Link to original article

Gen X entrepreneurs speak different language than baby boom investors

New Brunswick must overcome a generational divide to advance its information and communications technology industry, delegates to a conference in Saint John said Wednesday.

Generations X and Y must learn how to explain products to baby boomers - "all the grey hair that has all the money," one person said - they hope will invest.

This issue arose at the inaugural New Brunswick Innovation Forum organized by the National Research Council of Canada Institute for Information Technology. The two-day event wrapped up Wednesday at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre, ahead of the second annual ThinkNB information and communications technology showcase today.

The generational divide explains partly why technology changes faster than government, schools and industry adapt, delegates said. People who remember before the dial telephone must deal with youngsters who already consider the cellular telephone and email passe.

"From that generation it's already legacy technology," said Timothy Workman of Fredericton, a project manager with the NRC-ITT, said in a session on opportunities for New Brunswick in advanced learning and technologies.

Computers do not bring about the change they should in schools because teachers and administrators stick to their "text book programs," he said. "It's predicated on an industrial model that treats everybody the same."

"It's a pedagogical issue, it's not a technology issue," a member of the audience said during the question period following Workman's presentation.

Workman dealt with the efforts to build a self-sustaining network of technology companies in New Brunswick, with or without federal government support.

Industry Canada turned down an application from New Brunswick this year for $2 million per year for five years to support a New Brunswick centre of excellence for advanced learning technologies.

The 25 centres approved so far under Industry Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence Program include one east of Quebec City - in Halifax, Workman said.

Next year, New Brunswick will apply to Ottawa again, Workman said. In the meantime the New Brunswick project will proceed, possibly on a smaller scale, with the provincial government committing $5 million over five years, the National Research council $4 million - much of it as "in-kind" services.

New Brunswick's technology industry must develop networks in which participants talk to each other, regionally as well as across the province, and with the industry in other jurisdictions, Workman said. "There are challenges in front of us, and self-sufficiency is not going to happen by accident," he said in an interview following his presentation.

The two final sessions of the forum dealt with financing growth by technology companies, and international opportunities and strategies.

Related to the communication issue between baby boom investor and young entrepreneurs, speakers also said the industry should worry about transferring a life-time of intellectual capital with the boomers set to retire in droves.

Johannes Larsen of Miramichi, who chaired the panel on financing, repeated a story in which a baby boomer asked a youngster what the emerging generation will come up with to match the impact of the cellular telephone and email.