What’s the BUZZ in your Tech-Town?
Here in Kanata (Canada) there’s a renewed (but tentative) BUZZ in the tech sector. Many startups are growing, despite a few shrinking. The bigger players are hanging in – Alcatel, Mitel, Nortel, Cognos…. Research in Motion’s announcement that it will greatly expand its Kanata campus adds another significant “anchor” to the tech community here. There’s a new level of entrepreneurial energy. When RIM ramps up here this will also bring new levels of competitiveness for talent. Startups should be prepared because RIM is aggressive in its recruiting. In fact a few weeks ago I got a cold call from one of their headhunters. (No, I’m not moving to Waterlooooo…)
Before Kanata I worked in Gatineau at one of the few tech companies in that city. The BUZZ level was non-existant. The benefit of that is the lack of distractions – the danger is that a company can get sleepy.
A decade ago I worked in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. It was a “Disney-esque” tech campus that was built in the middle of a watermelon farm in the center of the bible belt. There were a lot of ex-pat Canadians there, so the BUZZ was quite unique: a curious juxtaposition of Canadian free-will, old style bible-thumping, and well… watermelon farming.
When I was in Atlanta, the BUZZ was completely monopolized by BellSouth’s HQ, despite it being across the street from the Georgia Tech campus.
Today, with all the Demo/bar camp activities, it’s easy to gauge a community’s BUZZ. From Montreal’s DemoCamp and soon to be born Startup Camp you get the feeling that this city is enjoying good BUZZ too! The connections we had from BarCamp Bangalore was amazing – there’s great BUZZ there!
What’s the BUZZ in your town?
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