Broadband Stimulus Package: The Whole to Somewhere

During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt initiated a series of programs called the ‘New Deal‘ in an attempt to revive the struggling economy.

In our current recession, digital age advocates are pressing President-elect Barack Obama to spend billions on upgrading the nation’s broadband infrastructure. It’s a great idea – while the world is struggling, strengthen the Internet backbone and prepare the country for a future economic boom that will most likely require a more powerful Internet.

The problem – no one knows the current state of the Internet backbone in the U.S. and no one can agree on how to make the internet “more resilient, accessible and secure” since there’s no public data on the matter. As Ryan Singel from Wired.com says, “how can anyone decide what’s the best way to build a bigger information super-highway when the toll operators won’t say anything about the current use of the road?” (Wired, Dec. 24, 2008).

Other questions also arise such as, should a federally funded Internet backbone require a guarantee by the major carriers of net neutrality or how much pipe is already laid? According to Bruce Kushnick, the founder of TeleTruth, “The FCC has essentially created a fictional story about broadband’s growth and deployment” and thus no real, accurate information is available to plan a broadband strategy off of (Wired, Dec. 24, 2008).

A broadband stimulus package is a great way to create thousands of jobs and prepare the U.S. for future economic success online but more information is needed from those who operate the current Internet backbone in order to ensure they dig holes to somewhere.

To read the full article on Wired click here.

The Win or Lose Generation

I just had dinner with a family friend who owns a company that creates awards for businesses and individuals.

This company produces anything from trophies for birthday parties to corporate recognition plaques.

What I found most interesting about our conversation was that he says his business only has about 10 years left.

Why? Because our generation believes that you either win or you lose.

The awards business relies on the concept that everyone is a winner whether they placed first or simply participated.

It’s a shift that has bigger implications on the business world as a whole. If our generation truly believes that there will be winners and losers, do equal rights disappear?

Google Mobile – All your Calls, All your Data, Free

Do you hate your cell phone company? I do. I think you would be hard pressed to find somebody that said they loved the services that their mobile carriers provided.

In Canada there are three major providers, all of whom suck for one reason or another (trust me, I’ve dealt with them all). What one makes up for with great customer service, it lacks in coverage area or cell phone plans. We don’t even have unlimited data yet and it’s not coming anytime soon. But what can we do? Can we eliminate the big mobile carriers all together and move towards a cheaper, more robust solution?

It seems like it’s close! Last year when the U.S. announced it was switching off all analog signals for television, it opened up a new wireless spectrum for mobile providers to send signals over. This started a multi-billion dollar bidding war from the big cell phone carriers to secure these invisible waves and thus securing their place in the telecommunications realm… or so they thought. While these big corporations were busy bidding upwards of $19.59 billion or their part of the 700mhz spectrum, another company was busy trying to figure out how to secure their place in the mobile market for free.

Google, a company that had the money to spend on the spectrum, was hard at work figuring out how to turn the unusable white noise (the space in between the wireless spectrum) and make it usable. But that’s not all. The spectrum was auctioned off in blocks with the stipulation that if one of the blocks reached a high enough bid, the spectrum would then become usable by any company, not just the company that paid the most for the block. Google bid higher and higher on the C- block to push the bid past the open-access requirement threshold thus opening the spectrum up to any provider that wanted to use it. Verizon would ultimately spend $9.63 billion on the c-block.

Now comes my theory. The new wireless spectrum becomes usable late next year at which point the market will become flooded with new cell phone service providers who will begin to eat away at the big competition. But will it be enough? No, the big telco companies will, for the time being, still have the money to undercut the competitor on, at the very least, pricing. But what the competitors will bring is a new landscape that pushes the existing providers to the brink of extinction with low margins and better contracts. Exciting for us, not so exciting for the telcos.

Further, the telcos in North America have no need to upgrade their services in a timely fashion because they have no competition. But, when their margins decrease they’ll be even more reluctant to spend the big bucks to upgrade their stuff.

This is when Google attacks offering a voice over IP (VOIP) service with unlimited, high speed data over the most advanced mobile network for FREE! Google built its business with a simple, easy-to-use online advertising solution that created unparalleled profits for the search giant. But the next high-margin advertising success story will be over your phone and Google is poised to be the leader in that field. What they lose in R&D cost they will easily recoup in advertising revenue, and besides, they didn’t need to fork out billions of dollars just to secure their ownership of part of the spectrum. Their only cost will be providing electricity to the technologies that they use to distribute broadcast these wireless signals. Imagine an entirely free, ad-supported mobile phone and Internet solution. Would you switch to a free mobile service, even if you had to hear an ad before you placed a call?

