inaccurate and unfair way to look at the relationship between the three tiers of government. It does not address the core problem, which is the mismatch between responsibilities and means. I would point your readers to the final report of the federal External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities. This independent advisory group recommended just such a double-devolution of taxation capacity and power, from federal to provincial and from provincial to municipal levels of government. In an increasingly globalized post-industrial economy, local innovations and thriving creative cities are critical to the future competitiveness of the nation. However, we have not funded these engines of growth sufficiently, or given them the appropriate tools to innovate and solve their problems in locally relevant ways. The "begging" you observe in Mr. Miller is a symptom of that failure, and is the result of a paternalistic federal state and a rural political culture that is uniquely Canadian. The crisis that some of your readers and commenters want to gleefully heap on Toronto will only hurt the rest of the nation. A Toronto in crisis should be cause for national concern, because it has national implications. Toronto is facing just such an imminent crisis, as continued rapid growth threatens to cause the urban infrastructure to seize and the Toronto city-region to collapse under its own weight. Toronto bashers fail to understand the importance of our cities to our future prosperity, and fail to understand that many difficult problems can only be solved locally. They also fail to recognize that Canada is an urban country, with our population overwhelmingly concentrated in major urban agglomerations. The attitudes of those that point fingers at Mr. Miller reflect an idea of Canada as quaint, provincial and rural. This idea of Canada is outmoded. We need to understand that a new relationship between our cities and the rest of the country is the central question of a renewed federation relevant to our 21st century global reality. Failure to articulate these deeper structural issues is unfair to Mayor Miller, unfair to Toronto and does a disservice to your readers and the wider political discourse. I would hope for better from a writer of your considerable talent.
Late in coming, I thought I would blog my impressions from the Global Connect conference at MaRS last week. My quick take-aways:
- IP transfer is broken, especially in Canada
- VC is broken, sort of. maybe. especially in Canada. I guess.
- Paul Kedrosky rocks and should live in Toronto, damn it
- Ross Wallace and Ilse Treurnicht of MaRS did a fantastic job
- The innovation race is just beginning
- The blogging wonkosphere is lonelier than I thought
Technorati Tags: commercialization, Innovation, Toronto, ICTToronto, NAO, VC, MARS, intellectualproperty, globalconnect
My favourite creative cities trio Ilse, Tim Jones and Geoff Cape stimulated a roomful of science and commercialization people to think about the cultural dimension and the importance of place. I enjoyed seeing David Pecaut of the Toronto City Summit Alliance speak for the first time and Adam Bly of SEED Magazine brought a healthy dose of NYC skepticism to a wonk-filled room. SEED Magazine ("Science is Culture") is a great new mag, run by a Canadian living in New York, naturally. If you love cool science, feisty science, science with attitude check it out and subscribe to the RSS feeds. Oh and there's a podcast, of course. A print mag that really gets how to use the new tools to create stickiness with its audience. Very well done. Mark Bradley of ATP Innovations (Sydney) did a session on social media tools and their application for emerging startups and commercialization. It was really intended to bring the commercialization folks up to speed on the tools. I was one of the few bloggers in attendance and embarrassingly raised my hand at Bradley's many questions of "who uses" and "who has read": Cluetrain. Naked Conversations. Long Tail. Blogging. RSS. Wikis...the usual suspects. I was shocked to see how new this stuff is to people whose jobs are all somehow related to technology, innovation and commercialization. Much of the audience was a bit bewildered. They really should just call my friend Tom at Firestoker for a primer. And meetings in Second Life, well that's just ridiculous, isn't it? [UPDATE: See Mark Bradley's post on Global Connect here.] I had some great conversations with the lovely and talented Catarina von Maydell from the National Angel Organization and Toronto Angel Group. She provided some excellent insight into how we might bring rich people and nerds together more successfully in Toronto. The Race is On The dimensions of the 21st century global innovation race are just starting to emerge. When everybody around the world is echoing each other about how important innovation is to their economic future, the real competition is to understand the nature of the innovation goose. While there are some good models to look to around the world, nobody's really figured out how economies can compete effectively on innovation, which means it's up for grabs. The question in the Toronto context is this: Can the various parties to the process work together in new ways? If the region is to be an innovation engine on the world stage, then the players in the ecosystem need to understand that there is a lot they don't know and that this a long-term collective project for entire communities that will likely define this generation. Can a city-region create sustainable competitive advantage?
ICT Toronto bears some fruit. This should create some excitement:
During the week of May 28 – June 1, 2006 Toronto’s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) cluster will come together to celebrate, innovate and develop business over the course of a week called Toronto Technology Week (TTW). During Toronto Technology Week a series of events showcasing the depth and growth of Toronto’s technology sector will be organized such as CIO Breakfast Seminars, Job Fairs, Innovation & Excellence Showcase and other educational seminars.
Technorati Tags: barcamp, democamp, ICTToronto, mesh2007, torcamp, Toronto
TorCamp chief instigator David Crow was there, as was Joey. TorCampers argued for two things: leverage the timing of the Mesh Conference and please don't call it "ICT Week" (yucky wonk-speak, p'tooey). Look for lots of BarCamp-style events in the mix. I encourage any and all community-based groups to take advantage of this platform to raise your profile in the greater community and to contribute to making Toronto's tech community a genuinely grassroots movement. This series of events is a big enough tent to bring both corporate and community together...perhaps we'll even learn how to play nice in our new sandbox! There is absolutely a role for culture in the midst of all the tech, and if Nuit Blanche was any indication, people will come out in droves for public art, much of it with strong technology components. (Imagine if Nuit Blanche had been during a lovely Toronto spring rather than a rainy weekend in September.) If you're interested in tech stuff and considering a visit to Toronto, this will be the week to do it. Also a good week to invite clients from out of town. I highly recommend the Mesh Conference, so buy your tickets early. I'm hoping that it will again be hosted in the wonderfully intimate surroundings of MaRS, but fear its popularity may tempt the meshies to seek out a bigger venue. By the way, a seriously swanky social at the beautifully restored Carlu would be appropriate, don't you think? A fabulous venue for a social mesh. Maybe the meshies might want to talk to my friend Mark Robert. UPDATE: I failed to mention also that the Canadian New Media Awards will be held that week, too, May 28th.A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. The incarceration rate in the U.S. was 702 per 100,000, 6 times that in Canada (116) or Australia (112) and compares to England/Wales rate of 139.
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