From the Editor-in-Chief

The theme of this month's issue is Born Global. It is my pleasure to welcome Tony Bailetti, Director of Carleton University's Technology Innovation Management program (TIM), as guest editor for this issue.

With this issue, the TIM Review celebrates its first birthday! In October 2011, this journal was re-launched as the Technology Innovation Management Review. The TIM Review replaced the Open Source Business Resource, which was launched in July 2007.

In celebrating this milestone, I wish to thank our readers, authors, guest editors, reviewers, advisors, and sponsors for their contributions to our success so far. Last month, we surpassed the threshold of 5,000 unique visitors per month, which brings us halfway to our target of 10,000. We welcome your suggestions for building on the growth we have achieved so far.

Given the theme of this month's issue, I thought it would be fitting to share some data about the global reach of the TIM Review. Figure 1 shows the geographical distribution of visitors to our website during the past year. Readers from outside our domestic market (Canada) accounted for 71% of all visits. These readership numbers reflect both the diversity of our authorship and the broad appeal of their articles. It is very encouraging that we have been successful in our internationalization efforts. In our second year under the banner of the TIM Review, we will maintain our focus on increasing readership by producing high-quality content of relevance to global entrepreneurs worldwide.

Figure 1. Global distribution of visitors to timreview.ca

In November and December, we will be publishing research and insights from local and global authors who will emphasize the practical applications of their work.

As always, we welcome your articles, feedback, and suggestions for future themes. We hope you enjoy this issue of the TIM Review and will share your comments online. Please also feel free to contact us directly with feedback or article submissions.

Chris McPhee
Editor-in-Chief

Welcome to the October 2012 issue of the TIM Review titled Born Global.

Happy first birthday TIM Review! We thank the journal’s readers and international network of authors, guest editors, reviewers, advisors and sponsors for their many contributions. Special thanks go to Chris McPhee, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, who has tirelessly led hundreds of us to improve the journal.

The TIM Review is the result of a conscious decision to build a journal that provides free and unlimited online access to high-quality articles about technology and global entrepreneurship. The online articles published in the TIM Review are the “common assets” that enable individuals and organizations to collaborate, continuously innovate, and explore new topics for the purpose of benefitting entrepreneurs worldwide.

The launch of the TIM Review a year ago was followed by a call to make the TIM Review the leading journal in technology entrepreneurship and global entrepreneurship. The response to this call worldwide has been overwhelming. I am delighted to learn that the number of unique visitors exceeds 5,000 per month and that more than 50% originate from outside of the Americas.

The Born Global issue of the TIM Review focuses on providing entrepreneurs with the knowledge, approaches, methods, and tools they need to globalize their startups early and rapidly. The October issue includes five articles and a report on a recent TIM Lecture. The five articles provide: i) lessons for global entrepreneurs, ii) information on decisions made by entrepreneurs in 12 countries that led the globalization of their firms during their early stages, iii) examples of tools that can be used to globalize a startup, and iv) recommendations on the mindset change required to launch and grow a global startup. The report summarizes the eighth lecture of the 2012 TIM Lecture Series titled “Growing a Global Company Anchored on Open Source Software”, presented by Fred Dixon, CEO of Blindside Networks and contributor to the BigBlueButton open source project, on September 13, 2012.

In the first article of the October issue, I first provide lessons that have been extracted from six literature streams and from information on 21 startups founded in 12 countries and then identify the six elements that a startup must get right to globalize early and rapidly. The main contribution of this article is that it throws the spotlight on the need to develop prescriptive rules and practitioner-oriented models that can help a technology startup operate globally from an early stage.

Elnaz Heidari, Mohsen Akhavannia, and Nirosh Kannangara, graduate students in Carleton's Technology Innovation Management program, analyze how three small firms use crowdsourcing and discuss the benefits of crowdsourcing. This article contributes recommendations for technology entrepreneurs who are interested in using crowdsourcing to rapidly internationalize their startups from inception.

Tony Maltby, an entrepreneur and a graduate student in Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management program, examines entrepreneurs’ use of online social media networks to rapidly internationalize their startups from inception. This article contributes to the development of a learning-based view of rapid internationalization from inception by recognizing that entrepreneurs can use social media to amplify their tacit knowledge and convert it into sellable products and services.

Robert Poole, a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of FreebirdConnect, chartered accountant, and alumnus of Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management program, describes the mindset change that an entrepreneur must make to move from the conventional staged approach to the born-global approach. This article contributes recommendations on the mindset change required for entrepreneurs to use the born-global approach to launch and grow their technology companies.

Simar Yoos, an experienced entrepreneur and graduate student in Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management program, examines the channels used by six startups that internationalized rapidly from inception as well as the programs they used to support their channel partners and customers. The main contribution of this article is that it informs entrepreneurs who need to design go-to-market channels about decisions made by other entrepreneurs who launched born-global companies.

It is our hope that you, your colleagues, and your organizations benefit from reading this issue of the TIM Review.

Tony Bailetti
Guest Editor