Rick Segal is doing a three week road trip this summer with Shel Israel. They’re networking with entrepreneurs everywhere, and Rick’s side agenda is to promote Canada as a great place to set up shop, as opposed to Silicon Valley. I agree, to a certain extent, but part of what makes Silicon Valley special is the immense number of network opportunities available to people there. This comment on Rick’s post, from JigZaw’s Shannon Clark is especially worth reading. It neatly illustrates the conundrum that all tech centers outside the Valley face, including Toronto and Ottawa. And that, by the way, is the point of efforts like Mesh, Barcamp, and DemoCamp.Â
What else could we be doing to better network? What do you think?
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
