I, am the face of new industry. I dont need a factory to make widgets, I make them digitally. I deal globally from my home office, but I am leaving the area. This post is an insight as to the why, and as such, it is not meant for me to be answering any of the comments as I have a business to run, but thought my observations why I am moving my family would shed some light on the position I am in. I know I am not alone. A lot of different factors came into play to fuel the decision to move, one of the biggest for a tech company like mine is bandwidth. I had an office downtown and due to my location (down by the Roxy) I could not get cable internet and had to settle for DSL - which sadly had less speed than my 4G connection at home. I dont live in Owen Sound (anymore), but I have always worked here as well as owned businesses here so I feel that I have a right to at least post on here. Other sources of contention are the fact that the city maintains a stance on being progressive, and even when presented with options that would generate new revenue and help tourism, I get the hamster wheel of death...yet my same ideas get used against me in tendering out to other parties from out of area (which I can see to a certain point) but when I am showcasing technology that works and I am dealing globally with it, it makes one wonder why their own backyard has the worst sandbox to build in. I have run into so many roadblocks and attended so many meetings, dealt with tire kicking, multiple emails and have gotten nowhere here in my hometown, yet we literally pickup the phone to Australia and BAM, we are in. Then we get The UK, Germany, Indiana, US, Iowa, US, San Francisco, US - dealing with professionals that see us for what we are, not where we are from. Dealing with areas like Toronto, Barrie, Collingwood ( you get the idea ) it is almost like we are blacklisted because of where we live. I dont know if we are perceived to hail from the stone ages, but that is how it feels once they catch wind of where we come from. That being said, until it gets to that point, the people we deal with are the most open minded individuals I have ever met, whereas in Owen Sound, it feels like everyone has a chip on their shoulder. In contrast, it literally feels like Owen Sound is in the Twilight Zone compared to Collingwood as an example. We have made the decision to uproot our family & move to the Barrie area because of its proximity to Toronto, the airport and of course the digital corridor. I have a signed 5 year contract that I picked up with the worlds biggest Augmented Reality company in August, and did a webinar for The Americas on their behalf to agencies looking to get in on this technology. The webinar was 5,000+ in attendance....and the whole time I thought Please, do NOT let my internet go down An argument could be made that if I tried harder, I could make it work, but without naming parties involved that have dangled the proverbial carrot in front of my nose, all I would be able to say is that the argument would get nowhere. I will find the people I need in the area we are moving to, because they are there, and most certainly not coming here in the short term. I was told that we may get the bandwidth I need in two years....Hanover has it now - access points are in Springmount. If we truly want to live here, we have to be able to work here. Here is a small example of what my company does: youtu.be/WmqLmGTfBS8 This is what I am (was) building out of my own pocket, because the city could not make a decision (even when I was giving it at cost), and now Barrie, Cambridge and Kincardine will have it before they do: youtu.be/gB2Pv_CrMRo Last but not least, here is another example of it being used for tourism - Tom Thomson coming to life (well his headstone anyway): youtu.be/CtcycW3v-Qs A new era of industry is here, and my hometown missed the mark. Maybe one day we will come back - but too little too late in my opinion.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 01:42:19 +0000
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