WHAT’S ON THE RADAR FOR BC FERRIES?
INSIGHTS FROM A STARTUP WHISPERER
WHY FICTIONARY IS ON FIRE
AUG/SEP 2019
CEO Greg McDougall of Harbour Air
SZOLYD GETS CREATIVE WITH CONCRETE
30
TOOLS & TIPS TO REACH YOUR
BUSINESS GOALS
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AUG/SEP 2019
CONTENTS 38
FEATURES
18
30 Bring on the Night
From an urban saloon to a live-music cabaret to popular pubs, the Frontier Group has tapped into the city’s appetite for nightlife. BY SUSAN HOLLIS
38 BC Ferries: What’s on the Radar?
Douglas explores the challenges and possibilities facing BC Ferries as it tries to balance the transportation needs of today with the realities of tomorrow. BY KEITH NORBURY
48 Back to Business Guide
30 tools and tips designed to help you get your business off to the best start this fall. BY KERRY SLAVENS
54 Fiction on Fire
DEPARTMENTS 6 FROM THE EDITOR
With some heavy-hitting investors on board, Fictionary has taken its concept for an online story editor from fiction to fact. BY ALEX VAN TOL
30
9 IN THE KNOW Victoria’s tagging problem, downtown makes the grade, a young entrepreneur brings the magic, and Russell Books’ big move. 16 CASE STUDY Szolyd Development is pushing the boundaries of concrete to mind-bending levels. BY ATHENA MCKENZIE
18 IN CONVERSATION Graham Truax, the executive director of Innovation Island, is known as the startup whisperer. BY ANDREW FINDLAY
22 BIG IDEA Harbour Air gets set to transform its seaplanes into an all-electric commercial fleet. BY ALLAN CRAM
62 LAST PAGE Nanaimo’s LDRLY touts itself as the world’s leading publisher of cannabis games. BY SUSAN HOLLIS
INTEL (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE) 56 NEXT LEVEL The plus-it-up approach. BY ALEX VAN TOL
58 LEADERSHIP Why you should have that difficult conversation. BY ERIN SKILLEN
60 ENTREPRENEUR Old-school advice for startups. BY JIM HAYHURST 4 DOUGLAS
CO U NS ND TR ER UC TI ON
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Come home to Victoria’s Inner Circle. To a stunningly spacious kitchen with room for you to cultivate your inner chef in the perfect setting. To the scent of coffee on a beautiful morning that brings out the barista in you. Where contemporary design and integrated, high-performance appliances seamlessly enhance the true joy of cooking. Come home to the best of taste at Capital Park. A boutique collection of sophisticated concrete-built homes 1 to 1 Bedroom + Den | 548 – 698 SQ.FT. | Priced from $579,900 2 to 3 Bedroom | 812 – 1,759 SQ.FT. | Priced from $789,900 2 to 3 Bedroom + Den Townhomes | 1,451 – 1,757 SQ.FT. | Priced from $1,489,900 Now Selling Presentation Centre: 665 Douglas Street | Noon to 5pm, except Fridays 250.383.3722 • CapitalParkVictoria.com Inspired Living in Victoria’s Inner Circle
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6 DOUGLAS
JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
FROM THE EDITOR
IT WAS ONE OF VICTORIA NEWS’ more interesting headlines: “Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers looks for swimming graffiti tagger.” A young man was spotted on a surveillance camera swimming to a beacon near the Johnson Street Bridge and tagging it with spray paint. The incident was just one of the latest in what’s set to be a record year for graffiti vandalism in Greater Victoria. By early fall, the Downtown Victoria Business Association’s (DVBA’s) Clean Team will have cleaned as much graffiti as they did in all of 2018 when they removed 10,445 tags. And that’s just graffiti the Clean Team sees or finds out about in downtown Victoria. The problem extends to all corners of the region. Most of the graffiti is tagging, where vandals use spray paint or markers to scrawl their “signatures” on everything from walls to freight trucks. Much of it is inane, but a recent spate was far more disturbing. In July, painted swastikas began appearing on walls and bus shelters in the city. Experts agreed that any graffiti, from the inane to the hateful, must be removed fast, because graffiti is a lot like mold. If you don’t clean it up right away, it spreads and spreads and eventually can lead to deeper problems, a theory confirmed by a 2008 University of Groningen study in which Danish social psychologist Kees Keizer set out to answer the question: Would people exposed to bad behaviour also behave that way themselves? In an alley where a sign warned against graffiti, Keizer attached fictional flyers to handlebars of bikes parked there and watched as people returned to their bikes. When no graffiti was present, most people took the flyers with them; just 33 per cent threw them on the street. But when Keizer covered the wall in graffiti, 69 per cent threw the flyers on the street. In another experiment, he wedged an envelope holding a visible five euro note into a mail slot. When the mailbox and the ground around it were graffiti-free, 13 per cent of passersby stole the envelope. But when the mailbox was covered in graffiti, thefts doubled. Jeff Bray, executive director of the DVBA, is seeing red over the huge increase in graffiti in Victoria, and his organization is taking action, working diligently with VicPD and Crime Stoppers to catch the perpetrators, most of whom are known to police but are difficult to catch in action. To help collect evidence, the DVBA plans to work with property owners to install security cameras. Bray says aside from making the city feel unsafe, graffiti is costly for homeowners, businesses and taxpayers. The City has one full-time position entirely devoted to removing graffiti. And it’s not always easy. Some if it has to be painted over, and the really tough stuff requires toxic chemicals to remove it so there’s an environmental impact. Plus, there’s the damage to the buildings, some of it permanent. A heritage building in Waddington Alley was recently vandalized by a tagger, damaging the bricks. While some argue that graffiti is art, Bray doesn’t agree. “Would it be acceptable if, instead of tagging a building, someone threw rocks at its windows? No, it’s the same thing. It’s criminal.” Oh, and that swimming graffiti tagger? At press time he was still at large. Take a look at the Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers website. He might be someone you know. — Kerry Slavens kslavens@pageonepublishing.ca
Graffiti is a lot like mold. If you don’t clean it up right away, it spreads and spreads and eventually can lead to deeper problems.
www.douglasmagazine.com VOLUME 13 NUMBER 5
We believe the ultimate measure of our performance is our clients’ success. It has guided our approach for over 30 years.
PUBLISHERS Lise Gyorkos, Georgina Camilleri
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kerry Slavens
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jeffrey Bosdet
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LEAD GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jo-Ann Loro DEPUTY EDITOR Athena McKenzie
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ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Deana Brown, Sharon Davies, Denise Grant, Cynthia Hanischuk, Nicole Mackie CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Allan Cram, Andrew Findlay, Jim Hayhurst, Keith Norbury, Erin Skillen, Alex Van Tol
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Joseph Alkana, CIM, FCSI 250-405-2960 josephalkana.com
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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jeffrey Bosdet, Jo-Ann Loro, Belle White
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8 DOUGLAS
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INNOVATION | DESIGN | BUSINESS | STYLE | PEOPLE
[IN THE KNOW ]
“
Graffiti attracts more graffiti. If a tag is left, there will be multiple tags before long. — VicPD CONSTABLE KEVIN LASTIWKA
”
2016
Graffiti incidences accounted for
7%
of all mischief offenses
2017
Graffiti incidences accounted for
8%
of all mischief offenses
2018
Graffiti incidences accounted for
11%
of all mischief offenses
2019 so far Graffiti incidences account for JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
20%
of all mischief offenses — VicPD
TROUBLE WITH TAGGING Tagging is on the rise in downtown Victoria, according to the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA). The organization’s Clean Team, which removes the spraypainted signatures, counted 2,556 tags in 2016, 6,402 tags in 2017, and 10,445 tags in 2018. As of press time, there had been 7,059 tags in 2019. Crime Stoppers estimated the cost of the problem in the region last year was over one million dollars.
