Who controls your digital reputation? by Arbitrage Magazine

VOLUME 05 NO. 6 JANUARY 2014

WHO CONTROLS YOUR DIGITAL REPUTATION? YO

Not Everyone on Your Friends List Is Your Friend: How well are you protected from those who can compromise your standing on the net

Social Skills in a Cyber World: An in depth look at the best ways to conduct yourself profesionally online

Generation Y? More like Generation Dropout!: Are millenials entering the workplace less educated than those who came before? How will this affect job prospects?

EDITOR’S NOTE

Liana crocco Editor-in-Chief Arbitrage Magazine Though I don’t spend outrageous amounts of time blogging, posting on Facebook, or Tweeting, I have been known to do all three and happen to be friends with hard-core social media junkies. At social events, these friends are the first to whip out their cameras and have the event documented online in more detail than I sometimes care to remember. Sometimes, because I’m not the one doing the snapping or posting, it’s easy to overlook the way I’m being portrayed on the internet. However, as is becoming increasingly clear, I can’t afford to remain naïve much longer to my digital reputation. The fact is: anyone with access to a search engine (yes, this includes school instructors on potential employers) can type in my name and feast their eyes

on some questionable photos, posts, or Tweets that I assumed would eventually melt into the background of the billions of bytes of data that comprise the internet. As this issue will prove, the internet’s memory is “far from selective” and it’s important for you to keep a close eye on anything even remotely related to your name. What are the best ways to clean up your online image? The good news is, the process is not as arduous or time-consuming as you may think, and, believe or not, there are websites that can do it for you. We also examine how you can protect sensitive information (such as banking information and real-time location) online without needing to abandon the ease and convenience of online

banking or shopping. This issue also closely considers the most common challenges faced by Generation Y, a group also known as the Millenials (those born between 19802000). We all know the world is changing, and as the Millenials come into their own and begin to take the reins of their own lives, they’ll need a guidebook to navigate the world they’ve inherited. Essentially, this issue of Arbitrage is meant to be that guidebook. We’re turning the microscope on the aspects of life in 2013 that most deeply affect the Millenial Generation. I believe that a strong understanding of our present strengths and challenges will propel us into a bright and successful future. - Liana

Founder & Ceo David Alexander arbitrage support staFF BoArD of Directors samita Vasudeva, Garin Kilpatrick, Michael Manirakiza, rabeea Wajeeha MArKetinG Director Hassan nawaz coMMunicAtions reps Monika Mistry, connie ng, Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Aundra Belnavis, David Adelman Hr Director seta Janian AssistAnt Hr Director elena stefanac Hr coorDinAtors nicholas Wagner, Kulajika Kulasegaram, Kevin Wong

magazine produCtion team eDitor-in-cHiefs sean previl, Liana crocco, Kevin chao MAnAGinG eDitor thomas Henry Dinardo Vice MAnAGinG eDitor Meghan Lafferty section eDitors Michelle Hampson, tilly Wark, Megan Barr, carolyn turgeon, steven Gelis, Holly penick, Michael Baxter, John Brannen, Karry taylor, Kiera obbard, elizabeth palmier, Muneer Huda, phyllis Ho, Melissa Goertzen proofreADer Monica slovak stAff Writers Matthew King, Megan Gartrell, Leah Kellar, spencer emmerson, imogen Whittakercumming, Kostantinos roccas, rebecca ferguson, Jaron serven, sucheta shankar, corinne sato, fatima syed, nikki Gill, Viviane fairbank, sarah Munn, Katherine smith, Jordan smith, Marc posth, ocean-Leigh peters, Marlon Gomez, Lindsey Addawoo, timothy robin Alberdingk thijm, shazeen Dhala, Julie Bay, Jordan Zachary Adler, Matthew James smith, Michelle Monteiro, Ken cates, tiffany Andrea narducci, Michael capitano, ryan Moore, Andrew Montgomery, chelsi robichaud, Mara paolantonio, Anna Desmarais, Liam McArdle, Loren March, Ashley Meikle Art Directors elaine Kwan, Katherine chu AssistAnt Art Directors summer Zhang, saya Ye stAff DesiGners Amy MacKenzie, Angela song, Bebe Zhang, Dorvan Davoudi, John Valyrakis, Leigh cavanaugh, Mari Zhou, Maria Arias, ruvini silva, saya Ye, tai soochan

contents

Generation Y?

More like Generation dropout

Surving Youth Unemployment

Dependent and Independent

MIT & Harvard Offer Courses Online For Free

Wretches and Genes: We Come For You

The Arts in the New Age of Entrepreneurship

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM July 2013

Social Skills in a Cyber World

Not Everyone On Your Friends List is Your Friend

What does Google know about you? You might be surprised.

How to protect yourself online from wrong-doers who are not always easy to spot

Will Our Generation See The End of Torrent Sites? How Governments continue to apply pressure to Torrent-based websites and if this will result in the downfall of the industry entirely

Climate Change is Affecting the Growth of Potatoes, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fourth largest food crop

How to Make it as an Entrepreneur

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JULY 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

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Generation Y?

More like Generation dropout! an in-depth look at todaY’s eduCation trends in developed nations and an analYsis of WhY Millennials are enterinG the labour Market less eduCated than their predeCessors

written by: Michelle Monteiro

We need to shift the mindset that education is an obligation and start seeing it as a privilege to be valued and respected.

It doesn’t matter that she isn’t a certified teacher yet, Salma Faress is a teacher nonetheless,it just happens to be at a Summer Camp. Faress, 20, a fourth year student in the Psychology Stream of the Concurrent Education program at the University of Toronto, Mississauga campus,is one of the many in her generation, also known as Generation Y or the Millennial Generation (whatever floats your boat), who are joining the workforce less educated than those leaving it. This phenomenon is unique in developed countries, especially in the United States, which is the only country listed in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a forum committed toseeking answers to common problems, that is below the OECD average. (Figure 1) The American education system

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has slipped over the past few decades, no longer being as internationally competitive as it used to be,according to a new June report from the Council on Foreign Relations’ Renewing America initiative. For fifty-five to sixty-four year olds, the United States has the highest percentage of high school graduates and the third largest of college graduates. Butthe percentage of people aged twenty-five to thirty-four in the country is tenth and thirteenth respectively. “It’s ironic,” Faress noted upon coming across the trend. “There are so many privileges here that others anywhere else cannot even begin to imagine, and yet,those who do live here don’t take what’s offered to them.”

What about Canada? Canadahas fared well in comparison to

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the United States. The percentage of individuals with high school diplomas aged forty-five to sixty-four is slightly higher than the Millennials. Other than that, the rates of post-secondary completion trail very close behind the rates of their successors. If countries were ranked on the share of people aged twenty-five to thirty-four years, Canada would jump from second to first, while the United States would drop from the highest rank. (Figure 2) The Great White North has the highest rate of college completion, consistently performing at the top level, topping competitor countriesbymore than ten percentage points. Since 1998, the country has increased its performance on university completion, edging closer to its higher-ranking peers, but it is unlikely that Canada will

top the current leaders anytime soon. For the most part, however, rates on secondary and post-secondary completion have been stagnant.

How do other developed countries compare? According to the OECD Better Life Index on education, which scores OECD countries on educational attainment, student skills and years in education, Finland is the top-performing country in terms of its educational system with an index level of 9.5 out of 10. The percentage of Finns graduating from upper secondary education easily exceeds the seventy-five percent OECD average at more than ninety percent. Finnish students also tend to perform well regardless of their socio-economic background, which, unfortunately,

cannot be said of the United States or even Canada. Japan is close behind in second place with an index of 9 and Sweden follows with a score of 8.2. Canada ranks tenth with 7.5. The United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; score is a dismal 6.9, placing it nineteenth. Out of the thirty-four countries in the OECD, Ireland has made the most progress, with a twenty-four percentage increase in its high school completion rate between 1997 and 2010. Over ninety-six percent of those aged twenty-five and thirty-four in Ireland have completed high school, while fifty percent of fifty-five to sixty-four year olds have. (Figure 3)

Why does this trend exist? So whyare Millennials less educated than their predecessors when they enter

January 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

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work force? There are a few plausible explanations. Too ManyCompulsor y High School Requirements: In Canada, these vary from province to province, but in the United States, mandatory subject requirements are common in nearly all American high schools. Essentially, in order for a student to graduate with a diploma, conditions must be met, certain courses must be taken. For Americans, this includes three years of Science, four years of Mathematics and English, at least one year of physical education. Simple enough, no? However, this provides a drawback for students. If we, as a society, are constantly viewing compulsory education as something “that we must do and get over with”, where is the incentive and desire to continue into post-secondary studies? We need to shift the mindset that education is an obligation and start seeing it as a privilege to be valued and respected.We also need to stop seeing schools as merely an

institution where children are being supervised by teachers, parents should be regarded as the primary instructor in the educational success of their own children. Post-secondar y schools are expensive: For decades, tuition and fees have been outpacing family income and rising faster than inflation.It’s more expensive now than ever before to send a child to a post-secondary program of study.According to the Globe and Mail, Canada spends heavily on higher education over all -- nearly $24000 per student compared with an OECD average of about $14200 -- ranking Canada second among all OECD countries, behind only the United States. For numerous reasons, including expensive college maintenance, increased professor salaries and increased degree demand, students will continue to face an average tuition increase every year despite much financial aid, continuing to face an uphill battle, until the cost of higher education is addressed.

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM January 2014

New Reality in the Job Market: Since the recession, the economy has shifted, and a growing number of people have lost their jobs. Needless to say, for the past few years, a solid, fulltime position is something increasingly out of reach. The labour market now consists of a surge of part-time employment, all of which do not require a post-secondary degree to have. An Accenture survey found that forty-one percent of workers who graduated from college in the past two years say they are underemployed and working in a job that doesn’t require a degree. So if our reality is mainly part-times, jobs that will never need post-secondary studies, why bother pursuing it?

