Douglas magazine October/November 2016

Small Business issue

Special

meetings + Retreats

Oct/Nov 2016

section

top

10 Branding mistakes and how to avoid them

The alacrity of

Owen Matthews Visionary investor, tech champion, all-round good guy and, yes, geek

PM41295544

Around the Table 7 smart people you need for success

Art in motion luxurious transportation Rare air cleaning the air without chemicals

Creative Marketing Ideas That Demand attention

BUILT BUILTTO TOTAKE TAKEON ONANY ANY WEST WESTCOAST COASTADVENTURE. ADVENTURE.

BMW BMW Victoria Victoria

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The The Ultimate Ultimate ® ® Driving Driving Experience.

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European European models models shown shown for for illustration illustration purposes purposes only.*Starting only.*Starting from from price price of $41,095 of $41,095 / $46,945 / $46,945 based based on on thethe 2016 2016 BMW BMW X1 X1 xDrive28i xDrive28i / X3/ X3 xDrive28i xDrive28i with with automatic automatic transmission transmission with with a MSRP a MSRP of $38,800 of $38,800 / $44,650 / $44,650 andand includes includes freight freight & PDI & PDI ($2,295). ($2,295).

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Š2016 Steelcase Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks used herein are the property of Steelcase Inc. or of their respective owners.

Oct/Nov 2016

Contents

Follow us

62 Art in motion

Douglas talks to two Victoria-based entrepreneurs who have built global reputations creating luxurious modes of transportation.

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

BY Marianne Scott

Rudi Koniczek is world famous for his classic car restorations.

Special in this issue

Features

Well suited...

+Meetings RetReats

for working smarter

30 How to Build the Ultimate Brand

2016

Annual Special Resource Guide

Top 10 brand mistakes — and how you can avoid them. BY Jody Paterson 6274 6274

38 The Alacrity of Owen Matthews

www.bctransit.com www.bctransit.com *Subject to change 250∙382∙6161 *Subject to change 250∙382∙6161

BC Transit BC Transit 6574_BusinessAd 6574_BusinessAd Douglas Magazine Douglas Magazine 8.5” x 10.75” 8.5” x 10.75” Insertion date: September 2016 Insertion date: September 2016

VancouVer Island MeetIng Planner

Find out out more more at at bctransit.com bctransit.com Find Victoria Regional Victoria Regional Transit Commission Transit Commission

Design: Megan Roberts Design: Megan Roberts Coordinator: Sarah Phillips Coordinator: Sarah Phillips

A tech investor, company creator and community builder, Owen Matthews is passionate about nurturing B.C.’s tech industry. BY Kerry Slavens

72 Around the Table

Seven smart people you need for small-business success. BY Athena McKenzie 4 Douglas

Nerd, Know-it-All and Negative Nellie meeting persOnality types

45

Supercharge Your Next Getaway with Creative Off-site Ideas

departments 6 FROM THE EDITOR

86 LAST PAGE

11 IN THE KNOW

BY ALEX VAN TOL

WildPlay’s aerial adventures over Niagara Falls, Small Business Week and the Prosperity Project

Planning the Right Retreat for Your Team One size dOesn’t fit all

Meetings + Retreats

This special guide includes expert tips for planning the ultimate retreat for your team, managing meeting personality types and more.

17 PEOPLE IN BUSINESS

Redbrick’s rethink

INTEL (Business Intelligence) 79 Entrepreneur

Demystify investor due diligence

The who, what and where of the business scene

By Peter ELkins

18 TAKE THREE

Inspirational marketing ideas

81 Sales and Marketing

Your conference survival guide

BY MIKE WICKS

20 THE BIG IDEA

83 Human Resources

BY Shannon Moneo

BY Ingrid Vaughan

A retail product that cleans the air — without chemicals

How to handle your small business needs

A single source for multiple services

Architecture & Interior Design

Buildings Engineering

Community Development

Environmental Services

Transportation

Water & Wastewater Engineering

Design with community in mind stantec.com

Victoria (250) 388-9161

Sidney (250) 656-7966

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

From the Editor

Enriched Thinking™ for your family, business and future.

To find out how a comprehensive wealth strategy can help you reach your financial goals, contact me.

C.P. (Chuck) McNaughton, PFP Senior Wealth Advisor 250.654.3342 charles.mcnaughton@scotiawealth.com

themcnaughtongroup.ca

Scotia Capital Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. For more information visit www.scotiawealthmanagement.com

6 Douglas

Is the Gig Economy Really a Good Thing?

Two guys I know get all of their content-development work through online platforms that match freelancers with clients around the globe. A woman in my neighbourhood has moved from a seriously secure position with a Crown corp to freelance consulting for corporations.

A friend does freelance design for big brands, and when she travels to meet her clients, she rents out her condo on Airbnb.

These people are active participants in the gig economy, a.k.a. the freedom economy.

It’s an economy defined by independent, mobile-enabled gig seekers who love the diversity of project-based work, the freedom to come and go and work from anywhere‚ and the feeling they are in charge of their own destinies. This is not the temp work of your mother’s generation.

An increasing number of these gig seekers are highly qualified professionals — they would be ideal executives or C-suite candidates, if they wanted permanent jobs. Some are tail-end boomers or gen-X/Yers who feel the promises of traditional employment aren’t what they once were; some are millennials who want work shaped to their lifestyles.

Freelance has always been around in one form or another. What is new is that today’s gig economy is powered by increasingly sophisticated technology platforms that allow gig seekers to connect online with opportunities.

How big is the gig economy? In Canada, no one knows for sure, but an Intuit report predicts that by 2020, 40 per cent of U.S. workers will be independent contractors. A study by the Freelancers Union and Upwork found 83 per cent of companies plan to “increase their use of flexible workforces over the next three years.”

There are significant upsides. With a gig economy, you can easily contract with screened, trained workers who are self-managing and used to getting up to speed fast. Not having a permanent workforce may also mean significant money savings in everything from admin to leasing costs, plus there’s no nightmare of layoffs if the job ends or the scope changes.

And there are downsides. As a business owner, you give up the convenience and spontaneity that comes from having employees just down the hall. You also give up control — carrots and sticks that work with traditional employees won’t work in a gig economy.

What’s your draw when you can’t promise benefits or a corner office? How can you control your workforce when you aren’t their biggest or only client?

I’ve seen the gig economy as a freelancer, as an editor working with freelancers, and as a business owner who worked with freelancers before hiring permanent employees. My advice: Before you upend your workforce in favour of hiring all gig workers, test it out.

Think about your brand, your day-to-day needs and your ability to cope with change — a model that is flexible and cost saving for some business owners can be a source of huge frustration to others.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe you need someone with highly specialized skills for a niche project. Or maybe some roles in your company don’t require an onsite presence.

Finally, hiring gig workers doesn’t mean you don’t need great management skills — business in any economy is really about people, after all.

This is not the temp work of your mother’s generation.

— Kerry Slavens kslavens@pageonepublishing.ca

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www.douglasmagazine.com Volume 10 Number 6

Publishers Lise Gyorkos, Georgina Camilleri

Editor-in-chief Kerry Slavens

Director of photography Jeffrey Bosdet

Production Manager Jennifer Kühtz

Editorial Designer Jo-Ann Loro

Associate Editor Athena McKenzie

Editorial Assistant Anneke Feuermann

contributing Designer Janice Hildybrant

Contributing Writers Peter Elkins, Shannon Moneo, Jody Paterson, Marianne Scott, Alex Van Tol, Ingrid Vaughan, Mike Wicks

PROOFREADER Vivian Sinclair

Contributing Photographers Dean Azim, Jeffrey Bosdet, Lennox Chambers, Dirk Heydemann, Jo-Ann Loro

Contributing Agencies Thinkstock pp. 14, 27, 45, 48-50, 54, 72, 73

Advertising Representatives Vicki Clark, Lory Couroux, Sharon Davies, Cynthia Hanischuk

general inquiries info@douglasmagazine.com

SEND PRESS RELEASES TO editor@douglasmagazine.com

Letters to the editor letters@douglasmagazine.com

To subscribe to Douglas subscriptions@ douglasmagazine.com

Advertising Inquiries sales@douglasmagazine.com Online www.douglasmagazine.com Facebook DouglasMagazineVictoria Twitter twitter.com/Douglasmagazine Cover Owen Matthews of the Alacrity Foundation.

Photo by Jeffrey Bosdet.

Published by Page one Publishing 580 Ardersier Road, Victoria, BC V8Z 1C7 T 250-595-7243 E info@pageonepublishing.ca www.pageonepublishing.ca

Printed in Canada, by Transcontinental Printing Ideas and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Page One Publishing Inc. or its affiliates; no official endorsement should be inferred. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the contents of any advertisement and any and all representations or warranties made in such advertising are those of the advertiser and not the publisher. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in all or part, in any form — printed or electronic — without the express written permission of the publisher.

The publisher cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs.

Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement #41295544 Undeliverable mail should be directed to Page One Publishing Inc. 580 Ardersier Road, Victoria, BC V8Z 1C7

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Advertise in Douglas!

Douglas is a premium magazine dedicated to innovation, leadership and business lifestyle. Established in 2006, Douglas is the first choice for business leaders and achievers.

Align your business with Douglas. For more information or to request an advertising rate card, please call us at 250.595.7243 or email us at sales@douglasmagazine.com.

The Union Club of British Columbia has been the business and social scene of Victoria since 1879 and with a new Corporate Membership structure you can ensure to give your management team the best holiday bonus to date.

To book your tour and get more information on Corporate Membership please contact tiffany armstrong at 250.384.1151 ext. 320 or via email at membership@unionclub.com.

10 Douglas

www.unionclub.com

Innovation | Design | Business | Style | People 

[In the Know ] “It’s cool to see WildPlay — a company that started with a single Vancouver Island location — earning a reputation around the world.

Integrity, perseverance and an awesome team of humans are the key ingredients to our growth across North America.

I’m excited to see the many new places that our mission will land us in the near future.

The sky is no limit.”

— Tom Benson, chief experience officer of WildPlay Element Parks on his company’s new project at Niagara Falls

The latest project from the VancouverIsland-based aerial-adventure company WildPlay Element Parks has riders gliding two-thirds of a kilometre over Niagara Falls, on four side-by-side zip lines, as they drop the 68 metres from the cliffside launch tower into the Falls basin.

A collaboration with private and Parks Commission partners in Ontario's Niagara region, the attraction opened in July.

Douglas 11

B.C.’s Evolving Small-Business Profile FIGURE 1.4: FASTEST GROWING SECTORS AND Fastest growing sectors in BC by OFsmall NET NEW SMALL BUSINESSES Number NUMBER of net new businesses (2009-2014) Sectors

Real Estate Ambulatory Health Care and Technical Services Food Services and Drinking Places

Between 2009 and 2014, the real estate sales and services sector recorded the most notable small-business growth, with a net addition of over 3,000 establishments.

Both the tourism and high-technology sectors saw an increase in small businesses, however secondary manufacturing saw a decrease.

B.C.’s SMALL BUSINESS MONTH uses October to recognize the sector’s significant contributions to the province’s economy and local communities.

BDC Small Business Week runs the third week in October across Canada.

For events, visit smallbusinessbc.ca, bdc.ca and your local business chamber’s website.

Over the same period, the fastest rate of growth in number of small businesses in the standard sectors was in data processing, hosting and related services at 65.2 per cent. Among the non-standard sectors, the strongest growth was in high technology, which added new businesses at the rate of 11.3 per cent.

Specialty Trade Contractors Non-Standard Sectors Tourism

In 2014, an estimated 1,010,800 people worked in small businesses in British Columbia.

These jobs accounted for 54 per cent of private-sector employment in the province.

High-Technology Secondary Manufacturing -500

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000 Small Business Profile 2015, BC Stats

Retail Therapy The $72-million expansion and redevelopment of Mayfair Shopping Centre will see its leasable space increase from 454,000 square feet to approximately 554,000 square feet. This 100,000-square-foot expansion along the mall’s Douglas Street frontage will be anchored by two new large-format stores, yet to be announced. Two levels of additional rooftop parking will also be constructed, connected by a new access ramp off Finlayson Street. The interior renovation will include new washrooms, flooring, signage, paint, furnishings and enhanced lighting for the common areas.

Mayfair Shopping Centre will remain open during the duration of the expansion and renovation, which is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2018.

50

Percentage of small businesses expected to have mobile apps by 2017, compared to the 20% of small businesses that have mobile apps today.

What’s spurring this small-business rush to mobile-app development?

According to the survey, businesses are driven by the desire to increase sales, improve customer experience and become competitive in a specific market. Additionally, the cost to create apps is down significantly thanks to app-building software that makes it easier for small businesses to build their own apps.

— Clutch B2B Research, 2016

12 Douglas

Collaboration Pushing Economic Development on the South Island Helping existing businesses and job creation are just some of the targets announced in The South Island Prosperity Project’s (SIPP) five-year strategy report, released at the end of September.

With a forecasted annual operating budget of approximately $800,000, SIPP’s targets include:  entering at least 10 new secondstage businesses into SIPP’s Business Connector Program Pilot over the next six months

“The last three to four months was spent meeting and consulting with various community stakeholders and partners, and our members,” says Emilie de Rosenroll, executive director of SIPP. “Out of that we came up with key priorities and, given our timeframe and resources, set our ambitious but realistic targets.”

— Emilie de Rosenroll, executive director, south island prosperity project

 increasing investment by corporate stakeholders by 30 per cent by April 2017  creating 500 new direct jobs over five-year period  creating 100 jobs with salaries equivalent to $80,000/ year and above; 200 jobs with salaries of

80%

$60-80,000/year; and 200 jobs with salaries of $45-60,000/year  i ncreasing investment with at least $6 million from private sector, provincial and federal sources e ngaging First Nation communities in dialogue around economic development and support self-directed economic development projects and initiatives

Launched officially in April, SIPP is made up of private and public members, including 10 municipalities, the Songhees First Nation, five industry and business associations, three post-secondary institutions, seven private businesses and two not-for-profit organizations. For more information, visit southislandprosperity.ca

“Studies show that up to 80 per cent of your GDP growth comes from helping those companies that are already in your area scale and grow, and overcome their barriers.

That’s why we are prioritizing the Business Connector Program,” says de Rosenroll.

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Contact us at 250.382.0392, 302-1625 Oak Bay Avenue or online at bakerrejuvenation.com.

DR. STEPHEN BAKER MD, FRCSC PROVIDING OCULOPLASTIC COSMETIC, AND AESTHETIC TREATMENTS SINCE 2000.

Douglas 13

Whole Foods Comes to the Island

Business in Action Victoria mayor Lisa Helps will head up a 19-person delegation to China this October to further strengthen economic development, tourism and educational opportunities between Victoria and China. Departing October 14, the eight-day mission includes visits to Shanghai, Nanjing and Victoria’s twin city Suzhou. Mayor Helps will also join Royal Roads University as a guest speaker as it hosts its annual Global Alumni Summit in Nanjing from October 21 to 22. Also joining the delegation are representatives from Tourism Victoria, the Alacrity Foundation of Victoria, the University of Victoria and Camosun College.

Parc Modern, known for its modern home furnishings, accessories and lighting, has relocated to its new location at Uptown Shopping Centre on the upper level. Owners Jody and David Adelman have incorporated Type A, a Euro-style shop-in-shop concept designed to fill a void for better-quality, well-designed organizational products.

Echosec Systems was named winner of a Silver Stevie Award in the Startup of the Year category in the 13th Annual International Business Awards (IBAs). The 2016 IBAs received entries from more than 60 nations and territories.

Echosec is a location-first social media search engine that allows users to view social content in particular geographies, from a pool of over one billion daily posts.

Echosec was also a 2016 winner of a Douglas magazine 10 to Watch Award.

Royal Victoria Yacht Club’s Cadboro Bay marina has earned a four-anchor certification in Georgia Strait Alliance’s award-winning Clean Marine BC program for its commitment to environmentally sustainable operations.

Backfit Clinic has moved to its new facility, located at 3481 Cook St. near the intersection of Cook and Quadra. The new state-of-theart facility features a bigger gym space, an improved decompression treatment area and dedicated parking.

Kal Suurkask, managing director of Big Birch Capital, has opened 4o7 EVENTS, a boutique waterfront events venue and shared workplace. The 2,400-squarefoot-space on Swift Street can be used for corporate or government training sessions, company receptions, private functions and more.

14 Douglas

Officially announced in February of 2015, Whole Foods Market will open its first Island store on November 2 at Uptown Shopping Centre with a community “Bread-Breaking Ceremony” — its version of a ribbon cutting.

The Market by the Numbers

Size Matters The new 40,000square-foot Whole Foods Market will include a preparedfoods counter, as well as a bakery, meats and poultry counter, produce section and a “whole body” department.

Team Stats The store will employ 115 employees under team store leader Mike Norrie. Globally, Whole Foods Markets operates 455 stores employing 87,000 people in three countries — 435 in the U.S., 11 in Canada and nine in the U.K.

On the Shelves Denise Breyley, Whole Foods “local forager” in the Pacific Northwest region, has spent time over the last three years meeting with Island producers to find local products that fit the company’s mandate of no hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, flavours, sweeteners and preservatives.

Raise a Glass The store will be licensed to serve alcohol in the café and pub. The pub is a unique element to the Victoria location and will serve a locally inspired menu, as well as host tap-takeovers by craft brewers. The store will also partner with a local craft brewery to create exclusive beers to be served in the pub.

Giving Back As part of its community outreach, the Whole Foods Market at Uptown will have one day each quarter when it will give five per cent of its profits to a local charity, chosen with the help of 12 community advisers.

The Very Big Business Idea

Social Enterprise

Something fishy is happening at Vancouver Island University’s International Centre for Sturgeon Studies (ICSS) in Nanaimo.

170%

T

he ICSS recently started selling cans of smoked sturgeon and fresh fillets to restaurants and retailers as a revenue generator to help with the education and research that goes on at the facility and to raise awareness about these “living fossils.”

Bistro at Westwood Lake in Nanaimo, Pacific Prime Restaurant and Lounge in Parksville and Edible Canada in Vancouver are the first restaurants serving VIU sturgeon products to customers. Cans of smoked sturgeon, processed and smoked locally at St. Jean’s Cannery and Smokehouse, are available at several local retail shops.

“Our sturgeon are grown in a land-based, closed-containment, recirculating system which is used for training our fisheries and aquaculture students, so there’s a local, environmentally friendly, educational aspect to it,” says Jenny Dawson-Coates, a VIU Fish Health Biologist.

“It’s also a really nice fish for eating. In other places in the world, it’s a delicacy.”

The ICSS raises thousands of white sturgeon to age two, at which time fish densities need to be reduced due to space constraints. Because of federal and provincial laws, releasing the fish into the wild is not an option.