“For a business, the cost of dealing with the tagging itself is not big — it’s a can of paint,” says Bob Louie, a commercial property owner with several buildings downtown, including the heritage building that houses Murchies. “Within half an hour of a tag, it can be gone. But it’s a nuisance. We have to monitor it and I have to focus on that instead of helping my tenants and the myriad of other things a landlord has to do downtown.”
Constable Kevin Lastiwka, a community resource officer with the VicPD, hears from many frustrated business owners. “It’s a real Catch-22 for businesses,” he says. “They clean it up but then the taggers return and do it again. But if it’s not removed, other taggers see it and add their own. By continuing to remove the tags, the taggers do eventually get discouraged.” Lastiwka estimates there are 25
to 30 active taggers in the area. Some operate in crews and compete with each other, crossing out other crews’ tags with their own. Some taggers, he notes, are trying to “go all city” to get their tags in as many places as possible. “It’s a difficult crime to prosecute and bring to court,” Lastiwka says. “We need to provide evidence. Surveillance video is valuable, so we’d encourage anyone that has a tagger on video to contact the police.” DOUGLAS 9
RIDE HAILING BY THE NUMBERS
2,600
$285 billion
$108 billion
Ride-hailing is a mobility option in 89 countries, serving more than 2,600 cities around the world.
The global ride-hailing market is predicted to grow eight-fold by 2030, reaching $285 billion annually.
The global taxi market is estimated at $108 billion, triple the size of the $36-billion ride-hailing market.
IS RIDE HAILING GETTING A ROUGH RIDE IN B.C.?
R
ide-hailing services will finally hit the road in British Columbia this year, and the B.C. government’s newly released ridehailing regulations are either too harsh or very fair, depending on who you ask. In a statement, Lyft said the rules impose “unnecessary red tape that could leave British Columbians with a lesser version of ride sharing than neighbours across North America.” The provincial regulations, which come into effect September 16, call for ride-hailing operators to pay a $5,000 annual licence fee and 30 cents a ride to finance vehicles for disabled passengers. The most controversial part of the regulations is the requirement for ride-hailing drivers to have classfour commercial drivers’ licences, the same as taxi and limo drivers. THE BIGGER PICTURE
[ NEW + NOTABLE ]
The government regulations sound evenhanded, says Catherine Holt, CEO of the Greater
Victoria Chamber of Commerce, whose members come from all parts of the mobility industry, and include taxi and limo services, and Uber and Lyft. “So [the chamber has] a wide range of perspectives on the value of ride hailing,” she says. “If we look at it from the broader community perspective, one of the things we’ve said is that it’s important to bring it here to keep us modern with every other place tourists are visiting and business people are operating in. They like many things — the cost, the speed, the responsiveness — so there’s certainly an appetite to have it here.” But as with other disruptive business models such as Airbnb, she says, “these services are coming into a market with established transportation options, and it’s important to do it in a way that is fair treatment for existing services.” FINDING BALANCE
Holt, who is also BC Transit’s
LYFT
RIDE HAILING IS A GO FOR B.C., BUT THE NEW REGULATIONS HAVE SPARKED DEBATE.
In 2018, ride-hailing company Lyft served over 30 million riders, achieving $8.1 billion in bookings and $2.2 billion in revenue, the company says.
board chair, says introduction of ride hailing has to be carefully managed. “In other jurisdictions, ride hailing has led to an increase in vehicles on the roads. NYC estimated it has 60,000 more cars on the streets because of Uber and Lyft,” she says. She also points to data that indicates transit riders may be more inclined to shift to ride hailing because they perceive the cost to be competitive with public transit.
“For the sake of long-standing, hardworking businesses who divide mobility services in the region, [the B.C. government’s approach] is a more evenhanded way of introducing these ride hailing services.” — CATHERINE HOLT, CEO, VICTORIA CHAMBER
[ SIDNEY’S NEW BUSINESS VOICE ]
[ VIU’S LEADERSHIP CHANGE ]
[ THE UNION CLUB’S MOVE FORWARD ]
Morgan Shaw is the new executive director of the Sidney Business Improvement Area Society. Shaw, who replaces Donna Petrie, has been part of the BIA for three years. She was previously manager of visitor services for the Saanich Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Deborah Saucier is Vancouver Island University’s (VIU) new president, succeeding Dr. Ralph Nilson, who has held the role since 2007. Saucier, formerly president of MacEwan University in Edmonton, is an accomplished neuroscientist committed to Indigenous education and reconciliation.
Grace Van den Brink has become the Union Club of British Columbia’s first female president in its 140-year history. Van den Brink, who joined the Union Club in 2003 and previously served as vice president, worked in marketing and communications in Victoria and Vancouver before moving to public affairs with the provincial government.
10 DOUGLAS
HOW THEY DID IT
ON THE MOVE
BUSINESS IMPACT
A NEW CHAPTER FOR RUSSELL BOOKS JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
Maddy Kirstein
WHAT BUSINESS NEEDS TO KNOW
BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
1
EVERY LITTLE THING SHE DOES
Young entrepreneur wields wand to create school of magic
Victoria’s plastic bag ban isn’t in the bag any more. The B.C. Court of Appeal unanimously ruled the city’s ban of single-use plastic bags required the approval of the B.C. Minister of Environment, which it did not receive. With more B.C. municipalities anxious to ban the plastic bag, will the next move be the provincial government’s?
CHALLENGE Who hasn’t wanted to live inside the pages of their favourite book? A generation of children have fallen in love with Harry Potter and Hogwarts, which is why local high school student Maddy Kirstein created the Alectoria School of Magic, a three-day, overnight-camp experience for youth ages 11 to 17.
SOLUTION The Alectoria School of Magic grew out of a project Kirstein was completing at the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. “At first it was to create an inclusive safe place for youth to be creative and completely themselves,” she says about the summer camp that strives to bring the magical world of Hogwarts to life. In developing her experiential camp, Kirstein realized it needed to be much bigger than the “one night in the woods,” she had initially envisioned. She approached Shawnigan Lake School and brokered a deal to rent the facility for the three-day immersive adventure. While the camp was originally Hogwarts Summer School, a Cease and Desist from Warner Bros. prompted a name change. “We worked with them to find an alternative name,” she says. Last year’s sold-out camp ran with classes such as herbology, history of magic, magical creatures, astrology, divination, archery and more. “I was surprised by the level of interest, not only from the people who wanted to attend as students, but [also from] people who wanted to be instructors,” Kirstein says. “Right now, I’d like to see it run long enough that a kid who first came when she was 11 [could] go through and graduate at 17.”
2
Phase one of the federal government’s new passenger protection regulations begin on July 15. They set out how passengers must be treated or compensated due to flight cancellations, bumped flights, lost luggage and more.
3
Canada Business App is an Android and iOS mobile app launched by the federal government to make it easier for SMEs to navigate federal services and programs.
Moving a retail business isn’t easy, but imagine having to move more than 100,000 books. That’s what Russell Books faces this fall as it leaves its 734 Fort Street location to relocate across the street to the former Staples building. “We had been looking at the Staples space for several years,” says co-owner Andrea Minter, granddaughter of Reg Russell, who opened the original Russell Books in Montreal in 1961. Minter manages the store with husband Jordan and brother Chad DePol. The new location features escalators for easy access and 6,000 square feet of additional space to accommodate Russell’s growing business. Minter says the growth is due to the support of the Victoria community, who still love finding that perfect cookbook or bedtime story in a physical bookstore. Another growth opportunity emerged when Chapters moved from downtown to Mayfair last fall. The Russell Books team quickly saw an opportunity to fill the void. When it comes to Russell’s vision, Minter says the company is in it for the long haul. “It was important to us to have a new space that could last us a long time.” As to the question of how to move 100,000 books to the new location, Minter laughs and says, “A part of me wanted to get a sports team in here and make an assembly line across the street.” The move, she says, will take place around the clock for several days and will largely be done using electric pallet jacks to help with lifting. “We’re so excited,” says Minter, “for the next chapter in our book.”
