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Start Up or Join Up?

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Recent graduates from post-secondary schools across Canada have an interesting choice to make: should they start up a new enterprise or accept an offer to join an established one?

The student start-up dream has been immortalized by wild success stories.  Legends abound of university drop-outs like Mike Lazaridis (creator of the BlackBerry) and Bill Gates, as well as graduates like Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerburg – all students who left university to pursue technology start-ups that changed the world.

Intelligent and creative students across the country are faced with a choice when they graduate.  They may have innovative and ambitious ideas for new businesses, but are inundated with offers from businesses that need the best and brightest new graduates to survive. When faced with the choice between working for an established enterprise like Research In Motion (RIM), Google or Facebook, and starting their own venture, how should a student decide?

The price of failure – risk – is often the largest deterrent for anyone considering an entrepreneurial venture.  Students who finance their education with student loans (about 26% of Canadian students according to StatsCan – I think it’s closer to 50%) might have no choice but to accept an offer of steady income that helps pay down their debt.  Even for those rare few students that manage to graduate debt-free, sometimes a steady paycheque is too tempting to resist.  When you graduated university/college, wasn’t money your largest concern?

Students might also be concerned about missing the opportunities for networking, training and resume building that a large enterprise might offer them.  There’s no doubt about it, yesterday’s start-ups are now large firms with fixed budgets that have attractive perks for new hires.  The trade-offs are similar to the differences between working for a small company vs. big company – only with added risk and potential reward. So what’s stopping young entrepreneurs from getting hired?

A new wave of student organizations have started promoting youth entrepreneurship, encouraging students in high school, college and university to pursue their innovative ideas. Impact, UBC’s Enterprize Canada and EPIC Tech are three examples of student run not for profit organizations that are fostering a new community of student entrepreneurs that aren’t afraid to innovate.  These organizations are supported by venture capital and consulting firms looking to foster a new generation of clientele, as well as government agencies that (like the rest of us) would like to see more jobs created on Canadian soil.

Universities are catching on.

The University of Waterloo has created an entrepreneurship-based student residence called VeloCity, where students form teams that develop actual mobile media businesses over the course of the academic year.   This business community holds seminars and information sessions about starting a successful venture, and acts as a gateway into venture support networks in the wider community, like the Accelerator Centre.  This is a trend that is sure to continue.

Now when asked the question, “start up or join up” what would you do?

Social Media 101

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For the uninitiated, social media seems like a bit of a challenge.  The internet was intimidatingly large before, and internet giants like Google rose up to organize it by search.  Now masses of internet users are contributing their thoughts, discoveries and experiences to the web, changing yesterday’s relatively static experience to a more dynamic and human one.   This new way of organizing information (dominated primarily by recommendation, sharing and user participation) can be described broadly as “social media.”  So how does a new user start exploring this brave new world?

 

Social Media as a Cellphone

At one time not many people had cellphones.  The argument against them was that they were not only ugly, but that nobody needed to be available by phone in their car if they had voicemail at the office and at home.  Clearly the trend rolled right on past the objections — cellphones are now so popular that they are beginning to crowd out residential landlines.  The power of connecting to the telecom grid from anywhere empowered people to stay more informed and socially available than they ever were before.   As our method of communication changed, so did we.   Today we have similar skeptics doubting the viability of social media as a long-term change in the way we communicate.  The trend however, suggests just the opposite.

The big change that social media brings is more far-reaching than society’s gradual adoption of wireless telecom.  That was still centered around talking to another person over the phone.  Social media has changed our entire internet experience.  Before it was all about Search n’ Surf: you were either so specific that you could find what you needed with the right search query or bookmark, or you surfed links exhaustively until finding something interesting.  Today web browsing is more of a team effort: social media provides a river of information, recommendations and shared links that are likely to interest you, because other people found them interesting.

How it Works

Getting started with social media means you have to start participating in the conversation streams that are important to you.  Each type of social media is a tool, just like a cellphone, although there are many different purposes you might use them for.  Here is a brief summary of the basics.

Blogs (web logs) allow you to start public conversations about interesting subjects online, usually in the form of short articles posted in a series.  A blog is like an editorial, where a perspective is illustrated with references to relevant events and images.  Readers can then respond by posting comments.  If a blog is particularly influential, it has many return visitors and is mentioned on many other websites to improve their credibility.

  • Main point: blogs are a rich form of self expression in multimedia format that anyone on the web can see.
  • When well done: blogs can improve credibility, demonstrate expertise, and are widely shared and talked about.

Micro blogs like Twitter are a bare-bones version of a full blog, where your “articles” will be no more than 140 characters long.  These short messages are ideal for identifying worthy information sources on the web.  Credible and influential microbloggers tend to have very relevant, interesting information to share.  The short nature of micro blogs makes them a faster, leaner space to rapidly communicate information.  There is little room for discussion however, so links are used ubiquitously to direct people to sites that have adequate space to explore the issues introduced in a micro-blog.

  • Main point: micro blogs are short messages that act as previews of how larger issues and ideas are developing.
  • When done well: micro blogs are paid attention to by many people, and describe cutting edge developments.

