e2 Lite Professional Development Event

April 6th, 2009, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm
at TheCodeFactory
246 Queen Street

The Ottawa Network in collaboration with OCRI would like to present the “e2 Lite” Program – a half-day introductory version of Entrepreneur’s Edge (e2) – will run April 6th, 2009, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm at TheCodeFactory – 246 Queen Street, Ottawa.

This is a no charge event, designed to help technology innovators create new opportunities, new businesses, and attract investors.

The new “e2 Lite” Program is a condensed, introductory version of the main e2 Program.  It is an intense, high quality introduction to entrepreneurship in an evening, at no cost to participants – delivered by a team of four veterans of technology business formation and growth.

The e2 Lite program will cover:
-    Business guidance on how to define marketable products
-    Strategic guidance on how to build a business
-    Highlights of how to take a technology product to market and build revenue
-    Financial planning – for a business plan, and to raise investor interest

The e2 Lite Agenda and Module leaders are:

For more information on the full e2 Program go to www.ocri.ca/e2lite or request the e2 White Paper by email to theedge@ocri.ca

To register for e2 Lite, click here:  http://e2liteapril62009.eventbrite.com/

New media rising, traditional media falling:

How do you get your story told?

Wednesday April 1, 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:

Summary: Media outlets are downsizing (and disappearing in some cases) and the face of journalism is changing a breakneck speed.  How do you get your story told in today’s ever-changing media environment?  Join Kathryn Schwab of PRceptive Communications, Shelley Mullins of Mullins Corporate Communications and Paul Brent of CTV Ottawa for an informative discussion about how businesses can effectively tell their stories through a balanced traditional and social media approach, how to cut through the story clutter, why the combination of traditional and social media is unavoidable, why a “news release” is your lowest predictor of story coverage, and why you need to “package” your story journalists.

Kathryn Schwab, Communications Consultant
PRceptive Communications Inc.
Kathryn Schwab began her career in Film and Broadcasting in 1987 and worked for CTV Ottawa, CBC Television and CFRA Radio in Ottawa.  In 1996, she joined the world of High Tech and has focused on Marketing and Media Relations ever since.  In 2003, she formed PRceptive Communications Inc., a private company, which provides services in Traditional Media Relations and Social Media Management for clients primarily in high tech. Kathryn holds a diploma in Broadcasting and Film Production from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and an Honours Degree in Psychology from Carleton University.  She is also a board member of Shad Valley International.

Shelley Mullins, Communications Consultant
Mullins Corporate Communications
Shelley Mullins has more than 18 years experience in public relations in the private and public sectors as both a consultant and an in-house communications practitioner. In 1998, Shelley created Mullins Corporate Communications, a consultancy providing senior level public relations and corporate communications counsel to emerging and established clients in a wide-range of sectors, including finance, high technology, health care and not-for-profit. She provides a conduit between companies and their target media audiences. This includes not only the traditional media outlets such as print, television, magazines, and radio, but increasingly includes social media vehicles such as blogs, Facebook and twitter. Shelley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Carleton University and also holds an honours diploma in Public Relations from Algonquin College.

Paul Brent, Technology Reporter
CTV Ottawa
Paul Brent has more than 35 years in radio/TV/print journalism, as reporter, assignment editor, producer, and anchor. Currently the Technology Reporter with CTV Ottawa, Paul has produced significant coverage for many high tech companies in and around Ottawa. He is used to handling up to 400 emails, plus over 100 phone calls each day.  He is the gate keeper that needs to be convinced to do a story and he says a lot of PR people are doing a poor job of dealing with the media.

Social Innovation and Social Enterprise Tradeshow

What’s all the BUZZ about SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?