WHAT’S HOT IN SOCIAL MEDIA IN CANADA? Here’s how the social media brands rank for weekly usage and popularity among Canadians from 2017 to 2019. GROWING Facebook 72% to 82% Instagram 29% to 39% Reddit 9% to 18%
SLOWING YouTube 60% to 63% Twitter 27% to 29% LinkedIn 12% to 16%
DECLINING Snapchat 17% to 14% Tumblr 5% to 3%
SOURCE: INSIGHTS WEST, 2019
DOUGLAS 11
MEET UP
WHERE BUSINESS HAPPENS
ALWAYS LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
“A lot of people work for themselves or are freelancers, and they say this is their big work social for the month. They connect with people who have similar issues — and someone there might know how to solve it.” — SARAH REID, CO-FOUNDER STATE + STORY
State + Story connects Victoria’s creative community A State + Story meetup at Saint Franks.
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intraworks.ca 12 DOUGLAS
JEFFREY BOSDET/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
• FULL I.T. SERVICES & SUPPORT
CREATIVE CONFAB The monthly meetings are “usually” the last Thursday of every month, with morning meetups at Habit on Pandora or Club Kwench and evening sessions at Saint Franks. “There’s no agenda and everyone is welcome,” says co-founder Sarah Reid. “It’s a great way to meet people.”
COFFEE OR BEER? “The morning sessions are smaller and you really get to connect with people — it’s a bit more intimate,” Reid says. “The evening ones are more like a party with a bunch of new people to meet. It’s a lot of fun.”
DREAM JOB Along with offering the potential to meet future collaborators, State + Story has launched a new online job board with a focus on the creative fields.
BUSINESS INSIGHTS
HOW ENTREPRENEURS GET THE EDGE It’s been a big year for FreshWorks Studio, the West Coast-based company with ”an audacious vision” to become Canada’s global leader in technology services. Not only did this previous Douglas 10 to Watch winner take home the Company of the Year — Growth Success Award from B.C.’s Technology Impact Awards, they won Employer of the Year at the VIATEC Awards. We asked for some C-suite success secrets from CEO Samarth Mod, recipient of the Entrepreneur Award at the 2019 RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Awards for 2019.
BE PREPARED for a journey that will not always go according to plan. In entrepreneurship, you’ll have to constantly adapt, change, learn and move on. This is perhaps the toughest thing to learn right off the bat; it takes practice and time. BE HUMBLE One of the most underrated qualities of successful entrepreneurs is humility. You need to be humble enough to constantly learn from your market, customers, peers and colleagues — to be a sponge — absorbing all the relevant knowledge while not taking failure personally. BE STOIC Stoicism is the ability to control your emotions when things don’t go according to plan. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer; take a step back to reflect and adjust. And ask,
“How’s the current situation going to impact me in three to four years?”
BE FRIENDLY At a time when everyone is trying to capture clients’ attention, friendly persistence, vulnerability and humour are powerful traits. Treat everyone as unique, not as one-sizefits-all. BE OPEN Networking is immeasurably critical when you are starting out. You can waste a lot of time going to events that don’t add value, but once you find someone who trusts and believes in you, go above and beyond to maintain their trust. Make them look good and always express gratitude. BE CONFIDENT Once you are in front of a potential client, tap into your self belief and remember, “You got this!”
Connect apps to boost productivity Dubbed the “Internet’s Best Productivity Tool” by The Wall Street Journal, IFTTT makes all your favorite apps work together. IFTTT (an acronym for “if this, then that”) connects hundreds of services, including Square, Dropbox, Nest, Google and Facebook, and allows you to create customized triggers and actions. IFTTT.COM
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DOUGLAS 13
CREATE YOUR OWN FUTURE. LAUNCH YOUR BUSINESS TODAY.
SHOW US THE MOVIE MONEY
ARLENE BETHUNE
THE VANCOUVER ISLAND SOUTH FILM & MEDIA COMMISSION ANNOUNCES NEW ADVERTISING AND SOCIAL MEDIA INITIATIVE, WE LOVE FILM TOO!
RESOURCES. FINANCING. MENTORING.
futurpreneur.ca/BC
Film production in B.C. is at an all-time high, with more than $3 billion dollars of direct spending last year. Designed to get Greater Victoria a bigger piece of that production-money pie, We Love Film Too! promotes the region as a friendly location for film, TV, commercials and other shoots. It will also focus on boosting the number of properties in the commission’s online location database, and growing the local film crew base by supporting new education opportunities. “The recent exciting news that Camosun College is developing training programs for film workers works right into our objective to increase the number of local crew,” says Kathleen Gilbert, film commissioner. “With 25 productions choosing to film in the Capital Region last year and this year looking to be just as busy, we are always struggling to assist producers with local hires. Increasing the number of available trained crew will help us in landing more productions.”
DOUGLAS READS The biggest struggle for many entrepreneurs is finishing a project. Generating ideas is the easy part, but keeping momentum and seeing them through to completion can be the real challenge. Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done by productivity expert Charlie Gilkey presents a nine-step method for success that includes identifying your genius, building a success pack of supporters, “chunking” your ideas down to doable parts, navigating multiple projects, and overcoming the mental challenges that come with doing the work that matters. [Published by Sounds True, September 2019]
14 DOUGLAS
DESIGN | BUILD
DOWNTOWN GETS A THUMBS UP
L
ike many urban areas, Victoria’s city core has gone through highs and lows, but right now it’s doing well enough to have earned a B+ grade from the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) members surveyed for the organization’s First Annual Report on Downtown. Of the DVBA’s 1,100 members, 400 responded to the survey. Asked about the overall business climate downtown, 62 per cent indicated they felt it had improved or remained stable, and 52 per cent indicated their businesses had experienced net profit growth of up to 25 per cent between
2017 and 2018. More than 25 per cent said they intend to expand their products, services or square footage in downtown Victoria. Still, safety and security are top concerns. Indeed, VicPD statistics show downtown property crimes have gone up from 1,702 in 2017* to 2,860 in 2018. Violent crime is also up, from 126 incidents in 2017* to 216 incidents in 2018. Parking availability is also ranked by survey respondents as one of the top four factors negatively impacting the vitality of their businesses, as is cost of parking and the public perception of a clean downtown.
JO-ANN LORO/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
With low retail and commercial vacancies, a diverse economy, a vibrant cultural scene and 620 condos under construction, downtown Victoria earns a high grade from DVBA members.
Top four elements DVBA members feel would improve Victoria’s downtown business environment
#1 Rank
#3 Rank
#2 Rank
#4 Rank
Emphasis on Clean Downtown
Real-time Parking Availability
Public Transportation
Increased Police Presence
61.2%
51.9%
48.3%
46.3%
These percentages represent the highest overall average rankings for issues identified by DVBA survey respondents.
* MAY TO SEPTEMBER, 2017
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CASE STUDY ■ BY ATHENA MCKENZIE
SOLID IDEA
Embracing an ultra-modern and minimalist esthetic — and cutting-edge techniques — Szolyd Development is pushing the boundaries of concrete’s applications and design possibilities.
EXPLORING THE POSSIBILITIES There was a lot of research and development in the early days, which Mayrhofer says, “almost broke” him.
