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wo other Ts - talent as Romer’s work points out and tolerance - or openness to new people and new ideas.

Martin has transformed the Rotman School from a mediocre Canadian business school to a world-class institution. It’s one of the few business schools around with an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking. Martin believes designers approaches to thinking and problem-solving can and should be applied to all components of business (He calls it integrative thinking and business design.) Most of our own processes here at the Business Innovation Factory are firmly rooted in design thinking principles.

Martin also managed to lure Richard Florida to Toronto in 2007 to direct the Rotman School's new $120-million Martin Prosperity Institute. Spinning off from much of Florida's research, the institute's goal is to build a leading think-tank on the role of sub-national factors – location, place and city-regions – in global economic prosperity. By taking an integrated view of prosperity, the institute will look beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential. I'm looking forward to ongoing conversations with our new friends at the Rotman school. I suspect there might even be a collaboration or two about to happen as well. Bottom line: if you want to learn about innovation, Toronto is the place to be.

The challenge we faced was how do we increase awareness

We looked at how with a simple web cam or flip camera we could share the strongest messages that people needed to hear.

most important social media tools can be email and a blog.

tools are important for four reasons. They leverage existing investments of time and resources They allow orgs to add multimedia to existing communication channels eg. newsletters They enable easier sharing than existing tools They are sustainable

Social media strategy needs to be adopted by the whole organisation not just by someone who is technically savvy.

Speaking to a full house at Toronto's MaRS Centre on July 9, 2009, Tom Rand explains why he has decided to focus on buildings in his approach to climate change. “Buildings are responsible in our large urban centres for between a half and three quarters of our carbon emissions. That’s a huge part of our footprint,” he says. “In terms of climate change, buildings are the lowest hanging fruit, as far as I can tell.”

Tom Rand’s talk Green or Green Wash? Lessons from Building North America’s Greenest Hotel in Toronto

According to Tom Rand, if you’re not talking low carbon, you’re greenwashing.

Tom Rand believes any building can and should achieve in the immediate future using sustainable technologies that already exist.  Moreover, he claims to have found a magic bullet, alleging that these carbon cuts can be made without spending a dime.

and has come a long way since then, transforming the Planet Traveler hostel into a kind of cleantech gallery. Utilizing solar-voltaic and solar-thermal heating, geo-exchange, 100% LED lighting, and a wastewater heat re-capturing unit called the Powerpipe, it boasts a rich collection of renewables. It also seeks to educate. The geo-exchanger and Powerpipe are featured behind a glass wall in the basement, and the rooftop mezzanine bar offers a full view of the solar panels in the foreground of Toronto’s skyline.

Rand had to look to an adjacent alley to bury the pipe.

Rand, a carbon tax, widespread education campaigns, and third party support for green infrastructure via green bonds or a geo-utility are sure-fire ways “to build a cleantech economy in Canada without spending a dime.”

If any country wants to participate in the next economic revolution they had better start dealing with clean-tech and they had better start dealing with it quickly.”

“Collaboration is the essence of the new economy,” insists Ross Wallace, director of strategic partnerships at MaRS. “There’s a new focus on the power of institutions to generate intellectual property and ideas, and then build around them.”

MaRS has a virtual education program dubbed “Entrepreneurship 101.” One February class features budgeting, another agrifood innovation. The classes are available at no cost, and anyone can register. The program also includes blogs and discussion groups such as the drug development and cancer targets groups. So far, MaRS has relied on viral marketing to get the word out.

To provide that expertise, MaRS developed the MaRS Venture Group. This team of experienced investors, entrepreneurs, technology experts, and advisors works with companies to help them bridge the gap between entrepreneurial start-up and experienced growth company. The Venture Group provides market intelligence as well  as advisory services such as strategic planning, partnership and alliance building, intellectual property management, marketing and communications, sales strategy, channel development, financing, and human resource development. It works with groups outside the MaRS orbit, too.