Growth in number of socially conscious consumers over last 20 years

Fishy Facts

White sturgeon can grow up to six metres long and can live up to

100 years.

Sturgeon have been swimming the waters of the world for more than

200

million years.

$1 trillion

Projected value of global social finance market by 2020*

“Social enterprise is becoming a key driver for community and economic prosperity on Vancouver Island.”

— Kristi Rivait, director of Scale Collaborative, organizing partner with seCatalyst

The SeCatalyst Gala on November 24 shines a spotlight on Vancouver Island’s dynamic social entrepreneurs and on the locally available resources. secatalyst.ca * Making an Impact, 2015, omssa.com

Save the Date ■ October 4 to 6: Building Sustainable Legacies: Tourism Vancouver Island’s 53rd Annual Conference – Ucluelet Community Centre This three-day event provides tourism businesses, suppliers, educators and government with a wealth of professional development and networking opportunities. tviconference.ca 27 to 28: Island Women in Science and Technology Conference, Leading the Way – The Baumann Centre for Pacific Opera Victoria This conference brings together women who have thrived in sectors that traditionally favour males and who have become role models for strategic career advancement. The focus is to encourage women to pursue leadership opportunities and service on paid boards and to give them practical tools to accomplish that goal. iwist.ca ■ November 3: DisruptHR M A G AArt Z I N Gallery, E’S – Legacy Victoria DisruptHR is an information exchange designed to energize, inform and empower executives, business leaders, HR professionals and anyone who’s passionate about talent. DisruptHR’s focus is to “shake up, make people within the industry TOthings WATCH think differently about their mission, and leave them inspired.” engagedHR.com/DisruptHR

M A G A Z I N E’S

TO WATCH

Victoria’s Annual Checkup October sees the Publication of The Victoria Foundation’s Vital Signs A VILLAGE OF

100

WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?

Things to celebrate

+ things to improve

SURVEY SAYS...

QUALITY OF LIFE IN

GREATER VICTORIA

+

PROFILES OF BELONGING

Community snapshots of four population groups

SPECIAL FEATURE:

What does it mean to belong?

Vital Signs reports the results of the annual community checkup that measures the vitality of our region.

“The theme of this year’s report is belonging, an issue that’s central to the well-being of our community, and to the work of the Victoria Foundation,” says Rob Janus, director of communications with the Victoria Foundation. “We’ve included the usual data on key issues affecting our region, as

well as results of our citizen opinion survey. Plus we take a look at what it means to belong through the eyes of several subsets of the population, including seniors, Aboriginals, newcomers and youth.”

This 11th edition of Vital Signs is published by Page One Publishing, the Victoria-based independent publisher that produces Douglas magazine, YAM magazine and SALT magazine.

MELISSA KURTZ & KATHERINE GRAY

We Sell Homes Just Like Yours

Enter your Business

Douglas magazine’s 8th annual 10 to Watch Awards If your business is three years old or less and is located on Vancouver Island, visit douglasmagazine.com for competition information and to download the application form. The deadline to apply is 1 p.m. on December 16.

An independent panel of business experts will select the 10 winners, who will be announced at a spring gala and featured in the April/May 2017 issue of Douglas magazine.

Kevin Oke (left) and Charles Lavigne of LlamaZOO, one of the 10 companies celebrated at the 2016 Douglas 10 to Watch Awards.

MELISSA KURTZ 250.508.5325 welcomehomevictoria.com

KATHERINE GRAY 250.516.4563 homesweetgray.com LOCAL EXPERTISE, GLOBAL CONNECTIONS. E.&O.E.: If your property is listed with a real estate broker, please disregard. It is not our intention to solicit the offerings of other real estate brokers. We are happy to work with them and cooperate fully. Sotheby’s International Realty Canada is Independently Owned And Operated.*Seaside, used with permission

Douglas 15

On the Pokémon Go Bandwagon Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve likely heard of Pokémon GO. But what does a mobile game using augmented reality mean for your business? While the initial mania has subsided — the game had 75 million downloads its first three weeks after it launched this summer — it still boasts more daily users than Facebook and Twitter.

The game has players use their smartphones to search for Pokémon in real locations, including within hundreds of Victoria's local

businesses. Some, such as Capital Iron, were quick to respond to the increased foot traffic this summer.

It ran an Instagram contest that awarded a $5 coupon to anyone who tagged a photo of a Pokémon caught in the store.

“Even though it was a low-value coupon, our customers were pleased that we were responsive to what was going on, and it was a reminder that we are a store for all ages,” says Emily Hannan, Capital Iron’s marketing coordinator.

Pokémon Go by the numbers Global Pokémon Numbers

Canadian Pokémon Players

The increase in revenue reported admitted to finding

by Maxwell’s Bar and Grill in 26% new parts of their city 66% London by embracing the game hours/day on average The largest number of players played by males versus 2.2 9,000 convening at one meet-up 1.6 hours/day by women Amount Nintendo’s -year-olds have value soared in $23 billion downloaded the 18 to 34 the weeks after the release of Pokémon GO game the most — RedBull Games

— Global News/Ipsos

“It increases traffic to our local businesses, and our members are those small to medium-sized businesses that can really benefit.”

Trina Mousseau, Tourism Victoria’s chief marketing officer

Tourism Victoria also saw the game as an opportunity for its member businesses, creating blog posts about the game and sharing Pokémon locations across its social media channels.

“It increases traffic to our local businesses, and our members are those small to medium-sized businesss that can really benefit,” says Trina Mousseau, Tourism Victoria’s chief marketing officer.

“In our content, we’re trying to promote areas such as Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Fernwood, the West Shore and Saanich — all places that have concentrations of Pokémon for people to catch and that support our strategy of dispersion from the downtown core.”

Despite the recent drop-off in the game’s daily usage numbers, both Mousseau and Hannan believe there have been benefits from using the game for business marketing.

“It’s all about capitalizing on the opportunity while there is one,” Mousseau says.

Construction Equals Impact Economic Impacts Residential Construction on New Home Building, Renovation and Repairs Victoria Nanaimo

9,869 3,617 On-site and off-site jobs in new home construction, renovation and repair.

$568 M $208 M Wages – that show up in purchases across the entire local economy.

$1.2 B $458 M Investment value – the largest single wealthbuilder for most families.

Source: Housing in Canada report, Canadian Home builders’ Association, 2015.

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on the Move Mark DePietro has been hired as Vecima Networks’ senior VP of marketing. DePietro has 20 years of experience in complex technology product development, most recently as VP of product management and business development in video infrastructure at ARRIS. Oughtred Coffee & Tea has hired Nelson Tesky as director of manufacturing. Tesky was previously head roaster at Cafe Virtuoso in San Diego and lead roaster at Salt Spring Island Coffee. Oughtred has also hired JON PATTERSON as business development specialist. Patterson was roaster and QC team member, production at Level Ground Trading.

Tourism Victoria has appointed Miranda Ji as director of sales for the Victoria Conference Centre and Business Events Victoria. For the past year, Ji has served as Tourism Victoria’s corporate sales manager stationed in Vancouver.

CEO News

Turn a trusted relationship into intelligent investments.

Brian Pope has joined The Truffles Group as CEO, overseeing one of Vancouver Island’s leading hospitality, tourism and beverage retail companies.

Pope has executive leadership experience in the hospitality industry, having worked with four-diamond hotels, resorts and private clubs in Canada and the U.S. shirley Vickers is the new president and CEO of the BC Innovation Council (BCIC), a provincial Crown agency.

Vickers is a serial entrepreneur who has built several companies, developing technologies in the resources sector and working in senior-health-care and medicaltechnology-industry roles. With the recent launch of the #BCTECH Strategy, Vickers will work to fulfill the government’s vision for technology as the foundation for growth in every industry throughout the province.

Mike Corrigan, president and CEO of BC Ferries, has announced he will step down, effective March 31, 2017, at the completion of his contract. Before becoming BC Ferries’ CEO five years ago, Corrigan was the corporation’s COO and, before that, VP of business development. An executive search has begun to find his successor from internal and external candidates.

Education News Liz Bicknell, a communications specialist with a 30-year career in B.C.’s public service, has been appointed by the provincial government to the Royal Roads University Board of Governors.

Before retiring in 2015, Bicknell provided advice and issues management counsel at the most senior levels of the provincial government, working in public engagement, community

Arkady Vitrouk is the new CEO at AbeBooks, the online marketplace for books based in Victoria. Vitrouk was previously at Amazon where he worked as Director of Kindle Content in the company’s European headquarters in Luxembourg. Prior to joining Amazon, Vitrouk was CEO of Azbooka-Atticus Publishing Group, one of Russia’s largest publishers of general trade and children’s books, which he led for almost 10 years.

outreach and strategic planning positions. Before coming to Canada in 1984, she served with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya.

Dr. Roy Janisch has been named Vancouver Island

University’s inaugural Fulbright Canada Jarislowsky Visiting Research Chair in Aboriginal Studies. His nine-month term at VIU begins in September 2016 and the research topic will be “Restorative Justice and Indigenous Communities.”

Janisch is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and is an associate professor of Justice Studies at Pittsburg State University in Kansas.

Investing is about working together.

Your goals. Our solutions.

Jeff Cohen, BA, CFP, FCSI Wealth Advisor Tel: 250-361-2408 jeff.cohen@nbpcd.com

Achievements Starr McMichael, a recent graduate of the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program (DEP) has achieved the Institute of Corporate Directors designation (ICD.D).

DEP provides education on the elements of effective governance, including: strategic performance, financial performance, human performance and risk management. She is first vice-chair, Tourism Victoria; director, Greater Victoria Harbour Authority; and director, Victoria Tall Ships Society.

For the third year in a row, Peter Cowan was nominated and listed in the annual IAM Strategy 300, which identifies the world’s leading IP strategists. Victoria-based Cowan’s name appears alongside the IP heads for Google, Amazon, Ford, Nike and Apple. The IAM Strategy 300 identifies professionals with established track records for developing and rolling out world-class IP value-creation programs.

BMO Wealth Management is the brand name for a business group consisting of Bank of Montreal and certain of its affiliates, including BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., in providing wealth management products and services. ® “BMO (M-bar roundel symbol)” is a registered trademark of Bank of Montreal, used under licence. ® “Nesbitt Burns” is a registered trade-mark of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of Montreal. If you are already a client of BMO Nesbitt Burns, please contact your Investment Advisor for more information.

Member - Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

Member of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

Douglas 17

Conferences in Canada Generate

$29 billion

yearly in direct spending Business events supported more than

200,000

full-year jobs — nearly double that of telecommunications or utilities

35 million

people attend business events per year

Take three 

YOUR CONFERENCE SURVIVAL GUIDE Whatever your reason for attending conferences — from staying on top of your industry’s latest developments and finding new clients to networking and visiting interesting locales — these tips and tricks will help you get the most out of your time.

**www.mpiweb.org

Starter Kit The future is here In The Third Wave, author Steve Case — who made his fortune as the founder of AOL — calls the rise of the Internet era the first wave and says the second wave was defined by social media. He argues the third wave will move us beyond communication and affect the ways we live our lives. What does this mean for business? According to this accomplished entrepreneur, emerging technology companies will have to rethink their relationships with customers and with competitors.

Case also offers advice for business owners to make sense of this changing digital age.

Memobottle A6 water bottle ($39, walrushome. com); Matt & Nat August briefcase (She She Bags & Shoes, $165); and Ecco Cairo dress shoe (Cardino Shoes, $210)

Whether you’re a delegate, speaker or exhibitor, conferences make for long days — often on your feet.

Come prepared and you’ll be as fresh for networking at the evening social as you were at the morning coffee break.

KGOODPHOTO trade show booth

by Studio Robazzo (custom built, pricing upon request)

A conference trade show can be a great venue for your small business to build brand awareness, generate leads and develop relationships, but you need to stand out on that floor. One surefire way? A design-forward booth that speaks to your company culture.

Business Lingo

Sledule: a schedule that slides around and constantly changes due to poor planning and task assignment.

Optimize the Experience ➜ Upgrade your delegate days with these apps.

18 Douglas

(Trade) Show Stoppers

Meet & Greet For an introvert, the sudden face-to-face of conference land can be overwhelming. Plan meetings in advance, join group chats, exchange e-business cards and profiles, and send private messages to other attendees with Whova, a networking and planning app. whova.com

The New Rolodex Forget the briefcase full of business cards.

Business Card Reader Pro imports contact information from a business card directly to your iOS Contacts and integrates with Salesforce and Evernote. itunes.apple.com

Jeffrey bosdet/douglas magazine

“If attending the conference with colleagues, be sure to divide and conquer. Avoid sitting together. Challenge yourself to meet at least three new people every day you’re in attendance.”

— Marketing and business development strategist Netta Douglas

Voice of Experience Netta Douglas, a marketing and business development strategist — who currently works with the Victoria International Marina and Farmer Construction, and serves on the executive for Victoria Women in Construction — attends conferences to expand her business network and align herself with experts in her industry. She’s become a pro at making the most of her time, from prioritizing out-of-town speakers to strategizing accommodations to optimizing one’s presence through social media. For more of her Conference Success tactics, visit dougasmagazine.com

VIrtual Bookkeeper A pain of traveling to conferences is keeping track of expenses. With an app such as Zoho Expense, you can upload receipts, record expenses and submit expense reports from anywhere with your smartphone. zoho.com/ca/expense/mobile

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Netta Douglas is wearing a Luisa Cerano jacket ($565) skirt ($295) and top ($295), all available at Bagheera Boutique.

Mind Map Keep a visual representation of your notes from talks and presentations with MindNode.

Perfect for those thinkers who find doodling helps them with recall. mindnode.com

IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES • Vectra Face and Body Imaging • VISIA Complexion Analysis

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Douglas 19

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

20 Douglas

Christopher Tio, the founder of airCOAL, uses bamboo charcoal in his company’s signature air fresheners. Bamboo has been proven superior to charcoal from trees at eliminating odours and volatile organic compounds.

the big idea BY Shannon Moneo photo by jeffrey bosdet

Some business ideas seem to come from thin air, but Christopher Tio had the big idea to create a retail product that actually cleans the air without chemicals.

Rare Air from the Pacific Design Academy in 1993 and When a client of interior designer and home earned a bachelor of fine arts with distinction in contractor Christopher Tio wanted to build a 2003 at the University of Victoria. In the renovation bamboo fence, Tio waded deep into bamboo business since 2004, Tio’s ability to build what he research. What he found led the Nanaimoconjures has been invaluable. based entrepreneur to ditch the fence and After spending a couple of years creating focus on a product that’s evolved from prototypes, Tio settled on his versatile airCOAL personal interest to universal application. product. Each three-part, pliable blue sack, made Three years ago, Tio, 44, founded airCOAL, from recycled garbage bags (polypropylene), is the signature product of his home-based filled with about 90 grams of bamboo charcoal. company Westcoast Bamboo Werks. AirCOAL The airCOAL can be draped on a hanger, propped uses bamboo charcoal to make an easy-onThe airCOAL air freshener’s unique into a triangle or cut into three sections. Before first the-environment, scent-free air purifier that design consists of three eco-fabric use, the product has to sit in the sun for one hour eliminates odours and, unlike traditional pouches — to be used together or cut to reactivate the charcoal, followed by one- to twofresheners, draws in volatile organic apart and used separately — filled hour, rejuvenating solar siestas every 30 days. compounds (VOCs). with bamboo charcoal. The charcoal is Unlike traditional air fresheners, which mask The idea that rapidly growing bamboo activated by placing the air freshener in unwanted smells with overpowering, chemically could be harvested to make a product that the sun for one hour. After one year, the produced scents, airCOAL draws in odours and harmlessly cleans the air fit perfectly with the bamboo charcoals can be recycled as leaves the space smell-free. Tio claims that one lifestyle of Tio and his wife, Trang. After the fertilizer for your garden. airCOAL replaces 12 500-gram boxes of baking birth of their first child, they agreed to use the soda. minimal amount of chemicals in their house.

The other big benefit is that airCOAL captures VOCs like ammonia, “There’s a lot of families like ours that don’t want toxic products in methane and formaldehyde. AirCOAL also absorbs smoke. “It’s like their home,” says Tio, whose four children are aged 10 and under. a sponge,” says Tio. He tests each new batch of airCOAL by placing An asthma sufferer who had three lung operations between products such as gasoline or rubbing alcohol and a sack in a sealed 1993 and 1995, Tio is acutely aware of the toxicity of traditional air container with a gas detector. fresheners.

“Within three hours, about 80 per cent of the gases are gone,” he “Read the packaging. It says to use them in well-ventilated areas,” says. And what brings this product full circle is that after one year he says. Like many, he’d been scentually overwhelmed by potent of use, the airCOAL can be disposed of by burying it in the ground, products that had him running for the nearest exit. where it improves the soil as it decomposes.

With busy youngsters, and living on a rural acreage, Tio had no The sacks are made in China, where the bamboo is grown on shortage of smells to experiment with. “This is certainly a time in plantations and burnt at a very high heat to produce charcoal your life that you need a deodorizer,” he says with a laugh. with superior odour-absorbing abilities. Charcoal from trees could Tio’s prior experience serendipitously seems to have prepared conceivably be used, but bamboo has proven superior at eliminating him for his new business. Born in Vancouver, the Victoria-raised Tio odours and VOCs. studied charcoal drawing at the Victoria College of Art, graduated Douglas 21

“Bamboo is four times more effective than wood,” a big learning curve with this product. It’s not believable Tio says. That’s because bamboo charcoal is far more unless you know how it works.” porous than other charcoals. As well, bamboo is a grass Consumers are used to air fresheners that annouce that can be harvested within seven years of its initial their presence with an odoriferous shout, so purchasing planting. one that’s in effect silent, is not the norm. The acid test After launching airCOAL in 2013, and trademarking it came when Johnston threw an airCOAL in his son’s in 2014, Tio promoted airCOAL at trade shows to secure hockey bag. The stink was gone, unlike the reeking bags retail spots, estimating that his product was not only of his son’s team-mates. suitable for grocery outlets, it would fit well into health Tio scored big at a wholesalers’ meeting in January in food, pet, sporting goods and hardware stores, and even Vancouver. “He blew us away,” Johnston recalls, leading car dealerships. to a surge in new retail clients.

