Stephen Armstrong 1/20/16 Stephen Armstrong 1/20/16

Let's Build a Bridge Together

Many of the world’s great cities are known by their bridges. San Francisco has the Golden Gate, New York has The Brooklyn, Sydney – The Harbour, Vancouver - The Lions Gate, and Paris – Pont Neuf. There are many more that have captivated visitors and made an indelible mark on a city’s identity.

What is it about a bridge that stays with us?

The architectural prowess and feats of engineering that were required to build it? The beauty of the design? Or could it be something deeper and more intrinsic to what a bridge represents?

The idea of spanning a chasm, connecting two places together means freedom, opportunity and unity. A bridge elevates us physically and mentally and can take us somewhere new and in so doing become a destination unto itself.

At MAPLE Business Council, at its core, our mission is in fact about bridge building. We are creating a community in Canada and Southern California that is linked together by a common purpose to foster more opportunities for businesses to collaborate between our geographies through trade and investment. Facilitating Southern California client opportunities for a Canadian company, new markets for a Southern California business. Scaling a startup’s innovation, growth for an established enterprise. Our MAPLE “bridge” supports businesses at all growth stages and sectors. We are linking a nation and a region fortified by the participation and expertise of all our members.

It is perhaps not surprising that a bridge plays a big role between Canadian-American trade. The Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario with Detroit, Michigan is the busiest border crossing in North America as measured by trade volume accounting for 25% of all merchandise trade. The border crossing supports 150,000 jobs in the region and US$13 billion in annual production.

Our bridge is still under construction and may never be truly finished. So we invite you to travel on the MAPLE bridge with us as a guest or member in 2016. For sponsors, MAPLE is a special and unique opportunity to support your regional business goals and corporate citizenship commitments. If Canada or Southern California is part of your brand's DNA, sponsoring our bridge is truly on point (or should that be on "pont"?) But however we engage together, we want to thank you for buttressing a great partnership and friendship that exists between Canada and Southern California.

And for helping us to build a new bridge together.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council focused on promoting trade and investment between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Stephen Armstrong 12/17/15 Stephen Armstrong 12/17/15

Reflections on Launching MAPLE

Life is about the relationships we make. Our lives are full of important ones. As children, we are defined by our relationships with our parents, siblings and our extended family. As we grow up, school and our peers become our focal points and many of us later identify closely with our university. Through our adult lives, family, friends and our work relationships are central. Some are transitory; many are part of us forever. With each relationship, there is an opportunity to share part of us and to learn and grow from each other. The sharing that occurs through these relationships shapes who we are and who we will become.

Maple trees showing fall colors in autumn

We have a relationship with our country too. And it becomes a little more complicated when you leave your home country to make a home in a new one. You are attracted to the opportunities of a new destination to make your home but you don’t want to forget your roots. As an expatriate, you bring with you the experiences of another culture that is a gift that you share with friends in your new country and something you celebrate together with fellow expatriates. But your focus can change over time. When we first moved to Minneapolis from Toronto, our focus was building my marketing career and creating our family. Canada was in the rear view mirror increasingly the longer we lived in the U.S. Opportunities in Southeast Asia and Mexico at different times put more miles between home and Canada.

I am now quickly reaching the point in my life when I will have lived longer in the United States than in Canada. I’ve already become a United States citizen, our children were born and raised in the U.S. and our home has been in California for the past 15 years. We love it here. And yet in the past year I have never felt more connected to Canada and my Canadian roots too. And the exciting dimension of it is that having roots elsewhere is accretive to being an American citizen. As an immigrant, what I bring to relationships professionally and personally is a product of my life, experiences and perspectives in two great nations. That these nations are also neighbours, friends, allies and trading partners makes the opportunity to bridge my relationship with each country so much better.

So when my co-founder, Robert Kelle, shared with me that he wanted to create a business networking group that would fulfill our original vision when founding Canadians in Orange County in 2010 to promote business connections between Southern California and Canada, the vision struck a chord with me. Here is an opportunity to create a new relationship with both my home and native land and my home in Southern California by bridging them together. Now with the support of our board, our member organizations, our friends and families, we have created a vibrant new organization…MAPLE Business Council.

It has been seven months since we launched MAPLE. With an exciting new brand, five networking meetings in three cities, 13 organizations represented in our membership, 15 presentations, and hundreds of new friends, MAPLE is establishing itself in the Southern California communities we serve with our own unique voice. Thank you to everyone who shares our excitement and commitment to bridging the Canadian and Southern California business communities to create and accelerate new opportunities on both sides of the border. We invite you to join MAPLE and look forward to serving you in 2016 and beyond.

Stephen Armstrong 11/21/15 Stephen Armstrong 11/21/15

Planting a Southern California MAPLE in Ontario, Canada

Going international is not typically an initiative that start-ups undertake within the first six months of forming but when your mission is cross-border trade and investment, it figures more prominently on the launch calendar.

