Book Review

Blue Ocean Strategy is a must read for any entrepreneur. It is thought provoking, and even more importantly, mind altering. I have read it several times over the past year and see its effects on my business thinking everyday. The only shortcoming from my perspective is that it is designed to appeal to exactly the people who are unable to make the creative leaps necessary to create Blue Oceans. The book is designed to be accessed by analysis driven thinkers in big corporations. The problem with trying to impress these kind of thinkers is that the reason they became decision makers in big corporations is that they demonstrated early on; their proclivity toward middle-of-the-road thinking. Big corporations don't promote boat shakers into decision making positions because they are risky. Therefore, while these thinkers may find the concepts contained in the book interesting, they will continue to thrash it out in the Red Ocean because they are predisposed to perpetuating the status quo.

I realize that this is a generalization about big corporations and analysis-driven decision makers, but on the whole it is an accurate one.

To read an excerpt of Blue Ocean Strategy visit: http://tiny.cc/cIvDp

The more things change....

This morning I looked at the document that I created almost four years ago describing the problem that civiside.com was designed to solve; and realized that I haven't veered from the problem at all and my solution isn't all that different. Sure I haven't accomplished my goal yet, but on the other hand, it is clear to me that the problem still needs to be solved and no one but me has stepped up to solve it. If anyone is going to do it, it looks like it will have to be lonesome old me.

With that said, I have a big meeting with the decision makers at DND early in Jan. I think that they understand the problem that I have been working on for the past two years, I just hope that they have decided that it is time to plug that leak. Wish me luck.

News

Big week for civiside.com. After the article on Wed. a fire lit under me and I reached out to make a connection with a Canadian Forces decision maker. My new hero, Scott Taylor of Esprit de Corp Magazine, connected me with one email to the Chief of Reserves. If there was one person that I would want a connection to it was him, so it was a tremendously big deal. General Tabbenor agreed to meet with me in early Jan. so that I could present what it is I am doing. I am ready to knock his socks off!

Other news, another connection introduced me to the President of CADSI, the defence industry association. I will be meeting him over the next couple of weeks also. This could open the door to thousands of defence industry job postings.

I may have one more big piece of news to announce next week. Still to be determined, but I have a good feeling that it will come through. Until then, have a great weekend!

Fiscal Adjustment means different things to the troops that lose their jobs.

Like a gift from above, this article came out today in the Star group of newspapers:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Military+cash+crunch+hits+training+maintenance/2345179/story.html

This proves the need for civiside in Canada. I can help these Reservists find work with employers who want to hire military. Some doors in the defence industry have just opened up to me and I have opportunity to immediately help. I am mobilizing all my resources and contacts presently to meet the need. Next step, endorsement from the Canadian Forces.

Pitching OCRI and Tenacity

Yesterday I pitched to the Commercialization Panel of the Ontario Center for Research and Innovation . It went ok, but not as well as most of my recent pitches. It's funny how that goes. I adjusted my presentation slightly to pare down a few slides and make it shorter, but somewhere in that paring some critical information must have been lost because there seemed to be alot more confusion on what it was I was pitching. I figured the people in uniform on the first slide and the bold lettered "Workopolis for Junior Officers" would have been sufficient explanation, but it seems not. There was also alot of push from the panelists to drop the civiside.com and get the military.ca domain so that I could be a "franchisee" of the popular U.S. site military.com. I know this is well intentioned advice...but really? You think it's just that easy? In addition, the name of the domain is almost irrelevant compared to the quality of the employers on the site, and that is why I expressed my need for marketing and sales help from the beginning. Frankly, I don't know what kind of help I may get from these people. I'll report back when I hear, in the meantime I'll just keep pushing forward in any way I can.

On a related note, I came across this post on qualities essential in an entrepreneur and see tenacity as being my greatest strength. I should have given this up a year ago at least. Any sane person would have, but my passion for seeing this through miraculously keeps me sustained despite almost no encouragement from outside sources. On a positive note, despite all the ups and downs I have learned a diverse set of skills that I simply could not have learned in any other way. Overall a plus experience.