Roughly 100 retailers, mostly in B.C., sell airCoal. The While airCOAL costs several times more than the 99 product is also available on Amazon’s website. Prices cent “old school” air products, Johnston says customers vary from $6.99 to $9.99. At least two other companies are increasingly willing to buy healthier items. “It’s the produce a similar product. way of the future,” he says. But it’s a polarized future Still, sales have been climbing. After Tio’s first where middle-of-the-road customers are disappearing. shipment from China of about 200 in May 2015, he Consumers are either going over the top in their lust Tio claims that finished the year with 5,000 sold. In January, 10,000 to buy environmentally friendly, organic goods or else one airCOAL arrived, with 7,000 of those sold by May. He expects they shun such products. Despite the divide, there are sales to reach 20,000 in 2016, as he expands to stores many repeat airCOAL customers, Johnston says. “It’s replaces 12 across Canada, followed by eventual infiltration into an amazing product. Once you try it, it’s difficult to go 500-gram boxes the U.S. Tio’s wife, Trang, packages and labels the back to regular products.” of baking soda. airCOALs at their home workshop after the sacks arrive Tio’s vision for his family-run business extends in Nanaimo. beyond economics. “I tell my children that they are When Tio dropped off airCOAL samples for Brad Johnston, manager tasked with taking over airCOAL as their vehicle to help people and the of Johnston Wholesale in Nanaimo, Johnston wondered if he was being planet. I also talk to them frequently about our family’s commitment to bamboozled. building the value of bamboo charcoal as a commodity to support trade Johnston Wholesale is a major wholesaler of health, personal care, in underprivileged areas of the world where plantations are, in China and cleaning and sundry products throughout B.C. and Alberta. parts of Western Africa and Jamaica,” says Tio. “The whole point of our “It’s a funny thing to get your head around it,” Johnston says. “There’s business is that it’s for our future generations.” ■

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Special Supplement

The 10th Annual State of the Island Economic Summit October 26 and 27, 2016 Vancouver Island Conference Centre, Nanaimo, B.C.

VIEA

A decade of change It is said the only constant in life is change and that is particularly true when it comes to the economy. So when the idea of creating an island-wide economic development organization took shape as the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance in 2006, the odds were probably against the organization surviving beyond the initial seed money provided by the provincial government.

Lennox Chambers

And yet this October the organization will be celebrating its 10th anniversary at the 2016 State of the Island Economic Summit in Nanaimo, and it is clear that VIEA has become a rock-solid base from which to discuss issues, share ideas and promote partnerships for the benefit of the Island economy as a whole ‌ from Victoria to Port Hardy, Nanaimo to Tofino, and including the Northern and Southern Gulf Islands.

Douglas 23

Dirk Heydemann

In 2006

Gordon Campbell was premier of B.C., Stephen Harper was sworn in as the 22nd prime minister, and the sub-prime market in the U.S. was just starting its meltdown.

In that same year, social-media giant Facebook was in its infancy, and Twitter only newly hatched. So much has happened over the last ten years … but while the economy worldwide is ever-changing, the conversations within the VIEA membership continue to revolve around creating economic resiliency and vibrancy within our Island communities.

VIEA’s annual State of the Island Summit — which last year attracted over 500 participants — has become an annual event on the B.C. premier’s calendar. Attendees were honoured in 2012 to be in select company when the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, accepted an invitation to speak to a standing-room-only crowd at the Summit luncheon, and again, in 2014 when the Minister of Employment & Social Development at the time, Jason Kenney, was a keynote speaker.

The Vancouver Island Economic Alliance has grown in both membership and stature to become a respected voice wherever the Island economy

is being discussed. Many notable speakers and presenters have graced the podiums at the yearly event, and participants — economists, entrepreneurs, political leaders, educators, activists, students, corporate leaders, large and small business owners — have all been inspired to join the members of this organization to discuss a collective vision for the Island.

As the only non-government, non-profit organization that embraces the economic

The tradeshow features more than 40 sponsors and exhibitors, as well as the opportunity to network with hundreds of delegates as the 2016 Economic Summit begins.

LEADERS IN OUR REGION At VIU, we believe in a strong and vibrant future for our region’s economy.

Our future is powered by education, opportunity, access and employment $400 million in annual impact 15,000 full- and part-time students 2,300 faculty and staff $1.9 in scholarships, awards and bursaries 37-09-8901 24 Douglas

interests, opportunities and challenges of an entire region, VIEA is entirely funded by memberships, sponsorships, project-specific grants, and through events such as the annual summit. Their members hail from all over Vancouver Island and receive discounts for VIEA events, have their corporate profiles included on viea.ca and receive periodic e-news informing them of issues and opportunities that may be of interest. Membership fees are made affordable through a sliding fee scale ($150-$1,000 annually) and fit the budgets of individuals, small business, local government and corporations.

Visit pathbc.ca for more information Port Alberni

PATH-ways

Port Alberni Trans-Shipment Hub

PATH

“One way to describe the Economic Alliance is as ‘a meeting place for ideas.’ Because we live on an Island, it is perhaps easier for us to identify ourselves and communicate with each other as ‘Islanders.’ It’s not hard to comprehend that together we’re better!”

– George Hanson, President, VIEA

10th annual State of the Island Economic Summit October 26 and 27, 2016 The Summit is the business networking event of the year on Vancouver Island, but its program is developed by a volunteer committee using a grassroots approach. This helps VIEA achieve relevance and diversity,• ensuring • that content is meaningful and immediate.

• This year, the program themes include: the disrupted economy, climate-change mitigation, skilled labour needs, capturing local talent, decarbonizing the economy, ‘Made on Vancouver Island’ product branding, retaining and growing technology companies, and the commercialization of marine research. Key presenters will include Dr. Catherine Potvin, McGill University, Canada Research Chair on Climate Change Mitigation; Nicole Verkindt, newest and youngest member of CBC’s Dragons’ Den; and Susan Mowbray, Senior Economist, MNP. Learn more about the annual summit at www.viea.ca.

Advantages to locating a new Trans-Shipment Hub in Alberni Inlet: • Closest Sailing Point to Pacific Northwest • Environmental Benefits • Maximize Use of Port and Transportation Infrastructure • Reduce Traffic Congestion • Land Reserve for Industrial Use

• Draft and Waterway • Use of Marine Highway • Non-Competitive • Security • Growing Vancouver Island Population Base • Warehouse Space

• Reduce Congestion • Land Reserve for Industrial Use • Draft & Waterway • Use of Marine Highway

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• Non-Competitive • Security • Growing Vancouver Isl • Warehouse Space

HELLO VICTORIA

“I want to congratulate you on running such an amazing conference and networking event. I’ve never met so many interesting individuals in such a short period of time who all share a sense of commitment to the economy and vitality of Vancouver Island.”

— Summit Delegate 2015

2016 State of the Island Economic Report VIEA will be releasing its second State of the Island Economic Report at its upcoming Economic Summit. Thanks to substantial and continuing contributions from MNP along with initial support from the Nanaimo Airport, BC

@gvicharbour

facebook.com/gvicharbour

vicharbour

gvha.ca 250-383-8300 Douglas 25

Ferries, BC Hydro, Coastal Community Credit Union and, in 2015 and 2016, from the BC Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, VIEA published the first issue of this important resource in October 2015. The 50-page report uses a reader-friendly, infographic format with statistical content specific to Vancouver Island and data that can be consistently measured over time.

“When we decided to produce the annual Economic Report, we knew that a need existed, but we had no idea how strong the demand would be for this information. And we’ve discovered that, like VIEA, our State of the Island Economic Report is also unique … no other region in the province has an equivalent annual report produced by an independent non-government organization.”

— Giles Newman, State of the Island Economic Report Chair and VIEA Director

VIEA Projects: Walking the Talk With 10 years’ worth of experience in developing, sponsoring, organizing, co-hosting and participating in a wide variety of projects and events — from commissioning the Vann Struth Regional Economic Analysis Report of 2009 and developing the Links Project (2010) to organizing the Intermodal Transportation Initiative (2011-2015) and co-hosting the firstever Vancouver Island Aboriginal Business Match event with the Nuuchah-nulth Tribal Council this year — VIEA is able to turn vision into action.

“I’ve been involved with countless economic development initiatives and organizations during my 40 year career in economic development.

While people often talk about collaboration, VIEA is the only organization to consistently deliver.”

— Rick Roberts, retired Regional Manager, Service Canada, and former VIEA board member

Dirk Heydemann

Chief John Wesley of the Snuneymuxw First Nation

As the organization prepares to celebrate 10 years of inspiring a diverse and energetic collection of leaders and organizations to work for the benefit and long-term economic health of Island communities, the general consensus is that the future is bright for this region. But it will take all of us working together to face the many changes that will continue to challenge us here on Vancouver Island. ■

The broad range of sessions at the Summit revolve around VIEA’s core principals of collaboration to add vitality to the Vancouver Island economy.

26 Douglas

VIEA Highlights and Commitments 2016 and Beyond Into the Woods Bringing forestry and wood industry stakeholders from Victoria to Port McNeill together with partners BC Wood and Canadian Wood Council to identify opportunities to help grow and diversify valueadded manufacturing In the Zone Examining the potential for achieving a Foreign Trade Zone designation and improving the business climate for manufacturing in the region Stamp of Approval Through an initial pilot project, exploring the feasibility of a Made on Vancouver Island product brand

Keep them Here Helping five major Island colleges and universities join forces with the business community to find ways to better capture the workforce talent being trained and educated in our institutions Let the Games Begin Partnering with the MBA Society of Vancouver Island University to host the 2017 National MBA Games taking place throughout Vancouver Island (January 2-4) On Board Co-hosting a second Conference Board of Canada event in 2017 on Vancouver Island (Nanaimo, January 25)

Match Making Co-hosting the Aboriginal Business Matching 2017 event (Port Hardy, March 27-29) What We Know Publishing the third edition of the State of the Island Economic Report In a State Organizing the 11th Annual State of the Island Economic Summit for October 25-26, 2017 Make it a Dozen Planning for the 12th Annual State of the Island Economic Summit for October 24-25, 2018

Douglas 27

“We feel we have found the sweet spot for successful growth for both our team as well as our business partners.”

helping others

achieVe their goals

www.victoriaroyals.com

iT has Taken jusT Five years for the newest member of the 22-team Western Hockey League, Canada’s premiere junior hockey league, to find success. In 2016-17, the Victoria Royals finished first overall in the regular season and capped an exciting playoff run by having four players drafted by NHL teams in June. The Royals also collected the WHL Marketing and Business Award for the first time.

“We feel we have found the sweet spot for successful growth for both our team as well as our business partners,” says President Cameron Hope. “In sports,

people have a high degree of emotional attachment. It’s sort of tribal, where there’s a feeling that they’re part of a special group. And they want to support the businesses that support their team.”

The evidence is at the arena, where last year the Royals saw more than 220,000 people attend games at the 7,006-seat Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. The fans were treated to some amazing hockey and a professionalgrade game-night experience. During the playoffs, sell-out crowds packed the arena and filled it with unmatched electricity. “It’s always a great

Victoria royals

2015-16 season

220,322 ToTal aTTendance

$350,000+

donaTed To local chariTies

5,124

average nighTly aTTendance

13,000+ Facebook Followers 13,100+ TwiTTer Followers atmosphere at any home game, but nothing compares to what we experienced during the playoffs,” Hope explains. “It was a whole extra level of passion that our fans brought. It deepened the connection we had with our existing fans and allowed us to welcome many new fans to Royals hockey.”

The Royals are also committed to giving back to the community. Players participate in a variety of community initiatives, including a literacy program with local elementary schools, volunteering at the Mustard Seed and playing hockey with Special Olympic Athletes. Last season

alone, the team helped raise more than $350,000 for local charities and associations through charitable events, 50/50 draws and other initiatives. All told, the Royals have helped raise over $1.8 million in just five years.

Future plans will bring even bigger wins to the city. The Royals and Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre are currently bidding to co-host with Vancouver the 2019 World Junior Hockey Championships. The Royals also plan to bid for the 2020 Memorial Cup. These are the two largest events in junior hockey — the economic impact for the region would be significant.

“Victoria is a world-class city with exceptional hockey fans, and we feel these events are long overdue to be hosted here,” says Hope. “It would give our fans a chance to see some of the best hockey in the world and give the world a chance to see how we do hockey in Victoria.”

An entertaining and successful on-ice product, ever-growing partnerships with Victoria businesses, a commitment to the community, and an eye to the future — the Royals may be a relatively new kid on the block, but they are poised to be a pillar in Victoria’s business scene for years to come.

W

How to Build the Ultimate Brand Experts tell us brand is one of the biggest business drivers, but too many businesses put branding in the slow lane, with devastating results. Douglas explores the 10 top brand mistakes — and how you can avoid them. by jody Paterson

30 Douglas

e all know the power of a brand. It determines how your business is seen in the community and who your customers are. It’s one of those things that exists in the scary space between rock-solid and impossibly fragile, and it will need your attention from the moment you launch your business to the day you close up shop for good.

Get your brand right and you and your customers live happily ever after.

Customers need only walk through your door or enter your website to feel like they get everything about you. Get it wrong and it’s like none of the dots connect.

Whether you plan and manage everything about your brand or just let it take hold by accident, there’s no escaping the power that it has to determine your business’s success. We talked to five local branding experts about the most common branding errors that businesses commit, and their comments underline just how foundational a business’s brand is.

“Branding is about communicating what you’re about, what you care about, why people should care about you,” says Aaron Bergunder, lead designer at The Number.

The Big Mistakes Branding isn’t new, but the digital era has changed the game dramatically.

“The lifespan of a brand is a lot shorter now, because people are viewing your brand through digital devices,” says Neil Tran, owner of branding and design company Leap. “If you look at the big brands, they are constantly modifying themselves.”

Still, some universal truths will always prevail.

“A relevant brand is a relevant brand,” says Val Nathan, creative director and co-owner at Trapeze Communications. “The marketing sense and the insight and psychology of how to position clients are still the problems that we solve every day. We’re still looking at saying the right things to the right people in the right manner, and one form or another of visual expression.”

So what are the top 10 mistakes businesses make when setting out to brand their companies?

1



DEsign Agency Eclipse creative Client Accent Inns

They think branding is about logos and letterhead.

Before

After

 Before and After Logos Eclipse facilitated a complete rebrand to develop a key point of differentiation in the competitive tourism industry and which better suited the new tagline, “Stay local.

Stay Real.”

 Brand Language Using continuity through all applications provides a strong foundation for a brand strategy and any marketing initiatives. 

Yes, your business could end up with a new logo at the end of the day. But branding is so much bigger than that.

“Whether they know it or not, every company has a brand,” says Clint Hutzulak, principal and creative director at Rayola Creative. “If they’re in business, then there are already associations with that business in the consumer’s mind. The question is how well the company is doing at articulating them.”

So don’t get lost in discussions about logos and colour palettes — focus on what you want those visuals to convey. Dig down to the deep stuff about how your business engages with its customers.

“Brand isn’t identity — it’s a collection of feelings and emotions that people have about your company,” says Jenny Marshall, brand strategies partner at Eclipse Creative. “Every person who touches your brand needs to understand it.”

Think of your brand as an eco-system, advises Val Nathan. “The brand is every experience your customer has while interacting with you,” she says.

Go ahead and “slap your logo on everything,” but that’s still not branding, says Leap artistic director Simon Robinson. “Imagine your company as a person — it’s got a voice, it dresses a certain way, it deals with people a certain way. It’s about interaction, consistency, personality. Branding is about developing the tone of your business.”

2



Brand Applications To reinforce this brand identity, humour was used in creative applications from card keys to in-room amenities. 

They presume they already know everything there is to know about how the business is perceived by customers and the community.

Online Applications Along with a website overhaul, this rebrand included the launch of a mobile interface/mapping tool Experience Local. 

Maybe you can’t afford your own “secret shopper” research to test how your business is engaging with its customers, but at least engage in brutal honesty. Ask yourself the hard questions and be prepared for the answers.

That’s especially important in the digital age, which has given consumers many new tools for sharing their experiences with your company (as United Airlines painfully learned after upset customer Dave Carroll penned and uploaded the song “United Breaks Guitars,” which to date has attracted almost 16 million YouTube views).

“It used to be that brands were something you owned, that you had control of,” says Neil Tran. “But digital consumers and clients engage with your brand. When you’re really getting it right, people will go out of their way to engage with you.”

Douglas 31

DEsign Agency Leap Client Redbrick media

 The Refresh Tech company Redbrick tied their rebrand with Leap to their evolution from Red Brick Media, a major acquisition and the launch of a flagship product.

The Brief The new logo needed to recognize their legacy and integrate references to the new product and future. 

 Design Process An important consideration for many of today’s companies, the new brand identity needed to be digital friendly and translate easily across digital devices. 

3



They don’t view branding as a business investment.

Get your brand right and you’ll measure the difference in your sales. But when you’re out of step with the image your customers have of you, they notice. “For me, that’s error No. 1, when I see someone trying to be someone they aren’t,” says Aaron Bergunder.

Investing in branding can be costly for a startup, acknowledges Jenny Marshall, and can feel like yet another item on the to-do list at a time when a new business just wants to be out there.

“But it’s that rush to get the company out there that can lead to missteps,” she adds.

“Take baby steps to build your company brand.

Develop something that’s sustainable and strategic.”

Approach branding like you would investing in property, suggests Val Nathan. “Just like real estate, you can’t turn it around tomorrow and make a lot of money on it. But over time it accrues in value,” she says. “It’s an investment in your future, and it pays off if you do it right and make sure that everyone exposed to your brand understands what makes you special.”

32 Douglas

Your brand helps consumers pick you over your competitors, adds Trapeze co-owner and director Richard Fisher. “You’re ultimately trying to give people a reason for why they should choose your company, your service, your store.”

4

markets, consumers, digital platforms or unanticipated opportunities, says Neil Tran. “You need your brand to be able to change between now and even six months from now.”

5





They don’t commit to the full-meal deal.

They assume they can hand everything over to the branding expert while they carry on with the day-to-day stuff.

A branding strategy that’s never realized. A rushed effort that strands a business in the no man’s land between its former and current brands. A failure to target the right customer.

There are many ways to come up short in the branding process.

“If you launch your business without a wellthought-out brand, you can be a year into your business before you realize you’re not reaching your target customers,” says Jenny Marshall.

When doing a rebrand, make sure the new brand is reflected in every aspect of the operation. “If a business has a new identity out in the marketplace that’s conflicting with an old identity in-store, it seems like a total disconnect for the consumer,” says Richard Fisher.

Aim for a “living brand standard” that can be quickly adapted to accommodate new

The truth is that a business has to immerse itself in its branding process. “It really is a process of reflection,” says Aaron Bergunder.

“Part of that is asking yourself, ‘Am I ready for this?’ If you’re about to change a bunch of things that have been in place for five, 10, 20 years, it’s rocky and scary.”

Being present for meeting after meeting with the branding agency can feel “heavyhanded,” he acknowledges. “But this process takes time. It’s an error to think it’s going to be quick. It’s not quick.”

