Why Startups Should Support Grassroots Movements
There’s only 21 people following us here on Google+. You know why that is awesome? Because it means that I can say whatever the f*** I want on the “corporate” page without censoring myself (pause for irony).
With that in mind, here’s one of the many things I spent my Christmas thinking about. Most of our client leads thus far have been for mobile app projects that I would classify as “last year’s cool ideas”. As a result, I’ve started to worry about the state of innovation in Canada. Why don’t we spend more of our time preaching ways to harness the newest technologies that our devices have to offer? Why are we still emulating success of last year’s mobile marketing campaigns? Why are so many companies crazy about QR codes but not NFC, daily deals but not mobile-commerce, and store finders but not augmented reality?
The answer is likely some combination of our economics, our history, our climate and our population density. But as with most negative things in life, I blame Rogers and Bell. Their greedy, unethical and unfair practices have turned back the clock on innovation time and again. Their oligopolistic tendencies (3-year contracts, bandwidth throttling, usage limits, influence over CRTC regulation) create an environment where Canadians can’t feel passionate about the latest mobile technologies.
This is why there needs to be a direct link, not just between Milan and his friends, but between for-profit entities like Zeus River, who fight for more innovative ideas in technology, and non-profit organizations like Open Media, who fight for better consumer protection and fair markets for telecommunications in Canada.
What do you think? Am I crazy for drawing a link between the two? Or for trying to promote partisan causes as a corporate entity?
