There’s a good article in today’s Globe & Mail about Toronto’s vibrant high-tech community, and how there are so many people engaged in innovation, new ideas and new solutions.

The article puts the spotlight on what I consider to be the strength of Toronto’s high-tech sector – an abundance of optimism, enthusiasm, energy and the belief that change can be implemented if people pull together. As a member of the community, I’m always impressed to see so many people excited about technology and the impact of the Internet on how we work, live and play.

But – and here’s a big but – the reality is there’s a lot more talk than walk.

By that, I mean this energy and optimism isn’t being harnessed as much as it should. For all the great ideas and enthusiasm, the lack of start-up capital continues to be Toronto – and Canada’s – biggest weakness.

I realize the lack of start-up and venture capital is an old story but it stands in stark contrast to what’s happening within the high-tech community. You wonder how much of a difference it would make it there was even a modest number of investors able to provide $250,000 to $1-million of seed capital so some of the great ideas out there could be transformed into businesses.

I wonder, for example, what would happen if there was a Canadian version of Y Combinator where entrepreneurs could get start-up capital, support, mentoring and facilities to get going.

My sense is having this kind of capital would have a major impact on Toronto’s high-tech community. Not only would it provide capital to currently running start-ups but it would encourage other people to take the entrepreneurial leap. This, in turn, would jump-start the community and allow people to get more business experience, which can only be a good thing.

For how, however, Toronto’s high-tech community is going to have to sustain itself on enthusiasm, sweat capital, encouragement from friends and family, the vibrant camp community (DemoCamp, ChangeCamp, CaseCamp, etc.) and online conferences such as mesh and StartupEmpire.

The silver lining is there’s no lack of energy and enthusiasm out there.

Technorati Tags: toronto, web 2.0

Now that ME Consulting is solidly up and running, I wanted to provide an update on what’s been happening.

The great news is business is good. I’m working with some really great people on a variety of interesting projects. Not surprisingly, a lot of the work that I’n doing involves social media. A lot of companies are exploring the idea of getting into social media or looking for ways to improve how they’re doing social media.

It’s encouraging to see so much interest in social media and how it can help companies do business in new and different ways. What I’m discovering is many people are looking for strategic and tactical insight on what to do and how to do it. With my journalism background and experience with social media (as an enthusiast and applying it corporately at PlanetEye), I’m excited about the opportunity to give companies insight about their social media activities.

While ME Consulting is still work in progress, a “product” that has emerged is what I call the Social Media Playbook, or SMP. It’s a strategic and tactical document that takes into account a company’s marketing and communication efforts, and then integrates social media into the mix.

The creation of the SMP starts with exploring some basic, but fundamental, questions: why does a company want to do social media, what are the strategic goals, and how much time/resources are they willing to commit to making it happen. These are important questions because it sets the stage for everything else that follows in putting together a social plan plan.

For anyone interested, I’m offering a free social media audit in which I provide some feedback on what a company is doing social media and how it can be more effective.

One of the interesting things I’ve learned so far about being in business for yourself is working from home is a misnomer. I’ve been spending a lot of time meeting with people, and trying to not consume too much caffeine along the way. It makes such a difference to meet face-to-face to talk about what’s happening and how I can help people.

I’ve also been really encouraged by the strong support within the community. People have generous with their time and provided great insight and advice, which has made my plunge into the world entrepreneurialism so rewarding.

Technorati Tags: mark evans, ME Consulting, social media

If you’re a social media enthusiast, chances are you’re on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and perhaps a few others.

In some respects, all of these services are ways to receive direct messages from people – on top of your e-mail account.

Over the course of a day, you might receive messages from a variety of sources. This means you need to either check each one, or configure each service so that messages get routed to your e-mail in-box.

In any event, things are getting increasingly complicated as platforms try to be all things to all people. At some point, you have to wonder whether the multi-pronged message bombardment will get out of control. You’re standing in the middle trying to deal with messages coming at you here, there and everywhere. So, the question is whether there’s an effective way to handle everything.

The risk is things start to slip through the cracks. A direct message sent to your Twitter account may not receive your immediate attention because you didn’t check Twitter or it got buried within your in-box.

There’s an opportunity for the creation of a multi-platform messaging service that handles everything. Does such a thing exist or does it need to be developed?

Technorati Tags: linkedin, facebook, e-mail, twitter