Maybe what Ottawa needs is a little dash of Kevin O'Leary from CBC's Dragon's Den, or perhaps an entrepreneur whisperer.

Whatever "It" is, Ottawa needs it and soon, because having the most highly educated and tech savvy workforce per capita isn't enough. Ideas are only great when there is a rock-solid business plan to back them up. Talent and ideas are mobile. If this community doesn't have a clear idea of its own identity and why it should be regarded as more than just a farm team for companies headquartered elsewhere, it will fade back into obscurity as a government town in which the strongest private sector industry is tourism. Already, Ottawa is losing ground to more self-aware communities like Kitchener-Waterloo.

What brought this issue back into focus for me was last week's meeting of the OBJ's editorial board. The ed board is a group of volunteers from various sectors of the business community who come together every few months to discuss the paper and the pressing issues facing our city. What is said during this meeting is confidential and off the record, but there were a couple points of discussion that I believe warrant repeating here (stained, of course, by my own jaundiced views).

The first is that government is one of the largest handicaps to this city's prosperity. Too much economic and urban development is hindered by the bureaucratic ponderousness of agencies like the National Capital Commission and its stranglehold on Ottawa's extensive waterfront. At the municipal level, the city is in the control of a council obsessed with nickels, dimes and pandering to their ward constituents to ensure re-election. The City of Ottawa isn't a single urban centre, it's 23 individual fiefdoms battling each other for resources in some political version of Survivor. They lack a long-term vision that has the best interests of the entire city in mind. Lastly, (how shall I put this delicately) the comfortable quality of life enjoyed by many civil servants engenders this complacent, retire-at-55 mindset among much of the city's general population that is anything but entrepreneurial. Which is fine, if all Ottawa wants to be is a government town.

Problem is, various interests keep trying to paint Ottawa as an entrepreneurial town, and that leads to the second point. How many "entrepreneurs" are really just out-of-work engineers looking for a job? There's a very important business lesson that was taught to me years ago, long before I ever went back to school for journalism – sell the dream to people who want it, don't waste your time on people who need it. How many people in the tech sector in business for themselves are really just looking for a pay cheque, rather than being in it for the long-haul for the competitive thrill of building a strong company?

This was illustrated all too well by the poor quality of the business plans put forward by some of the presenters two weeks ago at the Ottawa Venture Technology Summit. At this event, a select number of companies get the chance to make a sales pitch before a room of potential investors. It's a more friendly version of Dragon's Den. There's no razor-tongued Kevin O'Leary lurking the audience ready to rip apart mediocrity. Maybe that's the problem. Too many people ill-suited to the role of entrepreneur fumble around for too long before getting a healthy dose of reality and realizing they're better off on somebody else's payroll.

Our board attributed the problem, in part, to a lack of one central resource to provide entrepreneurs with all the resources, reference materials and sage advice needed to succeed without being forced to buy memberships in various organizations that individually offer only a few of the necessary tools. This point brought up OCRI's proposed Innovation Hub, a landmark edifice somewhat similar to the MaRS District in Toronto that would play an incubator and business development role. But that raised the question whether this kind of real estate is what Ottawa really needs, or if an Innovation Hub is better suited to being some kind of virtual community online.

It's a debate too large to be contained in a single article, but it did make me wonder where the real problem lies. Is it that the tools that entrepreneurs need are scattered among too many different sources with too many barriers and restrictions to access, or is it something else? That information and access to it isn't the problem, but the wisdom to use it effectively?

The key to success in any aspect of one's life is an open-minded eagerness to learn, which necessitates a willingness to embrace change and leave the comfort zone behind. If this is lacking in our collective psyche, the game is over before it's even begun.

You can dam a river to create a lake, but you can't make a horse drink from it.