A business owner is the undisputed expert when it comes to the core vision and values that ground a branding project, notes Neil Tran. So don’t expect a process that can be done off the side of your desk.

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Douglas 33

DEsign Agency Rayola creative Client Munro’s Books

 Brand Applications The new stylized graphic is easy to reproduce. The canopy, to be completed this fall, features name lettering inspired by the classical Roman letters carved into the building’s walls.

 Creative Inspiration Rayola worked with Munro’s Books to develop an official logo and brand identity. The store’s neo-classical building, an integral aspect of the customer’s experience, was a natural focus.

6



They don’t sweat the details.

When you’re talking about intangible things like the emotions and associations your brand evokes for consumers, there’s no detail too small to matter.

During the rebrand of Munro’s Books, Clint Hutzulak found himself contemplating what light to use for the store’s outside canopy. “For a business like Munro’s, the colour temperature of the lighting is critical,” he says. “You don’t want it to look like security lighting. You want it more like a reading lamp.”

No one wants to be the eco-aware restaurant with a Styrofoam feel, notes Aaron Bergunder.

“Font, colour, texture, pattern — they all

7

 count. If you have a physical space, it’s about the materials you use. The error is to not see that every little thing matters.”

Remember to pay attention to your domain name, advises Neil Tran. “You want a name that’s short, snappy, memorable and easy to type into a phone.”

And while there’s no end to fancy new tools for disseminating a brand, don’t give up on the old standbys. “There’s still something to be said for the feel of a nice business card in your hand,” he adds.

They sweat too many details.

But of course, no business can control everything, acknowledges Aaron Bergunder.

“As soon as you try, you can risk losing what you have. For instance, a restaurant aiming for the Victoria craft feel doesn’t want everything to be shiny and flawless, because then you look like a mall fast-food chain. And also, it will just drive you insane to be completely caught up in it.”

He recommends businesses focus in on components with the most potential to impact

DEsign Agency The Number Client The Pedaler

Before

34 Douglas

 After Before and After Logos The Number worked with The Pedaler to make their logo more fun, friendly and clear, as well as easier to read and resize.

 Script Work The process involved finding web-friendly typefaces, making sure the new identity would be easy to use in any medium.

EFORE

DEsign Agency Trapeze communications Clients l ow hammond rowe Architects

Low Hammond Rowe Trapeze has led two brand renewal efforts with this local architectural firm prompted by partner changes at the ownership level. The current brand reflects the architectural firm’s focus on the creative and design process. 

consumers. “A few pieces that say a lot go a lot further than a thousand pieces with your logo slapped on them.”

you’re trying to do from a marketing point of view with your business. Your brand is the outcome of that experience, thought process and strategy.”

When an agency, take the time A F T Echoosing R to find one that fits, recommends Aaron. “It’s kind of like getting a tattoo — you don’t just get one from the first person you meet.”

Jumping on trendy fonts or web animations can be tempting, but setting a trendy course also means a business either has to stay on top of those trends or risk becoming yesterday’s news. “It’s about finding good ideas across the board, not just the flavour of the week,” says Val Nathan.

8



AFTER

They presume they know enough to manage the process in-house.

Some do-it-yourself branding initiatives turn out brilliantly, of course. But before you DIY, check in with an honest assessment as to whether you truly have the in-house expertise you need.

“Branding doesn’t come from an agency — it emanates from the company itself,” says Clint Hutzulak. “But it’s the rare company that has the skill in-house to execute it. It’s good to have an outside perspective to provide the synthesizing and the collating.”

Professionals understand how to organize words, graphics and the customer experience in a way that communicates, says Neil Tran: “It’s about capturing the look and feel of a business.”

Design is about strategy, not just decoration, says Val Nathan. “Qualified people provide insight into your business through design.

Design is the ultimate expression of everything

9



They don’t appreciate the potential of the branding process for re-engaging staff.

A well-managed branding exercise is all about team-building, says Jenny Marshall.

“For an established business, it can feel like a counselling session,” she says. “You’re having a really frank conversation about your business. It can be an empowering time.”

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MULGRAVE SCHOOL This is a rebrand for Mulgrave Independent IB School in West Vancouver.

The design process DEsign Agency Trapeze communications Clients Mulgrave school

led the school away from the traditional crest to a more modern marketing brand, reflecting the mountains and dynamic energy of a Mulgrave education. Designed by Trapeze.

We believe the ultimate measure of our performance is our client's success. It has guided our approach for over 30 years.

BEFORE

 Mulgrave School This rebrand for Mulgrave Independent IB School in West Vancouver moved away from a traditional crest to a more modern brand, reflecting the mountains and the energy of the school’s education.

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BEFORE

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Richard Fisher says most of Trapeze’s clients come through the process “with a bounce in their step, with new direction, new possibilities.” Neil Tran loved spotting staff of one of Leap’s clients proudly wearing their newly branded T-shirts one recent Friday night at the bar. “That’s what you want to see: your employees wearing their company T-shirts on a Friday night because they believe in the brand.”

10



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They launch a rebrand without knowing why.

There are a lot of good reasons for a rebrand, from refreshing a tired business to going after new customers or capitalizing on a business opportunity. But if everything’s going well for your business right now, don’t jump into a rebranding process just for the sake of it.

“Rebranding is a big business decision, so you should always have a reason for doing it,” says Simon Robinson.

A business that already feels “connected to the zeitgeist and your target customers” should probably just stay the course, advises Aaron Bergunder. Analyze whether you really need a new brand or maybe just some help with marketing, suggests Jenny Marshall.

“You definitely don’t want to change things just for the sake of changing them,” she cautions. “Understand why you are doing things. You don’t need to be hip and trendy just for the sake of it.” ■

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The Alacrity of

Owen Matthews He’s described as everything from visionary investor and tech champion to all-round good guy and, yes, geek.

Owen Matthews of the Alacrity Foundation is passionate about growing tech companies in a city that’s fast becoming a recognized tech hub, in no small part due to his efforts.

by Kerry Slavens

It’s 11 a.m. on a weekday morning and the garage-style doors fronting the Summit building at 838 Fort Street are wide open, drawing in a stream of sunshine and a who’s who of Victoria’s tech community, from CEOs to coders, along with a flow of downtown hipsters, seeking coffee or nosh from Dak, the eatery that’s also a portal to Summit’s tech hub.

At the long-table coffee bar, a group of tech workers gathers, coffee cups in hand, mobile phones at the ready. No one wears a business suit here, not even Owen Matthews, general partner of investment firm Wesley Clover.

Named VIATEC’s Technology Champion of the Year in 2014, Matthews is not simply a tech investor — he’s a company creator who thrives on investing time, energy and even funding into promising startups and early-stage companies.

“I like to create companies,” he says simply, pondering the launch of the Alacrity Foundation in 2009. Initially motivated by the goal of keeping top grads from heading stateside in search of big salaries, Alacrity found a way to bring the government, education and private sector together to grow tech talent here in Western Canada.

Alacrity works with institutions like UVic to match top engineering and business students and recent

38 Douglas

graduates with the knowledge and opportunities to grow their own companies.

Today, Alacrity plays a keystone role in the growth of tech in Western Canada, with seven companies in its Entrepreneurship@Alacrity program, which has attracted $20 million in investment, created $10 million in revenue collectively, and had an estimated direct economic impact of $100 million. Together, these companies employ over 100 people in high-quality positions.

An additional 31 companies have taken part in Alacrity’s Investor Readiness Program (IRP) which focuses on driving venture capital investment to firms in the information and community technology (ICT), life sciences and cleantech realms. Investment generated through the IRP program is $204 million to date, according to Alacrity.

From Ground Up Amidst the high energy of 838 Fort, Owen Matthews appears quietly thoughtful. And while it’s tempting to think of him as a Svengali of tech startups, Matthews prefers to deflect attention to the companies that are part of Alacrity, including Encepta, Pretio Interactive, Referral SaaSquatch, Tutela and Echosec.

Douglas 39

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

Echosec’s location-based social media search platform made its big debut in Wales in 2014, at a NATO summit held at Celtic Manor, the five-star resort owned by Sir Terence Matthews, Owen’s father. Echosec created a “digital fence” around the resort to monitor all social media posts emanating from the location to track potential threats to the heads of state gathered at the resort.

The pairing of Echosec with this opportunity is part of what makes Alacrity different. The foundation doesn’t just throw money at ideas — it develops entrepreneurs and mentors them through the process of testing and establishing their markets and finding those vital first customers. In some cases, Matthews acts as de facto CEO, helping guide the companies until they gain the skills to fly on their own. space to create As Matthews leads the way into the inner sanctum of the Summit building, where some of the companies in Alacrity’s portfolio share space and resources, it’s clear he’s got a eye for creating spaces tech companies can get excited about.

In the building’s foyer is the shell of the Bell 430 helicopter used in the movie Ocean’s Thirteen by Al Pacino’s character. Matthews bought the helicopter and transformed it into Victoria’s most unusual meeting room. Then there are three surplus gondolas he purchased from Whistler Blackcomb. These too have been transformed into meeting rooms.

The gondolas fit well at 838 Fort, called the Summit building for its alpine theme, which includes clusters of kitschy fake evergreens in the boardroom and vintage skis that serve as white-board penholders. There’s also the obligatory Ping-Pong table in the basement and plenty of plans for Astroturf.

Matthews’ goal is to marry atmosphere with affordability, so he doesn’t have to charge huge rents to tenants. “... I try to be creative,” he says. “A gondola for $300 makes for an interesting meeting room, which is cheaper than the drywall it would take to make a meeting room.”

Three years ago, he took the same approach when he bought a graffiti-ridden bottle depot at 1124 Vancouver Street and transformed it into a mini-tech park, home to Alacrity success stories like Tutela and Pretio Interactive. Inside an open-concept interior, a funky Boler camper and a vintage VW van act as meeting rooms.

“Some people think it’s just window dressing, but I disagree,” says Jim Hayhurst, Alacrity advisor and CEO of Pretio, a company formed out of merging the talents of Pretio’s founding team with Alacrity’s burgeoning entrepreneurs. As an adtech company, Pretio aggregates reward and engagement programs to help brands reach hard-to-get online consumers.

40 Douglas

“It’s essential that companies in Victoria play and show at the level of others,” says Hayhurst, “because we are in competition [for talent] with Facebook’s new office in Toronto and Hootsuite’s office in Vancouver.”

Then there’s Fort Tectoria at 777 Fort, with its stripped-back industrial-cool interior and street-level barista bar, Ground Control. Dan Gunn, executive director of VIATEC, says Matthews helped the local tech association find its 16,000-square-foot headquarters and transform it into a functional, creative space worthy of being the town’s tech epicentre.

“Owen’s great at what he does,” says Gunn.

“He really helped us out. I also think he likes to have fun and he just doesn’t want the world to be a boring place.”

Indeed, these buildings are connected dots of the local tech sector — enterprising, energetic spaces, home to companies whose innovation and workforces are boosting the vibrancy of the city core.

As for the salvaged gondolas and repurposed helicopters and VW vans, in many ways they seem to be metaphors for Matthews’ approach to entrepreneurship: Stay lean. Look at things from different angles. Experiment.

Change course if necessary.

BEYOND THE SURFACE As creative as Matthews’ spaces are, it’s technology that attracts him.

“I think at his core Owen is a technologist who happens to have social skills and leadership skills that bring people into what he’s into,” says Hayhurst, another VIATEC Technology Champion of the Year, who met Matthews through Power to Be, one of the many charities to which both men devote their energies.

“I say this with tremendous admiration,” Hayhurst laughs, “but he’s a geek. He geeks out on stuff and goes really deep on certain things and learns very quickly across a broad spectrum. He’s a polymath, so as opposed to being a jack of all trades, master of none, Owen knows a lot about a lot — and through his communication skills and his empathy he’s able to bring others into these conversations without losing them in techno-speak. That’s a great gift.”

As the son of Sir Terence Matthews, founder of Mitel and NewBridge Networks, Matthews’ DNA is likely coded in a love of engineering and tech. His father began his career in the U.K. in a union job at British Telecom as a semiconductor radio engineer. Then, after coming to Canada on his honeymoon, the senior Matthews got a position with a semiconductor company. His job: to talk to customers about their technical needs.

“As an engineer, it was obvious to my father: ‘this is what people want and this is what they’re willing to pay for,’” says Matthews, who

grew up in Ottawa. “But the people he worked for weren’t, for whatever reasons, prepared to go with his recommendations.”

In 1972, out of frustration, Terry Matthews launched his own business, Mitel.

“My father only started his own company out of frustration,” Matthews emphasizes, “because he understood what customers wanted. So he went from a government-funded, relatively large company with lots of resources to investing $4,000 into a company which couldn’t afford to pay anybody. The government-funded, well-sponsored company evaporated — and the $4,000 investment into a business where he was highly focused on customer needs did enormously well.”

Today, Mitel is a $1.2 billion company. To the younger Matthews, the lesson was clear: listen to customers.

He also learned about testing limits as a teenager working in Mitel labs where products were tested before they were shipped around the world.

“Some of those phone systems would be used in very, very hot wiring closets in the Middle East, where temperatures would go up to 180odd degrees,” Matthews recalls.

“We’d test them in an oven on low to prove they’d work in that kind of difficult environment. I thought it would be a good

idea to find out if they could operate at higher temperatures, so I turned the oven up — and melted the phone system. We did learn that the plastics in the phone system melted at about 270 degrees!”

Despite his work at Mitel, when Matthews left Ontario to attend the University of Victoria, he didn’t pursue engineering — he went for a degree in psychology and computer science, while nurturing his interest in theatre and directing.

“I think it was more a teenage insistence that parents don’t know anything than it was any general disinterest in business,” he says.

As interesting as theatre and psychology were, Matthews liked hanging out with engineers — and he was attracted to tech. In his second year of university, he launched NewHeights, a tech innovator that created software for managing voice calls and video conferencing through a single interface. The company did over $1 million in business in its first 12 months.

“Boy, we thought we were very, very clever,” Matthews laughs. “I was generally following a philosophy I believed in, which is: ‘I’m listening to customers, customers are giving me orders, we have a lot of employees, it’s great, we’re growing rapidly in the middle of an exciting market.’ Then it all goes away because all of our customers were funded unrealistically and didn’t

‘‘

Accepting up front the failure of your assumption is not a bad thing — it’s information by which you guide the next step.

— Owen Matthews

’’

Douglas 41

have sensible business plans. I thought I was being quite practical, not realizing the whole market was against me.”

Another lesson: make sure your customers are the right customers.

NewHeights was down but not out. It still had resources left with which to reinvent itself.

In a case of good timing, Matthews’ family had bought back Mitel’s phone-switching division and didn’t have a lot of software experience in that area, but NewHeights still had a team of software designers to build softphones and the necessary software. Then, in 2007, NewHeights was bought by Vancouver’s CounterPath Solutions. Matthews had his first exit, but he wasn’t done with creating companies.

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BAL ANCE IN THE HEART OF OLD TOWN

Culture Drives Success Two years after the NewHeights sale, Matthews, along with his father and Simon Gibson of Wesley Clover, co-founded the Alacrity Foundation.

“We’re not an incubator. We’re not an accelerator,” says Matthews. “We’re not ‘give me your ideas and we’ll curate them and help you’ — we’re really creating companies, which is what we love to do.”

In the students and grads Alacrity works with, Matthews seeks “people who want to control their own destiny, to start up companies not because they have visions of grandeur where they want to make a lot of money but because they’re willing to work for themselves, to work hard and take reasonable risk.”

At Alacrity, part of what the grads learn “is how to manage people who aren’t just going to do what the spreadsheet says to do,” says Matthews. “Because they’re largely engineers and process driven, they really need to learn about managing culture.

“Without a doubt,” he continues, “the philosophy that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ is absolutely true. All of the time I spent [in theatre] understanding character, trying to make characters realistic, or studying and understanding different elements of psychology, plays directly into how you manage people and how you manage culture, which is a very, very important topic to me.

“You need a team who’s behind you and works hard, who believes in what you’re doing.

The minute you lose the culture by bringing the wrong person in, or making decisions the team doesn’t support, productivity goes from a small team punching way above its weight to a small team that just doesn’t go anywhere.”

It’s Not About Ideas A lot of people think ideas are the most vital parts of building successful businesses, but Matthews takes a different approach.

“Most people ask me, ‘Well, what about the ideas?’” he says. “‘How do you invest in

42 Douglas

ideas …?’ Generally, they give me a surprised look when I say, ‘I’m not interested in ideas from entrepreneurs.’ Ideas are very, very dangerous if they’re not baked in a marketplace or based on customer feedback. Ideas are less important than a process by which they create a successful company.”

Growing Up, reaching out At 838 Fort, every meeting room is engaged.

The new guys from Hyas, Alacrity’s latest addition, are excited about their cybersecurity company. The Echosec team jokes about an idea for Dak to deliver coffee to them via an electric train set. There’s laughter and a sense of excitement. Morale seems high.

A big part of that may be because Matthews is all about helping people discover their own strengths. “Ask a lot of questions and never, ever tell anybody what to do, ever,” he says. “It is absolutely the fastest way to kill morale.”

“He creates the conditions for people to succeed or fail,” says Hayhurst. “He doesn’t tell them they might be heading for a brick wall; he lets them bump into it gently but with enough force that they know they bumped into it. Then he’s there to say, ‘OK, what did we learn?’”

It’s not for everyone, Hayhurst adds. “Some people want to have someone say, ‘I’m the leader, this is what we’re going to do.’ But Owen has the ability to let people find their own way. What he’s really doing is saying, ‘I’m committed, but you’ve got to give me something that we both are in for.’ It’s also a great sift mechanism. It gets rid of the people who aren’t willing to do the work ...”

Alacrity has proven so successful in Canada, it has branched out globally. In 2012, it launched a sister organization in the U.K. Since then, programs under Alacrity have been developed in Turkey, France, Mexico, Indonesia, India and, most recently, China. Alacrity is managed overall by Matthews and co-founder Simon Gibson, but each location is run by its own leadership team.

As big as the foundation gets, Matthews is passionate about Victoria.

“Somebody with Owen’s resources and influence could easily get caught up in just doing their own thing,” says Gunn. “But he continues to take the time to make sure what’s best for the community overall is at the forefront. That’s unique, and we benefit greatly from that as a community.”

“He could live and succeed anywhere in the world but he chooses here, he cares about this place,” says Hayhurst. “He’s doing it his own way with a really clear sense of his own values.

