Few places in Canada could be further away from the main markets of North America. Few places have less resources than PEI.  But I found last week, as I travelled with StartUp Canada around PEI, that our entrepreneurs are doing very well.

Many have operations, such as Marks Work Warehouse and Island Abby Foods, that are amongst the best in class. Many have businesses, such as BioVectra and DME, that have found a niche that makes them unrivaled in the continent. Many are astonishingly novel like Thinking Big and Screenscape.

Why should small businesses in a small place be so competitive?

It’s in the Island DNA

PEI is too small and too far away to attract large mature businesses from away. So business on PEI is naturally always small and owner operated. And because PEI itself is small, PEI business has always had to find a place in the larger markets off Island.  It’s been like this for 200 years.

As Duncan Shaw told me about his family, “Few people ever had a job. We come from a long line of pioneers, farmers, fishers and small business owners.”

Potatoes were run to the Caribbean in exchange for the official cargo of molasses and the unofficial cargo of rum. Fish was run to Boston. Lumber to the UK. Fox fur and lobster to Upper Canada.

So like their forefathers, Lorraine MacAulay had to start her Mosquito repellent business by breaking into the large national stores. Peter Toombs had to sell his brewing equipment all over the world. They had to begin by being very clever and persistent.

So how did they get so smart?

It’s not school – It’s Family and Mentors

We think that having great schools are key to developing smart people. But most of the entrepreneurs I met last week told me that they did not fit into school culture. Some never finished school. Others had to force themselves to finish. Dico Reijers took 7 years to do his BA.

All told me that culture of entrepreneurship was set at home. All told me that they grew up in a family where running your own business was the normal. The dinner table was their classroom.

Some entrepreneurs went to business school. But for most, the best business lessons were taught by mentors. They learned the old fashioned way, like an apprentice, from advice given by a person who lived their life. Entrepreneurs helping Entrepreneurs.

I asked all of them about whether school needed to be changed. None of them dismissed school. They acknowledged that not everyone should be or even could be an entrepreneur. But they hoped that the school system would see that it could help by identifying the characteristics of kids, like Matt below, who were destined to be entrepreneurs. Then the entrepreneurs could help.

For entrepreneurship on PEI is a personal and individual thing.  All the older PEI entrepreneurs I spoke to want to reach out and offer more of their time as mentors to the young up and coming new class of rebels. What they want is a better way to connect.

If PEI stays true to its business DNA – we will do well

Large bureaucratic structures are dying. Youth unemployment in Canada and the US is over 20% and in Europe is close to 50%. Many middle aged workers are being made redundant. Pensions that many have relied are being diminished. For societies that have more embraced the job and the bureaucracy, the transition will be very hard.

But here on PEI, I see now that we could adjust quite well. The modern PEI entrepreneur is already competing in the new networked global marketplace. They are hiring. They are growing. They are doing what Island business people have always done.

All they need to do now that is different is to work together.

If the PEI entrepreneurs get together and work with each other to boost the local ecosystem.

If those in government do the same. Then this little Island could do very well.

This insight is the great gift that the visit of StartUp Canada brought. They held up the mirror to who we really are. Now we must not waste this gift. Time to act .

It’s up to us now.

PS Next week I will start a 2 week series on what I have learned from our wonderful entrepreneurs

Work really is social.  Here a view of Google’s new office in London. 

Its design is all about the reality of work being social and not machine like.

Cubicle land us really a typing pool with more barriers. This is where work  design makes it impossible to be social. And this got worse with cubicles.

Now many of us work at home. But that is not social either – except when your kids and spouse interrupt you. 

What is your office like?

This is what we at the QSC are like

The office of the future – here today – social + boundaries

Are you the right candidate?