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/12/15/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-111-tenacity/?awesm=grp.vc_AXg&utm_medium=grp.vc-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=site-basic#comment-25859689

Lead to Win: Phase 3

I received the results from my Lead to Win presentation. Successful and moving into the supported commercialization phase. The program was an awesome gift from the City of Ottawa, a gift that keeps on giving. With the continued support of LTW and OCRI I see civiside.com taking off now with great focus and effect to benefit both employers and military members.

I am looking for a sales and marketing partner to build the sales team. the person that I am seeking will have experience in sales team management and development, as well, ideally a military background. I have spoken to one candidate but if anyone knows additional candidates feel free to point them in my direction. I can be reached at ken.seville@civiside.com. If they come on board with a significant time commitment they will be rewarded with equity options and a share of all revenue generated.

Editorial Rebuttal

I read this editorial this morning in the Mount Allison University student newspaper and felt compelled to write a rebuttal: http://www.argosy.ca/view.php?aid=41958

my rebuttal is as such:

"I came across the editorial on Project Hero and felt that I should address it. I first want to say that I know Kevin Reed personally and know his intentions for Project Hero to be completely honourable, which I think that the writer recognizes also when he states that the project is “commendable for providing a free education to children who have lost a parent”. While I think that the writer is addressing a valid issue of ‘why not scholarships for other children of parents that have died in service to country or community?’, I think that he has drawn an unfortunate conclusion that Project Hero represents a “dangerous trend in global affairs” and “more than being a worrying sign of the times, “Project Hero” is exemplary of precisely the kind of thinking that is informing these military conflicts”. These conclusions I must dispute. Project Hero is not by design or accident representative of what is wrong with this world, to paraphrase the author. Project Hero is one Canadian’s personal mission to ensure that the children of soldiers, sailors and airmen/women killed in combat are not disadvantaged to a greater extent than other Canadians by their parent’s sacrifice in the service of Canada. Perhaps the title “Hero” is too broad a blanket to cover every military person killed in combat, however, to not accord the title to the ones who unambiguously deserve it is a much greater disservice than to give cover to the few who don’t. At the end of the day let’s remember that Project Hero is an ambitious goal conceived by a university chancellor and furthered by a businessperson to ensure that the children of service personnel killed in combat are not disadvantaged by not only losing a parent but also financial hardship. Allan Rock, former cabinet minister, former ambassador to the U.N., and current president of the University of Ottawa, illustrates the need for a Project Hero, he has stated publicly that if his father, a WWII vet, a peacekeeper in the Middle East, and member of the Canadian Forces for 26 years had been killed in service, he would not have been able to afford to go to university. Would Canada not have been disadvantaged by the loss of Rock’s talents on the national and international stage? I hope that the writer can now see that Project Hero is neither jingoism nor an unfair advantage for the children of service personnel killed in combat; but the rectification of a long-time wrong."

I hope that they publish my rebuttal because I hate the idea that such a worthy initiative can somehow be turned into a symbol for what is wrong in the world.

Lead to Win

Lead to Win was nothing like I thought it would be, and at the same time better than I thought it would be. It was not advice at all, but a crash course in segmenting markets, identifying target customers, crafting customer value propositions, and a whole lot of other business crap that you don't care to read about. I'll give you the upshot, civiside is refocused and clear on the road ahead. We connect young Reservists graduating from post-secondary with companies that offer Management Training Programs. Right now that is where we can offer the most clear cut value proposition to employers and Reservists.

On a related note, I received word today that civiside is moving into phase 3 of Lead to Win (40% of the last phase's participants won't). This will mean even heavier instruction, constructive criticism, and operational focus, but that is exactly what I need to get to the next level, so I am ready and willing.

Exciting times!

Advice

I just read my last post and realized that I hadn't announced the other big news that I was hinting at...well here it is, I have relocated to Ottawa. Ostensibly it was to take a job, which is true and has been great, but in my heart I have believed for at least a year that I needed to come to Ottawa to make the connections I needed to move the civiside ball further down the field. So how has it been? In short, great! I have made some excellent connections in the startup community and even been accepted into an intensive business development program called Lead to Win (which I should be currently resting for since it starts tomorrow, but I am not resting for since my mind is heavy).

