July 2, 2009

The Daily Photo: 6 p.m. Downtown Vancouver, framed from an alley. Many thanks to Rohit Tandon .

The Big Bodyguard Gets Smaller

Don't feel pleasure in California's woes. We're going to feel the results

Is there a business in BC that doesn’t always keep one eye on our great big bodyguard to the south, California?

From big to small, businesses, cultural institutions and governments here are either trying to figure out how they can sell into the state with a population bigger than Canada’s, or they’re emulating how things are done “down there”.

If you’re in tech or social web businesses, San Francisco and suburbs are your nirvana; if you’re in movies or new media, Los Angeles is your lead; if you’re in resources, the state’s vast industrial and housing complexes are your main market. Sustainability believer? California is where it all started.

So it’s of much importance here that California is broke and is about to launch a savage downsizing that will probably tarnish the Golden State’s glow for decades.

California rose to prominence after the Second World War when the US government poured billions into the state’s infrastructure and ushered in the “Pacific” era. That drew people and more investment and made California the entity we now love and laugh at regularly.

But the state is running a $24-billion deficit and is proposing to shut down public agencies, generate hundreds of thousands of layoffs, slash welfare systems and cut support for schools, businesses, environment, and dozens of other entities and pursuits.

It’s decimating itself in this recession, disinvesting at a rapid pace and killing its vision of the future.

So why should we care?

Because British California – er – Columbia takes many of its cultural and economic cues from that state and will inevitably be affected by the fiscal firestorm that’s going on down there. The brains and money in California that we like to access are going to start leaving.

The markets for our tourism, resources, media and technology are going to shrink. The forestry industry is already feeling the pain since one in four of US default mortgages are in California. And it’s going to get worse.

Here in BC, we may have to start thinking about how we’re going to make it on our own.

June 29, 2009

The Daily Photo: 11 a.m. Machine vs. Nature. Sunlight seeps through the steel gridiron of the Burrard Bridge.

Business With A Purpose

Business In BC is becoming more purposeful.
Last week’s Technology Impact Awards, and this year’s New Ventures BC competition proved once again that clean technology and sustainability are beginning to dominate the technology industry in BC.

Sure the TIA’s big winners were more old tech than clean tech. Sierra Wireless, for example, won the Company of the Year award for, among other things, passing the $500 million in annual revenues milestone.

But other companies based on sustainability emerged. And with a good showing in the NVBC final 30, it’s clear that cleantech is now a recognizable force.

Some of this comes from government incentives, of course. The Liberal government has not exactly been secretive about its plans to to boost the energy sector here. Most of the stimulation money it has directed to technology is earmarked for cleantech.

But I like to think that another incentive comes from the most important factors in entrepreneurship today – passion and purpose. Passion is what makes an entrepreneur start a business in the first place; purpose is a value system that keeps that entrepreneur and the team around him or her going through the tough times.

No one can deny that BC has a lot of passion about sustainability and clean technology. Half the new businesses I see are built on the foundation of passion for the environment and its ancillary threads.

But previously, we often lacked for purpose, which is more than the simple b-plan term “mission”. Having purpose means that you truly believe that what you are doing is right and needed, despite the prevailing or conventional thinking, and despite advice that you should start a business with more commercial potential.

It’s the creative or inventor gene that makes you see a different future when everybody is focusing on the familiar, and the immediate -- things like recession, cash flow, customers, costs and all the other details of business.

I’m not saying that you don’t need to bring some business smarts to a new venture. Not to do so would be suicidal.

But, without purpose, you’ll just be going through the motions of making a buck. It might work and you might do very well. But your heart won’t really be in it.