OFFICE REFRESH 16 DOUGLAS
BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
W
hen it comes to new technologies, Nolan Mayrhofer is a self-described “early adopter.” The founder and creative director of Szolyd Development (pronounced “solid”) first heard about Ductal — an ultra-high performance concrete — 12 years ago from his mentor Mike Bell. “He knew I was interested in unique concrete-mix designs and pushing the envelope of what’s possible,” Mayrhofer says. “[Ductal] is the strongest concrete. The numbers they were touting were way beyond 1 anything conventional concrete could come close to. Now, high performance concrete has gotten closer, but 12 years ago nothing was in the realm [of Ductal].” After doing his research and realizing that “this stuff is legit,” Mayrhofer paid $10,000 to Lafarge, the manufacturer, and became the first person in B.C. to get this new product. “As a young entrepreneur, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it,” he says. “Basically, I had some concepts for cantilevered tables and different things and started dreaming about what the possibilities were.”
2
A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN
Productivity suffers in inflexible workspaces. Moveable walls — like the options from Haworth, available through Gabriel Ross Contract — help businesses respond to their changing needs.
BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
CONCRETE FUTURE “We love working with architects and engineers,” Mayrhofer says. “That’s where we do a lot of our work these days.” Notable projects include the stoa column bases for the restoration at Pioneer Courthouse Square in
3 4 1 Szolyd was part of the Hotel Rialto restoration, the first Ductal heritage restoration project in North America. 2 The Szolyd team fills the mold of a large planter for the atrium at Vancouver House. 3 Nolan Mayrhofer sands a Ductal table base at the company’s manufacturing facility in Saanich. 4 Szolyd made 1,500 masonry blocks of Ductal concrete for the
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Portland, Oregon, and the angular reception desk at Crag X Climbing Centre. Along with curved benches and massive planters for Vancouver House in downtown Vancouver, the company is currently working on an art installation in Montreal. “For this job, we’re gonna be spraying it — we’re gonna be the first company in western North America to spray Ductal. What that means is that rather than pouring precast style, you don’t have to have an inner and outer mold component. It opens up very complex geometry and reduces labor and cost.” Szolyd’s team has had many ideas for applications over the years, with some getting discarded and others moving down the development pipeline. One new possibility is doing floors with Ductal to reinforce wood-frame construction, which increases seismic standards, sound dampening and fire suppression. “Another thing we’re working on is a siding product that we’ve done prior testing on,” Mayrhofer says. “This will be a modular plank, ultra-high performance cladding. We’re going to be mass manufacturing and ideally set up a separate factory floor. The dream is to have a technology that we can then license to other Ductal sublicensees.”
BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
‘‘
We’ve played so much with this material and experimented with all kinds of finishes and surfaces. We are one of the most experienced teams in western North America.
“All concrete can be fickle, and all concrete can be challenging,” he says. “With this material, one of the challenges — particularly because it’s so costly — is when you’re pouring your first mold, of the first prototype of a design, you have to make sure your mold is reinforced enough, because if it starts to bow or flex, or not adhere properly, you get a leak and all this stuff can just spill right out.” These errors are uncommon now because Mayrhofer and his experienced team have put in years of practice and play. “There are certainly challenges but they are a lot more predictable — and we can accurately estimate the probable outcome — like a 20 per cent chance of catastrophic failure and a five per cent chance that it’s going to come up absolutely flawless,” he says with a laugh. “We know more as to what the results are going to be —12 years ago it was just shooting from the hip.” Casting with Ductal has also changed his ideas of what is possible with concrete. Over the years, Szolyd has made a transition from residential to commercial projects — and is now transitioning from projects to products.
5
restoration of the stoa column bases at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. 5 Casting techniques are reminiscent of Venetian plaster and traditional ceramic processes and allow for a variety of textures and finishes. 6 For the staircase at the design firm Perkins+ Will, the treads/risers were cast as thin as possible to showcase the sleek profile possible with Ductal.
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IN CONVERSATION GRAHAM TRUAX OF INNOVATION ISLAND
THE STARTUP WHISPERER BY ANDREW FINDLAY
PHOTO BY JEFFREY BOSDET
There’s lots of hype around tech these days, but for Graham Truax of Innovation Island — a self-described optimistic pragmatist — the mid-Island tech scene is about staying real on the road to success. It’s an approach that’s getting results.
G
raham Truax has the energy and enthusiasm you’d expect from someone who has built a career in the tech sector and made more than one pitch to a skeptical angel or venture capitalist. However, though he exudes a certain hyperactivity necessary to take an idea along the tortuous journey from concept to commercialization, hype makes Truax cringe. In some ways, it’s a surprising quality for someone who is executive director of Innovation Island, the non-profit tech incubator that serves Vancouver Island, north of the Malahat, and the Sunshine Coast, and belongs to the BC Acceleration Network, a group of 10 regional partners across the province. You’d think that job number one for Truax would be hyping the virtues of launching a tech company in his jurisdiction, where real estate is relatively affordable, and you can step out your back door and jump on a bike, hike a riverside trail or stroll down to the docks to launch your sailboat for an afternoon of cruising while you ponder your next funding raise. Well, the answer is yes and no, according to Truax. “I’m very excited about tech, but if I tried to tell people this is an easy place to do
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tech, I’d sound like an idiot,” says Truax with characteristic candor. Therein lies the blunt duality of Truax’s hard wiring. An idealistic belief that, in a global sense, tech has almost unlimited possibilities, coupled with a realism that launching a tech startup in his little corner of Shangri-La takes next-level dedication and perseverance. That said, Truax has good reason to be excited these days. In the past six years, Innovation Island has cultivated a diverse stable of tech businesses, including Qualicumbased virtual reality (VR) gaming company Cloudhead Games; Gibsons-based Hyperspectral Intelligence; and Duncan’s EIO Diagnostics, a 2019 Douglas 10-to-Watch winner, whose mastitis-screening technology is helping dairy farmers address a costly problem.
THE ETERNAL ENTREPRENEUR On a quiet Monday, I meet Truax at his favourite espresso joint in Comox, the seaside community he moved to from West Vancouver 11 years ago with dreams of semi-retirement and days of skiing, sailing, bike riding and tinkering with home renovation projects. But once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Truax is a college dropout who admits he
never had much time for formal education. He started working high-paying jobs in grade 10, following opportunities that he says he found “fun and rewarding.” About his own business achievements, he is as humble as he is brutally honest about the challenges of entrepreneurship. “I’m more of a grinder type and have done well with RBIs [runs batted in] over the longer haul,” says Truax, whose conversation is peppered with sporting metaphors. “I haven’t had any huge exits or bigger name projects, but I have done some interesting hired-gun work that has given me some amazing insights and connections.” The life of the semi-retired was giving Truax
itchy feet; he admits he was getting bored. Fast forward to 2013. He was literally on his way to Vancouver to hustle financing for a new startup when a sudden health crisis in the family left no room for the stress of a new tech venture. It was time for another reboot. Not long after decamping back to Comox to focus on family, he spotted an ad in the local newspaper: Nanaimo-based Innovation Island was looking for executives-in-residence. He joined in 2013, the year the organization started delivering Innovate BC’s Venture Acceleration Program (VAP). Being in the game of government program delivery didn’t sit comfortably with Truax, but he saw an opportunity to apply his entrepreneurial mindset to helping local startups succeed. “I viewed it as a way to give something back,” Truax says. “And when I thought about being an executive-in-
“The tech world is filled with people who are trying to force their importance onto you, but Graham has never acted like that type of person. This makes it very easy for me to work with him.” — MICHELLE TAPPERT, CEO, HYPERSPECTRAL INTELLIGENCE
residence, I took it literally. Being an executive in the residence of a client company.” Five years later, when then-executive-director Paris Gaudet resigned from her position, Truax assumed the dual roles of interim executive director and executive-inresidence.
