Author Archive

The third annual Why?Race will take place on Saturday May 11, 2013. Why?Race is a day-long team race through Calgary’s downtown core, Amazing Race style. The race is BeCause’s most popular event to-date, offering participants a perfect opportunity to learn about our communities social issues while having a lot of fun with teammates – and rivals!

The event’s format calls for teams to race across the city, stopping at 25 road blocks along the route. At each road block, teams must complete either a team-building, educational or research challenge before they can advance to the next challenge and move closer to the finish line.

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TELUS and the Globe and Mail are about to give away some serious cash, $100,000 to be exact. It does, however, come with a few strings attached. To win the dough, you have to be a small or medium-size business (employ less than 150 people) with a business challenge. In 800 words, you have to describe that business challenge (200 words); a proposed solution to this challenge the $100,000 would help with (200 words); an explanation of the results you would expect and a description of how you incorporate the following values into your business: 1) community investment/commitment to charities, 2) customer service and 3) innovation (200 words).

Sean Stanleigh, Editor of Report on Small Business at the Globe and Mail, just released 3 things to think about when entering the contest. He’s a judge, so I’d read the carefully if you want to enter: Read more

Kylie Toh and Morgan Moe are two ambitious ladies. Between them, they have skills in hi-tech, communications, entrepreneurship, community building and startups. You could say they are both kind of geeky, a label they’d both consider a huge compliment!

After attending various startup events, they realized their was an under-representation of women like themselves. They did some research and discovered only 25 per cent of the ICT workforce are women, and only 5 per cent of tech startups are female owned. Both came to conclusion they needed to do something about these numbers, and so became the Chic Geek, an organization striving to increase diversity in the hi-tech and startup communities by educating, engaging and empowering women.

I got the chance to chat with Kylie in detail about the Chic Geek’s creation, and its future within the tech startup community.

Tell us about the Chic Geek’s mission?

The Chic Geek is building diversity in Calgary’s startup community by educating, engaging and empowering more women. Having a diverse startup community is so important because it helps the ecosystem grow and keeps Calgary competitive with other emerging centres.

When did you first realize there was an under-representation of women in Calgary’s startup community?

We were searching for other likeminded women to connect with, who were as passionate and driven about startups, hi-tech, entrepreneurship and innovation as we were.  We were going to a lot of startup events, and looking around the room, it didn’t take long to realize how few women there were. When we found out there was nothing in the community to address this unique problem, we decided to fill the gap and the Chic Geek was born.

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I recently had a LinkedIn rep. come through my office to give us a sales pitch on one of their services. During the pitch, she gave the group a skill testing question with the winner being promised a prize. Due to my knowledge of (apparently) useless facts, I won. I’ll be honest and say I was a little let down when she busted out the prize, which was a book called The Start-up of You by Reid Hoffman, Co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn (surprise, surprise), and Ben Casnocha. My inner 7 year old was expecting the toy you get after the dentist.

After letting the book collect a small amount of dust on my desk, I turned my frown up-side-down and explored it a little further. It turns out the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn is pretty smart, insightful and full of great advice (another surprise, surprise).

I thought I’d take some time to highlight some of the snippets of wisdom the book shares. Read more

We’ve all dreamed about sticking it to the man and being our own boss, making a quick billion then swapping tales with Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Sounds magical, but also a tad…unrealistic.

Business ownership takes a mix of drive, determination, talent, time and a little luck too. It can lead to the upsides of success, but also the downsides of failure. It’s fear of this failure that often holds us back from doing what we truly love to do.

David Wald decided to push past this fear and become his own boss by starting Legendary Branding, and more recently, Social Sesame. I was recently able to chat with David about his journey to autonomy. In my interview below, he shares insight on what the realities of business ownership really are, and how to know if it’s really for you. It has some great advice for those of you thinking of going it alone.

Q. First, tell us a little bit about Legendary Branding?

A. Legendary Branding is a brand and marketing consulting company, it launched May 5, 2011. I provide an overall brand and marketing strategy for my clients and help with the implementation of their tactics.

I also recently launched Social Sesame, a new company that is strictly social media and content marketing. A lot of my clients were asking me to run their social media; I saw this as a business opportunity. It launched the beginning of January and is going strong! Read more

There has been a lot of talk lately on the news about the future state of Alberta, as we’re facing a $6 billion dollar revenue shortfall. I thought I’d use this blog post to explain what happened, what the province is doing to turn it around and what it means for Calgary business. It’s something that’s important to us all, and potentially affects the awesomeness of our lives here in Calgary.

First, I’ll explain how it all happened. The “price per barrel” we hear in the news is based on West Texas Intermediate (WTI) pricing. WTI is a sweet, light crude oil produced and refined in the United States and sets the benchmark price for one barrel of oil. Based on expert forecasts, it was determined WTI would sell for $100 per barrel. Alberta was a little more conservative in its forecast and predicted it would sell at $98.71. By the end of 2012 a barrel was selling at $94; the $4.71 difference resulted in a $1 billion shortfall of predicted revenue.

What Alberta produces from the oil sands is called Western Canadian Select (WCS), a heavy, blended crude oil that sells for less than WTI. Because WTI sets the benchmark for one barrel of oil and dropped in price, WCS also dropped in price too. At the start of 2012 WCS was selling at $85 per barrel; by the end of the year the price dropped to $50 per barrel, giving us our $6 billion revenue shortfall.