The reason my mind is so heavy is that I met with, and received advice from, an entrepreneur tonight who sold his company for nearly a billion dollars. He is now an Angel Investor so I was hoping to gain some ideas on how to create a compelling investment proposal so that I can raise some money to bring on additional expertise. However, what really happened was that I received advice on how to sell civiside to employers, how the business model should operate, and even how civiside the website should operate. What I realized is that alot of the advice I was receiving from him was directly contradicting earlier advice I had received from other successful entrepreneurs. Now I could evaluate the advice on a hierarchy and establish the billion dollar entrepreneur's advice as more valuable and reset my thinking...but somehow I don't think that it works that way. I have come across this contradictory advice conundrum before and tried to defer to the most recent advice and found it to be less than successful. I think that the problem with people giving advice is that it usually comes from personal experience and success...and half of success is luck. What people attribute their experience, and therefore advice, could come from skill, but probably comes from at least 50% luck...a non-reproducible variable.

This is not to say that the billion dollar entrepreneur didn't say some things with a great deal of value, his ideas on increasing the credibility of our candidates and sales techniques to employers have definitely impacted my thinking, but I would say in more of an incremental manner. More like a strategy for rushing than a well defined and executed play. Nevertheless, I am grateful for what I have learned.

So why is my mind heavy? I guess it's heavy because I am realizing that I can't rely on advice to move the ball down field. It's going to take some strategy, some skill and a lot of brute force. I have to increase my luck component by doing more and reducing my reliance on the advice of others. This is again contradictory to what I have learned in the military, "learn from the experience of others", or maybe it's not? Maybe learning from the experience of others is not following what they say led to their success, maybe it's observing what they did with as much objectivity as possible to ascertain potential patterns. Of course, to identify patterns you usually have to observe more than one situation, and often more than one person, so maybe I am on the right track after all. Maybe I just need to refocus my observation not to what is said but to what was done...drawing more objective conclusions that can be applied to unique but similar circumstances.

So what I'm saying is that I am not going to follow advice as I have been apt to do since launching civiside, but I am not going to ignore it either. I am going to look more deeply into what the person attributes their advice and try to understand where the advice comes from more objectively. Hopefully I will be able to gain additional strategies so that I can come up with ingenious new plays that will move the ball down field. So once again, "why the heavy head?", I have to wake up in 4 hours and churn my way through three-days of well intentioned advice until I find the underlying principles that will guide my strategy going forward. Good luck to me.

Big Announcement - Deal with Esprit de Corp Magazine

I suppose that it's about time that I posted something new to the blog. In fact, I have something big to announce., It's something I didn't want to blog about until I was sure it would go through but it is now confirmed. Civiside.com has made a deal with Esprit de Corp Magazine, Canada's most popular independent military magazine, to contribute content for a "Civi-Side Careers" section in the magazine each month. The first issue hits the newstand 15 Sept. I am really excited to have seen this deal go through because it increases our visibility among serving and retired members and increases the utility of Esprit de Corp for the many members now contemplating retirement and second careers in the civilian workforce.

In the next few weeks I may have a couple of other big announcements, so check back periodically.

Project Hero

Here's an initiative by Hon. LCol. Kevin Reed to get all Canadian Universities to offer free tuition to the children of our fallen brothers and sisters: http://www.canada.com/Life/Ottawa+offer+free+tuition+kids+fallen+soldiers/1744761/story.html

Kevin is the guy who stepped up and gave me the seed capital to get the civiside.com service up and running when it was only a half formed idea. He is a really great guy who is truly a friend to the troops and their families.

I am going away to Gagetown for a couple of weeks in July but will be back reinvigorated to continue the development of civiside. I must admit, the last six months have been tremendously tough as I have had to slog through setback after setback from losing my business partner to financial difficulties in moving civiside forward but I think that this upcoming year will be much better than the last. I am in the process of making some connections and deals that I think will publicize civiside much more clearly through the right channels and create more legitimacy for my claims that hiring a Reservist is a great business decision. This is our year.

Here's an interesting opportunity for those with the driver wheel instructor qualifications, Calian has been awarded the contract for Driver Wheel and is now hiring ex-military and current reservists as instructors. They pay $21 hour and offer long and short-term contracts.

Check out http://civiside.com/browse/company/58?url_name=defence for more info.

Repositioning Civiside

If you have been paying attention you will notice that civiside looks a little different today than it did yesterday (or even earlier this afternoon). We are repositioning our candidate pool in the minds of employers as the eminent online location where they will find professionally trained young leaders.

