Co-opetition. Competitors working together to succeed and grow a market. It happens in places like Toronto, New York, Moncton, St. John’s…why not in Nova Scotia? For the second year running, the Atlantic Canada Marketing Conference blocked one of the most high-trafficked, well marketed technology news sites in the region from reporting on the event? One would think such an event would look to embrace any media coverage it can get?

The theory of myself and a number of peers is that the AIM Conference is simply an exaggerated business development tool for a select few companies to promote themselves – when enough peers agree, something must be right. This insulated and small-town approach is what has held down the Nova Scotia IT sector from truly growing. Small companies fight for the scraps they can, looking ever inwards to their navels and missing the broader world sitting on their doorstep.

Nova Scotia companies, arrogant in their surroundings of living in the regions largest city, would do well to look at their neighbor to the West in Moncton, Fredericton, St. John and north to St. Johns where companies have found ways to work together and look eagerly beyond the borders to grow their businesses.

Well that is all for now, I am quite busy working with a forward thinking, growth oriented company who wants to make money (and in some senses they are competitor to my business). Business Calls!