Maybe if won’t go down exactly like this but take my word for it, Google is moving into mobile in a big way. Look at the track record of companies that Google has acquired.  A good chunk of them are mobile or mobile related such as the Android project. So the in a few years, beyond the other exciting technologies that will enter the mobile field, you will be able to place your calls for free!

I’m Back

I’m back. Well sort of. To be completely honest I exhausted a lot of my advice in the first couple of posts so I’m going to switch directions with my writing.

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately and the ones that stuck with me were the ones that either had something important to say or had some sort of nostalgic feel. From here on in I hope that the words I write will inspire someone to do great things. I will write to you about all of the crazy things I read and spell out some of my own and others ideas about where our world is headed. Read on if you dare…

To get you in the mood I wanted to direct you to my favorite blog so far. Idris Mootee’s ‘Innovation Playground’ is almost guaranteed to be something that inspires you. It’s informative, up-to-date, clean, and interesting. I’m sure if he sees this site linking off to his he’ll come here and then run. (I got a little carried away with the template and asked the designer to go nuts despite his protests). He posts almost daily so start reading and by the time you’re done I hope to have another post up.

I hope to have some exciting news for you in the coming days.

Working Late

It’s 12:30am and I’m finally off to bed after a long day of work. In five and a half hours my alarm will ring and I will start the day all over again. It’s not that every day is like this but there are a lot of times where one has to work late to get ahead.

I was never one of those people that could pull an all nighter in school. Even if a project was due the next day I would usually hand it in late rather than give up my sleep. But at work, when strict deadlines could mean the difference between thousands or even millions of dollars, I can’t bring myself to go to bed until the project is done. In school it was admittedly because I procrastinated but at work, things come in at the last minute that need to get done. One can choose to work the 9 to 5 but I truly believe that in order to get ahead, you have to accept many sleepless nights and many long days.

I find that this is especially true for the Internet business. The Internet never sleeps. And when the sun goes down on a workday in Toronto, the sun rises in Dubai and the workday for them is just beginning. Not only that but because of the rapid changes in technology and the way we consume media, companies in this sector need to be ahead of the game or risk becoming redundant. All of these things seem fairly obvious but it’s hard to imagine the intensity of this business until your actually living in it.

My colleagues at work that run the backbone of JumpTV are typically available 24/7 with alerts coming to them at odd hours of the night. The workers that build out our new products are frequently at the office until 6am finishing off new launches and getting them out the door before North America wakes up.

But then comes the question of the balance between work and life. You hear about it all the time. At what point do you start sacrificing life for work and at what point do you need to stop it all and take a break? A colleague from work once told me that there will never truly be a balance between work and life. One will always consume you while the other could potentially suffer. It’s not so much about balancing work and life at the same time but making sure that you are enjoying similar amounts of life and work. Work really hard and then take a long break and enjoy the subtleties that life has to offer

Talk to People

Talk to people. Talk to everyone. Don’t subscribe the cliques, don’t let others decide who you can and can’t talk to. The most important people you will ever meet could very well be the least suspecting.

On my way out of the school one quiet afternoon I ran into a guy I knew through a friend from class. And while normally I would walk by most school acquaintances, give them a quick hello and keep on walking, this guy stopped me and started telling me about this really exciting program he was building for CCIT students to connect, to learn, and to grow. This conversation played a huge part in why I am here writing this today.

By nature I am fairly reserved. I would much rather keep to myself and close friends than actively seek out relationships with people I don’t know. But it’s those people that you don’t know, the ones that you have to put a little extra effort into getting to know, that can sometimes mean the difference between a great job, a great friendship, a great recommendation, etc.

The other day a friend of mine was hired in an incredible position at a publishing company. Through a friend she introduced to an executive in the industry who she subsequently set up a meeting with to ask her questions about what it takes to get ahead. By keeping contact and making an effort this woman eventually saw an opportunity that she felt my friend would be perfectly suited for. I hear stories like this all the time.

Talk to people – learn as much as you can first hand from the people that work in the industry that you want to be a part of. Talk to people that feed into the industry that you want to be a part of. It sounds simple and it is. Make the effort to actively pursue contacts in places where you see yourself someday. As long as you can come across as presentable and as long as you do your homework, people will be willing to help you. Ask lots of educated questions and figure out the path that you want to follow. Tell people where you envision yourself someday. Tell your friends, your classmates, your friends friends. Put yourself into those conversations and get to know as many people as possible because you never know, you might leave a really great impression on someone and they might just call you up someday.

