by Joey deVilla on February 1, 2009
This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.
Starting tonight (Pacific Coast Time), John Bristowe, I, and a few other folks from Microsoft Canada’s De veloper & Platform Evangelism team, will be in Seattle all next week to attend Microsoft’s 8th TechReady conference. TechReady is a Microsoft internal conference where ‘Softies from all over the world gather to get briefed on upcoming releases. The coming months promise a bumper crop of Microsoft goodies – Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, Visual Studio 2010 and Azure to name a few – so the sessions should be very interesting. (I think I’ll actually be taking a lot of notes during the presentations rather than checking my mail or looking at that video of kittens riding a Roomba.)
We’re going to try to take advantage of this gathering to get some interviews with some of the big brains at Microsoft from Redmond and all over the world, as well as show you some of the sights and sounds of Seattle. Watch this blog for updates!
Are you in Seattle? Want to catch up? Talk about Microsoft, software development, accordions. Zardoz or anything else? Drop me a line or give me a ring (416-948-6447)!
[Seattle photo by Andrew “papalars” Larsen and licenced under Creative Commons. Click here to see the original.]
Tagged as:
conferences,
Microsoft,
Seattle,
TechReady
by Joey deVilla on June 5, 2008
Scenes from the Valley’s El Camino Real (left) and Seattle’s Pioneer Square (right).
Here’s some food for thought. Ahmed Hassan very recently wrote a comment in response to an article of mine, Ideas to Steal from Silicon Valley and Seattle, and it’s worth promoting to its own article, so here it is.
Being from Toronto and having worked in both Toronto, Ottawa, and the US, I think Toronto has severe challenges.
1. We build workers…not leaders.
We have loads of talent…but all we create is good worker bees.
2. Yes, lack of big companies is a big deal.
There are some ‘entrepreneurs’ who will just go at it on their own. yet, the vast majority of people like a decent job. So they meet up at large companies…work for a while…then maybe decide to start their own thing. All we have in Toronto proper is IBM and AMD. Anyone care to explain how RIM was founded in Waterloo. I ask that as a serious question. How does a small town create the only great Canadian tech company in operation right now? Why was it not founded in Toronto? Ask that question a few times…over and over.
3. Politicians do not understand business.
When you have someone like Miller who says he doesn’t care about companies who move to Mississauga for lower tax rates as he only wants companies who are willing to pay more to take advantage of Toronto’s urban character… you know something is wrong. They will try to push venture capital and ‘incubators…’.
As I say…mentality before process.
4. Sometimes you run out of talent.
How many high tech centers do we need? Everywhere you go, there is a lack of talent. If Toronto tech can just pickup and move to Seattle, Silicon valley, New york, boston, dallas, austin… in an already established tech base, why would they bother doing it here? Better weather, lower taxes, more like-minded entrepreneurs.
It’s not impossible. But Toronto has its work cut out for it. The biggest threat to Toronto…is actually Waterloo. Very close to Toronto and with a large tech base. It’s largely a mentality gap. Toronto embraces bureaucracy and structure. Startups are about freedom and independence. If you will…that’s why RIM was founded in Waterloo as opposed to Toronto. No Toronto bureaucracy would have ever approved of RIM. I mean they would be competing against Motorola, Nokia, MS… impossible…that’s a bad investment.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Tagged as:
corproate culture,
culture,
Seattle,
Silicon Valley,
tech culture,
Toronto