We decided to take this approach because many employers, while somewhat interested, were not committed to posting jobs on civiside. Clearly there was not enough incentive for them to even go through the minimal effort of sending us their job postings. In simple terms, they just weren't hungry enough for what we were offering.

In order to capture their hunger we need to offer the one quantifiable value proposition that a young reservist graduating from post-secondary uniquely offers, professional leadership and management training. There is no other employment organization that invests as heavily in young people before they graduate from post-secondary than the military. A UK study suggests that a Lieutenant's leadership and management training would cost an employer around $9000 CDN, while the leadership and instructional techniques training in PLQ would cost the employer over $3000. These are industry applicable qualifications that are most often ignored by employers while making employment decisions. Employers you find on civiside won't ignore your training and in fact are looking for exactly what you have to offer.

If you don't have PLQ or higher you will still find opportunities with many of the companies branding on civiside. However, I encourage you, if you are able, to take PLQ before you graduate. In this economic climate any professional skills upgrading you can get are of benefit. No matter what, you will gain industry skills that will give you advantages in the workplace, and may even be the very reason that you get your dream job right out of school.

As always, your feedback is welcome.

Saskatchewan Bound?

I just came across a program that Saskatchewan is offering to new grads and thought that it had to be shared. If you are a new post-secondary grad, since 2006, you are being recruited by the province of Saskatchewan. They are offering a tax credit that when fully phased in (2010 and beyond) will reward grads from anywhere in Canada to the tune of a $20 000 paid out over a seven year period, just for working in Saskatchewan. For reservists this a double benefit because the Sask. government will even give you the credits for the tuition you had reimbursed by the military.

I'm not saying that you should take Sask. up on it's offer, but if I were an eligible grad I would certainly give it some thought.

If you are interested in the program, you will find more info here: http://www.aeel.gov.sk.ca/Default.aspx?DN=1267,1036,104,81,1,Documents#q7

Civiside.com now browsable!

I am ecstatic to announce that civiside.com is now browsable. You can see the jobs posted and the employers branding their company to Reservists. You also still have the option to create a civi-side resume, which I highly encourage you to do so you will be notified of posted opportunities that you are qualified for.

I am now hard at work getting employers to sign up and posting their jobs. Speaking of jobs, civi-side is expanding its sales staff. This is an opportunity to make great commissions, make connections with employers, and work for an employer that will give you a high degree of flexibility in regard to your military career. In addition, if you are a student and looking for an internship opportunity, civi-side is the place to be. We could really use a marketing intern with great knowledge of guerrilla marketing techniques. If interested, check out the site and get in touch.

New Addition Imminent

The new site addition is only days away. All the code development is completed and we are just waiting for the designer to put the front end on. With the new development comes a new business model. From here on in employers will be branding their company as well as their jobs. Reservists will have information such as what the company's military leave policy is, what kind of training and advancement opportunities they offer, what they offer in terms of work-life balance, and what kind of company culture they have. Of course the employer's jobs will be featured also.

This is only the beginning of what civiside.com will be for you. Our goal is to "Reduce the Friction between your Civilian and Military Lives". In order to do that we are going to be introducing a host of other services over the next six months that will make your life easier.

As always, if you have ideas on how we can make civiside better for you, let us know.

Independent Traction

An interesting little change of pace, I was just contacted out of the blue by an international company looking to hire military people for their Engineering positions in Canada. I think that this suggests that our little startup is starting to gain it's own independent traction.

Over the next few months I think that things are really going to start taking off...and not a moment too soon. This has been a tremendously challenging year in every respect, and nothing could make me happier than to see the service bloom into the tremendous resource for Reservists that I know it can.

Site development almost there.

It's funny how quickly time moves. It's been 11 days since my last post. In that time civiside has been moving toward a new site and business model. We are about 2-3 weeks from getting there, but I promise it will be worth the wait. We have listened to feedback from users and incorporated as much as we could within the limits of our resources. I think that you will be very happy with what we are developing.

