UBC Entrepreneurs

I have been working with a team at The University of  British Columbia in forming and launching a first of its kind program in entrepreneurship.

Open to all UBC students and, eventually, all members of the UBC family, “entrepreneurship@UBC” will provide student entrepreneurs with time (workshops, fireside chats, mentorship), talent (for credit courses in entrepreneurship, venture investing and company building) and, most interestingly, treasure (an equity fund created specifically to fund UBC student companies).

While I’ll write more on entrepreneurship@UBC later, this post is about a new student led company called “Clinicbook”.  Clinicbook, founded by UBC Applied Sciences undergraduate students Robin McFee and Winnie Lai, is a web-based tool for medical clinics to publish their waiting times in real-time.  So, when a patient is looking for a walk-in clinic they can now visit www.clinicbook.ca, locate nearby clinics and, most importantly, determine waiting times updated in real-time.

I have enjoyed getting to know Robin and Winnie as they have gone through the formation of this company. I have been wholly impressed.  I have watched as these founders:

(1) Identified a market pain both for the doctors, their administrative and front office staff and, indeed, patients.

(2) Recruited a team to help them create Clinicbook’s current beta.

(3) Undertook business development and landed over sixty clinics and several major pharmacies as clients (before launch, no less!)

(4) Revised the product based on input from advisors, customers and clinics, and

(5) Launched their beta this week.

I have no doubt that Clinicbook has found a very interesting market space.  I just hope Robin and Winnie will come back and mentor some UBC students once they’ve sold Clinicbook and retired!

And for a bit of fun

I hope that regular readers of this blog will allow this indulgence.

We own a one year old Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier named Cobalt (“Coby”).  We don’t often come across other Wheaten Terriers, so when we do it’s lots of fun for our dog and for us too.

This video is of Coby playing with three other Wheatens on our beautiful British Columbia coast.

A simple lesson in socialism

I received this note from a good friend and thought it was worth sharing. I don’t know the original source.

Subject: Socialism

Lesson An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. The Class agreed!

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward and shares it with those not earning it, no one will try or want to succeed.

It just doesn’t get any simpler than this.

I am dumbfounded

In a recent Globe & Mail piece it was written that a group plans to approach government for public funds in support of a new mosque in BC’s northern community of Prince George. Cultural diversity is part of Canada’s fabric and I have no issue with the concept of building a mosque.

The issue I have is with a point made in the article that the case being made for public funding is supported, at least in part, on the basis that Prince George is losing professionals, such as surgeons, because of the absence of a mosque. The article goes on to indicate that the belief is that, if a mosque is built, Prince George will recruit and retain more surgeons. Special reference is made to a plastic surgeon who decided to move to Ontario and an orthopedic surgeon who chose the U.K. over Prince George. In both cases the article infers that this was strictly because Prince George didn’t have a mosque.

This is pure folly and shows how out of touch the policy makers are with what is really going on with recruitment and retention of surgeons in the Prince George community. Those of you who know me well also understand those issues well.

The matter of recruiting and, more importantly, retaining doctors in Prince George has about as much to do with a mosque as it does to do with the US government’s investment in General Motors.

If you’re interested, take a look at the article and draw your own conclusions. I have linked it below:

http://tinyurl.com/n737z8

Maria Bartiromo or Jim Kramer won’t pay for my losses

I am not a regular watcher of Jon Stewart’s show. In fact, I don’t think I have ever watched more than five minutes at a time. However, the following vignette was sent to me last night by a friend who is an investment advisor with a major firm. I enjoyed it and thought you might too.

http://tinyurl.com/bd5soh 

Using his own dry humour and some clips from business media over the last eighteen months (including notables like Kramer and Bartiromo) he illustrates the folly of taking business talking heads as being experts with their fingers on the pulse of all investment matters.

About eight years ago I decided to take on responsibility for management of my investment portfolio. This doesn’t necessarily mean managing an account and executing trades, as I do. But it does mean not acceding an understanding of what one owns and why.

There are lots of suspect investment managers and brokers who, frankly, don’t know anything more than how to sell. But there are also lots of investment advisors who know what they are talking about and always work toward their clients’ best interests.

This topic of understanding one’s portfolio and choosing their advisors is of some interest to me. I will write more on it in the future.