Yesterday, I heard Dr. H. Douglas Barber of McMaster speak at a Communitech event. Much of what he said was based on the research paper he co-authored in Mar 2005, "Growing R&D-Intensive Firms in Canada" which is available on theImpact Group's website along with many other interesting papers.

The implications to the Canadian business and the economy are serious.
The findings include:

1. The "culture of commerce" in Canada is weak. This is a result of the "lack of focus on customers and a preoccupation with R&D." This is also true in government and postsecondary institutions. There is a incorrect belief that technology (automatically) drives commercialization. This is not the case if there are no customers for the new technology. Developing more marketing talent and educating other's involved in the innovation process about customers and commerce is recommended.
2. Raising money is the preoccupation for most CEO's and since this tends to be from investors (government, angels, VC, even public markets) as opposed to customers there is pressure to exit: sell or merge early.  As a result, few small R&D-intensive companies expect to remain in Canada.  It is recommended that more support for marketing and business development efforts be made available to build a (revenue-generating) customer base, precluding the need for as much investment or an asset sale.

"You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world." 


"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work."


"Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity."


"Wisdom is the power to put our time and knowledge to the proper use."

Outlined below is my reply to the following interesting article comparing entrepreneurs and project managers and how they view/ handle risk.

As the Entrepreneur Magazine quote states: Entrepreneurs assume risk. That does not imply they take more risks, are not risk averse, or do not thoroughly plan for risk. Indeed the successful entrepreneurs that I know are inherently risk adverse and as a result plan as thoroughly as possible in the uncertain and ever changing world of launching a new business. Where they do differ from project managers is that in addition to planning for, tracking and managing the risk, they "assume" or take full responsibility for the risks, their plans, activities and outcomes when reporting to their investors, including all mistakes, oversights and failures. This responsibility is that extra spark (or craziness) that we associate with entrepreneurs.

Of course, I remain a strong proponent of preparing and continually updating both your business plan and project (management) plan. They indeed will change often as new information surfaces and events arise that change the risk profile, timing and overall strategy/ business model.  

Attached is the rubric I developed and use to mark the business plans of my students taking the George Brown College Research/ Commercialize/ Innovate (RCI) course. 

A good rubric is not just a collection of scales from 1-5 or poor to excellent as these measures are difficult to assess and can vary significantly from assessor to assessor. Better rubrics list a series of individual items that should be included/ achieved for each level making it less subjective for grading as well as providing clear instruction and feedback to the contributor. As a result, good rubrics can be difficult to construct.

I just rediscovered this in the book entitled "Bringing Your Product to Market" (1997) , although there looks like author Don Debelak has a revised edition.  In the introduction, he lists the 5  essential criteria for a successful product:

• The product is easy to distribute.
• The technology is simple.
• The product is perceived to be unique.
• The benefit is obvious.
• The product can be sold at 4-5 times it's manufacturing cost.

In my now over 20 years working with technologies (mostly in life sciences) and over 10 years with entrepreneurial/ early stage enterprises, I  certainly agree with all of these criteria and can unfortunately cite numerous examples where lacking one or more of these criteria  led to eventual failure in the market.