Yeah I'll be at that meeting...maybe

Admittedly, it’s happened very rarely since I started working for myself, but a checklist for successful meetings in this weekend’s Globe & Mail still hit home. Toronto-based management consulting firm Kinect developed the checklist as a measure of meetings’ potential effectiveness:

People look forward to our meetings.
We stay on track.
We stay on time.
People feel free to discuss their honest opinion.
Everyone participates.
No one dominates the discussion.
We engage in innovative thinking.
We produce better-than average results.
We make decisions effectively.
We reach consensus easily.
People support the decisions made.
We leave the meeting feeling time has been well spent.

I’ve bolded those which I think are particularly important. In fact, I wouldn’t go to a meeting without at least meeting these criteria.

Stop Or I'll Squirt!

There's an interesting piece of legislation spreading through Ontario municipalities these days focused on none other than the homeland security threat imposed by toy guns. It would appear that a growing number of Mayors – David Miller included – are supporting legislation to ban toy guns. The model currently being tossed around – and adopted by at least one Ontario municipality – is a $150 fine for anyone under 18 caught in public with a toy gun.

Now, nostalgia about the good old days of cops, robbers, cowboys, Indians, cap guns, squirt guns and overall pretend guns aside, is there something I’m missing here? On the one hand, how many 12 year olds have held up a convenience store with a super soaker? And, on the other hand, why is it okay for a 19-year old to play with a toy-gun in public?

There was an old Cheney...

In hearing Dick Cheney’s long awaited response to this weekend’s shooting incident, “I pulled the trigger that fired the shot that hit Harry,” I couldn’t help be reminded of The Little Old Lady who swallowed a fly. I imagine, if the song were adapted to this weekend’s accident, it might sound something like this:

There was an old VP who almost killed Harry,
Who’s hunting adventure turned terrible scary;
He almost killed Harry while out hunting quail,
But it was his buddy, not dinner, that really got nailed;
He was out hunting quail ‘cause like Charlton Heston
He loves the second amendment and his Smith & Wesson;
The second amendment protects his right,
To fire with both barrels, whatever the fight;
And nowhere are guns loved as much as in Texas,
Where electric chairs and sawed-offs make for a Republican Nexus;
And in Texas is where the old man’s tail ends,
Out in the bush with some of his friends;
His trouble arose when he fired his gun,
Oh what fun, to fire a gun,

Uh oh…it’s Dick…quick, duck and run!

Psiphoning Democracy

Every so often you come across a technology that has profound democratizing effects on society, with the Internet as an obvious example. There's P2P file sharing, which (legal issues aside) democratized the distribution of music, video and other artistic media, or the democratization of editorial expression with the proliferation of blogs, or the democratization of political fundraising with Howard Dean's presidential campaign web site. The list goes on.

One of the most recent technologies to fit this bill is a project out of University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. It's a technology called Psiphon that's doing its part in the war on freedom of information against countries like China, Iran and North Korea, who are collectively spending billions of dollars on firewalls and means of censoring information that would otherwise be freely available on the Internet. Psiphon is a software application (although I'm sure that's not doing it justice) that propagates information by breaking down technology barriers to the freedom of both expression and access to information.

(You've probably read about Google's recent agreement to conform to China's stringent censorship requirements, a move that drew some heavy criticism and questions about whether Google is living up to one of its corporate value, to "do no evil.")

With Psiphon as another role model, what's the next democratizing technology going to be? Could we use a peer-reviewed, collaboration technology to develop a real global solution to climate change? Will new wireless communications technologies engage Canada's youth more in the democratic process? What about a supply chain management system that automatically, and profitably, directly excess food supplies to global communities in need?

I'll tell you one for sure (more on this later)...an actual, fun video game about Canadian History!

Bringin' in the Army

A few weeks ago, I wrote (or should I be saying blogged now?) about a possible part of the solution to Toronto's skyrocketing gun violence crisis: bringing in the Army. Yes, the same Army that came in to save us from the snow a decade ago, only this time coming back to defend us against a much deadlier natural disaster...a huge spike in the concentration of flying bullets in the air we breathe.

Well it should come as no surprise that I smiled when I read about the TAVIS Task Force earlier this week.