NO BLUFFING In a world full of ec-dev bluster and quite often bluff, Truax brings a breath of honest fresh air. Everyone is talking tech these days, Truax says. City councils and economic development officials often throw around the term “tech hub” as loosely as they would the announcement of a new dog walking park downtown. That’s why he’s fond of putting the tech economy into sharp perspective, like he did this past April when he DOUGLAS 19
addressed the Nanaimo City Council, calling the position of smaller communities in the industry “fledgling and precarious.” “While municipal leaders and decision makers would greatly prefer to have their respective communities become the next tech hub or ‘ecosystem,’ as a region we are arguably much stronger working together,” Truax said in his presentation on Innovation Island. And who can blame anyone from wanting a piece of the tech pie? Globally, tech is a three trillion dollar industry. In Canada, tech accounts for 120 billion dollars in economic activity, and B.C. enjoys a 26 billion dollar slice of that. Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna have fostered a critical mass of talent, capital, customers and great ideas that Truax says is necessary to create a tech ecosystem.
is Build, Grow and Stay. So where does that leave his humble region north of the Malahat and along the Sunshine Coast? Lifestyle and affordability are definite assets, and that counts for something, says Truax. It’s a big reason why Cloudhead Games’ co-founder Denny Unger has persevered and prospered in Qualicum. Despite being a small fish in a large pool of virtual-reality pioneers based in a town that is the definition of obscure in the global context of gaming innovation, Unger stays because the lifestyle and family pros outweigh the cons. But the challenges for Island and Sunshine Coast tech entrepreneurs are considerable. Truax calls the talent pool “nascent” (an inability to attract qualified employees is largely the reason Raphael van Lierop relocated
“I’m going to throw a big party when we hit $100 million at Innovation Island. We’re at $35 million now, so it’s not that far away.” — GRAHAM TRUAX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INNOVATION ISLAND
Even though these cities register prominently on a national scale, in the global tech industry, Truax says they’re in a crowded field. “There are 1,400 cities in the world with populations of 400,000 [roughly the population of Innovations Island’s region] or greater,” says Truax. “Guess what? They all want to be the next tech hub.”
CUTTING THROUGH THE NOISE Truax loves data. That’s why he was reluctant to start talking up Innovation Island successes until he could back it with some solid data. Now he’s ready to start tooting its horn, ever so gently. Through the Venture Acceleration Program, Innovation Island has helped its clients raise nearly $17 million in investments, generate more than $15 million in revenues and create 160 new tech jobs. Truax points out that these numbers refer only to Innovation Island’s small stable of startups and don’t reflect the overall tech scene in the region, which is considerably larger. (He is working with the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance to put together some accurate stats on the tech sector.) The boilerplate mantra at Innovation Island 20 DOUGLAS
his gaming design studio Hinterland from Cumberland to Vancouver). As for access to capital, Truax dubs it “severely limited” — shorthand for, it sucks. None of Innovation Island’s current clients have secured traditional venture capital yet. Instead, they have bootstrapped, tapped friends and families and landed investments from angels or strategic investors, whether it’s gaming, AI or another tech niche. In terms of market, well, it’s small here on the Island and on the Sunshine Coast. “My message to local politicians and city council is to focus on the things they can influence, like downtown homelessness, et cetera,” Truax says. By doing that they’ll extend their realm of influence into areas that matter to entrepreneurs, namely quality of life and a favourable business climate, he says, tearing a page from Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
TURNING HEADS The exciting thing about tech is that in spite of the hurdles, it can be random and happen
anywhere — and it is happening in Truax’s territory. Take Gibsons-based Hyperspectral Intelligence, one of Innovation Island’s startup darlings, as a prime example. Founded by husband-and-wife academics Michelle Tappert and Derek Rogge, the company’s technology is turning heads in the mineral exploration world, using cloud-based data-processing software to quickly and accurately analyze drill core samples. Hyperspectral is also expanding into other sectors, including medical pathology (analyzing biopsies) and materials analysis in many fields. But like any startup, the road has not been paved in gold — it’s taken hard work and sleep deprivation. Tappert says her local Community Futures office urged her to reach out to Innovation Island’s VAP to help kickstart the company. She concedes that Hyperspectral had stagnated during a difficult previous 18 months. She applied to VAP, and in January 2017, Hyperspectral was accepted. “I’m a recovering academic,” says Hyperspectral’s CEO Tappert, who holds a PhD. and two post docs in geological sciences. “VAP is teaching me to step outside of that world and to see things from a business perspective. It’s a tricky thing to balance because I will always be a scientist at heart.” She credits Truax for helping the rapidly growing company maintain its doubling of annual revenues year-over-year. When things are going well, Tappert says he pushes them to harness momentum and to do better, and when things are rough, he can “cut through the noise and help us refocus.” “When we talk business, we talk about business, in general, or my business. [Graham] has never cycled through a list of successful exits, for which I am eternally grateful,” Tappert says. “The tech world is filled with people who are trying to force their importance onto you, but Graham has never acted like that type of person. This makes it very easy for me to work with him. He also seems to understand very keenly that the reality of running a tech company is nothing like how it is portrayed in popular culture.”
BEYOND BS For entrepreneurs like Truax, helping to give a great idea the necessary light, nutrients and water it needs to blossom is eternally gratifying — even if the long hours and sustained stress of a startup almost kills the entrepreneur, he says with a laugh. “I’m going to throw a big party when we hit $100 million at Innovation Island,” Truax says. “We’re at $35 million now, so it’s not that far away. Where do good ideas come from? They come from the woodwork. Do they happen because of a bunch of bullshit? No.” That’s Truax at his unfiltered best. ■
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BIG IDEA ■ BY ALLAN CRAM ■ PHOTO BY JEFFREY BOSDET
THE FUTURE OF IS ELECTRIC Harbour Air is known as an environmental leader when it comes to carbon neutrality. Now, this worldclass seaplane airline is getting set to transform into an all-electric commercial fleet, a move with huge environmental and global implications.
I
magine a bright seaplane silently circling overhead as it lines up for a landing in the Victoria Harbour. It touches down on the rippling water with just a whoosh of its wings and the splash of water on its floats. There is no throaty engine noise, no high-pitched snarl resonating across the water and no exhaust fumes as it taxis to the dock. Just a whirring sound like a powerful fan. This is the future of air travel on the coast, thanks to a partnership announced in late March between Harbour Air Seaplanes of Richmond, B.C., and MagniX, a Seattle, WA, based company that develops electric motors for aviation. The world’s first commercial e-Plane will be the iconic DHC-2 Beaver, a six-passenger plane designed and built in Canada in 1948. The signature grumble of its powerful nine-cylinder radial engine, a sound that has resonated up and down the coast of British Columbia for seventy years, could well disappear. The irony of mounting the magni500, a 750 horsepower all-electric motor, into one of Canada’s most successful and historic aircraft is not lost on Harbour Air’s founder and CEO Greg McDougall. Honoured as an inductee into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame this past May, at the time of our interview in April, McDougall said he was itching to address in his acceptance speech the potential impact E-Planes will have on the industry. “I want to try and light that innovative fire,” he says. “This is something that needs to be Canadian and we need to own it … the genie is out of the bottle, and we want to be at the forefront of it. Canada has always been a huge part of developing innovation in aviation, and we’d really like to continue that legacy.” Indeed, the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada reports that in 2017 aerospace contributed nearly $25 billion in
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GDP and almost 190,000 jobs to the Canadian economy. The Canadian aerospace industry is also a leader in innovation and R&D investment, spending $1.7 billion in 2017. DISRUPTION INNOVATION “I’ve been fortunate in my position to go to conferences and listen to the world’s experts, and the drumbeat of disruptive technology is loud and clear,” says McDougall. “The technology is coming faster than we even know.” The concept of “disruption innovation” was introduced in the mid-90s by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, a seminal study of the disk drive industry. In a nutshell, Christensen describes a disruptive product as one that addresses a market that previously couldn’t be served — a new market disruption — or the innovation offers a simpler, cheaper or more convenient alternative to an existing product — a low-end disruption. Generally, an incumbent in the market finds it almost impossible to respond to a disruptive product and eventually disappears. Think of how digital cameras phased out the Eastman Kodak Company, or how Netflix pushed aside Blockbuster Video. Roei Ganzarski, CEO of MagniX, the manufacturer of the electric motors going into Harbour Air’s fleet, firmly believes this is “very much a disruptive innovation.” With an MBA from the University of Washington and as a graduate of Wharton’s Advanced Management Program, Ganzarski spent 13 years with FlightSafety Boeing, a joint venture between Boeing and Berkshire Hathaway’s FlightSafety International. He expected to be there no more than two years. “What intrigued me about aviation and aerospace, in general, is it’s a fascinating industry. All the elements that really drive me personally — growth, innovation, ingenuity and a global reach — exist in the aviation industry.” Changing the propulsion system from an internal combustion engine to all-electric zero-emission one is just the technical aspect of disruptive innovation, says Ganzarski. “The real disruption comes from reducing an aircraft’s operating cost per hour by 70 to 80 per cent. Suddenly the creation of new types of businesses become possible.” The traditional airline industry is a supply-based system, where the airline defines when and where they want to fly to be most profitable. To meet that goal, airlines are using larger and larger aircraft to move more people on each flight.