He’s not having an internal struggle about ‘Am I a player in San Francisco or Toronto?’ No, he’s a guy in Victoria who’s doing good work, and he’s true to himself and his sense of community — that’s a good example for everyone.” ■

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Douglas 43

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Meetings Retreats

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2016

Annual Special Resource Guide

Vancouver Island Meeting Planner

Nerd, Know-it-All and Negative Nellie meeting personality types

Supercharge Your Next Getaway with Creative Off-site Ideas

Planning the Right Retreat for Your Team One size doesn’t fit all

4o7

The new downtown Victoria waterfront meeting and events venue unlike any other

Creating Experiences The 4o7 offers a large open interior space with floor-to-ceiling windows and a large outdoor patio for up to 125 guests on downtown Victoria’s vibrant waterfront.

The 4o7 is the perfect venue to host intimate corporate holiday parties, meetings and training sessions, movie screenings, charity fundraisers, acoustic music shows, weddings, and conferences.

Our catering and event planning team works with you to design unique and meaningful experiences. From red carpet galas to themed parties to teambuilding events, our team of meeting planners will turn your vision into reality.

We specialize in creative, custom catering menus and offer wait and bar service as an added option. Whatever your event, we can make it the most special — small or large, casual or elegant — whatever your dreams, 4o7 will make your occasion unforgettable.

Top Amenities • Located on the waterfront in the heart of downtown Victoria • Access to the marina for team building watersport activities • Outdoor patio seating and grilling area • Access to commercial kitchen and bar area with the option to bring your own food and drinks • Yamaha grand piano • Bose PA system • Complimentary high-speed WiFi

Book Today!

240-479-1153 | events@4o7.com | www.4o7.com

• Onsite state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment and services

Jo-Ann Loro/Douglas Magazine

The most enjoyable retreats don’t involve activities that require a lot of skill; everyone can enjoy a wine or culinary tour.

A tour of Blue Grouse estate winery

Planning the Right Retreat for Your Team One Size Doesn’t Fit All Just as every business is unique, so too are the team members that contribute to it. Taking personalities into account can turn an otherwise dysfunctional retreat into a value-packed getaway.

by Alex Van Tol

F

irst rule of thumb: plan a retreat only if your team is healthy. Often companies look at a retreat as something that’s going to fix a deeper problem, such as fractious relationships between employees or an unclear sense of purpose. Putting everyone together to do something fun won’t magically make your team communicate better. “It might be a short-term fix, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem,” says Nora Cumming, senior consultant with Chemistry Consulting. “This is usually more of a management-type issue where there is a lack of leadership or policies in place so that all employees are operating with the same vision.” If this is the case, your leadership team needs to prioritize strategic planning instead of taking staff on a retreat.

Know the purpose of your retreat. Is it team building? A think tank? Assimilating new staff into the group? Structure accordingly. Once you’ve figured out the nature of the retreat, you can choose a destination that’s appropriate. Do you want to be in a city centre where your people can enjoy a variety of entertainment? Are you holding a golf tournament? Aiming to give employees an opportunity for restoration and reflection?

Douglas 47

Galiano Inn Oceanfront Spa

Experiential events — cake decorating, scavenger hunts, kayaking or zip lining — are powerful and fun ways to draw your team together.

Group kayaking off Galiano Island

a scavenger hunt in nature

Retreats should be positive events to bring your people together, show them your appreciation and develop the company culture. Planned wisely, they can also move your business farther toward the things you want to celebrate in the future. It’s always a good idea to hire an expert facilitator to run the agenda. “People don’t tend to share much when the company president is facilitating the meeting,” says Wendy Sears, principal of Lewis & Sears Marketing & Event Management Inc. A retreat is a particularly relevant way of rewarding your team if you’re in a results-driven industry. At Redbrick, where analytics and performance are tied to the very DNA of the company in the form of metrics, revenue

48 Douglas

and conversion, retreats have been used as rewards for when the team reaches a certain goal. “We set 30-, 60- and 90-day goals, and when the team achieved those, we would collaborate on what they wanted to do,” explains Nicole How, VP of operations. For example, the team decided on a day at Poets Cove on Pender Island, complete with a float-plane trip, swimming and lunch on the outdoor patio.

Experiential events — cake decorating, scavenger hunts, kayaking or zip lining — are powerful and fun ways to draw your team together. Keep in mind that not everyone wants the same experience. Taking your team’s preferences and personalities into account is important to ensure your retreat experience has value for all members. No one wants to feel excluded or that they can’t keep up.

There’s always a push-pull between introverts and extroverts, and you can’t nail it every time, especially if your company is large and diverse. Know your team. Make every event a little bit different and aim to please the majority, and you’ll manage to reach the whole team over time. “My primary objective is to improve employee engagement, because we know happy people are more engaged

Everyone can participate in a bake-off, a wine tour or an activity that sees your team banding together to pay it forward for a philanthropic cause.

at their jobs and perform well,” says How. Other ways Redbrick rewards its team have included lawn bowling, Monday-morning hikes, curling, pub meals, kayaking, skiing at Mount Washington and a wine tour.

For small companies or those with employees sharing similar personality types (programmers, for example), retreat planning is a bit easier. Stembolt, which designs scalable e-commerce solutions, has rewarded its employees by taking them away to conferences in different cities and then tacking a bit of extra time on for exploring.

One retreat saw the group throw its own mini-conference with a partner company, booking a getaway in Whistler that included private cabins, yoga, time to run, three-course meals, a fridge with an infinite supply of beer, and, of course, some time to chase down corporate goals.

The most enjoyable retreats don’t involve activities that require a lot of skill; paintball or laser tag, say, can be a drag for someone who doesn’t enjoy those games. But everyone can participate in a bake-off, a wine tour or an activity that sees your team banding together to pay it forward for a philanthropic cause.

Lewis & Sears has worked with one company that over time has bought and assembled

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Getaway Tip Know the purpose of your retreat. Is it team building? A think tank? Assimilating new staff into the group? Once you’ve figured out the nature of the retreat, you can choose a destination that’s appropriate.

bikes for charity, built a playground for a women and children’s shelter, sorted a warehouse full of donated clothing and rebuilt a cafeteria. “That’s a feel-good thing,” says Sears. “You give back to your community as per your mission, and it also helps your staff feel like they’ve done something great.”

In a black-box cooking competition, employees work with different ingredients to try and outdo other teams, Iron Chef-style. Up the fun factor with some celebrity judges. Or try out the Locked Room Mystery, like the team at AbeBooks did this past spring, where your team is split into two competing groups, each given an hour to figure its

way out of a locked room. “Everyone was happy to do that,” says Richard Davies, PR and publicity manager. “That’s because they’re the right sort of activities.”

Keep your eye on the three ingredients needed to host a successful retreat: it should be purposeful; it should build connections and relationships between people; and it should offer the participants an opportunity to learn something about themselves. “If those exist at a retreat, you can change your business,” says leadership coach Diane Lloyd. “It’s about building that emotional intelligence in leadership. The business world wants this.” ■

Nerd, Know-it-All and Negative Nellie How to define and deal with the meeting personality types.

No one will argue that meetings can suck up valuable work time. Even worse when that one person keeps going around and around on the same old point, stalling forward movement and bringing the team down.

One statistic states that 10 per cent of people cause 75 per cent of meeting headaches.

Seem true to you?

“Meetings are like a classroom,” says Wendy Sears of Lewis & Sears Marketing & Event Management. “You have your pushy kids, your smart kids and those at the back who just want to hide.”

We at Douglas have names for them.

That smarty-pants is The Maverick — the independent thinker who likes to do things his or her own way and may charge ahead without thinking of the team’s best interests.

The Non-Player — self-explanatory — still needs to be consulted to ensure his ideas are heard. Negative Nellie grumbles about how your ideas are never going to work; she needs to be instructed ahead of time that while her opinion is valuable, her points should be constructive and not merely critical. The

50 Douglas

Visionary is your ideas person and should be encouraged to work with your Team Player to properly think through and then action projects. And you just have to tell The Late Guy that you’re no longer prepared to stop the meeting and bring him up to speed every time he walks through the door five minutes after you’ve started; he’ll have to ask Nellie for her notes.

One way to prevent people from butting heads is to structure the meeting tightly time-wise. Can you hammer through your agenda in half an hour? When conflict occurs, rather than engaging in an I’m-right-andyou’re-wrong ego battle, ask your team to keep their focus on outcomes that serve the company vision. ■

What is The Socializer doing on his phone?

While people do use their mobiles to take notes, chances are high they’re also checking social media. Ask everyone to log off and be present.

Your Lakeside Resort In the City The Inn on Long Lake is more than just a place to spend the night — your experience starts from the moment you step onto your own private balcony and let your gaze stretch across the treelined waters of Long Lake. With kayaks, paddleboats, and wildlife viewing at your doorstep, and local shopping centers just a short walk up the road, the Inn nestles alongside nature while enjoying all that the city has to offer.

Conference Rooms A bright and airy alternative to stuffy boardrooms, the Inn on Long Lake’s elegant and professional meeting rooms feature balconies and windows with spectacular views of Long Lake. They are able to accommodate 5 – 50 people and will be arranged to meet your requirements. Half and full-day rentals are available.

Catering Services An array of catering options may be arranged including hot and cold meals, snack plates, or simple coffee & tea service.

Everything you need is available from our professional service staff. And during breaks, your delegates can enjoy the fresh air with a stroll around our spectacular lakefront property.

Comfortable onsite accommodations for delegates and convenient free parking make us a superb choice for your next event.

4700 North Island Hwy, Nanaimo 250-758-1144 or 1-800-565-1144 Fax 250-758-5832 reservations@innonlonglake.com www.innonlonglake.com

Our business is making corporate events truly memorable. Whether for a small group, a large corporate retreat or team -building program, your event planner will guide you through the details.

Not only are we perfectly located on Victoria’s Inner Harbour, we are also ideally equipped with everything you need: flexible meeting spaces, hi-tech ready, exquisite food, thoughtful amenities and superb service.

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Clayoquot Wilderness Resort

Out-of-the-Box Bonding Supercharge your next getaway with creative off-site ideas.

The best corporate retreats aren’t only spent in meeting rooms; they also include off-site excursions. Sit back and let Douglas guide you through a few ideas.

52 Douglas

G

o beyond mere team building and boost your team’s compatibility with Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa’s esteemed Emergent Leaders Program. This three- or five-day intensive develops self-awareness and openness and supercharges group dynamics. “It’s group work where people are focusing on themselves, but doing it together,” explains general manager Natasha Richardson. Through lectures, guided imagery, feedback from others, self-reflection and intensive guidance from a facilitator, the program keeps the focus on the individual, so that the learning goes beyond simple team building.

After the deep work, retreat-goers can explore the Saanich Inlet on kayaks and paddleboards. The resort also offers guided tours of the inlet on its glass-domed eco-cruising boat. Massage and reiki are available for true downtime and relaxation.

Book in at the Black Rock Oceanfront Resort in Ucluelet or Tofino’s Wickaninnish Inn — both have outstanding conference facilities and surroundings to match. After the sticky notes have been exhausted, send the adventure-bots off for surf lessons. Quiet, reflective types can instead enjoy a walking tour of the Wild Pacific Trail along the spectacular Ucluelet coastline with trail founder Oyster Jim, or visit Henry’s Carving Shed on Chesterman Beach.

Feel like splashing out? Clayoquot Wilderness Resort hosts luxurious incentive getaways for groups across Europe and North America, and will build programs and events for your leadership team that include kayaking, whale watching, fishing and bear watching.

Horne Lake Caves offers adventure-based learning programs where teams work together to solve skill

problems. Think rock rappelling, wilderness survival skills, canoeing and team building. Tenting outdoors takes camaraderie to a whole new level — it’s amazing what a campfire can do.

Mount Washington Resort offers a range of corporate retreats, from night skiing after work to corporate packages involving team building and strategic planning.

Whale watching adventures

We’re on the west coast! The possibilities for adventure and relaxation are endless. Zipline tours, wine tours, whale watching, nature cruises, cycle tours, even a scavenger hunt in the Goldstream Estuary or at Fort Rodd Hill — there’s no limit to the options in and around the South Island.

Book a Spirit Culinary Excursion through Kitchens of Distinction, and let chef Shirley Lang and wine/ spirits expert Fran Nemeth lead you on a tour through Vancouver Island’s contemporary and Aboriginal bounty. Destinations include the Cowichan Valley, the Saanich Peninsula, Salt Spring Island and the West Shore, and can centre on culinary or farm artisans, distilleries, wineries or craft breweries.

Trapped by a teeny-tiny budget? Get a lot of bang with a brewery tour. Many breweries offer tours and tastings.

If you don’t need a whole retreat but you still want a change of pace for your meeting, take it out of the office. Nourish Kitchen & Cafe offers beautiful spaces and bespoke noshables, while the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific (just off Interurban) boasts an arresting meeting space plus a variety of demonstration gardens for your outdoor gatherings. Or book in for a fun cooking lesson at the London Chef on Fort Street: your people can get their hands dirty and then enjoy the results of their hard work over a shared meal.

And how fun is it to take off your “local” hat and hop on a water taxi for a touristy view of the Inner Harbour?

Get your boho on at Galiano Oceanfront Inn & Spa. Painting, pottery, filmmaking, yoga, golf and guided hikes make for a soulnourishing getaway.

The Magnolia Hotel & Spa Book your next board meeting or retreat at Travel & Leisure’s #7 “Best City Hotels in Canada.” Victoria’s favourite downtown luxury boutique hotel, just steps to the inner harbour.

Meeting Rooms • Orchid Boardroom with dedicated boardroom table for 10 guests & floor to ceiling windows • Magnolia Room, perfect for groups of 18 to 32 guests • Yarrow Room comfortably accommodates groups of 11 to 20 people • Each meeting room is equipped with LCD projector, screen and internet • Catering available

Accommodations All 64 elegant rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows, double poster beds, mini-bar fridge with cream for your morning coffee, plush robes and marble bathrooms with deep soaker tubs. Corner Rooms are larger, with two walls of windows. Diamond Rooms are on the top two floors and boast gas fireplaces.

Amenities • Spa Magnolia • Catalano Restaurant & Cicchetti Bar • Business centre and fitness room • Complimentary local and toll-free calls • Nightly turn-down with chocolates by your bed • Complimentary internet 623 Courtney Street 250-381-0999 or 1-877-624-6654 www.magnoliahotel.com

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Clayoquot Wilderness Resort will build events that include kayaking, whale watching, fishing and bear watching.

Eye on the Prize Clear Goals are the foundation of powerful retreats

A

retreat without goals — unless your retreat is planned expressly for reward — is useless. So make goal setting a team event before your getaway.

“We do a Google doc before we go,” says Clarke Brunsdon, CEO and founder of Stembolt, e-commerce experts. “I let everyone know that they are responsible for getting the most out of it. Everyone goes in with a goal or thing they want to accomplish.”

Publishing goals ahead of time gives employees an opportunity to focus their energies.

An expert strategic planning leader, leadership coach Denise Lloyd doesn’t even use the word goals when she’s working with

54 Douglas

groups. “People subconsciously connect the word goal to fail,” she says. “I call it setting intentions, or clarifying the outcomes that you want. What do you want to celebrate about your business five years from now? Work back from there.”

Co-creating your celebration statements with your people nets you powerful buy-in. “Leaders need to believe in their people, that they’ll come up with the right things,” says Lloyd.

Structure retreat activities around achieving those milestones.

“So, for example, if you want your staff to come away with an improved understanding of what the vision is,” says Nora Cumming, senior consultant

with Chemistry Consulting, “the activities need to be programmed around that goal so that everyone comes back to work understanding what you just did and how that affects things moving forward.”

When the retreat is over, sustain the takeaways so the learning isn’t lost.

“Followup is important,” says Wendy Sears, principal of Lewis & Sears Marketing & Event Management Inc. “There has to be something that gets integrated into your organization that comes out of the retreat.”

Action the good ideas that came up. Post photos of the experience, and keep talking about where you want your business to go.

Coastal Offices Located within the thriving West Shore hub, providing 24/7 access to private and co-working office spaces including boardroom and meeting space rentals.

Coastal Offices offers a wide variety of choices for your business needs, from short- or long-term furnished offices to a room for conference events. Our modern, tech-friendly rooms make setting up your office or function a snap. Offices include reception services, ample space, free parking, and a long list of other amenities, including close proximity to popular attractions, prominent institutions, and the Holiday Inn Express Hotel. #132 – 328 Wale Road, Colwood | 778-265-3399 info@coastaloffices.com | www.coastaloffices.com

The Gardens at HCP The Gardens at HCP is a venue for everyone.

Our Couvelier Pavilion is a multi-functional events building set in a lush botanical garden. Your guests will be impressed with the post-and-beam architecture and loads of natural light. Guests may stroll through the gardens; admission is included in all events to create fabulous experiences.

The Pavilion can be set up for a cocktail reception, theatre, wedding, presentation or meeting. Call us today to arrange a visit and get your next special event started.

250-479-6162 events@hcp.ca | www.hcp.ca

The Qualicum Beach Inn The Qualicum Beach Inn is a blend of romance, charm and convenience.

You will find 32 beautiful outward facing rooms next to the beachfront and within walking distance to the heart of town.

At the Inn you will find the CVIEW Restaurant, a well-appointed meeting room with a 90" screen for fully featured multi-media presentations and seating for 75. There is also a fitness centre and pool which can open onto an outdoor patio.

1-800-661-0199 info@qualicumbeachinn.com www.qualicumbeachinn.com

The Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea The Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea is a one-of-a-kind aquarium and cultural centre on the waterfront in Sidney, BC — only minutes from Swartz Bay ferries and Victoria International Airport. With 14-ft. floor-toceiling windows offering 180-degree breathtaking views of Haro Strait, 72 72Social SocialIcons Iconsby byDreamstale.com Dreamstale.com the Centre immerses guests in an aquarium of 28 amazing habitats holding 3500 marine animals, exquisite marine mammal displays, and the contemporary Coast Salish art collection on exhibit. From after work cocktail events to weddings to intimate sit-down functions, the Centre is an unforgettable experience.