What can the past tell us? The origins of these issues, surprisingly, and the answers we are looking for can be rooted forty years into the past. Let us use the United States as a case study. During the first seventy years of the twentieth century, the high school

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More Problems for Millennials? The problem with these new graduation requirements was, and still continues to be, that they are toofocused on getting a student into a post-secondary program, or any program, rather than guiding the student toward a career. Today, high school graduates and even college/ university graduates are entering the “real world” with limited experience and a scarce amount of skills. “Priorities have changed and our education has adapted to reflect those priorities,” commented Salma Faress.“Back then, when my parents were my age, life was focused on two things: career and family. You needed a career to provide food on your family’s table and that’s where education came into the picture. But now? A college or university degree is more about prestige than anything else. And prestige isn’t about perfecting, or even learning, skills.” There are few job-prospect expectations for Millennials now. Not necessarily because they are less educated, but because they do not have the sufficient skills required to maintain the jobs available. As Baby Boomers continue to leave the workforce, employers are having a difficult time finding skilled young workers to replace them, producing long-term consequences on economic growth.Subsequently, the slow economy has shifted the way businesses hire: employers don’t need to build skills, they can simply hire them. And since Millennials are known for not having the right resources and skills for today’s labour market, companies are happy to retain the expertise of an older worker, rather than train a novice. “It’s a vicious cycle worsening the problem,” Faress remarked. “One of my cousins is a lawyer but can only work at Holt Renfrew. How crazy is that? I imagine it must be upsetting in a parent’s perspective, to immigrate to or

live in a country with so much potential, but have their children live in a reality that has left them unprepared.”

Any solutions? Perhaps the best suggestion is to expand education options that focus on life skills and work experience, as opposed to the traditional route of academic success. Graduation requirements should be loosened and businesses should collaborate with post-secondary schools to lead students toward pursuing careers. Salma Faress says there needs to be more application, rather than theory, a morphing of college and university into a single entity because right now “we’re only good on paper”. Education has been the foundation for opportunity in countries such as Canada and the United States. But other countries have begun to outpace the best of the best. Times have changed and it’s time that schools change with them. As the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a group committing to ensure that all students in the United States have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education, puts it, “we live in a globally connected, information saturated world. To thrive, our students need to learn in and out of school, in person and online, together and independently. Students need learning experiences that meet them where they are, engage them deeply, let them progress at a pace that meets their individual needs, and helps them master the skills for today and tomorrow.”

January 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

dESIgN: SAYA YE

who are all required to take at least the minimum amount of the same courses. Focus of the future in the long-term dissipates.

ILLUSTRATIONS: SAYA YE

graduation rate of American adolescents rose from six to eighty percent. One of the characteristics of educational policy became career-oriented education. The open education system approach had reached its height, involving learning that was initiated by the students themselves, dividing classrooms based on interest areas, and lessening mandatory courses and instead increasing the number of electives.By the sixties, the graduation rate ranked first among the OECD countries. As more and more graduated from high school, the increased proportion of the labour force that had a diploma became a driving force that fueled economic growth and rising incomes. The seventies saw the rise of teacher activism, a broadening of the idea of civil rights in education. Nonetheless, the high school graduation rate flattened out around this time and stagnated for decades, while graduation rates in many other OECD countries increased markedly during this period. These countries, such as Finland, Germany and Japan, started incorporating a vocational education approach, an education that prepares students for specific careers, trades and crafts, providing procedural knowledge as opposed to theory. So what went wrong? At this time, the United States developed a pattern of increasing high school graduation requirements. R e q u i re me nt s i nc re a s e d t he nonmonetary cost of earning a diploma for students, especially for those entering high school with weak skills. Indoing so however, they also lessened the value and effect of the financial payoff to a diploma, thus contributing to the stagnation in graduation rates over the last decades of the twentieth century and continuing into the twentyfirst century. So to summarize: education before the seventies was career-oriented, concentrating on the students’ interests for the future, rather than the general present-day requirements. Then beginning in the seventies, we began to see a shift in generalizing all students,

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SURVIVNG YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT WRITTEN BY: TIFFANY NARDUCCI

“You are graduating into a big, black hole.” – A sentence my professors repeated on a depressingly regular basis to my graduating class. As a journalism student in the 21st century, my fellow classmates and I were being constantly reminded that our field of study was drastically changing – schools were struggling to update their curriculum, jobs were scarce, and career paths were no longer as predictable as they once were. The fact is, this vacuous, career abyss (as described by my teachers) is not only limited to the field of journalism – across the board, graduates all over Canada have been struggling to breech the boundary from student to employee. Since the beginning of the recession in 2008, youth unemployment (which covers ages 15-24) has been hovering at 14 percent, and has discouragingly made little progression over the last five years. Last month, the youth unemployment rate in Canada rose to 13.8 percent, from 13.6 percent in May – nearly double the national average. While the harsh economic climate has meant that many young Canadians have been struggling to break into the workforce, it has also left many baby boomers trapped within it. Older generations, now struggling with less than satisfactory pensions

WHY IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE TO GET JOS IN A BABY BOOMER’S WORLD and a volatile economic climate, are increasingly remaining within the workforce for longer periods of time. Further, according to Statistics Canada, when young applicants come head-tohead with their older counterparts in these contests, they rarely get the upper hand when it comes to who will get the job. Though these statistics may seem all doom and gloom for those currently bracing themselves for the unemployment supernova, don’t despair just yet - there is still hope to be had. -Although boomers may be holding onto their jobs for longer, they are still considered an aging workforce that employers are actively seeking to replenish. “It’s incredibly important […] to keep building our talent,” says Marilyn Reddick, VP of Human Resources and Organizational Development at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, one of Canada’s top youth employers. “One of our goals is to invest in our staff, it’s very important to have that balance.” So just how can millenials bridge the gap from student to employee without tumbling into the void of unemployment? According to Rasheeda Wright,

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM JANUARY 2013

Co-op Career Counselor at Carleton University, one of the most important things millenials must remember is that today’s workplace environment is in many ways very different from that of baby boomers. “Work and the way that people look for work has changed – younger workers becoming more savvy to that idea and looking at the tools now being used is necessary.” she says. Sixty years ago, it was possible for segments of the population to become employed immediately upon exiting high school, and maintain the same job for several decades. Wright says the days of settling into a long-term career are becoming increasingly numbered in 2013. Rather, she says, employment opportunities have become more “ebb and flow” in nature. Jobs that were once necessary have been replaced with technology. Further, older employees remaining in the workforce for longer periods of time has meant less long-term opportunities for newer employees. Consequently, new applicants are now typically awarded jobs on a contract basis. Ta k ing these factors into consideration, it’s important not to get discouraged at the seemingly unstable employment prospects ahead. Contrary

to the rigid career paths once followed by our parents, the ever-changing nature of today’s economy has meant that millennial workers are more flexible, civic-minded, and able to create change than their older counterparts. That unwavering flexibility and resourcefulness when conducting a job search and while building your resume will ultimately make you stand out amongst your peers, says Wright. “It’s important to gain experience in whatever way possible,” she says. “Start thinking about career stuff as soon as possible. As much as possible, try to start thinking about ‘What do I like? What do I like doing?’ ” One of the biggest difficulties facing young job seekers is the increasing number of qualifications required to apply for most jobs – degrees, experience, volunteer work, etc. – whereas it was not uncommon to settle into a position in the past with little or no education. That being said, Wright says the best thing you can do if you are underqualified for that dream job is to get as much experience as you can – even if that means not getting paid. With youth unemployment sitting at almost double the national average, making the most of volunteer and internship opportunities puts you at an advantage in the application process, allows for networking opportunities and will help you better gauge your own interests. Translating your passion into a workplace skill or qualification is another crucial way to ensure millenials are making the most out of the job application process and securing the jobs they desire. The biggest issue amongst unsuccessful applicants and volunteers at Sunnybrook, Reddick says, is a lack of career focus. According to Reddick, the biggest favour millenials can do for themselves is career pathing – that is, actually taking the time to pick an interest, passion or career position that suits you. Then once you’ve determined where your interests lie, capitalize on the resources at your disposal to explicitly

map out what career is most suitable to you and how to acquire a specific job. “[One of the hardest things] is guiding applicants who aren’t profession specific yet.” she says. “If you want to be a lawyer, or a doctor that’s very exact in the steps you have to take. But if you come out of school with just a general honours BA but you haven’t gotten that experience yet its very difficult.” While earning a degree is an important step for young job applicants to distinguish themselves in the existing competitive job market, it is also crucial to identify and build on your skills and interests, and finally be able to communicate these abilities in a way that is relevant to potential employers, says Reddick.

So for those of you bracing yourself for the “black hole” of joblessness, don’t get discouraged just yet. To be sure, the skills and interests of a twenty-something in 2013 are not going to be the same as they were 60 years ago – and that’s not a bad thing. Millenials adaptability and social nature has allowed them to harbor a variety of skills that are useful in the workplace and that employers actively seek out. For example, (although I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times) social media has had a strong impact on the workplace attitude of many youth in a positive way. Communication is a key aspect of this – and I don’t just mean through Twitter and Facebook. Younger generations are more aware (and have typically mastered) so many different methods of communication that many employers have yet to dabble in. Your knowledge of various apps, websites, smartphones, and video calling can be an invaluable asset to many people in

the office, so be sure to include it in your resume. Further, young generations use of social media has not only created a society of young people who enjoy building relationships (look at how many friends you have on Facebook!) and who prioritize transparency – essentially, our every waking moment is documented and logged through these social media sites. While this may seem like a far stretch, these are characteristics employers look for – be sure to communicate that in a professional manner. That being said, young people must also use the tools at their disposal to determine and capitalize on how work and the way people work is changing. Although mom and dad are valuable sources of information, applying for a job now may be very different from the last time your parents were in the job market. Seek out people who are in the field you’re interested in (family members, friends parents, acquaintances) and reach out to them for advice. Wright also stresses that 80-85 percent of jobs are not posted. Go out and do some legwork, hand out resumes in person and keep networking. Remember: the Internet doesn’t actually have the answer to everything. So for those of you bracing yourself for the “black hole” of joblessness, don’t get discouraged just yet. The next time you find yourself despairing over not having a career position or even a fulltime job, ask yourself: have you tried all the avenues possible? How can you expand on your resume? How can you communicate your skills in a professional manner? And lastly, have you engaged in some good, old fashioned conversation with any professionals in your field? While today’s job market is highly different from that of our parents and even a little bit scarcer, there are definitely still jobs to be had for young professionals who are adaptable, energetic and ready to embrace change – just make sure you’ve set yourself up to be one of them!