I think back to just a little under two months ago and how we were on the edge of disaster. We had lost our developer, were getting some pretty negative feedback on our site design in a Globe and Mail article, and had no money to fix either problem. The money situation hasn't changed much, but the solution just required perseverance and ingenuity. I'm happy to say that we are getting closer to our goal of providing Reservists a service that gives Reservists an advantage in gaining employment with the best companies in Canada. In the meantime, if you have any ideas on how we can better serve your needs in finding employment let me know.

1% there!

I just looked at the Google Analytics for civiside and realized that we have hit the 1% mark of all Reservists now visiting the site monthly. This is good news because we are starting to gain traction with more employers using the service. Over the next month we should be unveiling a new component of civiside that will allow the user to browse Reserve-Friendly employers and see, and apply, for jobs they are offering.

I have also been working on a sponsorship deal with a major corporation that could see some really fun promotional events being run for Reservists. If they go well the events could be spread further out across the country and done on an annual basis.

I guess I can safely say that I am about 1% done now. Hopefully the next 99% goes alot quicker and without as many hiccups.

CAE is hiring.

I just read this news release that CAE was awarded a huge defence contract and will be hiring 330 people over the next few years: http://tinyurl.com/b3uamw

In case you are wondering what positions they will be hiring for, check out this visual that they provided on their website: http://tinyurl.com/b2kugt

Anyhow, I will get in touch with them tomorrow. See if we can help them fill their positions with qualified Reservists.

Thales Canada job

Received a request from Thales Canada to fill some technical jobs, two in Kingston, two in Petewawa. They are very interesting because they require the person to deploy to Kandahar Airfield for four months to teach some equipment and troubleshoot. A good opportunity for a Navy person who might not otherwise have the chance to get over. It's also well paid and tax free when deployed.

On an unrelated note, I had lunch yesterday with a recently retired Lt. Col. of a Reserve Infantry unit in Toronto. We chatted about the purpose of civiside and he gave suggestions as to some things I could do to improve the service and get the word out. I will definitely incorporate them into the mix.

Off to have a late breakfast with a rep. from Molson Canada.

Traction

Once again I have been slow in posting to the blog. However, it not for lack of progress. This week has been a busy one following up on leads from the HRPA tradeshow. Some fantastic employers are either posting on civiside, or will be shortly. The tradeshow was such an amazing learning experience, it helped focus who on, and how civiside would direct it's efforts. I now have a much clearer view of how to bring it all together.

I look back on the past year and am amazed by how much I have learned. I am even more excited for the next six months as the traction of civiside grows and the utility we can offer to CF members increases. The vision of creating a service that connects Reservists with Reserve-friendly employers has almost come to fruition. Look for some big announcement in the next few months.

HRPA Tradeshow

Well, it's been more than a week since I last wrote a post. I was busy promoting civiside.com at the HRPA tradeshow to HR professionals across the country. This was a superb opportunity to speak with many employers in a short period of time, and to find a real focus on what industries we should pursue first. Overall, a very successful event that I will do annually.

On an unrelated note, a fine officer that I know from HMCS Star, Lt(N) Fancy has been awarded the order of military merit:

http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/504681

The Spec made a mistake on his rank (he commissioned from the ranks as a CPO1) but still a great story regardless. Congratulations Lt. Fancy!

"Old School"

Today Lauren and I did the Gen Y in the workplace debate on CFRB 1010 in Toronto. During the debate the host asked what I thought of the Gen Y demand that if a worker can get their 8 hour day of work completed in 6 hours (or less for that matter), they should be allowed to knock off for the rest of the day. I responded that if the worker can get their work done early that they have just created 2 more hours of value that they can give to their boss. The host responded that this was a very "old school attitude". Upon reflection I suppose that it is an old school attitude, but it's one that I truly believe in. If an employer chooses me to work for them, I want to return the favour by making sure that I put in the best day of work that I can. I don't have the fundamental belief that I am owed a job by society. I believe that I must earn that job daily.

It seems that one of the very fundamental concepts at stake in this question of whether Gen Y should adapt to the workplace or vice versa is whether the individual is owed employment by society. It really seems to me that if you fundamentally believe that you are owed a job, the idea that you owe the employer something back is lost. For example, Lauren and I discussed after the show whether the young entry-level employee morally owes the employer a certain amount of work to cover the costs of training that employee to a productive standard. My view is that the employee should stay long enough to help the employer recoup the costs of training, and ideally even help generate some profit. Lauren took the opposite view saying that if the job isn't making the employee happy; then they don't have any moral responsibility to the employer. Her logic is that the employer is not bound to be loyal to the employee, and therefore the individual should act in their own interest...it's just the cost of doing business. Frankly this position disturbs me. It is so mercenary as to be sociopathic (not that I am saying that Lauren is sociopathic, I think just misguided). It disregards the favour that the employer has done by choosing the individual for the job.

