Tech Forum

Podcast: 9 startup strategies you should be using now

This week on the podcast, we’ve got M.J. D’Elia comparing and contrasting the various ways startups approach product and service development versus more traditional organizations. If you belong to the latter, this talk is designed to inspire you to think about how you and your team might approach and do your work differently.

Are Canadians still reading?

At this year’s Tech Forum, Kevin Ashton presented on new technology and “How to Survive the Ebookalypse.” He began by saying, “We live in an age of paranoia about reading and publishing, but that’s actually not a new thing.” Undeniably, the industry is in state of transition and print sales are down. But much like the invention of the paperback format, technology will not destroy reading. Instead, Ashton argues, “Technology is feeding literacy and literacy is causing a need for new technology.”

Creating is ordinary

It’s the end of reading as we know it (and Kevin Ashton feels fine). The author and coiner of the term “the internet of things” will be coming to Tech Forum on March 12 to tell us how we can all survive the Ebookalypse.

In the meantime, you can read about the very ordinary, human act of creation in this excerpt from his new book, How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery.

Information Doesn't Want to Be Free

In his latest bookInformation Doesn’t Want to Be FreeCory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist, journalist, and blogger, identifies three “iron laws of information age creativity, freedom, and business, woven deep into the fabric of the Internet’s design, the functioning of markets, and the global system of regulation and trade agreements.” 

He’ll be discussing these laws in detail at Tech Forum this March, but in the meantime, you can read about Doctorow’s Third Law in this excerpt from the book.