Have you dreamed of starting your own small business, but haven’t been able to take that first step?  What would it take to get you started?  You know you don’t need much – an idea, a plan, some cash, some support.  Here’s your chance – tell us about your idea, and why you should be the one to win the first Start Up PEI Challenge, and you could win a package of capital, business and management skills to launch your entrepreneurial idea to the next level.
Challenge Award and Benefits: Updated April 26

Start Up Business Package now valued at over $3000, including:

1. Cash prize of $500 ~ Donated by Hannah Bell, winner of the ACE Regional Competition
2. Business and project planning consultancy ~  Service and mentoring provided by The Solution Agency (approx. value: $500)
3. Domain name registration and website design ~ Service and mentoring provided by Logikl (approx. value: $500)
4. Social media and marketing consultancy and launch ~ Service and mentoring provided by Tinker Media (approx. value: $500)
5. Search engine optimization, Adwords setup and Google analytics setup ~ Service and mentoring provided by Top Search Result (approx value: $500)
6. One month full membership at Queen Street Commons, providing meeting and work space, mail and intranet, printing and phone as well as invaluable networking opportunities (approx value: $200)
7. 500 c0lour single sided business cards plus basic setup from KwikKopy Printing
8. Valuable media exposure
9. Ongoing mentorship and networking opportunities

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be residents of PEI for at least 6 months of the year.
• No age restriction applies – minors must have the support of an appropriate legal guardian for any financial and legal requirements.
• If applying as a group rather than an individual, please ensure there is a single point of contact who is nominated as the lead for the submission.
• All entries must be in English.

Submission Criteria

• REQUIRED: Name, email, phone number for primary contact
• Other team members info if applicable
• Describe the business you want to start, and why it is innovative and/or impactful.
• Why are you qualified to make this idea happen?  What makes you a (potential) entrepreneur?
• What are you doing now – are you a student, do you have a day job, is this business idea your ‘passion project’?
• How would this award make your business happen?  What do you plan to do?
• What else can you tell us that you think we should know?

Submission Method

Written submission, no more than 3 pages

OR

YouTube Video submission, no more than 3 minutes

Email written submission or YouTube link to hannah+startup@thesolutionagency.com

Submissions must be received by 11:59 pm ATL May 20, 2012.  Submissions received after that time will not be considered.

Key Dates

Competition Launch                      April 23 2012

Competition Close                         May 20 2012

Evaluation of Submissions           week of May 21-25 (extend to May 30 if volume required)

Award Announcement                 on or by May 31 2012

Follow Up (6 months)                   December 1 2012

Next up in the QSC Lunch & Learn Health Series is Dianne Birt.  Dianne will talk to us about the connection of food and fitness to our mental well being. Join us Wednesday, May 02 at noon here at the Commons (224 Queen Street).  Admission is free for members, $5 for non-members and light refreshments are provided.

]]> http://queenstreetcommons.org/2012/04/26/dianne-birt-next-up-in-the-lunch-learn-health-series/feed/ 0 karenmurchison db http://queenstreetcommons.org/2012/04/26/why-a-networked-artisanal-economy-will-work-for-pei/ http://queenstreetcommons.org/2012/04/26/why-a-networked-artisanal-economy-will-work-for-pei/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:26:58 +0000 robpatrob http://queenstreetcommons.org/?p=1495 Continue reading →]]>

This is a great future for PEI and is in our reach. This is why the QSC is backing StartUp Canada and their visit in the week of May 7th.

If you like this vision – join us at the QSC on May 8th – details here

One of the most challenging parts of PEI’s situation is that we don’t have enough young to sustain our society in the next 25 years. This problem is shared by all the Provinces in Atlantic Canada.

For a generation, governments have tried to change this by doing their best to attract large employers to set up operations here. This has not worked and, as the industrial model further concentrates, has even less chance of working now.

So we have a government sector that is too large, on PEI 65% of GDP, a large group of people living off the social system, a few people with jobs and a lot of ultra small businesses. The only sector here that has any chance of keeping our young home and of attracting young from away is the very small.

In the past the very small was only for hobbyists. The web now makes it possible for once were hobbyists to access a global market. Young women in villages in England sell knitting patterns to a market in the millions. Authors self publish books on Amazon.

For what is also new is that there is a large and growing market for products and services that people can trust – defined as those made by persons and not faceless organizations. Grass Fed Beef versus Feedlot Beef. Real soap versus chemicals. Real IT support versus and Indian Call Centre. Real Toys versus dangerous ones.

So who would come and do this? Are not all the young going to the cities? Yes many still leave the boonies for the city. But many of the city folk are now leaving the city. Those that are leaving the city are among the most aware and thoughtful.

They cannot make a good living in the big city anymore.

