Leveraging Canadian Diversity As a Competitive Advantage

During one of our projects we discovered a technology hidden in the far reaches of Russia that was commercialized for just this purpose. The technology not only can separate oil and sand, it can also be used as a remediation technology to clean tank sludge, separate the oil from the sludge as well as return the sand back to its natural state. Its worth noting that there are millions of tons of tank sludge lying around in Canada and much of it is sent to landfills. What is even more interesting is that this technology has a Russian/Canadian connection.

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca

Closing the Gap on Canada’s Productivity Decline

I recently spoke at the Conference Board of Canada’s Business Innovation Summit on the topic of bringing external innovation in to drive growth and productivity. At the same conference the president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Suzanne Fortier presented an interim progress report from their “Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation” and the news was surprisingly very positive. They have started to gain momentum with regard to their objectives, which is good for all Canadians.

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca

Climate Change and the Boiling Frog

The frog in the boiling pot of water experiment is an analogy often used to describe attitudes slow to change that in the end is potentially harmful. As the explanation goes, if a frog is placed over a pot of boiling water it will quickly jump out of harm’s way. However, if the frog is placed in a pot of water at room temperature and then the temperature is slowly turned up over time, the frog will only seek to adjust its own body temperature to match that of the environment, and when the temperature becomes deadly it would be too late for the frog to escape.

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca

Blindsided – A Cautionary Tale for Canada

In 2005, Exxon’s CEO Lee Raymond said to Reuters gas production had peaked in North America. At the time the number of rigs drilling for natural gas was up around 20 per cent, and prices were at record highs giving producers ample motivation to generate more supply, however those same producers were struggling to keep up.

In 2007 The IEA chimed in and executive director Claude Mandil stated “While the 2006 Review expressed concern about insufficient investment, we are even more worried this year and see it as the major threat to secure, affordable global gas supplies over the medium to longer term.”

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca

Is Your Company’s Culture Ready to Open Up?

During a TED talk, British business professor Eddie Obeng said “We spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.”

In this talk Obeng is referring to the speed of communication and its affect on business and innovation. He goes on to say the density of information interactions is amazing and speeds up the rate of change faster than a company’s ability to learn versus the speed of information happening out in the world.

Read more at Canadian Business Journal.ca