“The Cutting Edge event normally scheduled for the 4th Wednesday of the month will NOT take place on January 28. Cutting Edge will resume in February.”

Wednesday February 4, 2009 - 5:30-7:30 pm
at Gowlings Lafleur Henderson LLP
26th Floor, 160 Elgin Street

What Not to Write -

The Retooling Ottawa “Marketing Make-Over”

Gowlings is very pleased to host “Retooling Ottawa”, The Ottawa Network event stream focused on promoting the formation of cross-disciplinary management teams and the redirection of business and technical skill sets to emerging technology areas.

Thomas Prowse, a Partner in the Gowlings Kanata Technology Law Office, will moderate the first ever Retooling Ottawa “Marketing Make-Over”. As announced at the last Retooling Ottawa session, a business will be selected from the entrants for a real-time marketing make-over by the members of the re-united “panel” of distinguished speakers listed below. You will receive practical insights into marketing “do’s and don’ts” in connection with the opportunities and challenges that many local high tech companies are facing when introducing new products or services to the market.

Come hear our distinguished speakers:

Corien Kershey, HBS Marketing
Corien Kershey is a seasoned strategic thinker with a proven track record in business planning and marketing. Her ability to develop and execute strategies that result in marketplace success has kept her in demand in the technology sector. Corien has more than 20 years of technology marketing and executive management experience as VP of Marketing and Product Management for companies such as Simware, NetManage, Buystream and Trigence. She also served as CEO for two software start-ups, ServiceSwitch and Fusetalk. Since joining HBS, Corien has developed successful marketing strategies and programs for accounts such as Mitel, Borderware, Omnivex and Pyrophotonics, covering a range of technologies including enterprise software, hardware, security and defence, photonics, semi-conductors, wireless and social networks.

Corien is also active in the academic world. Holding a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Corien is a contributing author of Marketing: An Introduction, a Pearson Education textbook targeted at University and College students. As well, Corien is Director of the Management Certificate Program in Marketing at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business where she sets curriculum, designs and teaches courses and supervises other instructors. As part of her association with Sprott, Corien has been judge for the School’s Nicol Business Plan Competition, which awards start-up funding to the top winners.

Ted Hutchins, Hutchins Crang Marketing Group
Ted is a Founding/Managing Partner & Creative Director at Hutchins Crang Marketing Group, a full service marketing communications agency serving business, technology and Industry. Throughout his career, Ted has designed communications solutions for subject matter including: semiconductor and electronics manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, lasers technology, precision optics, fiber optics, telecom, optical scanning, economic development, and public policy.

Previously, Ted spent 16 years in marketing communications positions at Ottawa-based laser company Lumonics, where he rode the mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and two rebrandings to become an expert in developing, implementing, and supporting a broad range of integrated marketing communications campaigns, programs, and deliverables, many on a worldwide basis. His experience at Lumonics provided Ted the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from leading industry experts in strategic marketing planning, program implementation, and brand building - a network that he is still active with today. Prior to Lumonics, Ted was a freelance illustrator and designer. Ted holds a B.A. in Psychology from Carleton University.

Tom Johnson, CoFounders Inc
Tom co-founded three technology start-ups: Enfin (sold to Newbridge), Caravelle (sold to Fluke technologies) and Guardian Mobility (successful personal exit in Spring ‘08). He also started Co-Founders Inc. to incubate start-ups and has consulted to numerous firms including Newbridge, Alcatel, Nortel (Entrust), U.S. Post Office, Canadian Government and several early/middle stage companies (Webplan, Mobile Knowledge, Digital Fairway, etc.). Tom has drafted several business plans that resulted in tens of millions of venture capital being raised. He has also worked with one venture capital firms and one “vulture capitalist” firm and served on a number of boards. Tom is a serial entrepreneur with a strong background in marketing and sales.

Wednesday February 4, 2009 - 5:30-7:30 pm
at Gowlings Lafleur Henderson LLP
26th Floor, 160 Elgin Street

Retooling Ottawa is a free event with complimentary refreshments
and is kindly made available by:

Wednesday January 14th 6:00-8:00pm
at the Code Factory, 246 Queen Street , between Bank and Kent

3 x 10 Panel on Bootstrapping for Success

TheCodeFactory will be hosting a new series of events on boot strapping for success from January to May. The first in the series is lessons learned and words of wisdom with respect to how to utilize the NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program and SR&ED program. The three panelists have the entrepreneurial, IRAP and SRED perspectives. Our presenters are highlighted below:

Tim Upton:  President, CEO & Founder Titus Labs Inc.

Tim has an extensive background as a technology consultant in the security and large infrastructure spaces and as an entrepreneur with over 17 years of IT experience. Tim is the founder of Titus Labs and provides the overall vision for Titus Labs products and services around information protection best practices.

Tim’s consulting background includes specialized skills in messaging, security, and Internet technologies and has lead architecture and business discussions with US Veteran Affairs (250,000 users) and US Air Force (525,000 users) to solve information protection requirements. Tim has spoken at numerous events around information protection best practices including speaking at the Microsoft MBX sales kickoff and speaking at the Microsoft TSCP panel where the largest A&D contractors worldwide were in attendance.

Bob Reichert, PhD: Industrial Research Assistance Program

Dr. Reichert obtained his B.Sc. in Honours Chemistry and Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Saskatchewan.  From 1973 to 1987, he was a scientist and adjunct professor (U. of Saskatchewan) while employed at NRC’s Plant Biotechnology Institute (PBI) in Saskatoon. His work contributed to the establishment of two new Canadian companies.  Since 1987, Dr. Reichert has been employed by NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) in Calgary and now in Ottawa.  He has served on numerous funding selection committees including NSERC’s Idea to Innovation (I to I) program as vice chair for 5 years, as well as the Biotechnology Prioritization Committee of the Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) program. Currently he is a reviewer in NSERC’s Industrial R & D Fellowships (IRDF) program.   He has done site reviews on more than 400 life science firms across Canada.

The Search for a New President

The Ottawa Network is searching for a new president. We require a hi-tech pillar who is motivated, strategic and tactical. TON is now a growing force with regular attendance of 50-100 at its events and more than 1200 members signed up for both its mailer and LinkedIn groups. The new president will have the latitude to create and execute fresh strategies to keep the momentum building. This volunteer position requires 1-4 hours of effort per week.

TON is a grassroots, community-based, “for the people - by the people” organization. Its mission is to stimulate new opportunities in Ottawa’s hi-tech community by helping individuals to meet, interact, learn and share ideas and by connecting inventors (new entrepreneurs and wannabes) with mentors (veteran entrepreneurs and practitioners).

Please send your suggestions for a new president to admin@theottawanetwork.com