Contact: Linda Hunter, Event Coordinator 250-665-7511 events@salishseacentre.org www.salishseacentre.org

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Directory Meeting and Conference Facilities Hotels and Resortsi Victoria City Centre Bedford Regency Hotel bedfordregency.com Chateau Victoria Hotel & Suites chateauvictoria.com Coast Victoria Harbourside Hotel coasthotels.com Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort & Spa deltavictoria.com Fairmont Empress (The) fairmont.com/empress Harbour Towers Hotel & Suites harbourtowers.com

Magnolia Hotel & Spa

Hotel Grand Pacific hotelgrandpacific.com Hotel Rialto hotelrialto.ca Hotel Zed hotelzed.com

magnolia hotel & Spa

Huntingdon Manor Gatsby Hotel bellevillepark.com Inn at Laurel Point laurelpoint.com

Comfort Inn & Suites comfortvictoria.ca

Magnolia Hotel & Spa magnoliahotel.com

Four Points by Sheraton Victoria Gateway fourpointsvictoriagateway.com

Marriott Victoria Inner Harbour marriottvictoria.com Oswego Hotel (The) oswegovictoria.com Parkside Hotel & Spa parksidevictoria.com Paul’s Motor Inn paulsmotorinn.com Premiere Suites premieresuitesvictoria.com

Howard Johnson Hotel Victoria hojovictoria.com Lodge at Weir’s Beach (The) thelodgeatweirsbeach.com Oak Bay Beach Hotel (The) oakbaybeachhotel.com Quality Inn Waddling Dog Victoria Hotel qualityinnvictoria.com

Royal Scot Hotel & Suites royalscot.com

Ramada Victoria and Convention Centre victoriaramada.com

Strathcona Hotel strathconahotel.com

Sandman Hotel Victoria sandmanhotels.ca/hotels/victoria

Swans Hotel & Brewpub swanshotel.com

Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa (The) sidneypier.com

Union Club of British Columbia (The) unionclub.com

Sooke Harbour House, Coastal Retreat sookeharbourhouse.com

Victoria Regent Waterfront Hotel & Suites victoriaregent.com Greater Victoria Accent Inns Victoria accentinns.com

Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort & Spa (The) bearmountain.ca

Vancouver Island & the Islands

Prestige Oceanfront Resort prestigehotelsandresorts.com

Gulf Islands Poets Cove Resort & Spa poetscove.com

Brentwood Bay Resort & Spa brentwoodbayresort.com

Salt Springs Spa Resort saltspringspa.com

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Cowichan Valley Best Western Cowichan Valley Inn bestwesternvancouverisland.com

Quality Resort Bayside qualityresortparksville.com

Black Rock Oceanfront Resort blackrockresort.com

Honeymoon Bay Lodge and Retreat honeymoonbayretreat.com

Sunrise Ridge Waterfront Resort sunriseridge.ca

Clayoquot Wilderness Resort wildretreat.com

Oceanfront Suites at Cowichan Bay oceanfrontcowichanbay.com

Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort & Conference Centre tigh-na-mara.com

Duncan Travelodge Duncan travelodge.ca/property/travelodgeduncan

Qualicum Beach Qualicum Beach Inn qualicumbeachinn.com

Nanaimo Best Western, Dorchester Hotel dorchesternanaimo.com Coast Bastion Hotel coasthotels.com Grand Hotel Nanaimo (The) thegrandhotelnanaimo.ca Howard Johnson Harbourside Hotel hojonanaimo.com Inn on Long Lake innonlonglake.com Vancouver Island Conference Centre viconference.com Parksville Beach Acres Resort beachacresresort.com Beach Club Resort (The) beachclubbc.com Pacific Shores Resort & Spa pacific-shores.com

Courtenay/Comox Best Western, The Westerly Hotel & Convention Centre thewesterlyhotel.ca Coastal Trek Resort coastaltrekresort.com Crown Isle Resort & Golf Community crownisle.com Kingfisher Oceanside Resort & Spa kingfisherspa.com Old House Village Hotel & Spa oldhousevillage.com Quadra and Cortes Islands Hollyhock hollyhock.ca Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge capemudgeresort.bc.ca Tofino/Ucluelet Best Western Tin Wis Resort tinwis.com

Long Beach Lodge Resort longbeachlodgeresort.com Middle Beach Lodge middlebeach.com Wickaninnish Inn wickinn.com Campbell River April Point Spa Resort & Marina aprilpoint.com Best Western - Austrian Chalet bwcampbellriver.com Dolphins Resort dolphinsresort.com Painter’s Lodge painterslodge.com Sonora Resort sonoraresort.com

Off-site Venuesi Greater Victoria Alix Goolden Performance Hall vcm.bc.ca/alix-goolden-hall Ambrosia Centre on Fisgard ambrosiacatering.ca Archie Browning Sports Centre esquimalt.ca/parks-recreation/ facilities Art Gallery of Greater Victoria aggv.ca

Toque Catering Specializing in Full-Service Corporate Catering.

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Looking for a Continental Breakfast Spread for that Morning Board Meeting?

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Or the Whole Multi-Course Banquet for your most Valued Clients?

Whatever your corporate event, Toque Catering offers first-class cuisine and superior service; delivering not only the food for your special events, but quality, planning, and exceptional service.

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Four Frames Photo Booth Make your next event unforgettable! Catering to any event big or small, your next tradeshow, conference, staff party or gala is guaranteed not to be boring. Our custom-built photo booths and open-air studios are designed with comfort and style in mind. An attendant, or as we call them “fun facilitator”, will be on site to encourage everyone to let loose and get silly.

With onsite printing, social media sharing and custom props, each event is unique and guaranteed to leave your guests smiling long after the last shot is taken.

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The Pedaler Cycling Tours and Rentals “I thought of that while riding my bicycle.”

– Albert Einstein on the Theory of Relativity Riding a bicycle sharpens thinking, elevates mood and melts away stress.

Add tasting stops and puzzles enroute, or a longer excursion to experience our rural beauty, and you have the perfect recipe for an active, rewarding event. From start to finish, we customize our guided cycling tours to suit any group, ensuring a unique and memorable experience. Our large fleet of stylish, comfortable bicycles makes everyone feel like a local. Special clothing not required, and we provide the wicker basket.

778-265-RIDE (7433) 321 Belleville Street www.thepedaler.ca | info@thepedaler.ca

Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort & Conference Centre Reconnect at Vancouver Island’s Natural Choice for your next meeting or event. Located in Parksville, Tigh-Na-Mara provides rustic charm in the heart of nature. Experience comfort, convenience, handcrafted log guestrooms, unique restaurants and award winning Grotto Spa, named the #1 Spa in Canada. Over 10,000 square feet of meeting space for small and large groups with amenities and banquet facilities that provide a distraction-free experience. Our team is committed to providing service excellence to ensure the success of your event.

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Douglas 57

The 4o7 4o7.com The Pedaler thepedaler.ca University Club of Victoria (The) club.uvic.ca University of Victoria/Carsa uvic.ca/carsa Unsworth Vineyards unsworthvineyards.com Vancouver Island Technology Park vitp.ca Victoria Conference Centre victoriaconference.com Victoria Conservatory of Music vcm.bc.ca Victoria Curling Club victoriacurlingclub.com Victoria Executive Centre VECmeetingspaces.ca Victoria Public Market victoriapublicmarket.com Zambri’s zambris.ca

Crag x Indoor climbing Centre

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

VANCOUVER ISLAND BC Forest Discovery Centre bcforestdiscoverycentre.com

Bard & Banker bardandbanker.com

Goward House Society gowardhouse.com

Bird’s Eye Cove birdseyecovefarm.com

Harbour Air Seaplanes harbourair.com

Blue Grouse Winery bluegrouse.ca

Hatley Park National Historic Site hatleypark.ca

Butchart Gardens (The) butchartgardens.com

Horticulture Centre of the Pacific hcp.ca

Butterfly Gardens, Victoria butterflygardens.com

Legacy Art Gallery legacygallery.ca

Canoe Brewpub Restaurant and Marina canoebrewpub.com

London Chef (The) thelondonchef.com

Church & State Wines churchandstatewines.com

Mary Winspear Centre marywinspear.ca

Coastal Offices coastaloffices.com

Merridale Estate Cidery merridalecider.com

Crag X Indoor Climbing Centre cragx.ca

IMAX Victoria imaxvictoria.com

Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre sofmc.com

Craigdarroch Castle thecastle.ca

Olympic View Golf Club olympicviewgolf.com

Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse seacider.ca

deVine Wines and Spirits devinewines.ca

Orca Spirit Adventures orcaspirit.com

Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea salishseacentre.org/rentals

58 Douglas

Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence piseworld.com Raincoast Business Centres raincoast.net Robert Bateman Centre (The) batemancentre.org Royal BC Museum royalbcmuseum.bc.ca Royal Roads University royalroads.ca Saanich Commonwealth Place saanich.ca St. Ann’s Academy National Historic Site stannsacademy.com

Fairwinds Golf & Country Club fairwinds.ca

Bigtime Special DJ, Photobooth & AV bigtimespecial.com BT Media btmedia.ca DL Sound & Lighting dlsound.net Four Frames Photo Booth fourframesphotobooth.com Freeman Audio Visual freemanav-ca.com Sensational Sound sensationalsound.ca Sound Advice soundadvice.bc.ca SW Audio + Visual (AV) sw-online.com Vosh Video Vision voshvideovision.com Caterers Castro Boateng Catering castroboateng.com Cheryl’s Gourmet Pantry cherylsgourmetpantry.com Custom Gourmet customgourmetchef.com Degrees Catering degreescatering.ca Food for Thought Catering foodforthoughtcatering.net

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Island Culinary Service islandculinaryservice.ca

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Joe the Bartender joethebartender.com Kitchens of Distinction Culinary Arts kitchensofdistinction.ca LiveWire Catering livewirecatering.ca

West Coast Expeditions westcoastexpeditions.com

London Chef (The) thelondonchef.com

WildPlay Element Parks wildplay.com

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Conference and Meeting Support Services AudioVisual/Streaming AVC Audio Visual avcvictoria.com

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Degrees Catering Conference Rooms Degrees Catering operates the Cadboro Commons Conference Centre at the University of Victoria. Featuring seven unique meeting spaces, our facilities are available for small board meetings, corporate seminars, banquet dinners and weddings.

Our comfortable and spacious meeting rooms are well equipped with high speed internet, audio-visual support and flexible seating arrangements. Enjoy our services in our place or yours; if you’re hosting an event in one of the many buildings across the UVic campus, we can bring our first class catering services directly to you.

Catering Services Located on the scenic UVic campus, our setting provides the perfect backdrop to enjoy our West-Coast inspired cuisine. As a full-service catering department, you can expect the same attention to detail and exceptional service whether you’re planning a gala event or a casual luncheon. Our menus give plenty of delectable choices for every event, every dietary requirement and every budget. Catering to your needs, our catering consultants work with you to ensure smoothly run meetings and warm hospitality for your guests.

Amenities • Onsite state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment and services • Centrally located between the airport, ferries and downtown • Lots of parking on site

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Sidney, The Shortest Distance to Far Away Sidney is a meeting planners dream. It offers multiple options for meetings and conferences of almost any size. Located next to the beautiful Salish Sea, Sidney venues have been shown to increase attendance, inspire participants and make event planners look like super stars.

Features of the Mary Winspear Centre • The Charlie White Theatre (seats 310) is known as one of the premier community performance theatres in the province • 8100-sq.-ft. Bodine Hall, (seats 900), complete with an 18-ft. vaulted ceiling and wood beams, performance stage, drop screen, lighting and sound system • 5,000-sq.-ft. outdoor courtyard, large commercial kitchen • Intimate executive style boardroom • 2000-sq.-ft. gallery space perfect for exhibitions and receptions • 4 breakout rooms offering natural lighting, 9-ft. ceilings, attractive flooring, accent walls and wet bars • Catering services available on-site, off-site catering also permitted

Sidney Off-site Venues, Accommodations & Amenities • Over 300 hotel rooms in Sidney •V ictoria Distillers, located along Sidney’s waterfront. Perfect for meetings and receptions from 2 to 150. Group tours and tastings available.

• Aquarium available for private dinners and cocktail receptions amongst the displays • Outdoor activities including whale watching, fishing, kayaking and standup paddle boarding • Over 300 unique shops and services info@distinctlysidney.ca | www.distinctlysidney.ca

Douglas 59

Victoria Distillers victoriadistillers.com

Titanium Tents titaniumtents.com

Brink Events brinkevents.ca

Smart Events smartevents.ca

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Displays, Signage, Tenting Always Invited Event Rentals alwaysinvited.org

West Coast Display westcoastdisplay.com

Canadian Outback Adventures & Events canadianoutback.com

Tides Adventure Group tidesgroup.com

Music Services Alexander’s Music Service alexandersmusicservice.com

Black and White Event Rentals bwparty.com

Equipment Rental Services All In One Party Shop Event Rentals allin1partyshop.com

De.Signs Nanaimo designsnanaimo.ca

Black & White Party Rentals bwparty.com

Douglas Signs Ltd. douglassignsltd.com

C&C Party Rentals ccparty.ca

Garside Signs & Displays garsidedisplays.com

Gala-Van Party Shop gala-van.com

Insite Display insitedisplay.com

Decorate Victoria decoratevictoria.com

Island Displays islanddisplays.com

Pedersen’s Rentals pedersens.ca

MiniMax Media minimaxmedia.com

Replay Events replayevents.ca

Showtime Event & Display showtimedisplay.com

Scene About Town Party Event Rentals scene-about-town.com

Sign Zone (The) signsnow.ca SignAge Canada signagecanada.ca Signs of the Times signsofthetimes.ca Talon Signs talonsigns.com

Smashing Glasses Event Rentals smashingglasses.ca Triple T Party Rentals tripletparty.com Event Planners Blue Lily Event Planning bluelilyevents.com

The Parkside Hotel & Spa Conveniently located just two blocks from the Provincial Legislature and downtown inner harbour, The Parkside Hotel & Spa adds pleasure to any business trip. We’ll help you make planning a breeze with refreshing options to energize your delegates. Let us take care of all the details for you.

Meeting Spaces • Urban Ballroom, your group will be fully engaged with natural light pouring in from floor-to-ceiling windows.

• City Club Lounge, offers panoramic city and ocean views from the eighth floor, with outdoor patios and gas fireplaces.

• The Parkside Theatre, features comfortable executive style seating for 29 guests and a 132-inch screen with surround sound for any presentation.

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Amenities • 126 one- and two-bedroom suites featuring fully equipped kitchenettes • 25-metre indoor pool, hot tub and fitness gym • The Parkside Spa • Complimentary bicycle use and complimentary Internet • Underground parking 810 Humboldt Street 250-940-1200 | 1-855-616-3557 www.parksidevictoria.com sales@parksidevictoria.com

60 Douglas

Chemistry Consulting chemistryconsulting.ca Concepts Unlimited Publicity and Events conceptsunlimited.ca De Armond Management Ltd. dearmondmanagement.com Details Special Event Planning & Decor detailsbc.com

Triple T Consulting & Events Management tttconsulting.ca Facilitators & Speakers Boost Potential boostpotential.ca Directis Consulting directis.ca

Hiway Productions DJ Services djpro.ca Island DJ Services island-dj-services.com KGDJ Professional Disc Jockeys kg-dj.com

Every Aspect Management aspect.bc.ca

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Lewis & Sears Marketing and Events Management lewissears.com

Ingrid Bergmann & Associates ingridbergmann.ca

MacGillivray & Associates macgillivray-associates.com

ProSpeakers prospeakers.com

Monica Powell Event Management monicapowellevents.ca

Strategic Initiatives Inc. strategicinitiatives.ca

National Speakers Bureau nsb.com

WestCoast Facilitators Group westcoastfacilitators.ca

Simon DesRochers Photographer simonfocus.com

Shelly Petersen Event Design weddingwire.ca

University of Victoria Speakers Bureau

Victoria Flipbook victoriaflipbook.com

PrimeTime DJ Services primetimedjservices.com RSM Productions rsmproductions.com Vancouver Island Disc Jockeys vancouverislanddjs.com Photography Services Island PhotoBooth islandphotobooth.com Rhymes with Orange rwophotography.com

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Gregory C. Marshall runs his internationally renowned, awardwinning design and naval architecture studio out of a West Burnside farmhouse.

With his crew of 14 employees, he creates the vessels of his clients’ dreams.

Art in Motion 62 Douglas

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

One designs mega yachts. The other rebuilds classic luxury automobiles. Douglas talks to two Victoria entrepreneurs who have built reputations of global renown creating art in motion for the world’s most discerning and passionate clienteles.

by Marianne Scott

Douglas 63

E

ntrepreneurs Greg Marshall and Rudi Koniczek have a lot in common. Both grew their careers out of childhood passions. Both create — or recreate — luxurious modes of transportation for the one-per-centers of the world. Both run their firms outside mainstream business districts, in tucked-away rural areas near Victoria. And both are internationally renowned entrepreneurs, the best of the best, with the skill and ardour of artists.

Gregory C. Marshall’s Magnificent Vision Naval architect Gregory C. Marshall, 54, whose offices occupy a timeworn, unadorned West Burnside farmhouse set in an apple orchard, began drawing boats as a small boy, covering notebooks and even blackboard edges with rows of ever-larger boats.

“Weekends, the janitor wiped the blackboard, thus inviting me to start another set of drawings,” says Marshall, blue eyes crinkling at the recollection.

His father, Victoria architect Donovan Marshall, arranged for Marshall to meet famed yacht designer Bill Garden, who inhabited an island off Swartz Bay. Thus began Marshall’s long apprenticeship with Garden, which challenged the teenager to learn the details of yacht design: hull shape, structural integrity, stability, motive power, styling and decorating.

“Garden said my compulsion for big yachts wouldn’t last once I saw how complicated they were,” Marshall recalls. “But I liked big yachts from the first and still do.

That said, I’ve designed boats ranging from 15 to 330 feet.”

At the moment, Marshall is designing a yacht so secret, he won’t even reveal its size. “The owner wants absolute privacy, so I can only tell you the boat is between 55 to 80 metres [180 to 262 feet] and that it’ll be constructed by a German boatbuilder over the next two to three years. I can’t tell you the owner’s name, nationality or anything else ... If I were to estimate cost, it’d be well over $100 million. The total depends on the yacht’s final finishes, the custom-made furnishings, exotic woods, art work and the quality of the joinery.”

Laid-back Luxury Marshall studied naval architecture at Newfoundland’s Memorial University, but he continued to work with Bill Garden during the holidays. He then undertook a month-long assignment styling an 80-foot yacht for Fryco Yachts in Houston, but stayed with the Texas firm for eight years, always refining his technical know-how.

Eventually, a regional commission drew Marshall back to his beloved Vancouver Island.

He is often referred to as one of the world’s top five yacht designers. Asked if it’s true, Marshall laughs, leaning back in his chair on his farmhouse’s narrow porch. “I don’t know. Maybe in the top 10?”

He’s not one to boast about his numerous international accolades, such as Superyacht World rating the 45-metre Big Fish among the top 50 finest yachts ever built, or winning the World Yacht Awards’

Mega yachts contain not only superb living spaces, Jacuzzis, gyms, multiple helm stations, crew quarters, gourmet galleys, integrated navigation, security and entertainment systems, but they must carry water, fuel and their own motive power.

Education grad student, Mike Irvine, presented his master’s project underwater and started the Fish Eye Project, an organization that brings marine research to classrooms and the world through interactive livestream shows.