FLYING Harbour Air’s founder and CEO Greg McDougall at the company’s Victoria seaplane terminal.
“In the U.S., we have about 10,000 airports, but airlines only service about 600 of them because the airports are too small to accommodate larger aircraft,” Ganzarski says. “Having a 12- to 18-passenger electric plane could be quite profitable on a 100- or 150-mile flight between those smaller airports. This technology will change the way we look at the economy, the way we look at cargo deliveries, the way we define suburbs.” While many people are currently forced into long automobile commutes if they want the quality of life offered outside city cores, E-planes could change all of that. Instead of a two-and-a-half hour drive in to work every day, imagine commuting to the office in a whisper quiet, zero-emission aircraft, and landing in a nearby small airport with transit ready to whisk you to your office. It could change the way we live and even how far away from work we live. FROM OUTSET TO OFFSET Asked how the partnership with Harbour Air came about, Ganzarski admits it was “literally a match made in heaven.” “Harbour Air was the first airline to become 100-per-cent carbon neutral in 2007 through carbon offset payments, but they’ve always thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we just didn’t create carbon at all?’ But the technology didn’t exist at the time. We, on the other hand, had developed the technology and were looking for the right way to launch it. And what better way to do it than with a partner who shares the same forward-thinking outlook?” To say “forward-thinking” is ingrained in the corporate culture of Harbour Air is an understatement. McDougall always knew “that people are the key to everything,” and the move to become fully carbon neutral was a common vision amongst his employees. “When they brought forward the carbon neutral initiative and made a presentation to the executive, I said, ‘Well that makes perfect sense,’” says McDougall. That organic management style and environmental stewardship speaks volumes for Harbour Air’s success. While growing up, McDougall was “surrounded by people with an intellectual and business background,” and he believes some of that rubbed off. He had little business experience when he founded Harbour Air in 1982, after being laid off as a pilot the year before. Carefully building his charter company, he launched into a prolonged series of bold moves beginning in 1986, acquiring aircraft and competitors with lucrative passenger routes, and emerged three decades later with his current fleet of 50 seaplanes flying more than 500,000 passengers on 30,000 flights each year. One would think a clear management vision drove this constant growth, but McDougall 24 DOUGLAS
admits he didn’t have that vision at the outset. “When you start down the path that makes sense, there are things you just have to do, because if you don’t, someone else will.” Carbon offset schemes were initially mired in controversy, and he says he was lucky enough to find Offsetters,“a very established and wellsupported company in terms of the science behind carbon neutrality.” Founded in 2005 by Dr. James Tansey, a professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business, Offsetters provides companies with sophisticated advisory services related to their environmental impacts and offers ways to reduce and offset those impacts through high-quality greenhouse gas reduction projects. “We had him to lean on to justify the math and how it all worked,” McDougall adds. “And it’s something we’ve been very proud of.”
Operating 12 routes, Harbour Air serves more than 500,000 passengers on 30,000 commercial flights each year. Since 2007, the airline has offset more than 135,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to getting 28,900 cars off the road.
HARBOUR AIR C02e EMISSIONS PER PASSENGER FLIGHT IN 2014 Chatterbox Falls (Seasonal)
Whistler (Seasonal)
Vancouver to Whistler 39.8 kgCO2e Victoria to Whistler 81.9 kgCO2e Sechelt to Vancouver 21.8 kgCO2e Victoria to Pitt Meadows 42.9 kgCO2e
Earls Cove (Seasonal)
Vancouver to Comox 57.7 kgCO2e
Comox
Nanaimo to Sechelt 14.8 kgCO2e Nanaimo to Vancouver 26.5 kgCO2e
Sechelt
Vancouver to Victoria 41.3 kgCO2e
Vancouver
Nanaimo
Pitt Meadows
South Vancouver (YVR)
VANCOUVER ISLAND Ganges, Salt Spring Island Maple Bay Pender Island
Victoria
A map at the Victoria Harbour Terminal shows the level of carbon dioxide emissions (tCO2e) for each Harbour Air route. Since October 2007, the airline has offset more than 135,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to getting 28,900 cars off the road. Harbour Air also has a one-acre green roof on the world’s first floating airline terminal
building, which opened in Victoria in 2016. The next year they added 50 solar panels, as well as four large beehives to the green roof to house 10,000 honeybees, a colony expected to grow to more than 200,000 pollinators. And these were suggestions brought forth by the more than 400 employees who now work at Harbour Air.
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MAKING IT HAPPEN Both McDougall and Ganzarski agree that the greatest challenge to the E-Plane’s success is battery technology. Weight, power and charging cycles are all critical factors. Harbour Air’s scheduled flights are all generally between 15 and 25 minutes, and with the current battery technology and electric propulsion, that can be achieved, Ganzarski says. “Right now for a 30-minute flight, the charging time is 20 to 30 minutes, and that’s advancing rapidly.” The holy grail of battery power is the watthours per kilogram ratio, says McDougall. While there are larger batteries available, “for our prototype, we want to use the more tried and true battery technology in the 200 watt-hrs/kg range, which would give us about a 30-minute flight with 30 minutes reserve in the Beaver, perfectly acceptable to do all our testing and [fits]regulatory requirements.” That certification process to meet the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and Transport Canada requirements will take approximately two years. “Battery technology is forecast to improve 50 per cent or more from where we are now in those two years, and that’s without any breakthrough technology,” McDougall adds. Within Canada alone, in 2018 the Sustainable Development Technology Fund invested $3.6 billion in cleantech innovations, with $86 million going to 28 different battery-related technologies. MagniX and Harbour Air are working with companies developing traditional lithium-ion batteries, as well as new types such as aluminum and sulphur-based, solid-state and lithium-oxygen batteries. And new discoveries are announced regularly. Incumbent industries that manufacture traditional engines could be the next Kodak. Expensive turbine engines in the seaplane fleet will be replaced incrementally with a simple electric motor — one anticipated to have a 10,000-hour service life before any substantial maintenance is required. In comparison, over that same service life, Harbour Air could spend more than a million dollars in rebuild costs for a gas-guzzling turbine engine that requires overhaul every 2,500 to 3,000 hours, let alone ongoing maintenance. It will take years to convert the entire fleet of larger Otter and Twin Otter seaplanes to electric power, but later this year the prototype electric Beaver may quietly slip in and out of the Victoria Harbour as part of its testing, and, in all likelihood, no one will even hear it. “The company is super excited to embark on this project,” McDougall says. “Everything about it is positive. It’s everything the company is about in terms of being innovative and environmentally responsible, with an economic component that we hope will benefit our passengers in the future. It’s not a pipe dream — it’s reality.” ■
SMALL BUSINESS The Secret Sauce of Downtown Victoria
At the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA), we know that small business is the secret sauce of downtown and our regional economy. We celebrate the tireless efforts of small businesses owners, entrepreneurs, and their employees in creating the rich cultural, economic, and social backbone of Victoria.