january 2013 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

illustration & Design: John Valyrakis

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DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT: THE CORPORATE VS. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL FOR THOSE UNSURE WHICH PATH TO TAKE, WHY NOT TRY BOTH? The days of multi-decade employment for an individual at a single employer are long gone. We’re all aware that multiple career changes are going to be the norm for the millennial generation. So are we destined to become drifters through the frontier of unstable employment and subsequent financial instability? At first glance it may seem that way. However, there are other options out there for those who seek to mold their future to different ideals. T he pat h of entrepreneurship can be a very promising one, if you have the ability and drive to do it. As with the numbers on career changes, most people are familiar with how few businesses make it past the first couple of years. So if the c o r p o r at e w o r l d c a n’t prov ide stability and the independent route is a huge gamble what options do the millennial generation have? Ho w a b o ut b ot h? At f i rst, t he not ion of being a ful l or part time employee while running a business of your own may seem impossible. Despite the obvious demands of this lifestyle it is possible to not only maintain it but thrive while doing so. For the skeptical reader who wants proof that this goal is attainable, real life examples are a must. Never Forget Photo Inc. is such an example of millennials being able to succeed and flourish at managing a business while

maintaining employment. Run by four friends in their late twenties, all of whom have post-secondary educations, Never Forget Photo Inc. provides photo booths and customizable albums for special events ranging from weddings to proms to corporate affairs. Beginning in 2010 as a partnership and becoming incorporated in April of last year the company has grown

We have certain plans and aspirations in life and things we want to do and we didn’t really feel that we were going to be able to achieve those things with a normal career path…

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM January 2014

from one booth to six and has expanded to employ five employees. With steadily increasing sales figures year to year they show no signs of slowing down even while maintaining outside employment. When asked why take the entrepreneurial route over being an employee for a lifelong career path, VP of Development Brandon Smith explains, “we have certain plans and aspirations in life and things we want to do and we didn’t feel that we were able to achieve those things with a normal career path… this was a way to start to develop extra funds and give ourselves the flexibility and opportunity to make as much money as we want to and feel that we can.” Although there is a distinctive lack of faith in the corporate world to provide the lifestyles they want for themselves the team at Never Forget Photo recognizes the benefits to both career paths. Despite the fact that they have all been able to succeed at handling both a job and a business they do not see it as a permanent situation. W hen asked if he ever sees himself maintaining the business and an outside job for his entire career Mr. Smith emphatically says, “Hell no.” This sentiment is no doubt shared by the others as well, for obvious reasons. V P of M a rk et i ng Stephanie Mole adds that, “I don’t think anyone’s goal would ever be to doing them

both at the same time. You’re doing the entrepreneur side for a reason and most likely you’re balancing a job just because financially it’s difficult to handle just the entrepreneur side.” Although it is possible to do both at the same time the demands year in and year out would certainly be mentally and physically taxing. So instead of maintaining both indefinitely the executive team of Never Forget Photo weighs in on why it is a good idea to experience the corporate world as well as the entrepreneurial one for at least some portion of your employable career. “It’s hard to go out there and know exactly how to do everything right away, working for an established company can help to teach you how to do those things,” explains Smith. On that note Mole feels that, “It’s important to have a little bit of experience in both at some capacity, I think it’s nice to experience a little bit of corporate to know what things work well and know structure so you can employ that.” Despite t he blea k outlook for many mil lennia ls the corporate world is not a complete black hole for opportunity and benefits. As Stephanie and Brandon discussed working for and paying attention to successful firms and their operational models can be an extremely valuable tool for the budding entrepreneur. A critical aspect to the

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success of Never Forget Photo has been the team dynamic. It should come as no surprise that when multiple people collaborate on a project their varying expertise and points of view will only breed better ideas and practices. President and VP of Sales Dave Wilk points out, “Each member of the team has their strength that they bring; we all draw on the strengths from each of the four of us so that we really just give our expertise.” So not only are peoples’ strengths highlighted in a team dynamic, their weaknesses are significantly muted as other team members can make up for them. Stephanie states, “Our group dynamic is actually perfect, everyone has a responsibility and you know it’s not overwhelming and you can do your job and do it well and rely on your team… At the same time you can still execute on your other job [in the corporate world]. It’s so nice to know that the skills that you don’t have, somebody else can pick up on.” “I strongly believe that it would be impossible to be successful as a sole proprietor and have another job, you’ll need other people to lean on when you can’t be there to do what needs to be done,” adds Smith. T he benefits of a team dynamic are by no means l i m ited to t he e nt r e p r e n e u r i a l world however. In fact, team work and communication skills can be developed in significant amounts in the corporate world, even more so than in the entrepreneurial one in some cases. W h at h a s become

evident to this point is that although the corporate world h a s dest abi l i zed significantly in terms of job security and opportunities there is still much to be gained from experiencing it for one’s self. Furthermore, it can provide individuals with tools that are transferable to any workplace, including one of your own making. Aside from the skills that can be gained there are lessons to be learned

Each member of the team has their strength that they bring; we all draw on the strengths from each of the four of us so that we really just give our expertise. from the corporate world such as how management should function to maximize efficiency and profitability. Often times more can be

learned from mistakes than success. This means that despite a lack luster performance from a given firm as a whole the employee who hopes to venture out on their own can take away a wealth of information on how to avoid such problems. As mentioned previously maintaining both a job and a business is a very demanding lifestyle, but given the uncertainties faced by the millennial generation and the corporate world there isn’t a whole lot to lose by trying to capitalize on such situations. Not only can you prove something to yourself by succeeding at both, you can prove to others that it is possible to do the same; success breeds success. Mr. Smith shares this sentiment and “would encourage anybody to go for an ent repreneu r i a l opportunity if they can; I thinks it’s a lot more rewarding than working for somebody else in a lot of ways.” Mr. Wilk adds, “once you’re able to get your business up and running… it does have a lot of perks but initially you are working a lot more and harder than anybody else at a regular job but if you have the drive to do it be prepared [for the work].” Both Mr. Smith’s and Mr. Wilk’s comments have often been repeated by many in their position and lose some of their significance over time. When the risks and rewards are evaluated however, especially in these most uncertain of times regarding job security the independent, entrepreneurial routes are looking ever

brighter and more promising. Despite this the corporate world can afford you the opportunity to experience how an established business functions. Moreover, the interpersonal skills and personal network you create in the corporate world will make the transition to the entrepreneurial route that much more rewarding and successful. JORDAN SMITH

January 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

Who We Are

The National Finance Student Association is a non-profit, student-run initiative, which aims to enhance student leadership in finance by both motivating and providing our members with the resources they can use to be better equipped and competitive in the marketplace. These are goals we intend to achieve during our upcoming seminars, workshops networking sessions and competitions.

Commitment

We are committed to creating a nationwide network bringing together finance students and faculty from universities across Canada, with the aim of sharing knowledge, skills and resources. Currently, we have partnerships with finance clubs from from the University of Toronto, McMaster, Ryerson and York, with plans to add many more by year-end.

Our Purpose

We are a base for bright, hard working and creative minds who wish to contribute their thoughts and share their ideas. As companies require such individuals for their long-term growth, the NFSA will strive to provide our membership with tools, insight and employment opportunities that they would not have received elsewhere.

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MIT & Harvard OFFEr COUrSES OnlInE

FOr FrEE COULD MASSIVE OpEn OnLInE COUrSES bE thE fUtUrE Of EDUCAtIOn?

written by: chelsi robichaud

What if you could receive course credits without paying tuition?

Education is finding new ways to adapt to technology changes, and mass open online courses (MOOCs) are an evergrowing trend. Universities are joining in on this technological revolution, and more classes are becoming available online for the public. Edx is one of these programs. A product of MIT and Harvard, edX provides lectures viewable online from both universities. MIT has been offering courses for free in an open-based format since 1999, and published 2,150 courses in the year 2012. The first edX lecture was given by Anant Agarwal on circuits and electronics. Today he is the president of edX.

The Education Crisis: Are We Crying Wolf? Creation of websites like edX may offer opportunities of learning for people who couldn’t afford to pay tuition. It offers an

answer to the question: What if you could receive course credits without paying tuition? According to Agarwal, this is exactly what our education system needs. “Our education system certainly needs work. I think the cost has spiralled out of control and student debt is at a trillion dollars. Clearwly something is broken,” says Agarwal. “We can do one of two things: we can improve the quality dramatically and offer much more to the learners, or we can reduce the cost in the denominator.” The idea that our education system is broken is not a new concept. Students around the world have been experiencing effects of this “brokenness” for a number of years. In 1994, Malcom Tight, previously a professor at Warwick University, wrote: “while higher education has suffered both internal and external stresses, these are no more than might have been expected in an activity of its scale and complexity

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finance & economics during a period of considerable economic, social and technological change”. Tight reports that the problems of higher education are directed at “teaching standards, the relevance of research, the growth of the graduate schools, the decline of the liberal arts ‘great books’ curriculum, racism on campus, the influence of military and industrial funding, and the corrupting effects of college sports activities”. While all of these factors are still relevant today, it is undeniable that debt is central in this crisis—and perhaps indicates a shift in concerns over the past two decades. One of the questions that continues to plague our current education system includes: Will students be able to continue paying high tuition fees, or will there be a change in the system? According to Clay Shirky, an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies, a change is on the rise. “Quae Non Possunt Non Manent. Things That Can’t Last Don’t,” writes Shirky in a blog post on the topic. “The cost of attending college is rising above inflation every year, while the premium for doing so shrinks. This obviously can’t last, but no one on the inside has any clear idea about how to change the way our institutions work while leaving our benefits and privileges intact.” The problem, according to Shirky, is that universities will lose their benefits if they lower costs. But would it be possible for classes to be held primarily online, and for free, without losing those perks? David Bell, a professor at Duke University, writes: “[Online courses] will be part of new hybrid instructional models taking better advantage of the possibilities offered by networked collaborative technologies.” This view is not held by Bell alone. During his interview with the Economist, Agarwal similarly states: “I think what you’re going to see happen in the future is more of a mix. Where you have a four year degree program maybe it should be a two year program [with] students [coming] into a university having taken some online courses.” While nobody can accurately predict the future of a system reform in education,

these are not unprecedented beliefs. Technology is changing, and the world in which information is shared will change with it.