The price fell so much due to increased oil production in the United States, and their sluggish economy. Both factors resulted in a decreased demand for our oil from the United States, our biggest customer.

As we are an energy province, it’s no surprise that a lot of funding for provincial services comes from the energy sector; 27.8 per cent in 2012. This $6 billion revenue shortfall means we have to re-work the 2013 budget. $6 billion is what the province spent on education last year, so there is a lot of re-working to be done.

So what are we doing about it? Read more

In my first Calgary is Awesome post, I said that business makes the world go ‘round. If this is the case, then one television show that helps keep it going ’round is Dragons’ Den.

The popular show originated in Japan, and has since expanded to multiple countries around the world. It is currently in its 7^th season in Canada and auditioning for its 8^th. If you think you have what it takes to face the Dragons with the next big business idea, Dragons’ Den producers will be holding auditions in Calgary. They’ll be happening on Saturday, February, 2^nd and Saturday, February, 23^rd from 10a.m. – 5p.m. at the Mount Royal University, Bissett School of Business.

The show has made past deals with a few Calgary businesses including Atomic Tea, True North Mortgage and most recently (from a little up the road in Red Deer) Go Tire.

If you dare face the Dragons, don’t miss these two opportunities to impress their producers!

(Courtesy of calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com)

Calgary Economic Development is an amazing Calgary organization that aims to make Calgary a primary choice for people to live and do business in. According to their website, “Calgary Economic Development acts as a connector to bring businesses, organizations, government and the community together for projects and initiatives that benefit Calgary’s vitality and economic well-being.”

I got the chance to talk with, Mary Moran, Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Research for Calgary Economic Development. She was able to give some insight into the great work Calgary Economic Development is doing to improve our awesome city.

Q: How have people responded to the “Be Part of the Energy” campaign?

A: The campaign has been running for 2 years now. The first year it had a national focus which was very well received Canada wide. We crossed the country with the mayor and got a tremendous response from the media. One of the best pieces of feedback we received was that when people who had relocated to Calgary went back to visit their hometown, they were proud to talk about Calgary as their new home. Read more

2013 is a new year, and one in which you might be thinking of opening a new business. The City of Calgary website has a ton of information on how to do this, but here are some key points to get you started.

The first thing you need to do is visit the Business Registration page and answer a few questions to determine what approvals, permits, and business licences you may need. The approval process could be lengthier than anticipated, as there are up to seven regulatory bodies involved in approving a new Calgary business, depending on the type of business licence being requested. They are:

• Development & Building Approvals
• Alberta Health Services (AHS)
• Fire Department – Fire Prevention Bureau (FPB)
• Calgary Police Service – Police Information Check Unit
• Service Alberta – Consumer Contact Centre
• Alberta Motor Vehicle Industry Council (AMVIC)
• Alberta Gaming & Liquor Commission (AGLC)

Every new business needs a licence to operate. The cost of a new licence varies depending on the type of business being opened. For 2013, most business licences are $161; there are a few exceptions at $713 and one type of business (a concert) that is $1,104 per day. Read more

Lack of funding is why a lot of creative endeavours end for many artists. They come up with an amazing idea and are forced to let it die due to the expense needed to make it happen. Luckily for Calgary artists, there’s InvestYYC, a Calgary 2012 initiative that can breathe life into amazing ideas through funding.

InvestYYC is structured much the same as Kickstarter, as donors invest in a specific project and receive perks depending on donation level. Where it’s different is that donations are tax deductible, and if a donation of $100 or greater is made, up to $2,500, it will be matched through a credit to the donors account. This is made possible by Calgary 2012, who has provided InvestYYC with $100,000 of matching funds to use before February, 2013.

Thi Vo, an aspiring documentary film maker is one of the artists using InvestYYC as a way to help fund his project, Made in Vietnam.

Thi was born in Vietnam over 30 years ago. Soon after, Thi and his mother immigrated to Canada. The move separated him, not only from his home country, but also his biological father.

As Thi got older, questions about his father became more of a burning desire to answer. He found out the answers to some, but not the identity of his biological father, the most important answer Thi was searching for.

Thi also developed a passion for film as he got older too. This passion began with trying to get in-front of the camera, which he did successfully by landing a roles in Pseudo, an independent Canadian film, and Gettin’ In, a Canadian comedy released earlier this year.

The combination of Thi’s desire to learn his past, and passion for film became the catalyst for Made in Vietnam, where he’ll step behind the camera to document the journey searching for his biological father in Vietnam.

This project is ambitious in many ways, most notably, trying to find one man in a country with a population of over 91 million people. It’s also ambitious in cost; funding a project like this is expensive and could not be done without the help of InvestYYC. This Calgary 2012 initiative is helping to fund the business of culture, something that provides more return for Calgary than just money. It gives an artist like Thi the ability to express himself and share his story, one that is sure to connect with viewers.

I encourage you to go to InvestYYC and check out all the great cultural projects that need funding. You never know, you could be giving support to the next Spielberg, Baryshnikov or Warhol!

To make a donation to Thi’s InvestYYC project – Made in Vietnam visit:
http://www.investyyc.com/projects/view/30

To stay up-to-date with Thi and his journey visit:
Facebook.com/madeinvietnamfilm