Mark Dowds

Youtube

This week my kids came home from school and said: "can we go on youtube?". That calls for an interesting response due to some of the adult only content available. Maybe there is some way to set a filter but I have never taken the time to learn. They told me to type in "Numa Numa" and lo and behold a subculture opened up to me. It is like the peanut butter jelly dance youtube movement. I had to listen to the same song a dozen times to videos ranging from godzilla to Osama, and repetitive star wars options. I did laugh at Yoda doing the Numa dance...

All said and done I remembered again how many people use youtube every day. As a wise response I fired up 2 of the behind the scenes brainpark trailers created by the crew at Storystream:

Startup Camp and CIX

I am just starting to recover from an outstanding week at Startup Camp Toronto and CIX. Jevon and Jonas did a great job of pulling together Startup Camp. All the seats were full and it was standing room only at the back. I gave the first public Brainpark pitch and got off quite lightly when it came to after-pitch hackling. Leila Boujnane didn't let me off too easily about not showing more of our product. It was an interesting moment to think about the differentiation between barcamp, democamp, and startupcamp. My understanding was that at barcamp we project code on the wall, at democamp we detail aspects of our product, and at startupcamp we show why it makes sense in the marketplace and how we plan to bring value. I think that will be a good conversation some of us can have soon.

Global TV showed up and recorded the presentation and interviewed a few of us. I believe the results will be shown on CEO TV on Global next Saturday at 11.30am. I will confirm if I am contacted by them before hand.

The morning after startup camp I presented Brainpark at CIX. I did an OK job in my opinion but was lacking my normal groove. You can see a glimpse of my bald head in the middle of the top video on the CIX website.

CIX was excellent. It was very beneficial to us at Brainpark as we made some important connections we would otherwise be lacking. Austin and Benjamin had classic presentations...those boys know how to create a good deck, maybe it's the Montreal air.

The final gathering was hosted by Peter Evans and the crew over at MaRS where many of us will meet up again for some Meshing mid May. I will be planning on going back to CIX next year and supporting Robert and crew who did an excellent job and worked hard to make it happen.

I have started to gather some of the articles of the aftermath of this week on this Delicious page

Tomorrow morning it all starts over again at Startup Camp San Francisco which I am really looking forward to. I am looking forward to making some new friends and getting to know my new neighbours...O yea, that's right, I have never officially blogged that we are moving to San Francisco. Well this is the official news. It all happens in the next 60 days.

The Collective Fight Back

Internet Dream

I was thinking about how the original dream of computers and the internet was about setting us free to be more creative with more space to think and be human...Then I stumbled onto this video which made me smile:

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

The Final Collective

We lived in a world driven by technology, where information flowed faster than the speed of light; Communities became virtual and everybody was connected to the network.

The more we reached into the digital abyss – the more and more our real lives were lost. Then, one day, the abyss reached back…

This Summer the fight for survival goes online:

The Final Collective

 

StartupCamp Toronto 2

I just received the joyous news from Jonas that Brainpark got selected to pitch at StartupCamp Toronto 2

Event: StartupCamp Toronto 2
Date: Tuesday, April 29th 2008
Time: 7:00 - 10:00pm
Location: The Carlu - 444 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON

This will be the first public pitch of what we are doing at Brainpark and a leader into the pitch at CIX the following day. I will try to get some pre-work done this week and post it online for some sneak previews. I better sharpen my pencil and get to work

Seeking Brainpark Pilot Clients

We are seeking 5 pilot clients to implement and use Brainpark within their companies.

Profile of a pilot company:

• Technology Company (either product or services) 10-50 employees
• Willing to be profiled on our client list
• Committed to help us improve the product through effective feedback

Benefits to the company:

• Focused attention and support from the Brainpark team
• 1 year free usage with continual discount through our lifespan
• Promoted through our launch phase

A short brief on Brainpark and our product:
Brainpark offers a peer-to-peer resource recommendation system to the enterprise that helps white-collar workers become smarter and more productive at work.

In a similar way to how Amazon can recommend a book that you will buy, Brainpark utilizes the social intelligence of your organization to recommend resources you will use in the task you are working on. 

We reduce the need to search for information by acting like a research assistant and suggesting relevant information when you need it. We estimate that we save the average worker 25-40% of their time while reducing their frustration of digging through old information.

Corporations can buy our solution directly online and uniquely tailor it to their needs and with their brand in a few simple steps.

If you would be interested in becoming one of our pilot sites please contact me directly

The Brainpark Mission

As Technology evolved the Net linked computers, the Web linked documents, Social Networks linked people, and Wireless devices became a life-threatening addiction.

People stopped thinking and spent their lives navigating information overload and accumulating inboxes. Creativity and good decision making got harder to find and the promised dream of a better life had become the Pot of Gold at the end of a diminishing rainbow. The reign of machines had domesticated humanity.

A small collective of unruly freedom fighters rose up to fight back and face the evil of institutional threats. They stared redundancy in the eyes and used Networked Collective Intelligence to awaken a new creative class and form collaborative cells in organizations all over the globe. Information was tamed through the filters of human interaction and in the fight against complexity people worked together and became smart.

This final collective remained dedicated to making things simple until technology became the slave of humanity. Welcome to the Mission and Vision of Brainpark