Internationalization and business While edX writes on their website that they are a “not for profit, open source platform, collaborative” and “financially sustainable,” people like Bell seek to understand their motives more deeply. “There must be something else behind the surprisingly rapid realization on the part of elite universities that they absolutely have to get into this game,” Bell writes in his article Impact, or the Business of University (available on Project Muse). “I think it is clear that a major motivation behind the rapid development of MOOCs is quite simply the following: this is a market.” However, many universities are apprehensive about MOOCs for a number of reasons. First, the number of

It has long been the case that the most prestigious American universities are in a market to sell their “brand” applicants for enrollment a university receives every year may, in fact, dwindle in response to being able to receive all of their courses online for free. The other main issue is how a less expensive option would be highly seductive for students who struggle to pay their tuition every year. These two factors would certainly appear detrimental to the university’s business. Or would they? Bell suggests the contrary. In his article, he cites Simon Marginson, a professor at the University of Melbourne, who writes: “Open courseware has the same logic as the winner-takes-all

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markets in celebrity actors or top movies or music discussed by Cornell sociologist Robert Frank. A tiny handful of producers and products dominate the global market, overwhelmingly. There is only one Elvis, and only one Harvard.” And popularity, indeed, does bring in revenue. MOOCs are becoming more and more popular, especially in this past year. Thinking about university and internationalization, Nigel M. Healey, a professor at Trent University, writes that “a profit-maximising business, the ultimate ex planation for the internationalisation of a company is that it increases long-term profits, either by reducing production costs and/or increasing market sales.” According to Healey, while these trends of internationalization are happening in the field of higher education, they are not yet stable. MOOCs remain internationalizing. They offer possibilities for students located internationally to pursue studies with some of the best institutions like Harvard or MIT with edX. With more interest world-wide from foreign students, universities may expect an increase in international interest in their programs. As Bell states, “it has long been the case that the most prestigious American universities are in a market to sell their «brand,» that is, to attract the most and the best applicants not only locally, but increasingly globally.” Perhaps, then, MOOCs are the way of the future. However, Healey predicts problems in understanding the amount of students enrolling into these courses. “The data are not routinely collected by national ministries of education or their agencies,” he explains. “And, to a lesser extent, because many of the online providers are private, for-profit institutions.” Without being reviewed by education boards, a fear exists that the information given to the public could be slightly misunderstood.

High School Students and Credit But this education process isn’t only for university-level students. Agarwal reports that people as young as high school students are taking the courses,

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and receiving credit for their work. “A ndover high school in the Massachusetts area had a dozen students take edX courses online,” Agarwal says, “and they got high school credit for doing that.” The students claim edX helps to prepare them for the self-motivated work style of a university or college education, and believe that it offers what most high school classes can’t: a good idea of what awaits them in their post-secondary education. “When you talk about exposure to different ideas and points of view...I just think about the different depths [needed] to enter into that college environment,” says Nancy Duclos, staff member at Andover high school.

Online vs. On campus But will online courses be enough to give students a well-rounded education? According to the website, edX is “committed to research that will allow us to understand how students learn, how technology can transform learning, and the ways teachers teach on campus and beyond”. Shirky, however, writes that “the fight over MOOCs isn’t even about the value of online education. Hundreds of institutions already offer online classes for credit, and half a million students are already enrolled in them.” According to Shirky, the real issue is that people will be left without a means to achieve their goals if they lose their

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conduit—in-class university education. In addition, there is a concern that online education won’t be able to present students with the same atmosphere they have in class. Mark Edmundson, a professor at the University of Virginia, writes: “[Online education] tends to be a monologue and not a real dialogue. The Internet teacher, even one who responds to students via e-mail, can never have the immediacy of contact that the teacher on the scene can, with his sensitivity to unspoken moods and enthusiasms.” Jean-Paul Restoule, a professor at the University of Toronto and a teacher with Cousera, similarly believes that there is a definite disadvantage to online courses. “You can’t have that conversation,” Restoule says. “Basically all the communication is one way attempt or reactive with marking dialogue and trying to engage.” In his experience, Restoule has prompted dialogue through discussion forums and in their course assignments. However, discussion forums online are not always enough, Restoule admits, as certain students won’t participate in these groups, which is not so different from formal in-class education. Though MOOCs may be limiting, with less student-teacher interactions than in-class, formal university education, Restoule suggests that classes be brought outside, perhaps on tours of the city or various places that touch on

the course. The pressure with MOOCs is not always merely on students, however, but the teachers themselves. “You almost feel pressured to make the very best lecture you’ve ever done because its’ going to be saved for posterity,” Restoules says. “I think that is very intimidating and probably why we’ve scraped most of our first takes.” However, teaching an online course is not only anxiety and pressure. “What’s been really meaningful is unsolicited emails, letters, cards and that sort of thing that people have sent to say they got a lot out of the course,” Restoule says. “I’ve run into people and I don’t even know who they are. I meet them in the street and they say: ‘I’ve been taking your course, it’s great!’” Indeed, MOOCs like Coursera and edX can still offer a number of benefits. MOOCs may be helpful for people with disabilities or accessibility issues, or even for those who are shy and can more easily put themselves forward in an online discussion board. Though MOOCs like edX are still limited in certain senses, such as teacher-student activity, Bell believes that these websites will continue to become more stable in the future, with more universities taking centre-stage when it comes to online learning. He states: “From this chaotic mixture will emerge a few winners, and at that later stage, a more stable set of standards in shared digital platforms”

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MASSIVE

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Genome Canada. For those without an army of lobbyists or massive tax dollar funding, patents are perhaps the only way to have

The rise of freelancers and entrepreneurs can act not just as a means to increase market diversity and to lower prices for much needed drugs and treatment, but also as a counterreaction to the bloating and swelling of a centralized corporate elite in business as a

treat themselves with bonuses and golden parachutes funded by taxpayer dollars, at the expense of the poor and the downtrodden at home and abroad, I believe its time for a long overdue change in practice. In sum, I hope that this article can serve as a rallying cry for the Generation Y entrepreneurs whose moral compass has yet to be blown out by the crushing wave of greed and cronyism taking hold of our sciences, our economy, and the governance of almost every aspect of our lives as well as our body in its own meager way. The fight must continue if you agree to the obvious and ever important statement declared by the ACLU as well as many others: OUR GENES BELONG TO US, NOT CORPORATIONS. K e n C ates h a s st ud ie d international relations at the University of Toronto, while currently pursuing a career in writing as well as a certificate in freelance writing. Inspired by writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Chris Hedges, Ken blogs about religion, politics, ethics, societies, and on the little bits of irony surrounding our daily lives.

a shot at success in the biotech industry. Zahl argues that this is especially the case for start-ups and spin-offs that lack the resources to protect a new drug via the drug approval process, where in the post-Myriad era for biotech entrepreneurs the role of patents can take up an ever-important role. While the odds have long been stacked against entrepreneurs in the science market, with the modest victory over Myriad and other biotech giants a fresh wave of modern and forward thinking entrepreneurs are needed more than ever. Thus, the rise of freelancers and entrepreneurs can act not just as a means to increase market diversity and to lower prices for much needed drugs and treatment, but also as a counter-reaction to the bloating and swelling of a centralized corporate elite in business as a whole. As AIG and Goldman Sachs executives lavishly

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whole.

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demands seemed to mimic that of Myriad or even that of General Motors, Exxon Mobile or Goldman Sachs, where it stopped advancing it claims only after caving into the pressure of public opinion and the threats by the NIH to use its march-in claims retained under the Bayh-Dole Act. Even some of the most highly esteemed institutions are showing psychological characteristics that remind us of the plutocrats on Wall Street. To extend its Axel Transformation patents (which claimed a scientific method to introduce foreign proteins into nucleated cells), Columbia University has worked behind the public view in successfully asking for Patent Office continuations. They even went as far as lobbying a US senator to add an amendment to a completely unrelated bill to achieve its goal. With the risk of losing over $50 million in revenues, the primary role of universities to foster innovation, transfer knowledge and improve social welfare are thrown out for short-term profits and institutional gain. The financial stake that universities now have shows how much academia has drunk from the poison chalice of greed, which former GE spokesman Ronald Reagan said was simply good for us. Like the most aggressive form of cancer, with enough pressure and incentives the public institutions entrusted with the future of scientific progress and our tax dollars can use its power and responsibility to betray the public good for the sake of itself (which was also the base story line of Walter White in the Breaking Bad saga). With its inclination towards the private sphere and the spirit of individualism, Joly notes that while most developed countries rely on patents, such actions is more likely to be structurally inherent in the U.S. than in other developed nations where the ideals of universal coverage are stronger. Though even in the Canadian context, the commercialization of scientific research remains differentially successful and is largely concentrated in a handful of universities, he further states in a policy brief for

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THE ARTS IN THE NEW AGE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP THE ONCE STRUGGLING ARTIST MAY NOW FIND SUCCESS AS AN ARTISTENTREPRENEUR written by: tiM ALberDinGK tHiJM

In a sense, the web has allowed all artists who once were tied to having a publisher, a producer, an agency or a record company to become entrepreneurs.

