Business

 by Brendon J. Wilson

Explain Yourself, Mr. Wilson

About a month ago, I expressed a bit of annoyance at 106 Miles’ definition of “entrepreneurial engineers” as it related to restricting attendance to the 106 Miles events. As my current title is “Product Manager” at PGP, my engineering background was apparently null and void.

Well, the squeaky wheel gets the speaker spot. I’ll be speaking at the next event on May 18th, along with Jeremy Zawodny and one as-yet-unnamed individual. The topic? “The Dark Side: why engineers become PMs, marketers, and salespeople.”

Search your feelings, young hacker…you know it to be true: you will join the Dark Side!

(Oh, and thanks to Troutgirl for the opportunity!)

in Business / Personal / Technology 0 comments
 by Brendon J. Wilson

BC Bleeding Talent

Argh. I know this might be more salt in the wound for BC after my last couple of posts on this topic (which, incidentally, got picked up by Heath Row over at Fast Company), but I have to point to this information about Flickr.

Maybe I’m late to the party, but I only recently came to realize (via Niall) that the Flickr crew has moved en masse to the Bay Area. This is the problem I’m talking about – BC is bleeding talent. Here are some talented entrepreneurs that cut their teeth at home and abroad, built something up of value in Vancouver, and then moved on once they got bought. It’s not that I blame the Flickr team – they built a successful venture, and their buyer probably needed them down here – but it’s like the BC tech environment is made of helium. Succeed and leave. Rinse, lather, repeat.

What’s worse: I’m convinced most people in BC have never even heard of Flickr. Now, understandably, it’s a pretty niche product. But it’s got a pretty cult-like following, and when someone like Yahoo! buys a company that’s only about a year old for a rumored $30 million in a place the size of Vancouver, I’d expect people to sit up and take notice.

Sigh.

in Business / Opinion / Technology 5 comments