EQ Journal

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Why I Wrote Quantum Entity

Here below is the dedication I wrote for the upcoming release of the first book in my new trilogy, Quantum Entity, which will be available later this year. Below that I include the Foreword. Dedication I wanted to write a great mid-21st Century story, a trilogy as it turned out, focused on five themes—entrepreneurship/science, science [...]

Excerpt from Quantum Entity: We Are All One: ‘Worry Dolls’

(Performance artist Nell takes physicist Damien Bell and friends to her second home on Ambergris Caye to celebrate Damien’s 23rd birthday. On Day 2, they find themselves at Marco Gonzalez, the site of Mayan ruins on the south end of the island. Take a few minutes to pre-read the Foreword from Quantum Entity: http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2932. Please [...]

How to get NHL teams for Québec City and … Hamilton

NHL rules that so frustrated Jim Balsillie’s efforts to secure a team for Hamilton saved the Sens in Ottawa. Instead of fighting the system, he might have worked with it for a brand new team. And, oh by the way, a second team in the Toronto area, could cost $400 million. BY BRUCE FIRESTONE, FOR [...]

To Patent or Not to Patent, Software

By David J. French, B. Eng, LLB Second Counsel Services Pretty much everyone in the software business hopes one day to come up with something that they might be able to patent. After all, didn’t patents make Bill Gates and Microsoft rich? Not true! Many software shops do have intellectual property rights but their rights [...]

Entrepreneur Sayings and Quotations

Some Quotes from Prof Bruce and Fellow Travelers to Help Entrepreneurs Along their Way (For Quotes 1 to 600, please refer to: http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1084.) 601. “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way,” Aristotle. 602. “Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes,” [...]

Engineering Ethics

(This is an essay I wrote in March 2010 before the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred. It seems even more important today. For example, if you are an engineer on the Deepwater Horizon rig and someone gives you an order to keep drilling even though the blowout preventer’s battery is dead, [...]

Guerrilla Marketing Basics

Introduction Guerrilla marketing (GM) is just another term for ‘smart marketing’. The unofficial credo for civil engineers is: “Do for a dollar what any fool could do for two.” The guerrilla marketer is really similar—someone who uses leverage to efficiently and effectively get the enterprise’s message out there either by way of media attention (aka, [...]

What’s Legal versus What’s Right

Customer Service at Its Worst A few years ago, Ottawa experienced enormous snowfalls—well above average. That winter (2007-08), Ottawa had the second highest amount of snow on record (432.7 cm.) Our snow plowing contractor, who had been satisfactorily removing snow for us at our home in Kanata for more than 15 years, faced a crisis—like [...]

Want to be a Better Leader, Manager, Business Person and Human Being?

Learn to Resist the 7 Deadly Sins Lord Toranaga (a principal character in James Clavell’s 1976 novel, Shogun) became a successful leader, in part, because he was able to master himself above all else. He learned to resist strong emotions and to think clearly when everyone around him was panicking. Clavell, in my view, understood [...]

Why Large Companies Buy Cashflow Not Ideas

I often get asked by inventors: “I have a great idea, why can’t I just sell it to a big firm for a bundle and let them run with it?” Large, established firms don’t buy ideas—they buy cashflow and, while this is often disappointing when inventors hear this, there are logical reasons behind this position. [...]

Good Corporate Citizen

The City of Ottawa is yet again embarking on a planning exercise for rapid transit in Canada’s Capital City. Based on LRT (Light Rail Technology), the last initiative foundered badly, not because of the technology, not because the financing wasn’t available, not because the public interest wasn’t there in Light Rail but because of political [...]