For they too cannot get the paid work that will enable them to pay the high prices for housing. Many also don’t trust the faceless organization as an employer anymore either. They don’t trust them to keep their word as an employer or keep the quality of what they do.

They see no future for themselves as employees of the big or as citizens of the big.

These people want to make a difference. They want to raise their kids in a real world. They don’t care about the flash and the glitz. They want to do real things and so be real and live in a real place.

They want to find a REAL HOME.

PEI is a great place to do this from.

There is a huge spread in housing costs in favour of a move here to support you. A 700 square foot condo is priced at about $350,000. You can buy a mansion for that here or say 50 acres and a home for half of that in Eastern PEI. You can find the home at a price that will not be a millstone. A low housing cost is a prerequisite for a life of meaning.

Then we offer community. Not a thousand friends on Facebook – but a real human community. There are networks of Foodies, Film makers, Artists, Musicians, Programmers, Marketers, Teachers, Writers – You will find support right away.

We offer a REAL BRAND – for with all our faults – this is still a REAL community and we are SMALL and will never be that corporate.

And so what do these people do for us? 10,000 families that have these values moving here in the next 10 years would change everything for the better. We would restore the vitality of our society. We woud build the economy that can sustain us in difficult times.

We would have a future. So I ask – Get Behind this – I know of no other way.

We on PEI have to have thousands of new young immigrants living here in the next 10 years. So what will pull them here?

There are few jobs. 65% of GDP is government and even that is shrinking. They will only come here if there is a vibrant StartUp economy that is based on Entrepreneurs.

So what do those terms StartUp and Entrepreneur mean for PEI?

When I heard the word “entrepreneur” or “startup”, I used to think of Hi Tech Pioneers. But this never made sense for PEI. For if you want to do that, it is best if you are connected to the Tech Village in the Valley.  We are not close enough to where the real action is in Tech for a Facebook to emerge here.

I also used to think that every Entrepreneur worth her salt would want to grow the business to be very large. Then I thought of who has done this in Atlantic Canada. Sobeys, McCains and Irving. Not exactly a huge field and so not a useful ambition. We are not close enough to the financial centre. And if you make something we are too far away from the markets.

But all of our development is based on these assumptions. So what then will work?

An immigration/development strategy based on supporting the small artisan networking their way to dominance locally and then globally.

Sounds mad? Well here are the underpinning trends that will make this work – for it is working now on a small scale.

• A New Market Based on Trust that can only be satisfied by the small in a network. More and more people do not trust the products and services of the Big. What is in my food? What is in my shampoo? What is in my drug? Why does my washing machine fail after 2 years? Why can I never get service? What is on my toy … The response to this is a movement towards what can be trusted. Meat raised in small herds where animals live the life they were designed to live by people we know and meet in the street. Soap made by people we know who use real ingredients in small batches. Tech service people who we know. Toys made in a person’s home. Clothes made by someone you know.

• The Network Provides Scale and Ease of Access These artisans have always existed and have eked out a marginal living. But the new web based network is changing the game. Now we can buy direct and it is easy. Many pasture meat producers in a network = a lot of meat. Many small soap makers in a network = a lot of soap. Small and artisan no longer condemns you to the sidelines.

• This model has access to the Network Effect and so offers better margins and financing than the traditional. As we have seen for Raymond Loo, Patrick Ledwell and Tim Chaisson, now the community of your customers will finance you. CSA is becoming how the new artisanal farmer gets her working capital. Community Equity, as with Justus Coffee, is how larger sums can be raised from your customers! Customers who now work for you. Customers who market for you and who sell for you.  The network effect also works at the scale of the node. Jen and Derek plant a wide range of plants and sell a basket, so if the tomatoes fail, as they did last year, they are OK. On a pasture farm, the cows help the pigs who help the chickens and vice versa.

This market for Trust is small in total but huge for PEI. It can only be accessed by the small. The large corporates will be shut out of it. It is growing as people wake up and see the risks that they take in buying mass market goods and services. These customers want their suppliers to succeed and will support them in all sorts of ways. It’s a common movement.

Talented people are also waking up to the fact that they cannot trust their future to a job in the old system and in the big cities. We are seeing a trickle now of talented people leaving the old life and coming to Atlantic Canada where they can make a living and where the key cost of a home is in reach.

