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October 15, 2003April 21, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

That’s With a Capital “E”

I was talking with Gordon Bird from the Advanced System Institute earlier today after his presentation to our MBA class. We got to talking about a number of thoughts that had been rattling around my head about the needs of technology entrepreneurs and how to promote entrepreneurship in Vancouver.

One of the popular ideas I’ve heard proposed by a number of business leaders: universities need to create programs that bring together students from business and science faculties. The hope is that would break down the traditional separation that exists between science and business both inside and outside academia, and poses a barrier to innovation. Collaboration would not only expose each group to each other’s expertise and vocabulary, it would also build mutual respect between the two parties, thus enabling students to build relationships they could leverage once they complete their degrees. In addition, bringing students together would also promote mingling between researchers from the different faculties (and their respective connections in the community), thereby further promoting a healthy environment for innovation.

Another idea in the theme of promoting collaboration: a service to match ideas with entrepreneurs with the capabilities to execute/deliver on those ideas. Ideas are dime a dozen, but the people who usually have the ideas are also the least likely to be able to act on them due their lack of access to the resources, expertise, or relationships required to transform the basic idea into a product or sustainable business. Think of the loss to our economy this represents – all because we haven’t created a system to “harvest” ideas and put them in the hands of those with the greatest chance of capturing the value in those ideas.

The question is: which organization should be responsible for developing such programs and services? Academia? Industry associations? Private companies? Again, the answer appears to lie in collaboration. Though individual organizations are already addressing some of these needs in their own way (for example: Zerendipity is attempting to provide entrepreneurs with the tools to find the expertise they need) no one organization in Vancouver has all of the requisite resources or expertise to pull off these types of programs. Sounds to me like what we really need is one of the big players in the local tech community to step up and coordinate a focused effort to “create” local entrepreneurs.

October 8, 2003April 21, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

Job Search

We’re coming up to our break in between sessions in the final semester of my MBA program, so I’m starting to look around at where I can work once I’m done. I’m feeling less and less certain about which area I want to work in, but more frustrating is the six zillion different places to look for work.

In the past, I’ve always relied on job sites, such as Monster.com, Hotjobs.com, and T-Net, to find jobs. But in the time between my last job search and the present there’s a whole new crop of recruiting sites that have emerged: JobShark, Workopolis, CareerBuilder, Brass Ring, and numerous others. What used to be a simple way to identify interesting jobs and put your resume in the hands of potential employers has degraded to the point that the Internet recruiting sites are no more useful than the newspaper.

For example: for each one of these sites I need to input my resume; however, each one of these sites has a different way to input my resume. Some are simple, simply requiring me to upload my Word-formatted resume, while others require me to fill out a bunch of forms, and make selections from dropdowns. Can you say “time-consuming”? Not only that, each site offers diminishing returns for the expended effort – most of the sites feature the same jobs listings from either the same employer or the same recruiter.

What we really need is some kind of XML resume format that job-seekers can post on their web site or upload to job sites, and that search engines can easily index. This would allow employers to easily find potential employees. On the flip side, employers need some kind of XML job description format that job seekers can easily find through a similar search engine mechanism.

Of course, putting such a system in place would require tools to simplify the task for both parties. The system would also significantly reduce the need for these recruitment web sites; however, given their reduced ability to match jobs with job-seekers, is that really such a bad thing?