Social Networks are online communities (like Facebook and MySpace) users join to connect and share information with people they know, or would like to know better.  This community revolves around shared content, whether in the form of media, relationships, messages or events.  The interactive element is the flow of your network members’ responses to the shared information.  Popular social network users are more in touch with what is “going on” in their network.  Networks can be friendship based (Facebook), romantically oriented, or strictly professional (like LinkedIn).

  • Main point: social networks make you more available and connected to a particular group of people.
  • When well done: social networks strengthen your connections to people, and make it easier for people to communicate with you.

Many other forms of social media exist, like ladder-format sites (Reddit, Digg) that rank content based on popularity, and the increasingly popular Wiki that lets many people collaborate and author one document.  If you are uninitiated, the key to social media is to try it out and see for yourself.  For the experts out there, keep inventing new ways to connect and communicate!

The Liberal Arts: Irrelevant in a Digital Age?

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University degrees are splintering into a wider range of disciplines than ever before.  New programs are starting to blend traditional disciplines with cutting edge technology like nanotechnology engineering, or creating entirely new mixes that more accurately serve the needs of the workplace.  The pile of programs and credentials available may be daunting, but students are not complaining — the higher their chances of obtaining full time employment after graduation, the better.  That makes the case for studying liberal arts increasingly difficult in the face of such a diverse array of more “real world” degrees.  The question is, is there still a place for the world’s oldest degree in a digital age?

Several years ago there was a flurry of positive rhetoric in the media about the value of a liberal arts degree, but the voices died down in the shadow of the sub-prime recession.  Just like everyone else, BA holders continue to graduate into less than ideal hiring conditions, and have to work harder than the average applicant to convince people of the value of their degree.  Part of the challenge is a negative perception of arts majors, and sizable number of arts graduates competing for the same positions.  For these reasons and more, the humanities and social sciences are as unappealing as ever — so how do the lucky few overcome the negativity?

It’s about Passion – Period.

In the wide world of university, arguments abound about the merits of a particular degree.  It used to be that a university diploma was your rolled up ticket into a job, and in some limited spheres it still is.  So when in doubt, people are cajoled into signing up for a degree that will “guarantee” them a job.   There are many reasons for going to university, and I think getting a job is as valid a reason as any other.  However, spending 4 years of time and potential income on any subject you’re not passionate about isn’t guaranteeing anything but misery.

The question is, is there still a place for the world’s oldest degree in a digital age?

If liberal arts has one strength, it tends to be the passion that people have for it over other disciplines.  If you are passionate about what you study, the information tends to stay with you.  Too many people spend their undergraduate degrees dispassionately passing courses just to get by… And what good is that?  If you graduate from the most elite job-guaranteeing program in the country, and you hated every minute of it, do you think you’ll enjoy the job waiting for you?  I’m not saying that living on a cloud for 4 years and graduating into poverty is ideal.  I believe that pursuit of passion naturally makes you more successful because you’re personally invested in the outcome.  If your passion is Actuarial Science, all the better for you.  For the rest of us, we should study something we enjoy!

Career Development Happens Between Classes

When you graduate, degree in hand, many other people will too.  If all that sets you apart are the letters on your degree, it may be difficult to prove you’re the best person for the job.  So how do you differentiate yourself?

The fact is that real career development happens between classes. In most cases, it’s true that students in professional programs like accounting and engineering are given crippling workloads that far exceeds the demands of your typical essay writing arts student.  When it comes to career development, however, this can be a blessing in disguise.

With the additional free time that a flexible arts degree provides, an enterprising student has time to work part time, network, get involved in academic life and still come out with great marks.  Is this a substitution for a degree in software engineering?  Absolutely not.  But there is enough room outside the academic demands of a typical arts degree to get immersed in what you love doing.  Outside class is a perfect place to practice networking, traveling, and upgrading your technical skills.  There is nothing stopping an ambitious political science student from becoming a PhotoShop wizard or web designer.  Don’t wait until you have your degree to develop your interests; in any discipline the best career skills are learned outside the classroom.

What you Learn becomes Irrelevant; How you Learn Never Does

Quickly after you graduate from university studies, the specific tidbits of knowledge you learned will fade away, becoming less and less important as “real life” experience takes over.  The details become obscured, but the core skills you learned stay with you for a long time.  How to research, attack a problem, meet new people, do a presentation, and write coherently are all skills you can come away from university with — or not.  It’s up to you.  The more varied your experiences are, the more of these foundational skills you’ll come away with.  Combined with passion and personal initiative, a liberal arts degree allows you the freedom to develop transferable skills that set you apart.

Now and in the future, the latest greatest most specialized university program will always be in demand.  Amid the vast selection of  “real world” degrees and their promise of a 98% employment rate, remember that you are paying for an experience, so make sure it’s a good one.  Liberal arts have stayed relevant for centuries, and will continue to do so despite what the critics say.  Above all, study what you love, develop your skills outside the classroom and the rest will come naturally.