Tom Friedman clearly lays out what a place like NB (and Canada) needs to do if we want to seriously develop solar energy as an economic development driver. Applied Materials maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories…
Continue ReadingLiteracy
I rarely dip my toes into areas that I haven’t spent much time looking at but it’s a slow news day so I’ll take a quick stab at literacy. There’s a good op/ed today in the Victoria Star cheekily titled…
Continue ReadingStay thirsty, my friends
It is growing increasingly clear to me that there is a disconnect between those paid to think about economic development in Northern New Brunswick and the actual people in Northern New Brunswick. I am talking about tenured professors, life long…
Continue ReadingThe Crossfire Effect
I listened to a great podcast yesterday in the car on the way to Freddy Beach. It was with the heads of the news departments of CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN. They were debating the future of TV news but…
Continue ReadingR&D in universities
This report came out yesterday from Statistics Canada showing the amount of R&D in the higher education sector in Canada. I reported not that long ago that R&D in businesses in New Brunswick (funded by all sources) is now higher…
Continue ReadingWhat’s not said about small biz
Good story in the TJ today quoting John Risley, head of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, about the importance of small business. It seems to me that many of us are talking about the same things just using different terms and…
Continue ReadingIncentives: coda
For some weird reason, there are still people out there – even after reading my blogs – that believe I am some big champion of doling out cash to companies to set up or expand here. I am not. I…
Continue ReadingWhere else are we going to find young entrepreneurs?
The soup bone quote from Gair Maxwell in this column today about the launch of a youth entrepreneur program. It seems to be a reality TV kind of program backed by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. It’s about playing in…
Continue ReadingCash-based incentives least attractive
Once in a while one of my longstanding hunches gets validated with statistics. The following chart is taken from the 23rd annual site selection survey of corporate professionals put out by Area Development magazine. The people surveyed are mostly the…
Continue ReadingSymapathy for politicians
Once in a while I truly feel sympathy for politicians. They get hammered right and left in the press, blogs and Tim Horton talk. I guess they know that going in and in fact the personality type for many of…
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