But remember, meeting with people in your industry is about learning and not about getting a job. Learn what you can but don’t approach these meetings thinking that you’re going to walk out with a job. Don’t appear desperate, appear and be interested. If you leave a good enough impression and follow up with your contacts, thanking them for the opportunity to meet with you, they may consider you someday when you least expect it.

Thoughts on a Coalition Government

My last post was an extensive overview of the anticipated changes in the 2009-10 Canadian budget that our Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, is proposing. Click here to read.

To be clear, I DO NOT support the coalition between the Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties. I support an end to the financial mismanagement brought on by the current government. I DO NOT support another election when the last election cost Canadian tax payers over $300 million and resulted in the lowest voter turnout on record in Canada (Reuters, Oct. 15, 2008). I do believe in a democracy and that the Canadian people voted as best they could to elect a leader that they thought would adequately represent the wishes of the Canadian people.

But Canada had the opportunity and the surplus to prevail in the global economic crisis if it were not for the fact that our government will have cut taxes by over $31 billion by next year while drastically increasing government spending (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008).

Stephen Harper enacted a law in 2006 stating that political parties could not call an election for three years after the last election. This was to save the Canadian tax payers from the burden of the $300 million cost associated with elections in Canada. However, less than two years after taking power, our Prime Minister broke his own law and called an election. The cost savings that seem to have resulted in this push for a coalition government was $26 million, the cost of the premature, illegal election called by our Prime Minister was over $300 million.

Further, after speaking with many people about my previous post I realized that there is a strong belief amongst conservatives in Canada that the sponsorship scandal that hindered the Liberal party and seemingly lost them the election in 2006 directly resulted in the loss of a $13 billion surplus. This is not the case. The Gomery Report, an investigation into the sponsorship scandal commissioned by then Prime Minister Paul Martin, concluded that neither Martin nor Jean Chretien had any direct involvement in the scandal but that the total cost to tax payers was approximately $14 million (CBC, Oct. 26, 2008). That is less than 0.1% of the total money that our current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, will have lost the Canadian government on an annual basis since he started two years ago.

Again, I want to reiterate the fact that I DO NOT believe that a coalition government is the right thing for Canada but the fact that Stephen Harper has no real solution to deal with the global economic crisis now affecting Canada mixed with the fact that his government wants to cut funding to political parties is an issue for Canadians as a whole. Harper wants to prevent a fair democratic system while not doing what it will take to get us out of the mess that his government created.

In Canada we need a fiscally responsible government that will steer us out of the mess that our current government has gotten us into.

Preventing Financial Disaster in Canada

A stable economic future in Canada is the number one concern of the opposition in Canada who are currently forming a coalition to prevent further mismanagement of Canada’s federal budget.

On November 27th, 2008, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty released an economic statement in an attempt to quell fears of an impending financial crisis.

The list below summarizes Steven Harper and Jim Flaherty’s proposal to “strengthen Canada’s fiscal position in an uncertain time” (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008):

-cut tax payer funding to political parties by $26 million (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008) of a total $206 million (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008), conservatives get roughly 35% of their funding from tax payers versus approx. 66% for the Liberal party (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008)

-cut $4.3 billion in government spending, “including transportation hospitality, conferences, exchanges and professional services”, from the projected $25 billion this year, despite an increase of $11.4 billion from the 2007-08 fiscal year (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008)

-take a “more careful approach to the sale of any assets” owned by the government

-put legislation in place that caps annual public service wage increases at 1.5% per year over the next 3 years (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008), cost of living increased by approx. 3.5% per year since 2006 (Cupe, Sept. 19, 2008)

-temporarily suspend the right to strike in the public service sector through 2011 (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008)

-cut funding to pay equity settlements in Canada allowing women equal pay as men (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008), women in Canada working fulltime are paid on average 20% less than men (Cupe, Sept. 19, 2008)

-invest more in ‘infrastructure spending’ resulting in a surplus reduction to a projected $100 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year from a $13 billion surplus in 2006 (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008)

-allow the Minister of Finance “additional flexibility to support financial institutions and the financial system in extraordinary circumstances” (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008) despite his current mismanagement of revenues in Canada resulting in a loss of over $13 billion in surplus over the past 2 years (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008)

-double the amount of time that companies have to top-up their pension plans (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008)

-invest $350 million in equity to increase the credit for both Canada’s export business and Business Development Bank of Canada (National Post, Nov. 27, 2008)

After closer inspection, this ’stimulus package’, as some are calling it, drastically increases government spending while cutting less than $1 billion dollars. In anticipation of the full budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year, Stephen Harper’s Minister of Finance is proposing a multi-billion dollar increase in spending while focusing on insignificant costs such as the $26 million dollars paid to support the Canadian democracy.

