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April 12, 2002April 28, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

New Ventures BC

Those of you with aspirations of entrepreneurial glory might be interested in the business plan competition underway over at New Ventures BC. The competition is one of the largest business plan competitions in North America, based on the $120,000 worth of prizes up for grabs. Registration costs $25, and the deadline for registering your idea for the first round of the competition is April 15th.

Though I was interested in entering the competition this year, I haven’t really got an idea that I’m happy with. I also wouldn’t really feel good about entering the competition, given that I don’t really plan to start a business right now. I know I’m going to be pretty busy for the next year now that I’ve accepted UBC’s offer of admission to their MBA program. Sure, I probably wouldn’t win, but if I did, I think it would be pretty slimy to take the money and run.

That said, the New Ventures BC competition is offering a number of free seminars on various aspects of starting a new business venture. The seminars are designed to help those who are registered for business plan competition, but are open to anyone that registers to attend the seminars ahead of time. I attended the first seminar, “Managing Intellectual Property”, last Thursday. Two hours with two patent lawyers that probably would be worth a couple thousand bucks if you actually had to pay for their time. Anyone interested in business would be stupid not to take advantage of this learning opportunity.

Then again, maybe spending your Thursday night with lawyers isn’t your idea of a good time.

in Entrepreneurship 0 comments

December 12, 2001April 28, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

A Message From Hedy Fry

In the midst of all the recent BC Liberal cuts and the federal budget, I received a Christmas update from my local MP, Hedy Fry.

Oh. My. God.

What are the things that piss me off? Let me count the ways.

1) Communication from a representative that doesn’t actually communicate anything of importance: the entire booklet consists of a Christmas greeting from Hedy, a Christmas greeting from the Prime Minister, and a half dozen or so pages consisting of a calender for the year (annotated not with political events, just ordinary holidays), and trivia factoids (again, little or no useful information).

What I want to know is what specific issues is Hedy addressing? What are the upcoming votes/bills/etc I should know about? I don’t need my MP to hold my hand on the political issues of the day, but if they’re going to send out mail under the guise of “connecting with the constituents” it better have some meat to it.

2) Paying for it: Does Hedy Fry, or any of the other MPs who send out these things, pay for the cost of printing, and distribution? Anyone know for sure? I’m guessing no. How many people out there got something similar from their own MP?? Anyone care to do the math? I’d like to think that the government is spending money wisely, but they keep proving me wrong. Sure, these kind of things are only small expenditures, but with 301 representatives for 10 million households, the costs add up quickly. If every MP sends one of these, and it costs fifty cents (probably closer to a dollar, really), that’s 5 million dollars! And for what it is, that isn’t really much value for the money.

3) Wasted paper: I hate junkmail in general…it’s a waste of paper, and again, I end up paying for it. My tax dollars are spent on recycling and waste disposal programs by the city. The more junk mail I get, the more tax money has to be spent on picking it up and disposing of it. Grrr. Oh, and of course, there are the added environmental repercussions. Double grrr.

Meanwhile, Hedy’s web site (www.hedyfry.com) is still under construction (“should be fully operational by the end of September”) and provides no information on what my representative is doing these days. Does anyone in government know the meaning of the word blog? I’m guessing no.

With all the money being spent on “connecting everyone”, you’d hope they be focusing some money on some real applications of the technology to lower costs and improve government. Nope. Welcome to Canada! You can’t e-mail your representative and expect a response, or conduct business with the government online, but at least you can surf for porn real quick. Yippee!