Best Motoryacht under 500 GRT, or being awarded the Show Boats Design Awards’ Most Innovative Yacht in the World four times. He remains in his modest farmhouse, where the only glitz lies in the computers and glossy screens used by his 14 employees.

“We like the rural atmosphere here,” he explains. “Yacht design is a high-pressure business with frequent, tight deadlines. We have quiet, a badminton court for when the guys grow bug-eyed, and space to walk among the apple trees.”

His crew uses advanced design software, but Marshall still hand-sketches a new yacht’s initial outlines, space concepts, layout and styling. After that, vice-president Gordon Galbraith and the other long-term staff execute the highly complex calculations involved in designing a floating mansion. Software includes Rhino 3D for surface modelling, Catia for interior 3D design, SolidWorks, Ship Constructor, NavCad and AutoCad. Built to Last Mega yachts contain not only superb living spaces, Jacuzzis, gyms, multiple helm stations, crew quarters, gourmet galleys, integrated navigation, security and entertainment systems, but they must carry water, fuel and their own motive power. Huge engines push them through

corrosive salt water. Yachts must be able to survive storms and have enough fuel to travel to the remotest locales. And all their byzantine systems must be integrated seamlessly.

To decide how the owners want their living spaces organized and decorated, Marshall’s team models each stateroom in 3D. With the click of a mouse, they can change the size and location of a cabinet, wall or bed — and the salon or stateroom is automatically reconfigured to include the alteration. Software can also show instantly how furniture and walls look finished in mahogany, teak, oak, leather or cashmere, and present washrooms clad in marble, granite or tile. And these consultations can take place online, so owners, no matter where they are, can discuss their preferences in real time.

Not all mega yachts are glamorous. Over the past decades, Greg has designed 11 yachts for an Egyptian mogul. “The interiors are edgy and beautiful, but their exteriors are almost ugly to make them unattractive to pirates,” he says, noting that security is always an issue for the super rich. Some yachts keep security guards on board and include safe rooms able to withstand even biological attacks. “Our personnel had to be trained to provide that level of security. It’s all about lines of sight and advanced threat analysis.”

US $73.8

Billion

The global market for yachts is projected to reach US $73.8 billion by 2020, according to Global Industry Analysts Inc.

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Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

At the moment, Marshall is designing a yacht so secret, he won’t even reveal its size.

Marshall says the nature of clients is changing from retired multimillionaires/ billionaires to just-as-wealthy younger buyers.

“I make conference presentations and visit the high-end boat shows, like Monaco and Fort Lauderdale, and these entice some successful 30- to 40-year-olds to come to us,” he says.

“They’re less interested in high-end decoration than in the activities they can enjoy from their yacht. They want room for mountain bikes, surf- and kite-boards, kayaks and so forth.

They’re more sporty than boozy.”

Moreover, he explains, they’re genuinely interested in reducing the yacht’s environmental footprint. “They want to go as green as possible and are willing to pay to achieve it. As one example, we now install phase-change insulation, materials that store and release heat or cold and therefore reduce heating/cooling requirements. We can therefore shrink the size of generators, and in turn, fit smaller engines. The yacht is lighter and needs less fuel.”

Marshall believes that building and operating superyachts offers net benefits to the world. “I see them as wealth-transfer machines. A yacht will take two million manhours to construct. Crew, maintenance and provisioning create ongoing jobs. Some people call these yachts ‘obscene.’ I think it’s obscene to put the money under the mattress. Yachts put wealth back into the system.”

66 Douglas

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Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

Rudi Koniczek’s Kinetic Art When Rudiger Koniczek — known universally as Rudi — walks me into his spacious, tidy workshop at Rudi & Company, I see three mechanics bowed over the engine of a classic Mercedes, all brandishing screwdrivers.

There’s not a computer in sight. And that’s the difference between luxury yacht design and luxury automobile restoration: Koniczek and his team focus on hard mechanics, not software.

“I saw the light in 1972, when electronic ignition was introduced,” Koniczek recalls of his decision to focus on classic cars. “I knew that one day, cars could only be repaired by swapping out electronic parts. [At Rudi & Company], we are mechanics, not computer geeks.”

68 Douglas

The firm is best known for its restorations of the Mercedes 300 SL, known for its gullwing doors. Mercedes built these iconic automobiles as both racers and production cars, and constructed 3,258 of them.

Today, these highly collectible vehicles are ranked as the number-five sports car of all time, each of them selling in the $1 million to $2.5 million range. But before reaching those stratospheric prices, many of these cars come to Koniczek to be reborn in their original birthday suits.

From Matchbox to Mercedes Koniczek became besotted with cars when his mum bought him a Lesney Matchbox car — or Dinky car. “I was about 10, and it cost 39 cents

— a lot of money for an immigrant family,” says Koniczek, who arrived in Toronto from Germany in 1954, at the age of five. “It was a miniature car that fit inside a matchbox.”

He reaches over and daintily picks up a pristine matchbox, one of dozens he keeps in his office bookcase. “It inspired me to read about race cars. I wanted to be a race-car driver.”

It seems Koniczek was a born entrepreneur.

At age 12, he made hand puppets and put on shows for the neighbourhood kids, who paid a nickel to attend. Soon he was staging shows at birthday parties. He obtained an after-school job in Toronto’s Terminal Hobbies shop, took model-car kits home, then displayed the finished products in the shop’s windows. They

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Rudi Koniczek runs one of the most sought-after auto restoration businesses in the world — all out of his workshop in Saanich.

He is best known for his restorations of the Mercedes 300 SL (shown here) with its distinctive gullwing doors.

sold well. He built Mercedes slot cars with their tiny electric motors and ran them on the hobby store’s tracks. (A large slot-car collection graces the shelves of another bookcase, and he has a 60-foot track in his home.)

Koniczek must have had an early, strong sense of self, because at age 15 he took a case of slot cars he’d built to the Mercedes-Benz Canada headquarters and asked to see the president. Miraculously, he found himself ushered into the great man’s office. “His name was Herr Rainer Lange-Mechlen, and his office looked just as I’d imagined it,” says Koniczek, as he tips back his rather ratty Australian bush hat ornamented by racing goggles.

“A giant leather-covered desk, a formally dressed guy with a high, squeaky voice. I Douglas 69

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showed him my cars. He looked at them, then at me and said to his assistant, ‘Give this man a job.’ That’s how eventually I became the only factory-trained Mercedes mechanic in Canada.”

He studied with several “Meisters” who imparted their knowledge to him. He travelled across Canada, troubleshooting and training others in the intricacies of diesel fuel injection.

When it was time for him to be independent in 1971, he chose Victoria as his destination.

He launched Autohaus and became known for the interesting and international cars on his lot. But restoration called to him and so Rudi & Company was born on the farm off West Saanich Road. Classic-car aficionados come to him from as far away as Bahrain and Japan.

The most famous Canadian restoration was Pierre Trudeau’s silver 1960 Mercedes 300 SL roadster, the car today’s prime minister drove when he married Sophie.

Painstaking Work So what does it take to restore a Mercedes 300 SL, a classic Porsche, a 1937 Lagonda V12, a Bugatti and other historic automobiles?

A car arrives at the workshop, sometimes via container ship, sometimes airfreighted.

Koniczek and his team of eight assess the car.

He then invites the owner for a discussion in Victoria.

“Many arrive in their private jets,” he says. “I interview them. I don’t want to work with those who’ve bought a classic car just so they flip it for profit. I look for passion. Commitment.

These cars are art in motion, kinetic art.”

Once the owner and Koniczek reach an agreement, the painstaking work begins.

The crew, several of whom have been with the company for 25 years, completely disassemble the car. The entire process is photographed so that every part, every nut and bolt, is documented. This is the only time contemporary technology is allowed: the team uses a digital camera. This demolition can take two months. Then the reverse tasks begin, with the restoration process usually taking 18 months. If a part is worn or dilapidated, it’s replaced by a newly machined part. Tattered leather seats are reupholstered in-house with leather just like the original, using traditional colours. The wooden dashboards recover their gloss; the suitcase in the car’s trunk is covered with linen in keeping with the original time period. Seatbelts are manufactured like those used in racing cars 50 years ago. Victoria’s Coachwerks Automotive Restoration, a company that’s collaborated with Koniczek on at least 120 projects, completes the bodywork and paint. The restoration will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While Koniczek is looking at retiring, the meticulous work at Rudi & Company will continue with the shop’s operations moving

under the umbrella of the GAIN Dealer Group.

Koniczek says he has a long history with GAIN, through their Mercedes dealerships and auto events, including many at the new Vancouver Island Motorsport Circuit.

“The team at GAIN knows it’s about more than money,” Koniczek says. “We share a vision for bringing people to Vancouver Island and exposing them to the majesty of what we have here.”

Koniczek drives me (in a Mercedes, of course) to his secret storage place. On the way, he tells me about his delight and pride in the seven grown children that he and his wife,

Patty, have between them. At his warehouse, I’m blown away by the multitude of classic cars, which include Koniczek’s father’s 1975 Mercedes sedan in its pristine, original condition and a gleaming 1950s Citroën Deux Chevaux. Automotive art indeed!

Koniczek is happy. He’s happy to pass on his skills to a younger generation, happy to “bring fresh money into Canada,” happy to have followed his thirst for bringing classic cars back to perfection.

“I love this work,” he says. “And I measure my wealth by the ability to share with others.” ■

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The Insider An authority in your own industry can give you confidence in your decisions.

re He Are You 72 Douglas

The legal Mind For advice on everything from copyright and trademark to business incorporation and lawsuits and liability.

Around the Table As the business owner, you need to focus on being an expert at whatever made you go into business in the first place.

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The messenger Your secret weapon for a unified brand message across your outreach platforms, from your website to your selected social media channels.

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The coach The big-picture person who understands the generalized mechanics of business — and who can show you the greater implications of any decision.

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The numbers Guru Yes, they help you file your taxes, but a good accountant can also provide strategic business and financial planning.

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The details person From bookkeepers to inventory specialists, intel from these specialists allows you to react to your market as quickly as possible.

The people person Beyond preventing catastrophic human-resources missteps, your HR consultant can save you valuable time.

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E

ntrepreneurs often feel they have to do it all themselves. But a round table of well-chosen advisers can protect your company from costly mistakes, point you to money-saving tactics and provide the invaluable — a support system.

There’s a lone-wolf narrative built into much of today’s business mythology. Many small-business owners believe the myth that they need to go it alone and have all the answers. But myth it is. To be successful, a company needs a combination of skills, knowledge and talents rarely found in one person.

Of course, few small businesses are going to have all of these traits under one roof.

That’s why, as a small business owner, it’s beneficial to build formal or informal relationships with a range of experts in the business community to develop your “round table” of advisers.

But whom exactly do you need? These seven smart people can be pivotal to your business’s growth and continued success.

The Insider Clemens Rettich of Great Performances Group always points the entrepreneurs he is coaching to an expert mentor inside their own industry. The Victoria-based business adviser says this type of mentorship relationship is unique, in that you’re looking for someone with specific expertise — not general business expertise. “If you’re a plumber, you’re looking for another plumber,” he says. If you’re in PR, you want someone in PR; if you’re selling shoes, you want someone who sells shoes — you get the idea.

The benefits of having somebody who really understands your world can be hard to quantify in terms of your business’s bottom line, but Rettich believes it can be a significant confidence boost.

“Having someone like that there might give one the confidence to take a slightly riskier step with potential greater reward than if you were on your own, waking up in the dead of night in a cold sweat thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” he says. “It’s tremendous in terms of emotional support.”

The Legal Mind When setting up your business, it’s natural to get excited and ignore what many view as the “boring legal stuff,” says Charlene Cleary, a lawyer at Westshore Law. For Cleary, getting legal advice to minimize risk makes good business sense. It is preventative — like buying insurance.

“Having agreements in place at the outset is a good idea,” she says. “Not only does it provide direction for moving forward, it also means people are agreeing to things at a time when they are getting along instead of trying to sort things out when a dispute arises.”

A shareholders agreement can address a variety of situations, such as: how the company will handle injections of capital, rules for the transfer of shares and parameters for dealing with conflict.

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A lawyer, in collaboration with a professional accountant, can help you find the best structure for your business — whether it’s a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation.

A lawyer can also help you transition should your needs change over time.

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The Coach When you’re running a small business, it’s hard to see the big picture. That’s why it’s extremely beneficial to work with an adviser or coach who has a broader view.

“What a good business adviser does — more than the specialists [such as] your marketing adviser or your human resources specialist or your lawyer — is to show how your [business decisions] aren’t made in isolation,” Rettich says.

An adviser’s help can be especially critical when you’re about to make significant changes. Say, doubling your staff or buying a new location.

“Doubling your staff might have implications for your marketing, but your lawyer isn’t going to know that,” Rettich says. “And your HR specialist won’t know what the sales and gross margin implications are of staffing up like that.

That is why you need someone in your life that understands the generalized mechanics of business.”

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The Numbers Guru Many small-business owners looking to save money think they don’t need to hire — or maintain an ongoing relationship with — an accountant. But when you consider the hours it takes to do the financials on your own, you have to ask: could an accountant do this more efficiently and less expensively in the long run — and also avoid costly errors that may result from the DIY approach?

“I personally think there is too much emphasis on cutting costs and not enough on making money,” says Evelyn AndrewsGreene, a Victoria-based chartered professional accountant (CPA) who focuses her practice on small business. “Even if you put a minimumwage value on your time and you try to do it yourself, as opposed to hiring an accountant and bookkeeper — they would do it for a tenth of the cost. And [with professionals] you’ve got that buffer: if you’re ever audited by the Canada Revenue Agency [CRA], you’ll have much more accurate financial statements.”

While Andrews-Greene uses the CRA as incentive for her clients to keep detailed financials, she says these records are the foundation for a healthy business and contain much more than simply tax information.

With these details, a CPA can provide strategic business and financial planning

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BDC is where you need us to be: right there with you in Victoria.

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sessions several times a year.

“The things you are missing out on and the things you have your head in the sand about are greatly enhanced when you’re doing the financials yourself,” she says. “You don’t know what all that information is about ... You’re walking away from a lot of intelligence that’s worth having.”

The Details Person As important as it is to have a bigpicture person at your table, you also need someone who is extremely detail oriented. Often, this is a support person, such as a bookkeeper, whose records will provide your accountant and you with that invaluable business “intelligence.” An experienced bookkeeper records the day-to-day business transactions and account reconciliations, and provides reliable and timely reports.

One area where the details are especially crucial is if you are running a retail business.

As Victoria-based retail consultant Angie Lafontaine puts it: “Retail is about detail. And those small details can make or break the results you get.”

Lafontaine, from the consulting firm Retail Essentials, specializes in inventory management, which she sees as one of the crucial elements for positive results. “If you are over-inventoried, you could be losing as much money as if you were under-inventoried,” she says. “Having that balance is what success is all about.”

The concepts of inventory management apply to businesses beyond retail. Lafontaine points to construction as an example: “If you show up to a job site and you don’t have the supplies you need to complete a job, that costs you time and money.”

She says that while many entrepreneurs are knowledgeable and excited when they come to market, they don’t always realize the need to look at things from an investment point of view — and they need to expect a specific return on their inventory.

Whether it’s an inventory specialist providing monthly reports or your industry-specific person monitoring your industry’s details — anything from daily users to average cost of component parts — subsequent business decisions should be based on this information. Business success is about reacting as fast as you can to what your market is doing.

“I like to tell my clients that once you open your doors, your business doesn’t belong to you anymore,” Lafontaine says. “It belongs to your customers, and you need to make sure that you react to what they want.”

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The People Person One area often mishandled by smallbusiness owners is human resources.

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And that can be a catastrophic mistake. Thirty per cent of small-business failures are blamed on poor hiring decisions.

“I’m stunned at the number of people who have substantial staff but do not consult with a human resources expert,” Rettich says. ”And for such a fragile, delicate and potentially businessdestroying area as the [hiring, managing and terminating of] employees. I always ask, ‘Who did you consult when you wrote up this letter of employment or when you laid off a third of your staff?’”

What many employers don’t realize is they may be violating the Employment Standards

Act. And, according to Rettich, this can be as costly as any workplace safety violation.

If that’s not incentive enough, most smallbusiness owners spend 25 to 35 per cent of their time on human-resource matters. Beyond preventing HR missteps, a good HR consultant can give you back some of this valuable time by assisting with hiring, establishing staff on-boarding and training procedures, and developing performance standards and reviews.

The Messenger In the 21st century, marketing has become so multi-channel it can be

very complicated for a business owner to navigate.

“When you map the complexity of the marketing world on top of the already complex typical business, you can’t necessarily look to a marketing generalist anymore,” Rettich says.

But is it really realistic for a small business to engage a whole team of marketing specialists? Rettich suggests another avenue: an agency or collective, such as the Freebird Collective. Organizations like these have teams of experts across various mediums. They can deliver a campaign for a unified brand message across your outreach platforms, from your website to your selected social media channels.

Your marketing advisers can also help you create content to distribute on your selected channels, whether they be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube. You might think you’ve mastered food photography and, yes, your nephew is cute in that quirky video clip, but staying true to your brand identity is important.

“I’m stunned at the number of people who have substantial staff but do not consult with a human resources expert,” says Rettich.

Keeping You Connected If there is one thing that all of these people can bring you, it is a greater sense of connection to the world at large. Many entrepreneurs can feel isolated, but no business exists in a vacuum.

Your round table of consultants will have other clients and ties to the business community and can bring you a sense of what’s happening in the marketplace at large.

Once you have this virtual round table of advisers, you should try to get them all around the same table at some point, physically, not virtually. You don’t have to meet weekly or even monthly, but do meet at least initially when you are setting up your business, and then yearly. Be sure to also include some of your key personnel, such as your operations manager and finance manager.

“When working collaboratively, there is a chemistry that can happen,” Rettich says, “resulting in truly creative solutions.”

Most important about working with these advisers is realizing you don’t need to do everything yourself, giving you the valuable time necessary to focus on what you do best: being an expert at whatever it is that led you to start your own small business in the first place. ■ 78 Douglas

INTEL

[business intelligence ]

79 entrepreneur

Demystify Investor Due Diligence

81 Sales And marketing

Get Inspired with These Marketing Ideas

83 Human Resources

How to Handle Your Small-Business Needs

Dean Azim

SilkStart, a Victoria-based tech company that creates member-management software for associations, is a local example of a startup that successfully advanced investor relations.

Entrepreneur by Peter Elkins

Demystify Investor Due Diligence Before any investor worth their salt will consider funding your startup, they’re going to do their due diligence. Get an early start on putting together the information they’ll require to make a decision about your future.