By the end of the next fiscal year, Stephen Harper will have cut $31 billion of individual and business taxes since 2006 and cut our annual surplus by over $13 billion (Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 27, 2008). The conservative’s tax cuts have resulted in a 28% increase in corporate profits or $150 billion (Cupe, Sept. 19, 2008) yet in July Canada saw its biggest job loss in 17 years (CBC, August 8, 2008).

We have a severe financial problem in Canada, partly due to the global economic crisis but largely due to the financial mismanagement of Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper. The coalition government now being enacted by the opposition is a way of preventing further losses to our diminishing economic situation.

Never Give Up

If I was confident in my writing I would tell you that there will be a resounding theme throughout each of these posts that ties them all together in the end.

I want there to be one thing that you, the reader, walks away with and can apply to your life to reach successes that you never imagined. That theme will be to never give up.

I use a lot of cliché’s in my writing and the title of this post is another one of those things that you’ll hear throughout your life. Never give up! And in a lot of cases it’s true. When you’re looking for a new job, when you’re suffering through an old one, when you’re questioning whether you’ll ever achieve success in life, just remember these three simple words; never give up.

To begin, I have a lot to learn, a lot of growing up to do, and a lot of goals in my life yet to accomplish. But I do feel like I have accomplished a lot so far. Getting here was no easy task though; it took a lot of perseverance mixed with a lot of crazy coincidences.

I was never a grade A student and because of that I had to fight my way through school. When I heard about the Communications, Culture, and Information Technology program at the University of Toronto I had to be a part of it. CCIT, an in depth examination of technology and the role it plays in our lives. The specialist I wanted to be in was called Digital Enterprise Management or DEM which focused on the business side of technology and provided students a background in almost anything to do with managing a digital company. It was incredible; I grew up dreaming about one day starting an Internet business, after I got over wanting to be a garbage man, but I never had the programming background for any existing university computer program. CCIT offered me the opportunity to work heavily with technology while sidestepping the parts of it that I did not enjoy.

When I applied for this program I was rejected, time and time again; I simply did not have the marks. In 2006 I needed to decide my major. I needed to figure out the program I wanted to be in for the rest of university that could potentially jumpstart my career. I had been taking a lot of courses in CCIT in hopes of getting accepted but it didn’t look like it was going to happen. I needed to plead my case. I set up a meeting with the dean of the program, I emailed him, I followed up, I explained to him why I didn’t have the best grades and what I would do to fix that. And when it seemed like I was completely out-of-luck, I kept asking. I had been told so many times to wait a little longer, that there was not room. I kept fighting, pleading my case, knowing that this was the only program I wanted to be in.

And finally, maybe because they were annoyed, maybe because they truly believed that I would be successful, I received an email from the program administrator telling me she had forgot to accept me into the program. This day, three weeks into my last two years of university, was the day that started a spiral of events that landed me where I am today. And I learned from this and my experiences since that if you want something you have to work hard to get it and never give up.

In the Beginning

This is it! At 3:48pm on April 8, 2008, I finished my final university exam. At 10:15pm on April 23, 2008, I finished my final university paper.

And at 8:03am on April 24, 2008, I sat down at my cubicle, the office still dark and empty before the morning rush, plugged in my laptop, and started to type. This is the beginning, or rather the continuation of my life and the extension out into the working world.

For those of you that don’t know me I have already been here for a year. I have sat at this desk or one just like it three or four days of the week. I have filed papers, inputted hundreds of business cards and got lunch for executives. I’ve worked weekends and nights booking plane tickets for my employers and planning meetings for my teams. I have designed logos and branding for a multinational company with offices around the world. I’ve helped manage million dollar projects. I have travelled for the company to Cannes, New York, and Texas and had dinners with many of the leaders in my field. All this, and I haven’t even received my diploma.

But today, an unassuming day like every other, is the day that I officially start my career as a full time employee. And today is the day that I start to write. Maybe so that I can remember, maybe so that I can help others with the same aspirations as myself succeed, maybe because I feel that there isn’t enough honest text out there about what it takes to get ahead in this world.

From here on in, this blog will serve as an outlet to tell my story and hopefully inspire others to work their hardest. To listen, to learn, and to dream big. And while this is probably the most cliche phrase we have all heard growing up, you CAN accomplish anything you set your mind to.

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