Inside the Dragons' Den

Audition Fevor Catching on....

a note about the Cartoon Contest

Ok, we just got our first cartoon, and it tells me we need to clarify the contest.

The goal is create a dragons' den cartoon. So your cartoon has to have something to do with the show. It also helps if it is funny. After all that is the point.

Cartoons illustrating what your company does, funny or not, don't really qualify.

How to Apply

We are now accepting applications for season two.

Even if you have already applied (over the last 6 months) you need to read this.

You have two choices to get on the show:

1) apply online, by creating a login and then filling out the application form.  You can start by clicking here: http://dragonsden.quickselect.net/login.php

2) apply in person, download the application form and attend an audition live to pitch us your idea.  You can start by clicking here: http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/

While both options are open to you, my sense is that applying person will give you a better shot as it allows the producers to get a "feel" for you, your business and how you'll fare vs. our Dragons.

audition dates

Blogging on the blackberry on a plane from Thunder Bay, so please forgive me if there are more spelling errors than usual.

We just got the dates for auditions, here they are:

April 10th Kingston
April 11th Kitchener/Waterloo
April 12th London
April 14th Toronto
April 16th Fort McMurray 
April 17th  Ottawa / Halifax 
April 18   Victoria / Edmonton/
April 19  Victoria / Ottawa
April 20 Vancouver / Calgary
April 21 Vancouver
April 23. Winnipeg/
April 24 Moncton
April 25 Summerside
April 26 Charlottetown
April 27 St. Johns' Nfld/Montreal
April 28 St. Johns' / Montreal 
May 5th Toronto

Check back next week to get locations and more details.

Please note: all dates are subject to change

Season 2 - Contest 1 - DD Comic Strip

Well as we get ready for auditions for Season Two, I'd happy to annouce the first contest of Season Two.....CREATE YOUR DRAGONS' DEN comic strip.

There are no rules. You can use photos, draw by the strip by hand or use any of the free online comic strip creation tools found at:

http://www.toondoo.com/

http://www.comeeko.com/

http://stripgenerator.com/

Contest closes at midnight EST on April 30th.  Email your entries to sean@wisementorcapital.com and I'll post them here for feedback.

Winners will be selected by Steve Tingley, secret undercover behind the scenes blogger and Ms. Stella Bigglesworth, secret producer of Dragons' Den. 

First prize (and there is only a prize for first) is a Dragons Den SWAG pack including a t-shirt and DVD from season one.

Enter soon.

Enter often.

Here is a sample....(albeit, not a very good one):

Auditions

Still no word from the CBC on the dates, location or even cities for season two auditions. 

So while I love to hear from each of you, please stop emailing me.

As soon as we get the 411 on auditions, rest assured you will see it here first. In the meantime, make sure you register early for the process by clicking over to: www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/apply

Best of the North: Day 1

It is the first day of my 4 city Lessons from the Den tour of Northern Ontario.  First up was North Bay followed by Sudbury. I was taken aback by the quality of some of the companies I meet in 1on1 sessions following the lecture.  Funny enough, the best of the bunch was actually a company I meet last Friday in Silicon Valley.

Yes you read that right, I saw them last friday in the valley and then only days later in Sudbury.  In the valley they were presenting at Under the Radar Office 2.0, in Sudbury they were simply at home representing and showing that not all Web 2.0 compaines have to be Caolifornia.  The company is ConceptShare and not only are they part of a growing list of Enterprise 2.0 companies popping out on the net lately, they are definitely joining Cambrian House, NowPublic, FreshBoooks, b5 Media and Celtx on my list of BEST CANADIAN STARTUPS.

So what does conceptshare do?

According to me, ConceptShare is a Plaform for Online Asynchronous Visual Collaboration (POAVC, ok I need to work on that acronym some more) or in English, they help graphic designers, visual artists, webdesigners, storyboarders, toy makers and the like create a workspace where members of a team can provide feedback on their own time.

According to their website they:

ConceptShare makes capturing feedback easier and more accurate.

ConceptShare allows you to easily share designs inside Workspaces that contain designs related to a certain topic or project.

It’s easy to invite people into a workspace. Invite team members, managers, clients, and consultants to add and reply to comments, chat and markup designs.

People do not have to be in the workspace at the same time to contribute. Workspace members can log-in anytime to any workspace they are member. If members do happen to be in the workspace at the same time they can collaborate with real-time chat and real-time comment updates and concept updates

But take if from me, there is way more to this than meets the eye. So this site is a must try for anyone working on logos, websites, ad campaigns or any other visual representation. 

I demoed their product as a means of working through an infographic on a project I'm on.  Up until now the 5 people working on the project had to physically get together to discuss the illustration, which is hard since one is in Ottawa, two are in Calgary, and one is in London.  But with ConceptShare it was not only easy to solicit feedback, it was efficient.

So if you are working on a team that has visual outputs as part of its mandate, zip on over to ConceptShare and give it a try. You won't regret it, I sure don't.

If they are so rich, why don't they change their clothes?

OK, I thought I had answered this question, but alas, I keep getting asked. So for once, and hopefully for all, why do the Dragons, if they are so rich, wear the same clothes every episode?

The answer is simple, the magic of TV, here see if this makes sense:

• the show is shot over a period of days
• the producers never know which pitches will be good and which ones won't be
• so they end up mixing and matching pitches from different days to make each episode
• if the dragons changed clothes ever day, then when they mixed pitches from day 1 with pitches from day 4, viewers would know, and it would look stupid.

I actually think there is some foo foo TV term for this, but to me its just about editorial continuity.

OK, any other questions?

Meet Robert Herjavec

This week TVO's "Paula Todd: Person 2 Person" will feature eveyone's favorite dragon - Robert Herjavec. Robert will discuss his popularity on the show and talks about breaking down with Maya Sinclair. He also discusses his close relationship with his mother and his rise to wealth.

The show airs on TVO on Friday, March 9th at 10 pm and repeats on Saturday, March 10th at 6:30 pm and Sunday, March 11th at 3:00 am. The show will be available as a podcast on www.tvo.org/p2p in about a week after the show airs.

Go North Young Man

At the end of March, the Northern Ontario Enterprise Gateway has me bringing our Lessons from the Dragons' Den tour to 4 cities in northern Ontario.  Amongst other things, we'll be talking about

• what it takes to raise Angel money
• what the Dragons are looking for in Season 2
• How to increase your chances of getting the funding you need to succeed.

For more info click over to: www.noeg.ca