So, I will go on record as being "old school" in my belief that I am not owed a job by society. If an employer chooses to employ me I wish to return the favour by giving them a solid, and when possible, spectacular return on investment.

Turns out Civiside is Social Enterprise!

I had never heard the definition of Social Entrepreneurship until today and was pleasantly surprised to learn that Civiside is a textbook case of it.

Lauren mentioned the term in our conversation the other day, and I decided to give it a look this morning. The definition, according to J. Gregory Dees...

"in his paper "The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship”, mentions that social entrepreneurs play the role of change agents, by:

-Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value)
-Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
-Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
-Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
-Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created".

I suppose the relative obscurity of the term combined with the counterintuitive nature of the concept, is what is apparently so revolting to some MBA/Business Prof. types that I have run into. They all seem to come to the conclusion that Civiside is not worth doing because it will not make alot of money. While I have known intuitively that I will do Civiside regardless of the monetary outcome, I have been hard pressed to explain why...until now. Having an established term makes it significantly easier to explain why I am doing what I am doing, despite the apparent lack of financial incentive.

With that said, I completely disagree with some of these naysayers. I do believe that Civiside will make money, and even be an attractive acquisition at some point. I may not have proven it yet, but I think that with some of the recent learning I have done, and connections I have made, the service is well on it's way to becoming viable and profitable.

Constancy of our Debate.

Next week Wed. (21 Jan: 5pm) Lauren from TalentEgg.ca and I have been invited to debate Gen Y in the workplace on CFRB 1010 in Toronto. They have asked us to send some background material on our companies, as well as the area we are debating. I suggested that we also send the initial article from Steve Maich in which we began this debate (completely unaware of one another at the time):

http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/11/24/is-this-the-future-dont-bet-on-it/


If you scroll down about a dozen comments you will first find my comment on the article, and then you will find Lauren's. It is remarkable how almost two months later we are now debating this on radio (and hopefully other media) across the nation. It is also remarkable that our positions have remained the same, though we certainly have come to agreement on a number of points on the periphery of the debate.

On a coincidental note, turns out the producer from the CFRB show is a guy that I went to university with. Certainly a welcome surprise.

Interesting conversations

Lauren, from TalentEgg.ca, and I met yesterday and discussed everything under the entrepreneurial Sun. I think that we talked for about 1.5 hours, but it seemed like only minutes (well I guess it was technically 90 mins). What a pleasure it is to talk to someone who understands the challenges of being in a startup. We could have gone on for many hours more.

I also attended the Ruby on Rails Project Night last night. As amazing as this sounds, I actually found the technical presentations interesting. For sure they were way over my head, but watching the passion with which the presenters talked about different philosophies and techniques programmers can use with Ruby on Rails, really made it interesting.

Anyhow, the countdown to the HRPAO tradeshow is on. I am extremely excited about getting face-face with employers. There should be some significant awareness of civiside at this point, which I hope will convert to interest in posting jobs.

Service to Wounded Veterans

Today I had the most interesting conversation with an U.S. Navy (SEALs) Officer named Eric Greitens; that runs an organization called the Center for Citizen Leadership. They are a non-profit organization that helps wounded combat veterans transition back into civilian life through monetary fellowships that allow them to volunteer for three months at a charity of their choice. The veteran then uses that experience and time to find what it is that they truly want to do in the civilian world, whether that be to go back to, work for the charity, go back to school, or try something else. Ultimately it is a bridge between the military and the civilian life in a way that benefits all of society.

I have to first say, I felt very honoured to have 20 mins of this great man's time. He is not only a warrior, but also a scholar (PH.D in Politics from Oxford University). The ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote more than 2500 years ago:

"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."

