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This website was used by an entrepreneur I know. Basically it is like the marketplace InnoCentive mentioned in Chapter 5 of The Shift, however it is based around logo design. Basically entrepreneurs put out a call or contest for the logo you would like, with an explanation of what its being used for, who the audience is etc. Then graphic designers place in entries. Once the contest is over you choose your favourite one and they get paid the prize. It costs $29 to start a contest and then whatever you are willing to pay for your prize. My friend who used it was very successful, and as soon as I read about InnoCentive it made me think of this! I can image there will be more websites like this in the future

Micro-Entrepreneurship is likely to continue to increase in the next few years. This article discusses "7 Good Social Trends that Entrepreneurs" can benefit from including "Crowdfunding" and "Hackathons."

This grant program runs across Canada and provides up to $45,000.  Grants are available in many different forms and with special grants for new immigrants, transitioning Canadian Forces members, and existingentrepreneurs.  

On page 216 of the Shift, Gratton mentions that the internet is increasingly being used to help entrepreneurs find funding for their projects. This made me think of something I had seen in passing a couple of times, called 'crowdfunding'. Crowdfunding refers to sites that allow you to raise money for a certain idea, company, start-up etc. These sites charge a fee (usually percentage of money raised) and provide certain services to customers (PR, coaching etc). Some sites allow only certain types of ventures (creative ventures, Bands only, T-shirts only, non-profit/charity only), while others are open to everyone. Sites typically offer a "Keep-Everything" policy (where you keep the money regardless of getting the goal), or an "All-or-nothing" policy (where you only get to keep the money if you reach the goal). This article provides some of the top platforms for crowdfunding, however in my preliminary research I was able to find sites that were not on this list such as "GoGetFunding" and "Patreon" and "GiveForwards". It seems that these sites are popping up all over the internet! Definitely something to keep an eye on!

In Gratton's chapters 5 through 7 this week I especially enjoyed the thoughts she expressed about innovation and how technology will facilitate creativity and innovation in and between workplaces. It reminded me of a Creativity/ Innovation conference that I attended for 2 years in 2011 & 2012 in Ontario. A group of over 100 creativity and innovation professionals from corporations like Disney, organizations like Facilitators without borders and entrepreneurs like those from FlipSkills & ThinkX come together for 4 days to share the latest and the greatest with each other. It's worth a look and I'd encourage you to register.

This week I started on JobBank.gc.ca and searched my local market, York Region (as listed under "Basic LMI Resources - Where to Start" in our course notes). As I typically work with students, this particular site www.betakit.com and an article about funding for youth entrepreneurs was a great source of info to share with my students! Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation, was at Communitech this morning in Waterloo and announced a partnership with the Campus-Linked Accelerators (CLA) and On-Campus Entrepreneurship Activities (OCEA) to help students interested in building their own business gaining skills to succeed. The CLA is investing $5.8 million and the OCEA providing over $650,000.

Posted: In this era of chronically tight government budgets, consider this: every year while Canadians spend billions of dollars on jails, courts, and police to prevent criminal inmates from re-offending -- with mixed results at best -- a prison outside London, England, has a strategic program to prevent recidivism that costs government almost nothing. On page 214, Lynda Gratton talks about social entrepreneurship and that it will continue to develop and become more important in decades to come. Craig and Marc Keilburger discuss some of the reasons why Canada is falling behind in the area of social entrepreneurism. They suggest that the government needs to set up structures to create these entreprises and allow easier access to start-up capital or loans.

This site is aimed at people who own/are interested in starting their own business. The "how to" section features some handy tips that are definitely worth exploring. As well, in the top left hand corner of the webpage, if you click on "latest" there are some interesting articles many written by business professionals.

Knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering, can help you to make your products, services and marketing stand out. It will enable you to set your prices competitively and help you to respond to rival marketing campaigns with your own initiatives.

I think this link relates to this weeks talk about competitiveness in the economy. It looks understanding who a companies competitors are as well as actions that can be taken to improve your own competitiveness.

This article describes ways in which small independent artisans can fight back against the competition of large megacompanies. Although in Chapter 9 Stanford mentions that independent businesses are negligible in the large scheme of things, I think it is interesting to look at competition from this point of view. Also, upon reading this article, I think that these kinds of more personal purchasing interactions may become more popular in the coming world as Etsy is another online marketplace, similar to ones mentioned by Gratton in The Shift.

Every dog has its day, and the same applies to economic theory. Today's dog is neo-liberalism, a policy framework developed by economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, which found political expression under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

One of the main themes this week in the book "Economics For Everyone" is the term neoliberalism. Take a look at this article by the globe and mail. It talks extensively about how privatization, free trade and deregulation are changing society.

This resource is great for entrepreneurs. More specifically, check out the "Planning" section. Topics covered include: learning how to conduct market research, finding stats and analyses related to your chosen field, read up on economic trends in your industry, learn about where to find your target demographic audience across the country, and a site selection tool to help you find the best location for your business to start or grow.

If you go to work every week with the mantra "I hate my job!," this week's blog post is for you! This is the story of Amanda, one of 8 million people who have taken the MAPP career test. Amanda was working in a job she hated -- a retail job in an electronics store.

This website relates to this weeks readings about figuring out what you really want out of your career. Therefore, this career test will help people figure out what kind of trade-offs they can live with. For example, working with people as opposed to working with things.

This article analyses both the positive and negative impacts of technology upon the jobs skills and indutrial working-pattern which The Shift focuses on. The digital technology has added a great deal of quality to productivity and industrial services, official work trends and has also created new jobs such as web designing, internet operator and so on. But it cannot be without negative consequences. The "new technologies have also shrunk or even eliminated other industries and the jobs associated with them 9e.g., electronic typewriter)." This is similar to what Gratton's reference to robot soemwhere in the book.

The issues discussed by Sam Gindin in this article are related to Stanford's elaboration of capitalism in terms of its historical origin and its global impacts on human economic activities (both positive and negative). Gindin's justification that neoliberalism emerged as another form of economy in order to boost up capitalism sounds similar to what Stanford explains about it. Standford makes clear that new capitalist control or influence the majority of the world population: "the ability of elected governments to manage a capitalist economy is fundamentally limited by the unelected power of businesses and investors" (Economics for Everyone, 31). Regarding the capitalists' power as such, Gindin makes a sever comment that it is not late yet for political power to control the limited number of capitalists' monopoly.

This article works as one of the best examples to understand the new trends, the global chaining which has extensively been elaborated by Friendman in his book The World is Flat. When the Starbucks face a cost problem in its operational system, the company applied certain improvement steps and made drastic changes: a plan for organization, simplifying the complex, "one world, one logistics system," and earning the company's confidence.

Great resource for returning students to start their own business over the summer.

TheSelfEmployed.com is a Web portal for all things self-employed. The site aims to be your one-stop-shop for everything you need to know to have a fun and successful entrepreneurial journey. At the site, you will find relevant articles, how-to videos, podcasts, forums, and special offers that are all deigned specifically for the self-employed.

In reading Friedman's three convergence story of Rajesh Dhruva, I decided to look up his company. I was impressed! His company partners with Disney, SEGA, Microsoft, Sony, and probably many other well-known gaming companies that I'm just not familiar with! Just a fun link... Dhruva Interactive is a experienced game development company in India located in Bangalore. It is one of the top game development firm and art studio in Bangalore, India.