I confess I haven’t had a lot of time to formulate my thoughts on this. I certainly would not call myself an expert in IT by any stretch of the imagination. However, today a series of articles came through my feeds that culminated after reading a guest post by Will Pate at StartUp North.

The first news item was:

Industry feels pinch as numbers of IT grads plummet (Globe Investor).

The synopsis? Canada’s University and college enrollment in IT and computer related fields have dropped from 36% - 64% depending on the province.

At ThinkNB this year, I spoke with recruiters from UNB and the NB Community Colleges. They confirmed that enrollment was down. UNB was addressing this with a new program that will combine business with computer technology in a Bachelor of Information Systems program.

Next news feed article today:

N.B. IT doing well: software exec (Telegraph Journal)

According to the quote in the Telegraph Journal:

“I would say the knowledge industry in New Brunswick is healthy,” says Paul McSpurren, former president and chief executive officer of Moncton-based Whitehill Technologies Inc.

“And will be healthy and vibrant in the future.” 

NB also recently held the Rising Stars awards where 10 ITC winners will be able to participate in a year long mentorship and networking program.

Now I want to send you the last article that I mentioned by Will Pate. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking of starting your own business, read his post.  Let’s make sure that NB is in the race. 

Will’s right. This is a race and as Canadians we do tend to just plod through until the work is done. But when you’re following the industry and you see how fast it changes and how someone is always coming out with something new or different. We have to be able to keep pace. I have met many people in NB in the ITC sector and they all have a passion for what they’re doing.  As Paul McSpurren said in today’s Telegraph article, I think the knowledge industry in NB is healthy.

We have innovation happening here in NB. We have groups like catalict whose tagline says “Start your engines. The race is on.” We have the Wallace McCain Institute that helps entrepreneurs grow their business.

There are other organizations I could mention as well but the point is that I think we recognize in NB that there’s a need for speed, experience and skills to get ahead in this industry. And maybe because NB is always playing catchup with the rest of the provinces, we’re already used to racing.

What do you think? Is NB in the race?

That’s what Jason Falls told approximately 30 people this past week for our first NB Third Tuesday Social Media Meetup. Visitors came from Nova Scotia and in NB from Saint John, Moncton, Woodstock and Fredericton all came to take online social networking offline. The event was generously sponsored by radian6 who arranged to have Jason Falls speak on his work in Social Media.

Attendees came from a wide variety of backgrounds from those with no experience in Social Media to those who work in it daily. But what brought everyone together was put best by Susan Nind from Insights Atlantic:

If Social Media is about transparency and honesty, then for New Brunswickers it’s something that we come by easily. I think that in NB we can create the wave and not just ride the wave. And I’m excited to be part of that.

Susan’s comment seemed to affect everyone the same way. So simple, yet so true.

There was a continuous buzz of conversation before the talks started. The same thread in nearly all the conversations was that people were interested in social media. They wanted to know more about it. How can they use it in their companies? What are the advantages to using social media? How is social media changing branding and marketing in business? Do you know what people are saying about your business? Jason Falls was able to show us some real life applications using social media with his Robbie Gordon twitter tracker campaign.

Considering it was 11 pm (with a start time of 7:30 pm) before we wrapped up completely, it was obvious that we have many topics to discuss in our upcoming meetings.

Other posts on the event from attendees:

Jason Falls
Jason Falls snowmobiling in NB
What really happened with Jason Falls snowmobiling
Chris Nadeau
Mark Dykeman
Flickr photos
justFred.ca photos and video

If you haven’t already, please join our Third Tuesday Social Media Meetup group so you can be notified of upcoming events. We have some great ideas and speakers in mind that will be entertaining and educational. We also would really like feedback from you about what you would like to see and learn.

Social media is growing. As Jason said just by learning and pushing to know more about social media, you’re all experts. NB may be small but there’s a ripple effect happening here and the end result will be a powerful social media wave.

Chris Nadeau (YourTeamOnline) did a great review on a Saint John, NB startup Facebook application Scrapbook Your Memories. Creativity, entrepreneuralism and drive runs in this family as this startup was founded by Chris’s wife Jodie and his mother Bonny. Congratulations on creating a facebook application with value that is appealing to a broad audience, particularly the 30+ range and WOMEN. 2008 will hopefully start to see a shift in applications from fighting zombies to applications like Scrapbook Your Memories  that have meaning.

Earlier this week in the news, CBC reported that Saint John was the happiest place to live in Canada. Both Chris Nadeau and Harold Jarche commented on this as well this week. As both mentioned, everyone is feeling positive about some of the great technology coming out of Atlantic Canada (visit the blog roll). PropelSJ stays on top of business technology and events happening in the SJ area. The regular news updates show that the Saint John area is becoming a business hub. And of course there’s no doubt that Atlantic Canada has some of the most beautiful vistas in the world.