Before I say anything more than this title, I’d like to issue a disclaimer. I am not an expert in this field, nor am I a career counsellor or a long-time entrepreneur. Rather, I am an observer. Based on the experiences I have observed and the people I have come to know, I believe I can nevertheless shed some light on finding stability in the vast and competitive artistic sphere, a sphere which many young people are coming to consider in the information era. Of all the occupations available to people today, few are more often associated with foolhardy hopes and impossible dreams of success than those of the arts world. Artists – be they actors, musicians, authors or visual artists – are often stereotyped as missing their rent, at the bottom of the proverbial barrel, or trying to repay debts by pawning off their work onto unimpressed onlookers. Everyone today is a Vincent Van Gogh – before he died. To some extent, one can comment that it is simply a case of “supply and demand.” The arts are astonishingly competitive, especially in the modern

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age of easy distribution, where anyone can be discovered through a video, a song, a poem or a photograph. When your work is essentially the same as that of twelve other people – sometimes deliberately, other times by random chance – it becomes all the more difficult to be noticed as new or interesting. One interesting item of note in this world of massive distribution, however, is how the Internet has essentially eclipsed the role of the distributor, putting artists in control of their work in new ways. In a sense, the web has allowed all artists who once were tied to having a publisher, a producer, an agency or a record company to become entrepreneurs. The corporate structure where artists were part of a “stable” or a body of clients for a larger business is somewhat less necessary when artists are able to work independently more easily. For many artists, entrepreneurship, while challenging, can have valuable benefits. Artists market themselves, advertise their work and can find success without having to rely on a corporate structure that may have certain desires

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on how the artist should conduct their work. They are independent, rather than someone’s employee. This gives the artistentrepreneur more responsibilities. The corporate structure provides insight, inspiration and encouragement. An artist working alone needs to be able to reflect, find inspiration, and seek encouragement or advice from friends or peers. Despite the entrepreneurial aspect, artists – and entrepreneurs in general – are reliant on opinions and criticisms which help them to explore their work and achieve greater success. The fresh new artists of the twentyfirst century – who seem to be coming younger and younger – need to find a way to achieve their goals even without support from a big corporation. They are in a massive pool, and with the incredible ease of becoming indistinguishable from anyone else on the Internet, it becomes much more important to use the web and one’s own resources to be recognized online. This is the case for many entrepreneurs: the Kickstarter ads which are well-made and advertise an interesting product are more likely to surpass their targets, as people are drawn to products that do something new or redevelop an old concept – just as in the arts. Entrepreneurship allows an artist to accomplish his or her dreams by working for him or herself without anyone to control or direct his or her progress, save him or herself. Faced with such challenges, however, they often rely on several techniques to achieve their goals. Interviewing an artistentrepreneur I know, and gathering stories and suggestions from across the artistic community, I have come to find that the use of any of these three techniques can have valuable benefits for a young artistentrepreneur in our modern age.

Hunting The hardest part of any hunt – as many might tell you – is facing one failure and not allowing it to convince you that the arts are not your area of expertise, that your parents were right and that you should have become a law doctor of business like they had always told you. While a bit of business knowledge may

come in handy, all you need most of the time is determination and self-reflection. Determination is necessary for a person to know that giving up will only make things worse, and that if the world is not ready for the music of ectoplasmcleaning Roombas, then perhaps it just needs to be pitched to another part of the world. However, after a certain amount of time, when your music has received no attention for months, everyone needs to step back and evaluate their work. It is imperative for an artist to be able to reflect on what they are doing and self-criticise. Often, an artist – especially an entrepreneur-artist – will have nobody readily available to edit, comment or critique their work all the time. An artist must take it on themselves to critique, and by doing so, improve their work. Perhaps ectoplasm just does not connect with a modern audience, and by dropping it and adding full-sized vacuums, the Vacuum Concierto Movement will find some interest where Away, Floorboard Phantoms! could not – assuming your two band monikers were as such. The point of this absurd example is

Creative work can make a person very vulnerable. An artist is sharing a part of him or herself with other people and then waiting for their criticism. Once you surmount the necessary first step of taking action, an artist-entrepreneur has to expose his or her work with poise and confidence, resisting the urge to quit or back down despite difficulty or failure. Anne Bogart, the author of A Director Prepares and the propagator of numerous valuable acting methods, once discussed “resistance” in her book A Director Prepares. In this work, she argues that the “action of pushing against resistance is a daily act and … a necessary ingredient in the creative process.” Consider that fact during your hunt, and even as you find success: an artist’s work is as indebted to its resistances as it is hindered. Without resistance, avantgarde work would not be as profound; expressions of great frustration would not be as authentic. Most of all, a person cannot simply wait for the resistance to pass, but rather grasp it and use it as a springboard. The first step in doing so, according to Bogart, lies in recognizing

Artists market themselves, advertise their work and can find success without having to rely on a corporate structure that may have certain desires on how the artist should conduct their work. that the hunt is a humbling process. Few artists are found right away; the vast majority are still looking for recognition alone in a massive field. For a moment, consider dropping the “alone” part. I do not mean bringing someone else in to do the same thing as you – although that can be helpful for criticism – but rather getting another person to assist you from the side, or encourage you, or to bounce ideas off. All artists require a network – as we shall discuss soon. But even in the preliminary stages, it can be extraordinarily helpful to have some encouragement.

the presence of resistances and their use in the creative endeavour: “Resistance demands thought, provokes curiosity and mindful alertness, and, when overcome and utilized, eventuates in elation. Ultimately the quality of any work is reflected in the size of obstacles encountered.” When re-evaluating oneself as an artist-entrepreneur, examining one’s resistances can provide a valuable aid to the work. It is a question of problem solving, in which an artist must meet and overcome each resistance to further enhance the final piece of work. When this

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An entrepreneur is doomed without a network. comes to the hunt, an artist-entrepreneur can rise above their resistances and impress their audience with their strength and confidence. A post by Jeffrey P. Fisher on the website Self Employment in the Arts also comments on the usefulness of a strong image in his first point on getting a positive reputation and attracting support. And speaking of reputation, let us move in to discussing your next step which follows tandem with the hunt: networking.

Networking Networking is a funny little modern word

that originally just meant connecting computers through a network, but now also refers to people being connected through a network. This is a word that has grown clichéd the number of times it is mentioned, but somehow it still bears repeating. An entrepreneur is doomed without a network. In a business, the network is created for you: you have coworkers, bosses and colleagues. The only thing you need to do is get familiar with everyone. It is the reverse for an entrepreneur. You have some friends from throughout your experiences – old buddies from arts school, a friend who messed around in Garageband with you in high school, your neighbour’s dad who rents out his warehouse, the cousin you have been spoon-feeding compliments ever since she became a computer whiz, if only so you would not have to pay for Geek Squad – but you lack a “business.” All of these people, odd that it may seem, form part of your network. On a non-professional level, it is very important you keep in touch with people who support your work or are willing to help you with it. All of the people just mentioned fall in that category: they have some skills or aids or networks of their own. Once you hunt, you can find people willing to support you knowing you strictly through your professional work. They also provide skills, aids and networks. What is important about having these things is that they help you surmount resistances. No gallery or performance space? Ask about that warehouse. Need lights and music? Learn yourself, ask your smart cousin – or best of all, invite other artists to play at the event. Networking also involves a fair amount of “polite bartering” in a sense: artist-entrepreneurs swap favours and help one another through it. Be careful, however, that you are not just giving and getting nothing – not even notice – in return. An artist needs to continue to progress and grow for their work to stay powerful and relevant. If your network is not supporting you enough, then it needs to be expanded. Expanding a network is one of the fun parts of being an artist – all it involves is meeting people with the same loves as you! Visit every artist hangout; an ideal place

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to go is classes and workshops. While they can seem financially counterintuitive at times, all it can take is a few sessions to form a strong and powerful new network of friends and potential colleagues. Speaking from personal experience, I have long attended improvisation classes at the Second City. After my first instructor, Kate, left Second City to pursue her own artist-entrepreneur career, I continued to take classes when I could with a group of people made up of friends she had made throughout her years as an improv teacher. Most recently, I worked with a very diverse group of people, all of whom were at different stages of their artistic careers. Some dip into lulls, others speak of big projects and endeavours which are coming together. What’s inspiring about the group is how varied the ages are. There is great diversity in the group, and there should be great diversity in a network. I will return to Kate’s case in the final section, as her experiences as an artistentrepreneur are worth discussion. Lastly, as I mentioned before, an artist needs to reach and find recognition: the wider your network stretches, the more people you can touch with your work. Networking can all the same still qualify as one of the resistances facing an artist-entrepreneur. It can feel like no matter who becomes part of the network, there is still no way to utilize the network to expand one’s work. This is a feeling to be fought; networks provide artists with the most basic essential needed: an audience. Members of a network have their own networks, and these networks will branch out to others, and so forth. It is an ideal way to spread renown as an artistentrepreneur: people will begin to spread the word and discuss the work. Nonetheless, without a network which supports the artist-entrepreneur, he or she will still feel somewhat powerless to complete projects with no outside help. This brings us to the third point: expanding the repertoire.

Growing Think of yourself as a circus show. What sorts of things can be seen at the show? Do you have trapeze artists? Wild animals? Unicyclists? Clowns? Is there a musical

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Toronto. Kate began at Ryerson, where she learned about an opportunity to work with kids in a drama therapy program. Following her acceptance into this position, Kate discovered a love for teaching as well as acting which would serve her greatly over the following years. After some time, Kate came to Second City, where she pitched the entirely new idea of teen classes at the Second City Training Centre, something which had not yet been done at any Second City location. After many years working with teens and adults at the Training Centre while at the same time forwarding her acting career,

a diverse set of skills, all that is left in these preliminary steps is for an artistentrepreneur to begin to advertise and publicise their work. As mentioned in the introduction, work can get published everywhere online, and all that is necessary then is to advertise that work. This is certainly a valuable part of an artist’s repertoire: a strong knowledge of what makes for a good banner, quick video, compelling presentation or write-up. Part of this relies on the earlier steps: deciding what the demographic wants, finding an effective way to market your awesome concepts to that demographic,

Kate, with the help of a documentarian and the support of her many students and friends, founded her own improv academy. Because of her huge network, she quickly found many students who followed her from Second City. She recommended, “When you want to do something entrepreneurial, align yourself with a team that will help you,” a fact which reminded me of the importance of networks. Networks, I should correct, are not trees with fruits to pick, but teams, each of whom bring something to help you as an artist, and whom you can help in return. As of now, Kate’s classes are completely full and occur regularly, but she still finds time to continue acting. Part of what keeps Kate so content is that she is “chasing fulfilment and fear and risk and what makes me happy and is fun …and creativity and freedom.” This is something to remember as an artist-entrepreneur: being an artist means you can take big risks and not be afraid of failure. Kate embraced these risks and did not let money alone motivate her. While Kate’s experiences may differ from those of a young artist-entrepreneur nowadays, they nevertheless emphasize that an artist-entrepreneur still has an artist’s motivations; they are just in the hands of a savvy and business-smart person. With a functioning network and

and then success! Modern advertisers tend to use fun, interesting and unusual methods to garner attention for their product. The best way to do this is to expose yourself to the work of artists with unique advertising ideas, and to consider what choices made by advertisers encourage you to check out their product. With these ideas in mind, think carefully about what areas you can develop to better excel as a starting artist-entrepreneur. Remain optimistic and push yourself to keep working, and never neglect a class or workshop where you can hone your techniques and expand your network. As an artist, you are a creative and imaginative person; as an entrepreneur you are challenging yourself to harness that creativity and imagination and expose it to the world to get them intrigued. Use your wits and grasp opportunities, and the doorway into the arts will swing open for you to step through. And remember, you did it all without the faintest notion of law doctorology

