If you’re not following April Dunford, you should. Her post today titled “Pre-Launch Marketing for Stealthy Startups” is a good example of why. April’s one of my hohoto colleagues, and spoke at our inaugural meshmarketing last year – she’s a keen observer, and you should add her blog to your reading list.

What a lovely surprise to learn that CBA’s National Magazine has named my firm’s site one of Canada’s best law firm websites (co-winner, Small Firm/Solo category).

A superb post by Mark Suster on the necessity of committing to your vision and taking action on it. I see so many people who return to me for advice on the essentially the same decisions, or whom I see stuck on the same challenges. BTW, I don’t believe this skill is unteachable, but I do believe it can’t be learned by everyone.

I had a great time presenting a short workshop at the Impact 09 Conference today. I started with a short role playing scenario for the students in which they negotiated starting equity interests in a new business. It was a great springboard for a discussion about larger issues. Many thanks to @ray_cao for getting me involved and for the scenario idea.

Great post on Techcrunch from the CEO of Redfin.

Sound advice on starting up away from the action.

A superb piece, on the always provocative Venture Hacks, on picking your co-founder(s). Just really smart, solid advice.

At mesh09 Toronto Mayor David Miller announced the City’s open data project and spent some time talking with us about his vision for the project. The site has just launched.

We’ve just posted our place in PEI for rent for 2 weeks in August. Please feel free to pass that link along to anyone you know who might be interested.

I wrote a while ago that I was disgusted that the Tories had spent $300M on an election held for no reason – other than a vain and hopeless effort to secure a majority that Canadians do not trust them to wield responsibly. Well, we Canadians are pretty smart folk. The Tories pretended, of course, that the election was held simply to create a more effective Parliament, and in the wake of the worst of the recent financial crisis pretended to want to govern co-operatively. That was plainly a scam designed to inculpate the co-opted opposition in any Tory mismanagement of the economy. But now we have the cherry on top – $300M spent to save a Parliament that only weeks later is trashed for $30M. Don Martin calls it “an unforgivable breach of the trust voters bestowed on Mr. Harper”. I’ll just say it’s management ineptitude of remarkable proportions.