management

Cineplex’ reinvention of the movie business.

November 22, 2010
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I am full of admiration for the management team at Cinexplex Galaxy Income Fund. Background: Ten years ago I invested in a home theatre.  Times were good, I had some spare dollars to burn, and I’ve always been a fan of the movies.  But I really didn’t like the boxy little multiplex movie theatres of [...]

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For effective meetings, try skipping the discussion

October 26, 2010

Jim and Michele McCarthy are teamwork experts. They’ve spent the last 15 years codifying the best practices of high performing teams, and then teaching them to others in a “teamwork lab” they call Bootcamp. For the past few weeks I’ve been listening to their 138 episode podcast series – the McCarthy Show.  It’s an easy [...]

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Black Toes, Bruises and Blisters on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail. Lessons for start-up founders.

August 15, 2010

As the West Coast Trail Express sped off into the distance early the morning of July 31, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. “I’ve forgotten my poles,” I said to Janice.  “They’re sitting in my parents foyer back in Esquimalt.” I’ve used trekking poles when hiking for the past 15 years.  You can go [...]

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Ottawa’s venture industry a shriveled husk of its past.

May 26, 2010

In 2001, when my family and I moved from Seattle to back to Canada, we had a choice between Ottawa, Waterloo, and Toronto.  At the time, Ottawa was booming.  Venture capital was pouring into the city, and it proudly proclaimed itself Canada’s Tech Capital, and Silicon Valley North. So we moved to Ottawa. A decade [...]

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Boingo’s sponsored hot spot program is clever marketing.

November 12, 2009

Boingo’s sponsored Wi-Fi program caught my eye earlier this week.  I’m a student of marketing programs, especially when quantitative measurement is involved. Boingo claims to have increased revenues by up to 35% at selected airports by allowing sponsors to subsidize internet access for travellers.  The program requires the user to watch 30 seconds of advertising [...]

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Twitter is a megaphone

April 17, 2009

Social media gives marketers a lot of tools to add to the kit bag.  So how do you know what the right tool is, and can they be used in an integrated fashion? Easy! Podcasts are great for creating intimacy, and delivering longer high value messages.  That’s because they’re often consumed during commute time, and [...]

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Microsoft and search

April 14, 2009

Go read Ina Fried’s interview with Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi about the company’s efforts to break into search.  What you’ll see is classic Microsoft. The company is breaking down the problems it faces with search and taking apart each problem individually. Need more people using search?  Reward them with cash back when they make purchases.  Notice [...]

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Suzie’s advice for Ontario entrepreneurs

April 10, 2009

Canada’s venture industry is a mess, especially in Ontario. Venture lawyer Suzie Dingwall Williams recommends entrepreneurs focus on the newly announced Ontario Emerging Technology Fund, and try to ensure that the investment criteria are friendly to the crop of entrepreneurs in Ontario.

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Blown PR Opportunities

April 9, 2009

In the annals of bizarre interviews, there must be few stranger than the latest Billy Bob Thornton piece on the CBC.  Billy Bob is currently touring with his band, the Boxmasters, as the opening act for Willy Nelson.  It’s a promotional gig for their new disk. CBC interviewer Jian Gomeshi had Billy Bob and the [...]

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Will mobile rebels suffer the same fate?

November 16, 2008

Doug Mohney’s The Fallen – Crashed and struggling VoIP companies is worth a read, if for no other reason than to learn the fates of some of the companies we have all known in the VoIP industry.  One could summarize what he has written as: the carrier competitors,  excepting Vonage, ran out of money.  Vonage [...]

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