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“When you want to do something entrepreneurial, align yourself with a team that will help you”

photos: adil munim

element, or an interactive part? Is it one particular specialty, or several? What is the demographic at your show? Much of the entertainment one sees today is designed to appeal to a very wide demographic: gritty superhero movies that stay PG-13 are a testament to this desire. For the circus, some people might come for clowns, others for trapeze artists. As an artist, you are not entirely meant to be specialized. While having one particular talent at which you are stellar can be good, it is always safer to be versatile. Thus, growing is the title of this section. An artist blossoms from one medium to excel in another. For many, this blossoming will be out of necessity, a natural reaction against resistance. Anne Bogart realized after leaving undergraduate school that, though her aim was to direct, she would have to produce as well if she wanted to direct, as “no theatre in town was willing to take a risk on a young untested woman director.” A repertoire which boasts a wide range of talents and techniques is invaluable in all artistic pursuits: many actors with whom I have spoken at the Stratford Festival have talked about a “toolbox” of techniques, of acting being a trade. Actors who sing, dance, play instruments, write their own work, produce their own shows, or hypnotize their audience all have an advantage over an actor who only acts. Always consider what more can be learnt to develop and expand your repertoire. For an artist-entrepreneur, there is an obvious one: business knowledge. Fisher comments on the value of good bookkeeping and doing your taxes properly for an artist-entrepreneur, but it goes beyond that. The arts are highly competitive and highly creative, and a savvy businessperson can do both as one. There are a plethora of examples of interesting and unique attempts at selfpromotion online for artists, and a Google search of the resumes and CVs of graphic designers can yield some very enjoyable time-wasting as one trolls through the many examples. One artist-entrepreneur who has achieved great success that I know is my friend and instructor Kate, who now runs her own improvisation academy in

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SOCiAL SKiLLS in A

Cyber wOrLd written by: rebeCCA FerGUSOn

What does GooGle knoW about you? you miGht be surprised

I searched for a student’s name on Facebook, and a group appeared that was protesting her getting kicked out of her dormitory.

With a simple click, anything under the sun can be accessed in a fraction of a second. From shopping to news to entertainment, the Internet has it all. It also knows everything about you. With double the page views of Google, Facebook is 2013’s most visited website worldwide. Twitter and professional networking site, LinkedIn, also slide into the top 15 of the world’s most visited sites. Personal blogging site Wordpress is not much farther down the list. Though none of these websites existed over a decade ago, they are now the face though which millions of people present themselves to the world. The internet’s meticulous attention to detail and permanent memory have made connecting with others a fast, easy and efficient task. Regrettably, the internet’s memory is far from selective. Good,

bad, classy, trashy – once something is posted, the internet never forgets. Many internet users, especially those from generations too young to know a cyber-less world, are unaware of the importance of managing their online reputations. Unfortunately, the consequences of a poor online persona reach much father than embarrassing tagged photos that lead to several jokes at one’s expense. Jay Ryaman, senior director of career services at Pennsylvania State University warned, “People have a false sense of security about their personal information out there on the Web… they think only their friends will see it.” Many universities and employers screen all potential applicants before offering them admission or a job. In December of 2009, Microsoft

JANUARY 2014 ArbitrAGeMAGAZine.COM

Additionally, it is important to know privacy settings and be proactive about keeping them updated. Finally, before posting something, you should conduct the following four tests. The Newspaper Test: would you be comfortable with your post being discussed in the local newspaper? The Grandmother Test: would you be comfortable explaining the content of your post to a grandparent – even a hip one? The Professional Test: if you’re looking for a job, would you want your potential employer to see your post? The Future Me Test: will this post still be something you’re re comfortable with if your circumstances were to chance (careers, friends, lifestyle, etc.). If a post doesn’t pass all of those tests, there’s a good chance that the information should not be posted. The email and texting section is a checklist of items to consider before clicking send, post or tweet. First, check that the addressee(s) the message going to are intended recipients. Check the language, as sarcasm and emotion are not easily conveyed through text. Finally, you are angry or upset while writing, try saving a draft and coming back to it later. You may want to reconsider the wording used or whether it needs to be sent at all. The Carleton microsite then

People have a false sense of security about their personal information. presents information on photos and videos. The first advice given is to consider is whether the photo passes the four social media tests. If not, be intentional about who will have access to it. Consider whether there is anything showing in the photo or video that puts safety or dignity at risk or that should not be shared. Check the

ARBiTRAgeMAgAZine.COM JANUARY 2014

photo for personal information such as an address or photo number. Finally, consider whether the people who have access to this photo or video be able to tag or caption it without your consent. The University of Toronto also has a microsite entitled, Online Smarts. Though an utoronto.ca account is required in order to access the full extent of their information, four helpful subsections are available to the public: socializing online, organizing activities online, safety online and online research. The site reminds students that sites like Facebook had graduated privacy settings and have been (somewhat) responsive to consumers’ demand for more control over their privacy. However, the default is often to opt users out of these privacies settings and users must manually change them. The UofT site also links readers to information concerning their legal online privacy rights. The Personal Information protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) governs the topic of data privacy, and how and how private-sector companies can collect, use and disclose personal information in Canada. However, the social media is progressing at such a rapid pace it is near impossible for policy to keep up. The Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) of Ontario, Canada used to have a document entitled How To Protect Your Privacy on Facebook: A Step-by Step Guide. Unfortunately, this guide has been removed and is no longer updated due to the frequent changes by Facebook that make it exceedingly difficult to stay current. The IPC’s, Dr. Ann Cavoukian advises that, as a general rule, “think before you post” anything on a social networking site. She continues by starting that users should use the maximum privacy settings for any information that they would like to have restricted to a limited network of social contacts. The internet has undoubtedly revolutionized social interactions. Therefore, it is crucial to maintain an online persona that your grandmother, employer or future self would be proud to know.

design: LeigH CAVAnAUgH

commissioned a survey which found that 79% of hiring managers and job recruiters in the United States reviewed online information about job applicants, while 70% of those surveyed stated that they had rejected applicants based on their findings. Accord ing to t h is survey, it is websites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Wordpress that these employers are checking. The survey also found that employers’ decisions are often effected by concerns about the candidate’s lifestyle, inappropriate photos or discovering that information the candidate shared was false. Dan Schawbel, managing partner of Millennial Branding LLC and found of the Student Branding Blog, admitted to receiving many internship applications from students who do not manage their online reputations. He wrote on this subject for the Wall Street Journal, “For instance, I searched for a student’s name on Facebook, and a group appeared that was protesting her getting kicked out of her dormitory. I decided to hire someone else!” The task of cleaning up one’s online reputation may at first seem daunting and impossible. However, a quick Google search leads to many helpful resources. Sites like RepuatationChanger.com and DefendMyName.com offer to do the job for a fee. However, there are much simpler options. Universities worldwide recognize that in order for their students to succeed, they must have respectable online presences. Therefore, tips and tricks on how to do so have become commonplace on university websites. Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario, has launched a microsite that is designed to address safe and responsible online conduct. The microsite breaks down online activity into three main sections; social media, email & texting and photos & videos. The social media section begins by advising students to know the terms of agreement for sites they use or are a member of. Posts may become property of the company who owns the site.

not everyone on your friendS LiSt iS your friend

written by: Katie Smith, Staff writer

Why would I want to become the “mayor” of the Starbucks down the street? What do I gain ...

How to protect yourself online from wrong-doers wHo are not always easy to spot The recent NSA scandal is not the first incidence of unwarranted wiretapping that the NSA has been involved in. The House of Representatives reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments in 2008, which the US government then used to create PRISM, the program that Edward Snowden leaked. Prior to the creation of PRISM, the NSA was involved in multiple warrantless wiretapping situations from 2001 to 2007. The difference in the scandal uncovered by Edward Snowden, however, is that the government was utilizing PRISM to spy on its own citizens. While the government is privy to most of your personal information already, there are ways to protect your identity online and in your home from people who wish to cause you more harm. Here is where I’ve noticed most people making mistakes:

Foursquare & Other Location-Sharing Apps First of all, these apps make no sense to me. Why would I want to become the “mayor” of the Starbucks down the street? What do I gain from that besides everyone knowing I’m there far too often? I don’t understand the perverse need of my generation to alert everyone on our “friends” list of our whereabouts at all times. When you check into a location on these apps, you’re also letting everyone know that you aren’t home, and, depending on where you are, you won’t be home for a while. While that isn’t inherently dangerous, think of this: Some of those people on your friends list are not your friends. You know exactly the kinds of people I’m talking about, too. That girl from high school who hated you for no reason but went to all of your parties, that girl you hate for no reason but you still hate-stalk from time to time,

January 2014 arbitraGemaGaZine.Com

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WILL OUR GENERATION SEE THE END OF TORRENT SITES? HOW GOVERNMENTS CONTINUE TO APPLY PRESSURE TO TORRENTBASED WEBSITES AND IF THIS WILL RESULT IN THE DOWNFALL OF THE INDUSTRY ENTIRELY

WRITTEN BY MATT SMITH, STAFF WRITER

All it takes is one click. One click separates you from any movie, book, album, or video game you’ve ever wanted. No hidden fees, no fi ne print, nothing. One click and it’s yours, for free. Downloading torrents, or pirating, is the act participating in a peer-to-peer transfer of large quantities of data over the internet. In most cases this data comes in the form of the latest video game, feature fi lm, or album. Th is data is often uploaded without the proper owners consent and without any price. You can get any album you want for free and the producer gets zero profits. It’s a process which has garnered a lot of criticism over the years by musicians, artists, and producers. I mean, wouldn’t you be mad if you spent time and money producing a movie only to have everyone download it online for free? Over the years there have been innumerable lawsuits and trails due to copyright infringement and the issue of

intellectual property. Some sites have been seized, others have survived. As the government continues to crackdown on these websites, will our generation see the end of piracy? The world of piracy in 2013 On September 1st, 2013, TheBox, a British based torrent website, made the decision to shutdown. TheBox was a site with over 90,000 users and over 110,000 torrents. These torrents ranged from movies to books and were freely accessible to anybody who wanted them. TheBox shutdown due to increasingly hostile policies put in place by the British government and their new Intellectual Property Crime Unit under the London police. Although TheBox fell victim to the policies of the government, there are still innumerable torrent websites out there. Ebizmba.com shows that ISOhunt.com, a

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM JANUARY 2014

torrent based website, has an estimated 12,000,000 unique monthly visitors and over 13 million active torrents at any one time. ThePirateBay (suitably named) has an estimated 11.5 million monthly users and 5.5 million active torrents at any one time. These two websites are merely two examples of the many torrent websites available on the world wide web. As you can see, TheBox is incredibly small compared to that of ISOhunt or ThePirateBay. Yet this could be the reason they could not avoid the threat of persecution. The real question that arises is, how have these websites gotten away with this for so long and is government pressure slowly closing in on them? The legal battles involved with running a torrent website

The report continues to say that It almost seems that as government increases pressure on these sites, they merely become more popular.

aimed towards the banning of sites which violated copyright infringement.