Just as many Atlantic Canadians go west in search of a well paying job, life is very precarious in the big cities now. A one bedroom condo is about $350,000 in Toronto and more in Vancouver. The young are underemployed and locked out. Or if a couple both have jobs and a home, the loss of one job renders them homeless. The Toronto couple will not come here to get a well paying job, they want to come here and make a decent living. They want to make things themselves and not work for wages.

They want to make things and make a living doing something that is truly them. This is what the new networked artisanal economy offers both sides. This is why customers invest in their suppliers. All want meaning and to be part of getting independence from the corporate grip.

These are people who will set up deep roots here on PEI and like the Back to the Landers make a contribution. They are not here to get a passport but to have  a life and to make a living.

So how to support this?

Stop the vain focus on the big - they will never come and they will never grow here. They never have so why think they will now. But a focus on big misses the real opportunity to network the small into a big network.

Stop the vain focus on Jobs. A smart new company will not employ a lot of people full time. It may never offer a “Job” but it will offer work.  Jobs are not the thing – paid work is the thing. Only a fool will fix their overhead. Most organizations will be family based. If they want marketing, they will reach into the network and find a trusted supplier. If they want book keeping, they will do the same.

Stop the focus on Hi Tech. The real new artisans use a lot of high tech, but they use it to make things not as an end in themselves. The film makers at the Film Factory use it to make big films. The Great Canadian Soap Company use it to sell their products.

Instead help support the networks - support groups that get together – help them make it easy for people to buy local food and anything. Make it easy for people from away to buy artisanal good and services from us.

Instead help families who want to do this come here. Reach out to them.

In the Week of May 7, my pals from Start Up Canada will be here to help us get behind this and to help connect us to the Canadian and the Global Network. At the Queen St Commons on May 7 we will have a get together to talk about how all the artisanal sectors can help each other.

Join Us Please May 8 6pm Queen St Commons 224 Queen – $10 to cover food and drinks costs.

Our ambition to help PEI become as self sufficient and resilient as it was in 1900. Where 80% of what we need is supplied locally.

Have you dreamed of starting your own small business, but haven’t been able to take that first step? What would it take to get you started? You know you don’t need much – an idea, a plan, some cash, some support. Here’s your chance – tell us about your idea, and why you should be the one to win the first Start Up PEI Challenge, and you could win a package of capital, business and management skills to launch your entrepreneurial idea to the next level.

The Start Up Business Package includes:

• Cash prize of $500
  • Donated by Hannah Bell, winner of the ACE Regional Competition (www.acecanada.ca)
• Business and project planning consultancy
  • Service and mentoring provided by The Solution Agency
  • approx. value: $500
• Domain name registration and website design
  • Service and mentoring provided by Logikl
  • approx. value: $250
• Social media and marketing consultancy and launch
  • Service and mentoring provided by Tinker Media
  • approx. value: $250
• Valuable media exposure
• Ongoing mentorship and networking opportunities

Want more information on how to submit your idea?  Go to www.thesolutionagency.com/start-up-award for submission guidelines and eligibility.  Be creative, have fun, and be inspiring!

Follow @startuppei on Twitter for updates and tips!

Don’t wait – competition closes May 20 with winners announced May 31 2012 at a live fun event in Charlottetown!

The Queen Street Commons  is a social hub for many of the small and personal entrepreneurs that are driving the real new personal economy on PEI where most business has less than 5 employees and the majority less than 3. Our members are very diverse. They include Artists, Musicians, Developers and Programmers, Marketers, Financial Consultants, Therapists, Retailers, Foodies and more.

To celebrate the visit of the StartUp Canada team, the QSC has invited for dinner at the Queen Street Commons (QSC) 224 Queen Street, Charlottetown at 6:00pm Tuesday May 8th. Many who are well known in their own networks to come together and to enjoy each other’s company and discover how we might all help each other strengthen the network.

Our hope is that this night may be a beginning of a real network of ultra small business entrepreneurs on PEI. Something similar took place when blogging was new and Will Pate asked a few of us to lunch. The result was that silverorange moved downtown. Reinvented moved in with them. The QSC started. Rob Paterson worked with Jevon MacDonald for 4 years and a host of other good things. All begun with Sushi!