Date:  Wednesday April 1st, 2009
Time:  5:00 – 7:30 PM
Place: Algonquin College, Woodroffe Campus
Room: T102 A, B, C for the Tradeshow
Room:  T119 for the Presentations

Hosted by:

Social enterprises are businesses with multiple bottom lines – people, profit, and planet - and the model is quickly emerging as an innovative way for non-profit organizations to achieve their mission.   Locally, the number of social enterprises is growing and includes ventures that focus on recycling, manufacturing, hospitality, and various kinds of services.  Just like for-profit businesses - social enterprises rely on good ideas, sound business practices, talent and hard work.   Come and learn more about social enterprise in Ottawa by attending this tradeshow and complimentary presentations.

This event will be of value to those interested in social enterprise as an idea or as a career.

The event is free and will feature:

•    5:00 – 7:30: A Social Enterprise Marketplace showcasing social enterprises
•    6:00 – 7:00: Three mini-presentations each lasting 15 minutes:
•    6:00: Social Enterprise 101 – A Primer
•    6:20: Career Paths in Social Enterprise
•    6:40 Volunteer Opportunities in Social Enterprise
•    5:00 – 7:30: Networking with social entrepreneurs, students, academics, NGO’s, and the business community

Mark your calendars for this event – Wednesday April 1st, 5-7:30PM
Refreshments and snacks will be provided.

Venus and Mars in Hi-Tech

Varying points of view on the business of

business

Overview:
The Ottawa Network and FUN for Tech Women are proud to present an exciting roundtable discussion featuring a group of seasoned experts who will share their perspectives on the challenging issues faced by today’s business community.  The panel will highlight opinions from a divers group and explore how gender and experiences impact decision making and business viewpoints.  We’ll see just how far apart Venus and Mars are in today’s business community and how gender impacts a person’s evolving business philosophies.

Our esteemed panelists include:

Ann-Mainville-Neeson, Director of Regulatory Affairs, TELUS Communications Company (moderator)
Jason Flick, President and Founder, Flick Software
Matthew Williams, Co-Founder IPeak Networks
Bonnie Wright, Virtual CFO
Laura Dierker, Territory Manager, FlexLink
Doug Somers, Co-Founder, Cassidy Bay Group
Alicia Liu, Co-Founder, Benbria

When:
5:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Networking (light refreshments will be provided)
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Panel Discussion
7:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Closing Remarks and Networking

Where:
Gowlings Ottawa Law Offices at 160 Elgin Street, Ottawa

Registration:
There is no charge for attending this event. Bring your friends and your ideas and be prepared for an evening of exciting debates.

Startup, Dropin - Social Media and Web Aggregation Businesses
Offices of LaBarge Weinstein

The Ottawa Network

3 x 10 panel on Bootstrapping

Overview:

Learn some great boot strapping lessons from our 3 x 10 panel of start-up entrepreneurs that are in the process of boot strapping, just been there and have attained a level of success on their own merit. This week we have an awesome 3 x 10 panel. A great (and possibly only) option for being a successful software start-up in the current economic climate is to bootstrap for success. Bootstrapping means to be successful in your own right and to do it with little or no external funding (possibly a tin cup or friends and family round).

Featuring:
Tobias Lutke, CEO, Shopify
Tobi is CEO and co-founder of Shopify, the marquee shopping cart system of the e-commerce industry. As a programmer Tobi has served on the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created many popular open source libraries. As an internationally invited speaker, Tobi spoke on diverse topics such as startups, crowd-sourcing, and large server cluster performance optimization.

Misha Nossik, President, SIMtone Canada
Misha is a serial entrepreneur with over 10 years of startup expertise and 15 years of product development experience in the fields of network processing, data communications and real-time software. In addition to being President at SIMtone, Misha is the founder and CEO at Thintropy Inc., and Chairman/President at Network Processing Forum.

Chris Ovens / Darren Nelson, SpotOn Systems
SpotOn Systems specializes in making your information for you by extending the capabilities of your existing Business Intelligence software - and customizing solutions to meet your unique needs. Whether it’s Business Intelligence outsourcing, Custom Security, Cognos SDK development, building add-on software applications or adding completely new plug-and-play extensions, utilities and solutions - SpotOn enables you to access the data you need and extract it in a format that works.