Are you suffering burnout?
Like many people, I was facing significant challenges and burnout last year. It was so bad that I told my team in September that I was going to take a three- to six-month sabbatical starting in December. However, by the time January rolled around, and after just a few weeks of holidays, I was ready…
People look for two sets of cues in leaders: one signals warmth and caring, the other power and status. Both are necessary
During a break in a seminar I was conducting on collaborative leadership, a man from the audience told this story: “My wife is an attorney and I’ve always been a supporter of women in the workplace. I also believe in collaboration and try to make everyone feel included and appreciated. So I was taken aback…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Reaching out to wayward customers will reinvigorate your sales and allow you to do a lot of market research
Grant was on the ground yelling as I came around the corner at high speed on my mountain bike at dusk. He had flown off his bike instead of hitting a moose standing on the trail. I skidded to avoid him. I could still see two moose, a cow and her year-old calf, on the…
Creative hiring strategies can be the big difference between success and failure
Hiring employees has been difficult for many employers in the current job market. This is a result of a number of factors, including an aging workforce, the "great resignation," and a booming economy. While this will change in time, here are five things you might consider that will improve your chances of success if you…
Ottawa does not fully understand the consequences of its policy
By Nathalie Elgrably-Levy and Valentin Petkantchin The federal government’s new luxury goods tax, which took effect on September 1, targets luxury cars, private jets and yachts. Without originality, it is part of the traditional logic of taxation which aims to “make the rich pay.” However, we often forget the economic, indirect and longer-term effects, which…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
It’s hard to be successful if you can’t survive the crashes
I’ve been head over heels in love a couple of times – but in cycling and business, I’ve been head over heels many times. Once, for example, I was on an early-morning ride on my road bike. I was doing hill repeats to get into shape to be able to keep up with the “fast…
What new businesses and business models will emerge in a 6G world?
Sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications technology, expected by 2030, could offer the potential for truly transformative applications and functionality because of the higher capacity and lower delay time between sending and receiving voice or data over the network (latency). The anticipated microsecond latency of 6G communications will make it 1,000 times faster than the millisecond latency…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Your app's success is related to the actual value you create for your customers, not media buzz
It’s mind-boggling that only 25 per cent of all installed apps are ever used more than once. End-users are easily impressed by the promise of new apps, but their expectations, perhaps unrealistically high, are often crushed during their first app experience. The founders of Uber didn’t think about the challenges of routing cabs. Instead, they…
Biblioasis has recently released two new books, one on baseball, the other on the origins of Covid
When I worked for the Windsor Star as an editorial writer and columnist, one of the stores I regularly frequented was Biblioasis. The independent bookstore was located in the city’s downtown core on Ouellette Avenue. It had an impressive selection of fiction and non-fiction titles for all ages and interests. I bought a few books…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Your performance and the performance of those around you are often the results of conditions that are within your control
Unless you are a manager complaining about your employees' lack of performance, most of us don't consider our own performance on a regular basis. But we should. Our performance is typically defined as the level at which we can accomplish our tasks and goals as they relate to the expectations of our employers. If we…
What are the opportunities for payments providers?
The complexity of the purchasing process within the new generation of metaverses, coupled with lingering concerns over many aspects of crypto, are both acting as deterrents to most people entering the newer decentralized, blockchain-enabled, and crypto-based platforms such as Somnium Space and Axie Infinity. So what’s going on, and what are the opportunities for payments…
Instead of asking which single attribute fosters leadership, we should be asking which patterns of human qualities create the best outcomes
Look up any list of bestselling books and chances are at least one title deals with leadership. People have pondered the topic for millennia but are still chasing a clear answer to the question: what makes a good leader? That may be because we’re asking the wrong question, says business professor Ian Gellatly. Human beings…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Collaboration begins by building on those positive qualities that already exist in your team
Several years ago, I was in Germany working with a group of high-potential employees worldwide. Their organization had identified them as valuable candidates for leadership development. It was quite an event – a week of various topics and speakers with dog sledding as the team-building event the afternoon before my program. (Which was quite a…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Not everyone is designed to thrive in the traditional workplace
Had the COVID-19 pandemic ended sooner, there’s every possibility that office life would have returned to ‘normal.’ In 2021, we were all hoping to go back to the office. Today, office workers are putting their foot down en masse and refusing to return. Having adapted to remote work and proving themselves capable of being productive,…
We are paying the price in degraded focus for constantly being on our devices
The pandemic has brought on new debates about the nature of work. We’ve seen fads over the decades – the predicted four-day workweek, sabbaticals, job sharing, full-time part-time, hotelling, working from home, and now hybrid work. All are euphemisms for not working 37.5 hours per week in an office. Seamless work really means you’re always…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
A monthly report card is just good business
The owner of a $100-million company recently told me he wasn’t sure he understood his financial statements. How could someone build a successful business in less than five years while not understanding how to read a financial statement? Because he’s good at hiring great people, including his chief financial officer (CFO), and has other skills,…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Learning from the pros Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Amplify Your Business, produced by Amplomedia in partnership with Troy Media, will interview professional entrepreneurs who are currently in the trenches growing their businesses. Through insightful conversations, we will be unpacking their common business challenges and identifying the lessons every business owner needs to learn so…
Fun doesn't mean goofing off. It means enjoying what you’re doing and laughing when things go wrong
‘Fun’ isn’t a word often spoken in the same sentence as ‘work.’ But Norm and I were driving down a backroad last week in the middle of nowhere when we used those words together. We had just come from a meeting where we were representing our clients in some negotiations and we had really enjoyed…
Partnership with SVG Ventures|THRIVE will help researchers and startups move new technologies
The University of Alberta is partnering with a leading Silicon Valley firm to support innovation growth in Alberta’s agriculture and food sectors. An agreement with SVG Ventures|THRIVE, a venture capital firm investing in agricultural technology startups and supporting corporations with open innovation, powers the U of A to accelerate its development and adoption of technology-driven solutions…
Priorities are never as clear as we think
Under-communicating strategic direction and priorities is one of the most common mistakes I have seen founders make. Startup founders typically have a set of top priorities or organizational goals they have defined and communicated. Usually, this communication takes the form of a PowerPoint presentation which is shared in executive staff meetings, and then again in…
In addition to hardware, network and a building, cloud service providers offer a rich range of software functionality
How does a cloud computing environment compare to an on-premises computing environment? Are the benefits of cloud computing overhyped? Isn’t the cloud just someone else’s data centre? What topics should chief information officers (CIOs) consider when deciding whether to adopt more cloud computing services for their organization? Functionality In addition to hardware, network and a…