This recent news is fortunate because for the past year Saint John and the Atlantic Provinces have mostly receiving failing grades in Health and Academic matters. In October of this year, Saint John was considered one of the fattest cities in Canada, likely attributed to poverty. People living in Saint John have the highest obesity rate, at 24.4 per cent of the population over 15 years old. The report card style study tracked the quality of life of Canadian communities in relation to poverty gaps, health, housing and the environment.  Saint John was not marked on track for any of these items.

NB also has some of highest caesarian rates in Canada. According to WHO (World Health Organization), 15% is the average c-section rate, yet in NB it is close to 29%. With northern NB having twice as many c-sections. Women’s groups wonder if it is about a lack of health resources or health professionals to deal with long labour. And certainly if looking at Northern NB where many hospitals were shut down, emergency rooms closing earlier, it would seem likely that is the case. This coupled with general long hospital waits compared to the rest of Canada also leads to a lack of resources.

In education, students in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick all performed significantly below average in science and math.

Again, does this come back to poverty/lack of resources due to low funding?

So if that’s the case, how come we’re so happy in Atlantic Canada?

Maybe because money really can’t buy happiness.

Ok, this is already overdue. Since Cyber Monday, it has become a bit of a crazy time for those of us with e-retail companies, so I’ve been a tad neurotically busy lately. I was also caught up in trying to write intelligent, witty interviews for this piece and I’ve decided to just git er done instead;)

Day two of ThinkNB was a hub bub of activity. Spheric was the first of the companies that I interviewed.

Spheric

I noticed their booth right away. The bright orange booth header with We’re Lazy spanning the top drew the eye of many of the crowd attendents. As I made my way over to the booth I noticed the Spheric team all wearing bright orange t-shirts with an energy to match. I had the opportunity to talk with Adam MacDonald, co-founder of Spheric.

What is Spheric?

Spheric provides Enterprise Portals using BEA Aqualogic. We’ve recently expanding into application development and ruby on rails development. Apps like the facebook application called Expressions as well. We’re based in Moncton, NB.

Why are you called Lazy?

It’s all about simplicity and reducing redundancy. We have a disdain for repetition and prefer to automate processes. Our clients love us for it.

Who are some of your clients and success stories?

Spheric is proud to have a stellar lineup of clients such as Procter & Gamble, Bristol & Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Property Guys and more. Some of our clients are early adopters and are developing enterprise portals (Enterprise Social Architecture™ ) that incorporate social networking aspects to their portals. One of our clients has 68 servers with 14 million active users.

Are you funded or self-funded?

Self-funded

How are you marketing Spheric?

We haven’t very much to this point, nor really needed to. We always said we were the biggest company you never heard of. We’ve had very good success with our association with BEA Aqualogic and direct customer relations. We will be attending more trade shows and conferences but we have a solid referral system.

What technology is used at Spheric?

.net, php and Ruby on Rails. .

Who are your competitors?

There really aren’t any locally. 70% of our work is hired through the vendor.

Do you find it challenging being in New Brunswick?

Yes, it does provide complications. The time and expense of travel adds up. Since 98% of our clients are outside of Atlantic Canada, we are travelling a lot.

What does Spheric have that makes it stand out among everyone else?

Our work culture is unique. We have developed a 3 level certification process that all our staff go through to ensure they will mesh in with Spheric. This creates continuity and ensures that our team is prepared and passionate about the work we do. Our clients receive a team and not an individual. We’re able to deliver on time and above expectations.

From talking with several of the Spheric team members at the booth, this company culture was very evident. They were infectious, fun and yet at the same time exuded an air of competency.

What does the future hold for Spheric?

More direct sales. European expansion and continue to build on our customer base and partnerships.

Spheric also has a couple of impressive recent news releases.

Spheric Technologies a Moncton based Software Development and Service Company is excited to announce they are in the final stages of completing a Co-development agreement with one of the world’s largest consumer goods manufacturers Proctor and Gamble (P&G). Spheric will maintain IP rights to a number of new productivity and innovative collaboration tools which will be utilized by P&G under a worldwide licensing agreement. This agreement is the continuation of the development of Spheric’s Enterprise Social Architecture™ which is seen as a key contributor to substantial innovation and productivity gains across the Enterprise

Spheric Technologies a Moncton based Software Development and Service Company is excited to announce they are in the final stages of completing Marketing and Sales Agreement with 2Markets a Reston,Virginia based Complex Sales and Marketing Outsourcing services Company. The agreement will continue to support the visions of Spheric’s founder which is to focus on the strengths of the Company which include multiple software development practices including Aqualogic, Ruby on Rails, as well as SharePoint. Spheric is moving ahead with its Enterprise Social Architecture™ and has become a force in the Enterprise Integration field using Web 2.0 portal environments. With the largest Enterprises looking to increase productivity and Innovation within their organizations, Spheric has created unique tools and processes to support these initiatives thus providing a competitive advantage to the adopters of this new creative collaborative communication process.

I’m fairly certain the future is bright for these lazy guys at Spheric. Dan Martell’s blog, co-founder and Director of e-Business has more highlights of the event.