Meet Teri Hustins of Oscar & Libby’s and Kaboodles Toystore
With three stores (Oscar & Libby’s and Kaboodles Toystore) and close to 30 years retailing in Downtown Victoria, Teri sits on the DVBA board as the retail representative. In 2005, the first Oscar & Libby’s opened on Fort Street, followed by a second location in Market Square in 2008. Early this year, Teri assumed the ownership of Kaboodles Toystore on Government Street. Teri is also an active volunteer and board member of the 9-10 Soup Kitchen.
Meet Brad Holmes and Sahara Tamarin of OLO Restaurant
YOUR PLACE TO BE A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER The DVBA represents almost 1,500 distinct businesses within our downtown core. Our recently released First Annual Report on Downtown provides a snapshot of the trends that shape downtown Victoria, and here are some of the results:
Vancouver Island born, award-winning chef Brad Holmes, and his partner in both life and work, Sahara Tamarin, opened Ulla Restaurant in Victoria in 2010, to great acclaim. Five years later, they opened OLO Restaurant, a redesigned dining experience that focuses on showcasing the terroir of Vancouver Island. A huge fan of freshly foraged wild foods, Brad is a member of the Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance, a prestigious international foundation for biodiversity.
of our members rated downtown Victoria with a B grade or better
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63%
of our members state their business was the same or better in the last year
4.1%
Our near record low retail vacancy rate
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D O W N TO W N V I C TO R I A . C A
BRING ON Darcy’s Pub and its second floor neighbour, night club and live-music venue Upstairs Cabaret, overlook the Inner Harbour. The Frontier Group owns both of the popular downtown spots.
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THE NIGHT FROM AN URBAN SALOON TO A LIVE MUSIC CABARET TO A PAIR OF LIVELY PUBS, THE FRONTIER GROUP HAS TAPPED INTO THE CITY’S APPETITE FOR NIGHTLIFE. BY SUSAN HOLLIS
PHOTO BY JO-ANN LORO
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musician, a cowboy and a chef walk into a bar … This kind of joke might easily get a laugh at any of the businesses run by Victoria’s Frontier Group, which owns Upstairs Cabaret, The Duke Saloon and two locations of Darcy’s Pub in both downtown Victoria and in Langford. Then there’s Frontier Food, the company’s full-service catering branch. For the past decade, the Frontier Group has made its mark entertaining and feeding people in Greater Victoria, backed by an investment group of three owners — Mark Hawes, Ron Hampton and Rene Spielmann — who acquired their original businesses, Darcy’s and Upstairs Cabaret, both located downtown, in 2009. That Hampton, a chartered accountant, had been the lead accountant for the previous ownership group made leaping into the unknown palatable to the investors. “My accounting firm was in charge of both Darcy’s and Upstairs Cabaret, so we’d seen the financial statements, plus the general manager of the day was going to stay involved in the company, so we were going to carry on with the existing staff in all locations, which kept things simple,” says Hampton. He and Hawes, who are childhood friends, had long known of Darcy’s, a street-level pub on Wharf Street. Overlooking the city’s picturesque harbour, Darcy’s features live music seven nights a week. Its sister club, Upstairs Cabaret, located just above and behind Darcy’s in Bastion Square, also has deep roots in the city’s entertainment scene. Many locals frequented it as Harpo’s. “Both Ron and I have been Victorians for our whole lives and had been privy to the entertainment downtown from the outside. We knew these establishments well,” says Hawes, who also owns the development company Westport Holdings Inc “Darcy’s is a landmark destination [and] it’s well-known, so it was a coup for us to take ownership of two hallmark establishments.” The Frontier Group purchased Darcy’s and Upstairs Cabaret with the existing staff and management in place. Today, they still rely heavily on a stable of managers, chefs, frontand-back-of-house employees and security personnel who are essential to maintaining the vibe of each place. Part-time staff are floated between venues to help them achieve optimal hours, and an emphasis on quality hires and company culture keeps staff turnover low.
MANAGING THE WILD CARDS Freddy Mazereeuw, who has worked for the Frontier Group for five and a half years, started out in the entertainment industry 14 years ago while attending Camosun College. Having
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34 DOUGLAS
worked as a busser, barback, bartender, food and beverage manager and general manager, Mazereeuw has paid his industry dues and has absorbed all aspects of how these businesses are run. It’s made him well qualified for his current position as operations manager for the group’s three downtown destinations. It’s a busy position, with a nine-to-five obligation to coordinate behind the scenes, plus being on-site for busy weekend evenings. Still, Mazereeuw says it’s a world he loves and is energized by. “Those of us who work here — we love the music and we love the work. When people have a really good time in your venue, it makes you want to keep on giving them those experiences,” he says of his job. Because humans by nature are fickle at the best of times, and because the entertainment world can be fraught with big personalities, Mazereeuw says there’s always a wild card factor at play in the industry, which keeps things exciting. “You never know what you’re going to get,” he says. “You might have a great show planned. Everything looks amazing, and your ticket sales are really good, but anything can happen that will change your whole night and you have to respond to it quickly.” Mazereeuw and the rest of the downtown team, including Darcy’s downtown general manager Pat Donovan and Duke Saloon general manager Chris Aldridge, work closely with the Frontier Group’s security team, led by director of security and risk management Brian Bassendowski. A close working relationship with the VicPD and the liquor board means the venues, despite attracting waves of undergraduates experiencing life as “adults” for the first time, are carefully monitored to prevent alcohol-related high jinks. The atmosphere may also have something to do with the wide demographic of patrons. On any given night, pub-and-club goers between the ages of 19 and 55 can be found at the Frontier Group’s venues, a balance that ups the maturity of the rooms and keeps bad behaviour in check.
SOT H EBYSRE ALT Y.CA
By 2014, both Darcy’s and Upstairs Cabaret were running smoothly. The Frontier Group was ready to expand. So when a space on Discovery Street, on the edge of downtown, came up for lease, the group jumped at the opportunity to acquire it and to breathe new life into the warehouse district. Drawing on the success of a regular country and western night held at Upstairs Cabaret over the years, the Frontier Group decided to give Victoria something it lacked — a real country bar. The idea for The Duke Saloon was born, and the building was renovated under the
careful eye of local design firm Bidgood + Co. The Duke opened later in 2014. “There wasn’t a sector for country music at all [in Victoria],” says Mazereeuw, “so we told ourselves if we could find a venue that suits that style we would give it a try. We’ve had really nice success with that.” Today, The Duke is popular with Islanders and those from beyond our shores. “We actually have a lot of people who come up to The Duke from Washington State,” says Mazereeuw. Hawes notes that The Duke has seen steady growth since it opened its doors five years ago. The saloon is often booked for private events when not hosting its regular bar nights. Freddie Mazereeuw, operations manager for the Frontier Group, and Courtney Campbell general manager of Darcy’s Pub West Shore, at the downtown location of Darcy’s Pub.
The same year The Duke opened, the Frontier Group decided to cast its net beyond Victoria proper. It took over the former Station House in Langford, creating Darcy’s Westshore. The experience was not without its highs and lows as the Frontier Group navigated the Langford community to find the right blend of entertainment, beer and food for the Westshore demographic. Darcy’s Westshore still offers live music and is one of the only venues in the area to give local musicians a chance to perform onstage, but it differs in vibe and personality from the downtown location. “When we went to the Westshore, I think we thought we were going to put Darcy’s Pub over the door, and it would be a success story like downtown,” says Hampton.