We hope that this will be an opportunity is for each of PEI’s sub networks to get connected. For the craft folks to meet the tech folks, the writers to meet the artists, the foodies meet the marketers, the consultants to meet the musicians etc. This is an image of what we all might look like if we do get together:

Right now we each live in our own little world.

The question before us is this. What if we could make this larger network real? We could help finance each other as we have done for Raymond Loo and Patrick Ledwell. We could sell each other services. We could offer each other advice and access to our own networks. The better the network, the more powerful the very small business.

Our friends from StartUp Canada can then help us link up nationally into an uber network in Canada and the UK and the US.

I am sure that the Feds and the CBC will offer you outplacement services. They will help you craft a resume. They will help you find a focus for your skills etc. All of the support you will be given will be in the context of a job. But as you know – there are few jobs out there. There will be fewer in the future.

I don’t think that this traditional outplacement will help much.  For it has the wrong context – there are few if any jobs to get.

But there is a a great new economy emerging that is all based on you making a living with real skills you not on your own but in a network. So a network of filmakers on PEI. (The Film Factory). Networks of Artisans. Networks of small farmers. Networks of Soap Makers. Networks of Marketers and so on.

The key to your future will be in finding what you love the most and what you do the best. AND to do this inside the support of a network. It will be the network that makes this work.

You cannot learn this on a course or from a book. You have to learn it by living it. Sitting at home with your computer or loom is a hard and lonely way to start.

Joining a Co Working Site is your best Outplacement. Here you live the new life for real. You can do this now while still employed too. Here is more

If you life on PEI then the Queen Street Commons is your Co Working Site. At the QSC on PEI  you will be surrounded by people that live the life of a freelancer. They can teach you better than any book or course. The QSC itself is a network of support. Members are diverse and there is hardly a sector of work and life that a member does not know a lot about. So you can use their network to explore as well.

Learning how to be this new you will prepare you for the world that is rapidly emerging.

Here is a link to a bit more on the trend. And in the meantime – please contact us.

According to a new study from MBO Partners, a company offering services to independent consultants, by 2013, the number of independent workers in America is expected to grow from 16 million to more than 20 million. By 2020, that figure could climb to include more than half of U.S. workers, leading to a new independent majority comprised of freelancers, consultants and other independent workers.

Blame the economic turmoil or a change in values, but more people are demanding greater self-reliance, control and satisfaction in their professional lives. For example, 75 percent of independents surveyed by MBO Partners stated that doing something they love was more important than making money while 74 percent stated that they wanted a job where they know they were making a difference.

MBO CEO Gene Zaino highlighted results from the national study last week at theGigaOM Net:Work conference in San Francisco. In an accompanying article, he writes optimistically about the promise of a pioneering, independent workforce but warns that there are obstacles standing in the way, including a surge in government regulations and corporate complexity in engaging independent talent.

“If we do not address the obstacles and complexity around the free and productive use of independent talent, companies — as well as these talented experts — may choose the troubling path of leaving this great country and going elsewhere,” warns Zaino.

Other key findings from the study:

• The independent workforce spans gender and generations and is currently 16 million strong in the United States
• Nearly 60 percent of independent workers stated that they are highly satisfied with their work situation versus half of employees who are unhappy
• More than half of independent workers (55 percent) say it was their proactive choice to become an independent worker

You can email me robert.paterson@gmail.com or go to our event facebook page

About a year ago we made a big decision. We were going to take charge of our health. We were blessed with some excellent advice from one of the world’s top scientists on aging, Dr Michael Rose, and we went off and did a lot of homework on the new science of health and aging.

By taking some straightforward steps in diet and how we lived, we have pulled ourselves back from the brink. Not only have we lost a lot of weight, but more importantly our health has improved. I, Rob, went for being pre diabetic to having the metabolism of a 25 year old. Robin’s chronic and painful arthritis has gone.

You can prevent chronic illness and you can get well if you have it.

In this 45 minute session we will:

• Show you the new science of how to age well
• Offer you our hard won pragmatic advice for how to change what you eat and do and how to cope with the deep desires to go back to our old ways
• Offer you a guide to the best people and information that we have found in a year of searching for good material on the web – so that you can help yourself understand more