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November 20, 2005
Whirlwind week...
After Seattle RoadMap, had a day at home, then off again to Toronto, where I gave our second seminar for Torstar, the parent company for the Toronto Star, Harlequin Books, etc. Nice to come back to a culture and a lot of great press about how much of GTD had stuck and spread since the first one early this year. Followed by another Institute for Management Studies (IMS) session seminar there, with lots of folks from the government of Ontario and some of the larger Canadian corporations. On to Minneapolis (barely, because of 50mph winds at the aiports), to do another IMS session there, plus a day with our friends at General Mills, finishing up our pilot GTD Masters program, training internal support coaches for the process. Also gave a pro bono workshop for heads of the local organizations funded by the General Mills Foundation, part of an on-going series of management and executive development events they provide them.
While I was in Toronto I had a wonderful dinner with the head of a biotechnology startup - Peter Gallant, CEO of Pathogen Detection Systems, Inc. They've discovered a technology that easily, immediately, and accurately detects ecoli bacteria, among other things, in water systems. An informative and interesting dinner for me, because as well as leading the start-up, Peter teaches entrepreneurship at Queens University, and is quite knowledgable about the venture capital world, especially in Canada. The occasion of course was that Peter's a major GTD fan, came across my stuff a couple of years ago, and swears by the transformative power of the methods. One interesting spin for DavidCo that Peter shared, in terms of positioning, is that the risks of VC funding for a start-up are threefold: market potential, IP security, and execution. The latter is a big missing link out there, and GTD, applied, minimizes the risk of non-execution. Makes perfect sense, of course, but the trick will be to make that appropriately known to the VC firms who might want to make GTD implementation a requirement for funding.
Me and Dr. Peter Gallant of Pathogen Detection Systems, after dinner...
Posted by David at November 20, 2005 08:59 AM
Comments
Not to be a pain...but it's actually Queen's University. In Canada, there is a subtle but significant distinction between a college and a university -- much different than in the U.S.
Posted by: Jeff at November 20, 2005 10:15 AM
David here - Jeff, thanks for the correction (which I've made!)
Posted by: David at November 20, 2005 01:11 PM
Different Jeff....
Where did you have dinner when in T.O.?
Can't quite place the photo.
Just curious.
Posted by: Jeff at November 21, 2005 01:05 PM
Jeff:
Dinner was at L'Auberge du Pommier. I think Dave would attest (as I would) to the fact that the food - at least the lamb and the pork - were fantastic!
http://www.aubergedupommier.com/
Regards,
Peter
Posted by: Peter Gallant at November 21, 2005 07:28 PM
Thanks.
The menu looks great. Perhaps I'll try it out sometime.
Cheers.
JC
Posted by: Jeff at November 22, 2005 05:57 AM