Eric ably demonstrates that the warrior scholar is not myth. He goes further to show that military service and community service are one in the same. His organization is something that is needed here in Canada (see summary of this Senate report on wounded veterans:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5g3-1Ri9KIhBg2vZWCMiEcxj8eMzg

I am going to do at least part of the work to bring it here by introducing the concept to some influential military people that I know.

Another Media Hit

Today Lauren of TalentEgg.ca and I did our live debate head to head on CJOB in Winnipeg. Originally we scheduled for 15-20 mins, but the segment was such a hit that we were on for 45 mins. As soon as the host opened to callers; the phones rang off the hook. The host actually told us during a commercial break that we work really well together...which, I completely agree.

Anyhow, I had to feel bad for Lauren because the show had callers that were none too kind about the position that Lauren was defending. I tried to support her position abit by prefacing my comments saying that I wasn't generalizing that every Gen Y felt entitled and were unproductive...however that didn't stop some of the callers from outright calling Gen Y lazy. Anyhow, Lauren rolled with it and showed great composure, probably more than I would have, in handling these comments.

Anyhow, the debate is obviously a very hot one, and I suspect that we will be quite in demand on this topic. A very good day indeed.

Media hit

Today we got our first hit for the press initiative that we are doing with TalentEgg. It was a strange one because it was conducted as two separate interviews. Kind of difficult to debate when you don't know what the other person is saying. Regardless, another new media experience under the belt.

To Adapt or not Adapt, That is the Millennial Question

Fresh from our Globe and Mail feature, today Civiside.com is launching a joint press initiative with TalentEgg.ca: "To Adapt or Not Adapt, That is the Millennial Question"

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Civi-Side-Inc/Talentegg-Inc-934855.html

It's a bit off the beaten path, but is actually a topic that is of great importance to me, and one that I think I can offer some unique insight into. I wrote an earlier post essentially summarizing my position if anyone cares to read it:

http://civiside.blogspot.com/2008/12/army-of-one.html

Effect of Globe and Mail feature

It's been a very interesting day. I have received calls and emails that run the gamut from a business professor (not the one in the article) urging me not to continue pursuing civiside because it is not going to make money, to military people, active and retired, thanking me for taking the initiative to build something that benefits the troops. If you wonder what I will do...wait for it....I'm sticking it out (of course).

Though this is a business, it didn't start out that way. I conceived of civiside entirely as a means to help reduce the number of trained soldiers retiring due to working for employers that wouldn't give them time off for training. I had to make it into a business because I couldn't get the military to build the service itself.

My motivation to create civiside predates any concept of a business model or monetary reward, so the argument that it won't make money has no effect on me. I am building it for my colleagues, and the personal satisfaction of doing the improbable. If it doesn't make money, but solves the problem that I set out to fix, I have been successful. If I make some money off of it...icing on the cake.

Globe and Mail article

Civiside was featured in the Business Incubator of today's Globe and Mail with advice from some business experts:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090105.INCUBATOR05/TPStory/Business

I would have been happier if the experts had taken the time to learn a little bit more about why the service was launched, their advice would probably have looked different. However, some of the criticism and advice is valid and I will act on it asap.

Civi-Side Co-Founder Resigns

It is with great disappointment that I announce that Jamie Smith, my co-founder, has decided to move on from Civiside. He has other opportunities that he would like to pursue. Good luck in your endeavours Jamie.

This is a good opportunity to reflect on the key qualities of an entrepreneur...tenacity and optimism. It is par for the course that crisis will hit at the worst possible time. This particular crisis is hitting when Civiside is about to be featured in the business section of the Globe and Mail, potentially creating awareness among hundreds of thousands of Canadians (circulation of over 300 000 daily). We are also launching a couple of other media initiatives over the next month, as well as doing a very important tradeshow at the end of the month. All in all, civiside is entering its most critical period and I am going to be doing it entirely alone.

Instead of treating this crisis as a lethal blow I am looking at it as a test of my tenacity and optimism. I can clearly see what needs to be done and am focusing my plans on making it happen. Civi-Side and I will come out of this just fine.

Addendum

I just found this video interview of Rebecca McDonald, CEO of Energy Income Savings Fund, a billion dollar Canadian business. What I liked about the interview is that she credits sticking with an idea despite the obstacles and working hard as the keys to success. Not too complex a formula really.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/video/vs?id=RTGAM.20080812.wvleaders_macdonald&sid=