I

nvestor due diligence is the magic that happens between piquing a private (angel) investor’s curiosity during your pitch and having them sign off on that much-coveted investment into your company.

In most cases, this due diligence takes a great deal of time (up to 10 weeks in some cases) because investors want to minimize the already risky proposition of investing in startups. For an already-busy entrepreneur, this requires patience and mental effort, especially if it’s your first experience with the process.

To increase your chances of being funded, and to get the most out of your fundraising experience, it’s vital that you are prepared.

Many founders say that if they’d realized how much work fundraising actually is, they would have delegated a greater proportion of their day-to-day tasks to others in order to focus on fundraising until the money was in the bank.

Be Smarter If you’re thinking about raising private equity for the first time, I strongly recommend you

take a step back and educate yourself about the process before you jump in. A good place to start is by reading Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (Wiley, 2012) by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson.

This book will give you a great overview of the fundraising process as well as some general dos and don’ts.

While you’re reading Venture Deals, you should also reach out through angel investment groups and startup incubators to find out how to connect with other startup founders in your community. By talking with these founders, you’ll get the most up-to-date local knowledge and figure out what approach works. The connection may even help connect you with potential investors. Shaun Jamieson is a great example of a CEO who turned around a fledgling startup through exceptional investor relations. Shaun was able to demonstrate an investment strategy to move startup SilkStart

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forward with exceptional documentation to back up his implementation plan to grow SilkStart in Victoria. Shaun has also done an exceptional job communicating milestones and wins with investors quarterly using a simple email template. Sending this update out is a habit all CEOs should implement post investment to create more meaningful investor relationships for future rounds.

Professional service providers working in the startup space, including lawyers, accountants, intellectual property strategists and business consultants, are another great source of referrals to potential investors. Lastly, when looking online, search terms like fundraising on websites such as Reddit and Hacker News.

The paper chase Once you feel confident or at least “buzzword” compatible, as I like to say, you need to prepare your documents to share with potential investors when asked.

Your documentation should include: ■ Your Business Plan My preference when it comes to a documented business plan, especially if you’re pre-revenue, is the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Design (businessmodelgeneration. com), two valuable tools by Alexander Osterwalder of Strategyzer.

Regardless of which tools or business-plan model you use, your business plan needs to address the following: • Your business model — how do you plan to deliver value?

• A detailed product overview and status report —what are you building and where are you at in the process?

• Your value proposition — why should anyone care?

• Sources of projected revenue — how will you make money?

• Technical studies — is this interesting enough to be a big idea worth investing in?

• Market studies — how big is the opportunity?

■ Corporate Documents Pay close attention, especially in the early days, to make sure you keep your founder(s) agreements simple and the number of shareholders low. This is essential when you seek outside funding for the first time — anything complicated is a red flag for investors.

• List of current shareholders — who owns what?

• All shareholder agreements — what have they been promised?

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■ Customers and Supplier Documents These documents are your road map and proof that you have a repeatable and scalable business worth investing in. These documents should include: • Your sales strategy – what does your playbook for closing sales look like?

•Y our marketing strategy — how do you plan to attract leads for your sales people?

•D istribution strategy — once the sale is made, how will you deliver on your promises?

■ Material Contracts Include every contract, good and bad, in the documents you give to potential investors.

No investor likes to find out after the fact that you made a bad deal with a supplier.

This is also a good chance for you to ask the potential investor if they have any continuous-improvement advice for supplier dealings to help your company reduce overhead.

Your material contracts package should include: •C ustomer contracts, present and intended.

•S ales — include sales partnerships as well.

•D istribution — who is involved in your supply chain?

•M arketing — what have you outsourced?

•E mployment agreements – this is typically for senior paid roles.

•A ll loan agreements — who have you borrowed money from, including credit card companies?

■ Intellectual Property Investors love intellectual property. If you feel you have nothing patentable at this time, consider contracting with an intellectual property strategist to examine your business and to ensure the investor that you’ve looked for opportunities and explain why you can’t create intellectual property at this time.

Your intellectual property submission should include: •C opies of patents pending, assuming you have any.

•C opies of applications pending, assuming you have any.

■ Financial Information As an investor, I believe revenue modeling is just as important as the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition. Any founder who can produce a well-thought-out revenue model is a superstar. So pay for it if you have to, but get it done.

Your financial package should include: •P ro forma — I recommend these be done professionally when raising funds.

•F inancial statements — make sure you include all, not just the latest.

■ Corporate Financing You’ve heard the expression “numbers don’t lie.” When you are seeking investment, it’s worth preparing and submitting your financials, as this is where you’ll show your attention to detail and prove you can manage the investment of other people’s hard-earned money.

Include the following: • Projected use of current funds — how do you plan on accelerating the business?

• Agreements for outstanding obligations — whom do you owe, and how did you use their investment?

• Copies of agreements — what are your legal obligations?

■ Employee Agreements Almost all startups these days have to offer incentives to attract talent. Your employee agreement submissions should include: • General cap table and stock options – what have you promised and to whom?

advertisements or marketing campaigns, the ones you never get tired of seeing or hearing, be it on billboards, on social media, in print, on television or on the radio. A good example are those Super Bowl ads that glean so much attention, but most businesses don’t have Super-Bowl-sized budgets. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from and be inspired by the creativity of the big spenders.

Get Inspired I don’t advocate copying anyone else’s ideas, but there’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration from advertisers whose campaigns have impressed you. After all, successful

marketing is often less about dollars and more about innovative ideas. Let’s take a look at a few of my all-time-favourite campaigns while exploring how you might take the concept and make it your own.

I’ve Got a Feeling We live in a time when experiences seem more important than owning things. This doesn’t just apply to millennials, but also to the massive baby-boomer cohort. In the past, it was drummed into us to promote the features, advantages and benefits (FAB) of what we sold; today, it’s far more about how something makes consumers feel.

■ Legal Information Again, good or bad, don’t hide anything, including lawsuits, no matter how trivial or embarrassing this information may be. Include information about any lawsuits — past, current and pending.

Increase Your Chance of Success Once you have accepted outside investment, start sending out regular updates to your investors and meet with them periodically (formally or informally) to make sure they remain confident that you are doing the right thing for the company.

In the end, never get discouraged when a deal falls through. Often, it really just means there was a better offer on the table from another company at the time. You just need to dust yourself off and get back out there. ■ Peter Elkins is co-founder of the Capital Investment Network, Kick Accelerator and Business As Unusual.

sales and marketing by Mike wicks

Looking for Marketing Inspiration?

Check Out These Ideas From slides in public-transit stations to a safety video called “Dumb Ways to Die,” marketers have been coming up with unique ways to catch our attention. But how can we use their creativity to our advantage?

W

hen it comes to marketing, it’s sometimes tough to come up with new and creative ideas that will capture your market’s attention — perhaps even go viral — or at the very least get people talking about your company and what you sell.

I’ve always gotten a kick out of clever Douglas 81

Lessons From Top Social Media campaigns

Skateboarding Cat on Instagram An Instagram video of a skateboarding cat in Australia was a big success for adventure-camera manufacturer GoPro last year, receiving more than 250,000 likes.

Volkswagen tuned into this about six years ago when they came up with their series of “fast lane” experiences in Germany. My favourite: a “fast lane” slide built in a subway, so passengers could opt for the stairs, the escalator or the “fast lane.” The campaign also featured skateboards attached to grocery shopping carts and a blinged-out elevator that sounded like a rocket taking off.

In all cases, the public was invited to take the “fast lane.” Those who did were filmed, and resulting videos were “dedicated to everyone who enjoys speeding life up a little.” Completing the pitch were the slogans “Fast Lane Driven by Fun” and “What Drives You?” Millions watched the videos on YouTube, and the media was exceptionally active in covering the “events.”

Almost all products and services provide some sort of experience. If you can tap into experience in your next marketing campaign, you might discover a way of connecting with potential customers in a more meaningful way. Consider what kind of experience you could give your customers. It need not be expensive, but it does need to tie in closely with how you want, or expect, them to feel when using your product or service.

Lesson Take a hint from Lowe’s: study the social media platform you are planning to target before you create and launch your campaign.

Ice-Bucket Challenge on Facebook How could you forget everyone from grandmas to celebs dousing themselves with ice water to raise money and awareness for ALS? The campaign raised over $10 million, was viewed by 440 million people — and it cost the ALS Association no money.

Lesson People responded to the campaign’s clear message, the fun factor (“look at him, look at me”) and the immediacy (the challenge had to be met within 24 hours).

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Let Your Customer Rule Sometimes simple ideas are the most effective. Last year, Apple promoted the photographic capabilities and quality of its iPhone 6 by showcasing amazing amateur, untouched and unaltered photographs on billboards, with the short simple message “Shot on iPhone 6.” The campaign successfully brought home the message that iPhone 6 makes it possible for anyone from hobbyists to bloggers to actual photographers to shoot high-quality photos. This year Apple will repeat the campaign using portrait photographs and will feature the

Apple promoted the photographic capabilities of its iPhone 6 by showcasing amazing amateur photographs on billboards, with the simple message “Shot on iPhone 6.”

Lesson Positive campaigns featuring animals engaged in human activities always draw attention. You can’t beat the “aw” factor.

Lowe’s “Fix in Six” Vine series A series of six-second Vine videos named “Fix in Six” (#lowesfixinsix) featuring DIY home fixes had been an ongoing hit, earning Lowe’s over 44 million loops or views.

The campaign was designed with claymation characters to appeal to Vine’s younger demographic.

have since pledged to be safe around trains. I bet you can’t watch it just once!

We have so much local talent on Vancouver Island, it wouldn’t be difficult to partner with a musician to create a clever, catchy, even addictive video to promote some element of your company. In the past, it was costly to create a video; today, your mobile provides high-enough quality for YouTube and there are simple-to-use editing suites online or bundled with other programs on your computer.

Catch People’s Attention My all-time favourite in this genre haunts me (in a good way!). It’s mildly gross and originally made me shake my head; at the same time, I was entranced by it and impressed by the power of its message. With a video at its core, this campaign does not sell a product; it promotes safety.

The ad agency for Melbourne’s Metro Trains created an animated video with a catchy tune called “Dumb Ways to Die.” It features a cast of jelly-bean-type characters who do a whole lot of silly things that “kill” them. These mishaps include poking a stick at a grizzly bear, selling both kidneys on the Internet, standing on the very edge of a train-station platform, driving around the boom gate at a level train crossing, and dashing dangerously across the tracks. To soften the blow, the characters don’t really die — they return bandaged, bleeding and often in several parts to finish the incredibly catchy song, central to the video.

The campaign appeared in 2012 and won numerous awards. The video has a staggering 131 million YouTube views (24 million in its first week alone). Just one day after release, the tune reached iTune’s top 10. Posters, books and apps followed; more than 127 million people

images on billboards in 26 countries and 85 cities.

The images are so impressive they have appeared all over the web and in dozens of media articles, including Time magazine.

Taking this concept into the small-business realm is not difficult. A photography or video competition that encourages your customers, or yet-to-be customers, to focus on an element of your product or service or something within your corporate culture could stimulate significant social media coverage. A local gallery show might offer additional opportunities, perhaps to launch a new product, to thank customers and of course to provide exposure to local media. Photographs could be used in a book, advertisements, promotional material, on social media and in many other ways — all at minimal cost.

Whether you hire an agency or handle your marketing internally, spend a little time looking at what makes the most successful campaigns around the world so powerful. Identify the genius in them and then adopt, adapt and innovate your way to an award-winning campaign. ■ Mike Wicks is an award-winning author, blogger, ghostwriter and publisher.

12

Human Resources by Ingrid Vaughan

How to Handle Your Small-Business HR Needs You need people to help you run your small business, but how are you going to manage the human resources (HR) needs of the people you’ve hired? It’s a conundrum faced by many small business owners. Here’s how to solve it.

O

n any given day, if you’re a small business owner managing a team, you may find yourself reviewing resumés, interviewing for vacant positions, dealing with performance issues, training staff, resolving conflicts, filling out HR forms, looking up employment standards — the list goes on. And yes, it would be nice if you could just hire someone to handle it all for you, but small-business owners often can’t afford their own HR staff person, so they struggle to manage things on their own.

This results in frustration (“I’m not an HR person!”), tasks falling through the cracks (“I’ve GOT to remember to send in that record of employment!”) and a team that’s not being managed well.

And here’s the kicker: as your business

grows, so does the amount of time you find yourself spending on people issues.

Systems are Key So how can you manage their HR needs with a small budget or no budget? The key is to create systems and processes that are sustainable and repeatable for often-used HR functions. Creating repeatable systems takes time and effort up front (which is often the reason business owners don’t do it), but it pays dividends in the end.

Imagine if you had a checklist of 10 steps (and templates) to follow every time you hired. Wouldn’t this be easier than starting from scratch every time? And wouldn’t it also make it easier for another manager or supervisor to pick up that process instead of

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7 At work, do your opinions seem to count?

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8 Does the mission/ purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?

3 At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

4 In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?

9 Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?

10 Do you have a best friend at work?

Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?

11 In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?

6 Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

12 In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

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AL’S BUSINESS TIP FOR SUCCESS “If you are starting a new business, you will need to know the industry inside and out. Get to know industry participants, distribution ebbs and flows, and influences on competition and buying programs.”

Al Hasham, President of Maximum Express

you having to do it all on your own?

While there are many HR components necessary to manage your team, building systems in these three areas can help you be more effective and efficient.  Hiring Hiring too fast or desperately almost always ends up in bad hires, resulting in costly turnover and a drain on management time and energy. To create your system: •W rite down all your hiring steps: timeline, creating posting and job description, resumé review, assessments, interviews, reference checks, etc.

•C reate templates for each repeatable part.

Job postings can have standard phrasing about your business and the kinds of people you want to hire — all you have to add are the specifics around the new vacancy. Interviews can be streamlined by preparing general questions in advance and adding job-specific questions when you interview.

•E stablish a timeline and work backwards from the employee start date and put each step into your calendar.

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Next time you need to hire, follow the checklist, enter the timeline into your calendar, edit the templates and you’re ready to go.  Performance Management A simplified performance management (PM) process will also save you time. Long, arduous, metric-heavy reviews are often not sustainable. An ongoing, agile, continuousfeedback approach is more likely to give you better results. Remember that employees prefer immediate, in-the-moment feedback as opposed to a dump-truck approach once a year.

Here are the steps: •D etermine a realistic, manageable PM timeline that fits your business model and industry. Annual review? Quarterly reviews?

Monthly check-ins?

•C reate forms for each session. Templates are your friend. You may want to mix it up — if you’re doing quarterly sessions to follow up annual reviews, use the opportunity to talk about what’s important to your staff.

The Gallup Q12 is a great place to start (see sidebar on page 83).

•D iarize all PM sessions and create follow-up actions so your calendar prompts you.

This process can be a huge time saver and give you a more effective way to motivate and engage your team.  Training and Development The evidence that investing in development creates high employee engagement is overwhelming, but small businesses can struggle with the costs. Creative growth opportunities don’t have to cost a lot.

•C ross-training: could Susan train Jillian to operate the switchboard?

84 Douglas

• In-house peer training: can Sally teach the sales team how to use Excel more effectively?

• Lunch-and-learns: could you bring in interesting speakers from your community?

• Leadership training or mentoring: could managers coach and develop high-potential employees?

• Creative team days: what about a day dedicated to creative brainstorming and bluesky thinking on an upcoming project?

The key to success is a consistent, scheduled approach.

• Decide at the beginning of the year how many training activities are realistic. A speaker once a month? In-house training every quarter?

• Put the dates in the calendar. This avoids the “Oh no! Tomorrow is lunch-and-learn and there’s no speaker!” scenario.

• Create diarized tasks that relate to each event. For example, perhaps the first week of the month is your time to find the lunch-andlearn speaker. Work with your team to flesh out opportunities.

• Document all these steps so you can repeat them the following year.

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Success Strategies Each of these processes takes time to set up, but you only have to do the hard work once.

After that it’s “pick up and go.” To ensure your success: • Keep your processes simple: the more complicated they are, the less likely you are to follow through.

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• Put in the hard work up front: it’s the key to being able to sustain the plans in the future.

• Be realistic about what you can do. It may be nice to have three interviews, but is it doable?

Fewer events with greater consistency are better than lots of events that don’t happen.

• Evaluate and edit: if you’ve tried a process and it’s not working, figure out why and adjust.

Human resources involves “humans,” so it’s important to note there will always be circumstances where something or someone messes up the system. However, this should be the exception rather than the rule. Deal with these anomalies as they arise and return to your system.

Finally, if you just don’t have the time or expertise to build these systems for your business, consider hiring an HR consultant to assist you with building them. This investment gives you the tools you need for a happier, healthier and more productive organization. ■ Ingrid Vaughan is the owner and HR architect at Smart HR in Victoria, specializing in modular, sustainable HR systems, processes and practices.

Victoria Office

Bev Highton 250.381.2265 bhighton@naicommercial.ca www.naivictoria.ca

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Bob Moss 250.753.5757 bmoss@naicommercial.ca www.naivanisle.ca

Comprehensive Offerings In: Office, Industrial, Retail Multi-Family, Land & Investment Properties Business & Asset Sales Property Management Financial Consultation New Home Construction & Sales (Victoria)

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Last Page

Redbrick’s Rethink

by Alex Van Tol

One of victoria’s most successful software firms makes a move to reflect its success and the way its Employees really want to work.

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Redbrick’s custom-designed 5,000-square-foot space features a great room that overlooks the harbour and an open, fluid floor plan conducive to collaboration and communication.

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

Redbrick (formerly Red Brick Media) is on the move, departing its original digs in Market Square for a larger, more cohesive space at 1630 Store Street.

The move into a customdesigned space follows the company’s recent rebrand and successful global launch of DeskMetrics, its flagship desktop analytics product.

After launching with five employees in 2011, the software product development company now employs 37 and recently ranked fifth on Profit 500’s list of Canada’s fastest growing companies. “We’re taking the entire top floor of the building where Modern Living used to be,” says Marketing Manager Nadia Tatlow. “We have renovated it from the ground up, totally custom designing it for our team’s needs.”

The new 5000-squarefoot office features an open floor plan, “work bars” where people can work from their laptops for a different vantage point, breakout rooms for concentrated work and a great room (with Ping-Pong table, natch) overlooking the harbour.

Company founder Tobyn Sowden will now be completely accessible right in the centre of the room.

“The new layout will be much more fluid and will improve communication,” says Tatlow.

“It’ll be much easier to just tap someone on the shoulder now, instead of talking online.”

Innovation.

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all the innovators innovatorswho whodug dugaalittle littledeeper, deeper,stayed stayedup upa alittle little Congratulations to all wouldn’t let let good goodenough enoughbebequite quiteenough. enough.

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