In 2009, ThePirateBay came under persecution for copyright infringed. Due to the site being registered as a .org site at the time, the trail gained momentum and eventually led to the four operators being fi ned and facing one year of jail time.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were both produced in efforts to stop sites like ThePirateBay and ISOhunt from gaining popularity, yet both failed on their way through Congress.

However, the site was never shut down or seized. Instead, they merely changed the domain of the site to .se, a Swedish domain. In doing so, the site avoided seizure and has been able to flourish since. Although, it wasn’t as easy as that. Swedish officials began to crack down on ThePirateBay in early 2013 and forced the site to relocate. The site is now “safe” on .sx, the domain in Sint Maarten. The case of ThePirateBay shows it’s not easy running a torrent website. However, the site has stayed alive for 10 years now and has become one of the largest piracy websites in the world. Is this the beginning of the end for torrent sites? Within the past few years governments around the world have began cracking down on torrent sites. In 2012 the United States Government attempted to pass two different bills which were

Since the failure of the two bills, the “six strikes” Copyright Alert System has been put in place to thwart traffic from sites such as ISOhunt and ThePirateBay. However, the policy was deemed a failure as a report by bgr.com touted that “traffic [to ThePirateBay] has been trending even higher than last year, with an especially spiteful spike in March, right after the Copyright Alert System was fi rst implemented.” Not only is it a tough job running these websites, it’s a tough job trying to dismantle them. Even with the constant pressure by governments, traffic to torrent websites has yet to slow down. A recent study done by NetNames revealed that “In January close to 14 billion page views were recorded on websites focused on piracy in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific - up almost 10% from November 2011.”

Moving forward As torrent sites become increasingly popular there is no doubt that governments will continue to try and ban the use of them. TheBox is merely the most recent victim of these increasingly hostile policies. However, TheBox still remains small in size compared to that of ISOhunt and ThePirateBay. So although governments may pass policies which seize small sites, it seems as though the larger and more utilized sites will continue to evade persecution. Sites like ThePirateBay have survived for 10 years and seem to be growing in size, despite the hostile environment. Moving forward it looks as though these sites will not be seeing their end for quite a while. Until then, any book, movie, or album you want is merely one click away and at the discount price of zero dollars.

JANUARY 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

DESIGN: MARIA ARIAS

TheBox is one of many websites which have felt the wrath of federal persecution.

Despite some discrete instances of success in limiting infringement, the piracy universe not only persists in attracting more users year on year but hungrily consumes increasing amounts of bandwidth.

international affairs

CLIMATE CHANGE

is affecting the growth of potatoes, the world’s fourth largest food crop wRITTEN By: GRACE KENNEDy

It’s a clash of the scientists when it comes to the future of sweet potatoes in a carbon saturated world. From Hawaii to Peru to the Annapolis Valley, the importance of change in the developing world’s fourth largest food crop is of varying degrees. Benjamin Czeck, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, conducted a study in the fall of 2011 on the effects of CO2 on sweet potatoes. He looked at four different concentrations of carbon dioxide, and found the sweet potato root could grow up to twice its normal size when there was nearly four times the current amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Czeck also found decreases in several micro-minerals, such as iron, phosphorous, and manganese. Iron, which is beneficial for bones, blood, and protein fixation, decreased by as much as 45 per cent; phosphorous, important for energy, protein, and bones as well, by 25 per cent; and manganese, which is an anti-oxidant to help with tissue health, by 75 per cent. In addition to these, the protein content in sweet potatoes also decreased by 32 to 43 per cent, while the increased carbohydrates by 4 to 4.7 per cent. Although sweet potatoes are not a significant source of protein - there are only about 1.37 grams of protein in

100 grams of an orange-fleshed sweet potato, or about one paper clip in half a cup of water – this is still a substantial change. “Because we have high obesity rate and we’re not good at eating food with these sorts of minerals, eating vegetables and stuff like that, it’s a negative thing,” says Czeck on the nutrition changes. “In the future, if this is a response – this decreased protein, increased carbohydrates and decreased minerals – the diet that we have is going to have to change even more to get what is essential for our bodies to be healthy.” The nitrogen levels in the soil remained the same for each level of carbon dioxide, and this is where other scientists begin to have issues. Nitrogen helps to change the sugars created by photosynthesis into protein for the plant’s long-term use; if there is more carbon dioxide, there will be more sugar, and less nitrogen to change it into protein. Czeck doesn’t think that the sweet potato would be able to take up more nitrogen from the soil than it already able to do, but others such as David Burton, an agriculturalist at Dalhousie University, and Viliam Zvalo, a horticulturalist with the company Perennia, think that it will. If sweet potatoes can take up more nitrogen, then there is a possibility

ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM Januar 2014

that the protein content would remain stable. “It’s not an issue for us here, because sweet potato is such a minor part of our diet,” says Zvalo from his office in Kentville. “It would not really impact human health in any way, if we had a decreased percentage of those elements. But in the developing world where people’s diets are based on sweet potatoes, that could be a different issue all together.” For people like Wolfgang Gruneburg, a sweet potato breeder and geneticist in Peru, the problem with Czeck’s study was its academic nature, neglecting the importance of other factors in the growth and nutrition of sweet potatoes. “This article that sweet potato was producing twice as much – interesting study, but it is not so much on the ground at the moment,” Gruneburg said in a skype interview from Lima. “It’s a little bit more – I don’t want to say this was a wrong study or the data is not okay, this is exactly not. It can be absolutely true, but this situation will not come tomorrow, and most likely not in twenty years.” Czeck agrees. The highest level of carbon dioxide in his study was almost four times as much CO2 than is currently in the atmosphere, and he thinks this could be a reality in 200 years, not 20.

“I think in going forward with these sorts of experiments temperature, drought conditions, water supplies, those sort of questions need to be approached because those are going to be a lot of the problems that we’re going to be facing, especially in developing countries. “If we’re going to relate this to agricultural production, we’re also going to have to understand other sort of hurdles we’re going to be facing which are going to be high, extreme temperatures and drought issues.” Increasing concentrations of CO2, according Burton, would bring mixed benefits to Nova Scotia’s fledgling sweet potato industry. “In agriculture we have looked at some of the positive impacts of that,” Burton said about the increasing carbon dioxide from his office in Truro. “In terms of regions like Nova Scotia, crops like sweet potatoes have been a challenge here because we don’t have a very warm or very long growing season. So there could be some positive impact in terms of the total number of heat units we’re exposed to and also the length of our growing season. But the potential for more extreme, intense weather events may offset that positive. “So there’s concern that while we may have warmer, wetter future that would be more conducive to the production of crops like sweet potato in Nova Scotia, there’s equally a concern that this extreme weather may not allow us to realize that.” The current production of sweet potatoes in Nova Scotia is a recent development spurred on by Zvalo. “It started about 10 years ago when I went to a conference in New England, and realized they were growing sweet potatoes,” he said in a phone interview. “That made me wonder – if they can do it in Maine, why can’t we do it here? So, I talked to Agriculture Canada … and we started a regional project that looked at 17 different varieties of sweet potatoes, and how they would be suitable to the region.” Zvalo worked with Keddy Nursery, who is currently the only major producer of

sweet potatoes in Nova Scotia. There are a number of smaller producers as well, but none of them are on the same scale as Keddy Nursery. Exactly how Nova Scotia’s sweet potato industry will be expanding in the coming years is uncertain – Zvalo said that its growth would be tied to the ability to invest in processing and storage facilities. Sweet potatoes need to be cured if they are to get their recognizable texture and taste – being saturated in heat and humidity for six to eight weeks helps increase their sugar content and reduce shrinkage in storage.

A lot of these crops don’t respond to CO2 in the same way that root crops do. “Producing sweet potatoes is one thing, but storing, long-term storage is another thing all together,” Zvalo said. “This one large producer [Keddy Nursery] has invested into a long-term storage last summer, so he’s involved and the quality of the product is excellent. But the future growth of the industry will depend on the ability of the growers to invest in storage. And that’s really hard to predict. “We could grow the crop, there’s really no magic to it. There’s some expertise or knowledge, but that can all be learned. But the capital expenditure on the curing and storage facility is going to limit growth in the industry.” But how will the results of Czeck’s study, if they do become reality in the next 200 years, affect the Nova Scotia sweet potato market? “I think one of the big movements in agriculture is a desire to move to more local food sources, and I think agriculture needs to diversify and sell more directly to the consumer,” Burton said.