When my co-founder Robert Kelle and I launched MAPLE Business Council with our board of directors in May of this year, it was with a mission to connect businesses between Canada and Southern California bilaterally. All are welcome in our sector- agnostic, stage-agnostic community of executives, entrepreneurs, investors and service providers.

With 12 organizations with Canadian ties now part of MAPLE, we embarked on a weeklong “trade mission” to Toronto, Canada in November. It has been nothing short of a remarkable experience. We have connected with established businesses as diverse as architecture, construction management, global logistics, banking, wealth management, entertainment, fashion, digital media and manufacturing. Businesses with missions, divisions and clients on both sides of the border.

Our visits to the vibrant and growing start-up communities in Toronto and Waterloo were a window on a remarkable innovation ecosystem of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, government and start-up coaches eager to create the environment and supply the ingredients to help new ideas flourish - be they in life sciences, fintech, high-tech, big data… the list goes on. From seed to scale, there is no shortage of passion to nurture, challenge and stimulate. To grow.

If there is a secret sauce in these communities it is collaboration across academia, government, investors and entrepreneurs. For example, the University of Waterloo and its coop program begins a path for student entrepreneurs that is continued through a rainforest of hubs, incubators and accelerators. And in Toronto, organizations such as MaRS and OneEleven have crafted impressive innovation communities.

And collaboration is at the heart of MAPLE too. While not a tree found in any rain forest, we are a growing organization with deep roots in Canada and Southern California. It has been a privilege to share the story of Southern California with Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs this past week as it will be to bring back to Southern California all the exciting work in Ontario.

It may be winter but MAPLE is about to bloom.

Stephen Armstrong 10/22/15 Stephen Armstrong 10/22/15

Canadians in California Through the Lens of Facebook

Canada is our neighbour to the north. The one who spells neighbour with a "u".

Generally it is a country we don't spend much time thinking about even though (or perhaps because) we share the longest undefended border in the world and have forged the world's largest trade and security partnership. Over $734 billion a year in two-way goods and services trade in fact. That's $1.4 million per minute. Canada is our #1 customer nationally buying more from the U.S. than does any other nation and that includes all 28 nations in the European Union - combined.

Canadian business in California infographic

Canada is our neighbour to the north. The one who spells neighbour with a "u".

At MAPLE Business Council, we are a non-profit organization focused on bringing attention to the robust trade and the deep partnership which exists between Southern California and Canada as we connect executives and entrepreneurs for bilateral business opportunities. As the second largest trading partner with the state of California, Canada participates in approximately $46 billion a year in goods and services trade. We have historic ties that date back to fur trading days and today over 1.2 million California jobs are tied to trade and investment with Canada. Definitely a relationship not just worth thinking about but a partnership worth celebrating!

On a household level California has long been a popular destination for Canadians to vacation and escape winters that last too long. And many Canadians have made the Golden State their home after coming here to study, vacation or for work. As Canadians we are not easily identifiable as an expatriate community which can obscure the contributions we are making as fellow Californians. In fact, we often hear from both Americans and Canadians living in California how they belatedly "discovered" that a neighbor, co-worker or friend hails from Canada originally.

One admittedly non-scientific way to glean a few insights on our neighbors - the "Canadians Among Us" - is to look at the profile of Facebook users who self-identify as Canadian expats with an interest in Canada. This group actually numbers 35-40,000 active users per month - certainly not close to representing all Canadians in California but a sizable cohort nonetheless.

Demographically, these California-based Canadian expat users of Facebook tend to be be a little older than all California Facebook users with 64% of women 35 years of age or older (compared to 53%) and 59% of men (compared to 48%). Interestingly, Canadian expats are much more likely to be married (62% vs 44%) and have attended graduate school (21% vs 9%). Canadian Facebook users in California have a higher representation in fields such as arts/entertainment/media/sports (28% vs 21%); computers/maths (16% vs 7%); IT/technical (20% vs 10%); and life/physical/social sciences (12% vs 7%). A greater percentage of the Canadian expat community active on Facebook lives in San Francisco (13% vs 6%) with the greatest absolute number living in Los Angeles (25% vs 22%). Home ownership is comparable to all California Facebook users (53% vs 55%) but with a higher percentage of 1-person households (39% vs 31%). And household income skews higher at $100k per household annually and above.

So these stats begin to paint a picture of our Canadian neighbors within California as a group that is contributing to California's economy in a number of key fields, through their disposable income, home ownership and educational attainment. But regardless of the magnitude of the statistics, the heart of our cross-border success and the benefits to the California economy rest in the longstanding friendship and commitment to growth and partnership between our nations and between us as neighbors.