Launched in mid-January (no doubt because of my blog posting) the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy comprises three teams of 18 uniformed, specially trained police officers who monitor high risk Toronto neighborhoods a week at a time on a rotating basis. In addition to making friendly visits to sketchy bars, donut shops and strip clubs, the teams also respond en masse to nearby emergencies, both in virtually unprecedented displays of presence and authority.

The results? In less than a month, the $5-million operation has netted more than 60 arrests, mostly handgun-related (recall that 52 of Toronto's 78 homicides in 2005 were gun-related, and nearly double the 2004 figure of 27). In fact, the only real objection I gathered from the articles I read was almost comical; that the approach was a bit overdone, akin to dispatching the air force to respond to a petty theft. Well, if that's the downside, I'd say the program has merit, and I'd echo a local resident's comments, "Go for it...more power to you guys!"

Will the program work in the long run? Will the $5-million pay off? Time will tell, but it currently looks like we can at least leave General Hillier to more pressing matters (of which there are many) for the time being.

A Checklist for Business Writers

A good part of my job involves writing or editing other people’s writing, so it’s not uncommon that I get asked for advice on how to write effective articles or other documents for business audiences. In response to one such request, here are a few pointers I put together for Connections, the monthly newsletter of one of my clients, applications support and maintenance company RIS:

The Inverted Pyramid: A classic structure for news articles, the inverted pyramid refers to the concept of starting your article with the most important information, and proceeding in order of decreasing importance from there. The premise is that, if someone only reads the top 10% of the article, they’ve read the most important 10%.

Be Your Audience: Before you even put pen to paper – or finger to keyboard as it were – put yourself in your readers’ shoes and ask “why would I read this article?” Write the article from that perspective to answer your audience’s questions, not to tell them what you want them to hear.

Speak English (or Romanian, or…): Especially in the world of high tech, writers are often tempted to use industry buzzwords, “unofficial terminology in quotation marks,” or the dreaded Proprietary Overly-Complicated Abbreviations (POCAs). Resist the temptation, and write in a language your audience will understand.

Back Up Your Claims: Whether your article is reporting on facts or expressing your opinions, back up what you say. Common ways to back up your points include describing specific personal experiences, citing research statistics or – even better – by quoting an expert on the topic.

Know Your Medium: Just as you need to start with your audience in mind, it’s also helpful to know where your article is going to be published. Find the publication(s) where you want the article to appear, and read up on some back issues to familiarize yourself with its writing style, and to make sure your topic hasn’t been covered already.

Delusions of Technology Licensing

You’ve recently come across a groundbreaking technology, a disruptive breakthrough that promises with some credibility to turn lead into gold. What’s more, after several meetings and brainstorming sessions, the technology owner has graciously offered you an exclusive, perpetual license to commercialize the technology across North America, or even across the globe in a particular vertical market.

What a deal…right?

Not so fast. Like any technology venture, a technology licensing deal has to be approached with a great deal of due diligence. And, unfortunately, like any technology venture, most tend to fail because of a combination of proven, avoidable pitfalls, namely:

It’s too good to be true: The technology has proven itself on the laboratory bench or an obscure test market in suburban Qumar, but will it work for your market? Will it perform in practice as it does in theory? And most importantly, will customers pay for it? The reality is, in most cases, you have no idea.

Risk Imbalance: The way many of these deals are structured financially is in two components. One is an upfront or recurring licensing fee, and the other is ongoing royalties, both paid to the technology owner in return for your right to execute on the technology. When structured this way, the technology owner is virtually guaranteed some financial success, while you’re left to fund 100% of operations and carry 100% of the risk.

Conflicting Objectives: Your job is to use the technology to create a product with the features and benefits your customers will buy. Unless the technology owner is an operating company with the same objectives, their goals are typically to experiment with technology development in many different applications, often for simple sake of advancing science. Without having the same objectives, or without direct control over the product development team, you’ll find it difficult, if not impossible, to offer your customers a product they need.

As any university or public sector technology transfer office will tell you (check out the Ontario Centres of Excellence, Queen’s University’s PARTEQ or U of T’s Centre for Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship) successes abound in the world of technology licensing. To be sure, such organizations have spawned hundreds of successful companies and generated millions in royalties for their respective organizations. But before you sign on as the exclusive, worldwide distributor of the perpetual motion machine, make sure your diligence addresses the delusions that may come along with it.