“So I think developing a greater diversity of products, like sweet potatoes, those sorts of things, are probably really key to agriculture’s sustainability.” Sweet potatoes come in many different varieties, and since the vegetable makes six different copies of its DNA, instead of two like humans, there could be a greater potential for adaption in adverse climates. Czeck thought of the market in global terms. “Right now we consume a lot of wheat, corn, soybean, rice globally,” he said, “but a lot of these crops don’t respond to CO2 in the same way that root crops do. “Globally it could change the way we approach our agricultural practices, maybe convert to more root crop-type diets while also figuring a way to do this transition in a sustainable, societally accepted way. I think if you were to say: everyone has to start eating sweet potatoes or carrots or whatever it may be – it’s going to have to be a way to transition that works for all.” Gruneburg, however, thinks this is thinking too far ahead. “200 years, wow,” he paused and laughed. “Sorry, I’m laughing because I was thinking about one of my professors, when I had such a discussion with him, and he said ‘right well, if humans will still exist in 200 years is also another question.’ “What is in 200 years is very difficult to say … The animals we grow today are in a very protected environment, for chicken or for pigs it is a very industrial environment, but it is a very protected environment. There is no pig anymore which needs air to run around in the winter. “In 200 years perhaps crops will be planted in factories in a nutrition solution without soil, I don’t know. But what is more important is what is in 20 years or 40 years or so.” Or, as Zvalo put it more succinctly: “There’s so many things at play that I wouldn’t worry too much about that at this point”

January 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

dEsIGN: ANGElA sONG

international affairs

THE LASTTRENDS WORD

HOW TO MAKE IT AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

Combining an entrepreneurial spirit with business sense, a recipe for success WRITTEN BY: MICHAEL CAPITANO

It is those who smile at failure as a step towards realizing their goals and those who give up at any sign of difficulty that marks the line between the entrepreneur and the wannabe

At least once or twice, we’ve all had that million dollar idea. Perhaps by chance, perhaps in a fit of inspiration, we identified a gap in the market for a product or service because there was nothing existing to suit our current needs; perhaps we even devised a crude strategy of implementation. For most of us, all it amounts to is a wish that fades from our minds. No time was taken to develop the idea further, analyze its chances of success or see if someone is already doing it. And that’s okay. But for some, a great idea can take on a life of its own until it is fully realized— and those people are entrepreneurs. Can anyone be an entrepreneur? No. No matter how much education or training one receives, it takes a specific type of person with a mindset that is much better suited towards entrepreneurism than conventional employment. “ The age old ‘wisdom’ that entrepreneurs are school-hating, high strung, twenty-something, risk takers is just not enough when we want to understand entrepreneurship,” says Karen Southall Watts, professional coach and consultant for entrepreneurs and small businesses. “There are many accidental entrepreneurs who turn out to be very successful. Just as there are many bright, techie whiz kids who decide they would rather have

a regular paycheck and hours. The economic changes since 2008 have led to the rise of legions of freelance and contract workers who are much more successful when they see themselves in an entrepreneurial light and spend less time coveting the 9-5 job that may never return.” The question is: Is entrepreneurship right for you? When I sent out the query “Does it take more than business sense to make it big?” to gather quotes for this article, I unwittingly ended up taking a survey of over 100 entrepreneurs. The resounding answer, after sifting through the myriad of responses I received, was that what entrepreneurs have that others don’t consists of a group of correlated factors: courage, resourcefulness, passion, optimism, perseverance, creativity, and so on. There was very little mention of business sense as a necessity. The answers all point toward the importance of harbouring an entrepreneurial spirit. As we can see, most, if not all of the items listed tend to be inherent traits, rather than learned. In contrast, business sense— defined broadly as having keenness and quickness in understanding and dealing effectively with business opportunities and decisions—can be gained with experience.

JANUARY 2014 ARBITRAGEMAGAZINE.COM

the Last Word trends

Va r ia nce in intel l igence a nd circumstances may separate the moguls from the middle of the pack freelancer and entrepreneur, but even small victories can readily be achieved. An entrepreneurial spirit, complemented by business sense, creates a potent combination for success. What Sets Entrepreneurs Apart Entrepreneurship has become an increasingly fashionable avenue of work. As such, many people believe that it is easier than ever to become an entrepreneur, and they would be right. It doesn’t mean though that it is the best option for most. If someone chooses to pursue this path for the wrong reasons (to get rich quick, for fame, to avoid regular employment), failure is likely to ensue. That person is purely driven by external factors that are contingent on success, when there is no guarantee. In fact, entrepreneurs are bound to fail many times more than they are to succeed. It is those who smile at failure as a step towards realizing their goals and those who give up at any sign of difficulty that marks the line between the entrepreneur and the wannabe. Ideas can always be improved upon and knowledge can always be gained. Having business sense does not ensure the entrepreneur will see the project through to the end. For Steve Replin, professor, lawyer and author, who has been funding and advising start-ups and growing businesses for over 30 years, passion is at the heart of what it means to have an entrepreneurial spirit: “There is nothing more important than good old passion, focus and commitment. If there is nothing that you would rather be doing than what you are doing, then it will not be work but rather following your dream. I’ve seen those who have this passion succeed regardless of education and obstacles, and those who don’t have it, struggle to find themselves continually. Anything else is merely ancillary that can help, but only if you are ‘all in.’” Anecdotal accounts tend to highlight passion and perseverance over

business sense. Take, for example, an enterprising university student looking to make some extra cash tutoring who ends up starting a business that is later sold when she graduates, or a teenager with a love for programming who writes a million dollar smartphone app, or a single mother who develops an innovative solution to childcare needs and decides to turn it into a business. Simply put, entrepreneurs pursue options that allow them to turn their ideas into action. The tricks of the trade are picked up on a learn-as-you-go basis. It’s not business sense, but passion and perseverance as the largest driving forces to be a successful entrepreneur. Surviving the Learning Curve Aspiring entrepreneurs come with a variety of backgrounds and skillsets that do not always match what is required to be successful in the market. This is where business sense plays its greatest role. Without proper knowledge of how to commercialize an idea or concept, the venture will fail to get off the ground. But while business sense is a valuable asset for an entrepreneur to have, such a deficiency can be overcome by choosing the right advisors. Think about the underlying premise of shows like Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank: people who have dedicated many years of their lives to making their dreams a reality seek financial resources and strategic help from entrepreneurial leaders; they team up precisely to have access to insight and opportunities they didn’t have on their own. Yet seeking out such help isn`t necessary. What is important is being aware of opportunity and being able to act on it when such opportunity arises. That is why the focus of institutions and consulting firms dedicated to advising entrepreneurs is to provide an understanding of what is involved in being an entrepreneur, how they might acquire and protect the resources that will allow them to pursue their venture, and how to turn their concept into a marketable product or service. According to Dr. Philip Walsh, director of the Ryerson Entrepreneur

arBItraGeMaGaZIne.CoM January 2014

Institute, the main goal is to teach the entrepreneurial process of “idea generation and development, market assessment, idea valuation, intellectual proper t y protection and idea deployment strategies.” Entrepreneurs are given the tools to enable them to pursue their projects. While these skills are helpful, he pinpoints that the most common essential indicator of entrepreneurial success “is the passion required to work hard over long periods of time with the possibility of failure hounding you. In some cases failure becomes inevitable but the entrepreneur’s passion for their idea allows them to treat the failure as a contribution to their learning curve and they innovate further and move on… This passion contributes to a positive approach and a willingness to take risk. These traits need to be inherent in the individual but the experiences of other entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial process can be taught so as to ease the path towards being a successful entrepreneur.” It’s the entrepreneur’s inner drive, not training programs and advisers that determines whether or not the strong starting momentum will not be lost with every bump along the way. As a cautionary note, young entrepreneurs should be wary of the various scams and predators that are out there ready to take advantage of their naivety and eagerness to have their first big break; success doesn’t happen overnight. With finances and a future at risk, entrepreneurs must be conscientious about their decisions and ready to handle the pressure. Entrepreneurs who have the passion and desire to succeed will quickly come to learn the value of being careful when engaging in research and development for their ideas, and thereby avoid being persuaded into situations that could cost them their entire venture. Ensuring Success While dreams of success are nice, the reality of entrepreneurship is that it will be a grueling endeavour that requires effort and patience to understand the mechanics of starting a business and interacting with the market. It’s easy

the Lasttrends word

to get caught up in the rush and forget about the downsides of risky decisions; at the same time, it can be hard not to question if it is even worth it to continue. As an aspiring entrepreneur gains experience, it is an entrepreneurial spirit tempered by business sense that forms the crux of a successful venture. This blend forms the base requirements of what it takes to be an entrepreneur. On a practical note, it is important for an entrepreneur to maintain control. You must own your idea every step of the way. Be ready for any obstacle, financial or otherwise, and have a wellthought out business plan. The early stages should focus on investing in the legal and physical aspects of the venture to develop ideas, rather than paying outsiders for

services that will not contribute to the growth of your business. Managing your resources responsibly will go a long way in gaining credibility and future investments. The application of entrepreneurialism requires constant reflection of what adjustments can be made to improve your product or service—to make an idea work always consider the value added. Sustaining Your Vision When it comes down to it, an entrepreneurial spirit is necessary for success; business sense can be seen as a spirit guide. Be sure the goals you set are realistic, practical, and with an actual purpose to benefit both your life and your venture. With over 20 years of business experience, serial entrepreneur and past Global President of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation, Troy Hazard has experienced both the lows and highs of business ownership and entrepreneurism. For him, being an entrepreneur is more than having business smarts; it is a lifestyle, one that needs a vision in order to achieve success: “I had to determine a vision that included a personal plan, a life plan, a business plan and a people plan. With clarity of purpose you create a greater opportunity to match your personal vision with your business vision. Then your business is working for you, you are not working for it.” He adds that rather than being controlled by fear, blame, and ego, it is confidence that allows entrepreneurs to lead through values, vision, and vulnerability, and that being creative and adaptable to change is the key

to long-term success. Being an entrepreneur is about being conscious of the changes in the market to position oneself accordingly. “Learn from the past; apply that to the present, to protect your future. It’s not rocket science. We all know the market moves in cycles as does business, so why is it we all forget that? We buy into the illusion in business that the bad times were just a moment never to be repeated, and the good times will never end. It’s simply not true. Business happens in cycles and if you look as far back as the great depression the cycles are very similar, boom boom boom, bust, recovery. It happens that way because as humans we continue to fall foul to two very simple human emotions, fear and greed, and that’s what drives the market and business cycles. And while that’s nothing to be proud of, that is, unfortunately, the track business and the market take.” The trick is to have the vision stay above the fickle nature of the market and the passion to resist falling victim to the same trappings that continual re-arise. The mark of true entrepreneurship is having enough guts and sense to know when to stay the course and when to try something else.

January 2014 arBitrageMagaZine.CoM

design: rUVini siLVa

Rather than being controlled by fear, blame, and ego, it is confidence that allows entrepreneurs to lead through values, vision, and vulnerability, and that being creative and adaptable to change is the key to long-term success

t h a S R n

E W O L L MORE FO

G O D R U O Y

careers. education. ideas. all of it.