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“We did have to work with the community to understand them and to understand our patrons in the Westshore and earn our stripes, as it were.” Because Darcy’s Westshore boasts a large, professional kitchen and Frontier Group already had a number of excellent chefs on its payroll, it decided it was only natural to expand its food offerings. It created the catering company Frontier Food, which opened last year. Led by chef Brett Hinkelman, who trained at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, Frontier Food’s menu is flexible and diverse, designed for everything from baby showers, to weddings, to business events. “Catering is a profitable venture,” says Hawes, “and we’ve got the people, and we’ve got the facilities. So it’s just a natural fit for us.” In a similar vein of capitalizing on their assets, the Frontier Group also owns a number of ATM machines, which are located at all of their venues, as well as at various golf clubs and storefronts around Vancouver Island. “We have two staffs dedicated to running and maintaining the machines,” says Hampton. “We realized the profitability of [doing this] and the opportunity to grow. It’s been successful.”
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The success of a business can be measured in various ways, usually with dollars and cents. But another measure is to ask competitors what they think of the operations. Jeremy Petzing is the long-time owner of The Local, a pub located adjacent to Darcy’s on Wharf Street. On any given sunny afternoon, the patios of both businesses are packed, not only sharing patrons, but goodwill and even ketchup on occasion. “The staffs at Upstairs, Darcy’s Downtown and The Duke are incredible, hard working and great,” says Petzing. “They come to our place, we go to theirs. I think that’s the way for a lot of places in town … If they are in trouble and need something, we help them out. And if we’re in trouble and have run out of something, they help us out.” Running nightclubs and pubs is an ongoing job, but Hawes and Hampton say they like to turn off their work brains once a month to experience a night out the way any bar patron might. “It’s very enjoyable,” says Hawes. “We aren’t working when we are out — we’re just talking to staff, customers and our general managers, and we usually hit every venue on the same night. “Ron and I are really good friends,” he adds, “and even after all of these years in business, we’ve never had a major disagreement. I really enjoy the partnership and the level of working relationship that we have — we click on all fronts. It’s something I’m really proud of.” ■
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Sh owc as i n g a var i e ty of ve h i cl e s a n d mo to rcycl e s , i n cl u d i n g a beau tif u l d i sp l ay of u n i q u e a n d ra re l y s e e n co n co u rs a u to mo b i l e s for a l l m otorc a r e n t h u s i a st s to e n j oy.
In Support Of
i s l andconco u r s d e leg a n ce
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BC FERRIES
WHAT’S ON THE RADAR? 38 DOUGLAS
As it gets ready to build new ferries to replace four of its existing vessels, BC Ferries looks at how to balance the transportation needs of today with the realities of tomorrow. Douglas explores the challenges and possibilities facing B.C.’s big ticket ferry service. BY KEITH NORBURY
HEATH MOFFAT
BC Ferries’ Northern Expedition being serviced at the Seaspan drydock in North Vancouver. During the past decade, BC Ferries says it has spent more than $1 billion at B.C. shipyards.
DOUGLAS 39
Picture this: You hail a driverless car and zip out to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal. Arriving with plenty of time to spare, you have time for a haircut at the terminal before boarding the ferry — a gleaming new vessel powered by either liquefied natural gas (LNG) or banks of batteries. You enjoy the scenery as the ferry zips through Active Pass. At Tsawwassen, another driverless car transports you to a concert. After the show, you zip back home on an overnight ferry. No need to bunk on the Mainland anymore. That futuristic scenario emerges from a pair of recent conversations with BC Ferries president and CEO Mark Collins, who took the helm in 2017 after 11 years in vice president roles. “It’s really interesting to speculate about that future,” says Collins, whose career in the marine sector stretches back over 35 years. “So how do we build our ships today to deal with the reality of today yet not be obsolete for the reality of tomorrow?” By 2025, BC Ferries plans to replace four of its aging major ferries with four or five brand new ships similar to the Coastal class vessels it added to the fleet a decade ago. In addition to retiring the queens of Alberni, New Westminster, Coquitlam, and Cowichan,
BC Ferries is planning two or three replacements for the Queen of Oak Bay and the Queen of Surrey to enter service in 2030 and 2031. “We’re designing transportation that will serve British Columbia for the middle half of the 21st century,” Collins says. “And we’re not going to do that with last century’s ferries.” A ferry typically lasts 50 years. So expect the new ships to sail until 2075. Built in 1964, the Queen of New Westminster will be pushing 60 when it retires in 2024.
includes about $1.5 billion for seven huge new ferries. Another $1.1 billion will be for terminals, mostly improvements to major terminals like Swartz Bay. BC Ferries also plans upgrades to its smaller terminals that provide lifelines for the Gulf Islands. That includes standardizing their berths to handle vessels of up to Salish class size, which can carry 238 cars. Standardization will also apply to the ships themselves, with BC Ferries reducing the number of vessel classes from 17 to five. “BC Ferries is very, very astute in recognizing that we’re not at a point where you can clearly say that the traffic is going to go X or Y,” says Victoria transportation analyst Darryl Anderson, managing partner of Wave Point Consulting. “But what they’re really thinking about are the vessels and terminals and how we build flexibility.” While Anderson praises BC Ferries for asking the right questions, one important group he says it isn’t connecting with is tourists. “I think everyone recognizes that the major routes do carry the lion’s share of tourists,” Anderson says. What if cost burdens force BC Ferries to hike fares? he wonders. “If anything, we’ve learned over the last decade that the consumer is quite sensitive when it comes to discretionary travel.”
FUTURE PROOFING It’s hard to predict what transportation will look like in five decades. Vehicle electrification, ride-sharing, improvements in mass transit, autonomous vehicles, increases in freight traffic — and a trend toward young people not driving at all — threaten massive obsolescence. No wonder Collins talks about “future proofing” the system by building flexibility into the design of new ferries, as well as reconfiguring the ferry terminals. Over the next 12 years, BC Ferries will spend $3.9 billion on new ferries and upgrades to ferries and terminals, according to a capital plan that the BC Ferry Commission approved in late 2018. Expenditures on ships will consume about 70 per cent of that sum, Collins says. That
BC Ferries Vessel Retirement Schedule 2017
2020
2021
2027
Queen of New Westminster
Bowen Queen
Queen of Burnaby
2023
Quinitsa Kwuna
North Island Princess Queen of Alberni Queen of Nanaimo Powell River Queen Queen of Coquitlam Howe Sound Queen
Nimpkish
Mayne Queen Queen of Cowichan
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BC Ferries has, however, engaged in public consultation with locals on its plans for terminals and with the maritime industry on its ship-building plans. For example, it has partnered with the Association of British Columbia Maritime Industries (ABCMI) on three forums, including one held May 14 on building ferries in B.C. Attendees included ship builders, labour representatives, ship designers, classification societies, marine suppliers, law firms, financial specialists and other marine service stakeholders. “BC Ferries ties into every one of the six subsectors we represent,� says Alex Rueben, ABCMI executive director, who joined the association in January 2018 shortly after it got going. FUTURE OF FREIGHT AND WI-FI In formulating its capital plans, the ferry corporation has even taken into account the freight part of its business,
A ferry typically lasts 50 years. So expect the new ships to sail until 2075. Built in 1964, the Queen of New Westminster will be pushing 60 when it retires in 2024. 2029
2031
Queen of Oak Bay
Klitsa
Queen of Surrey
Quinsam Quadra Queen II
Tachek DOUGLAS 41
including a drop trailer service that it initiated about a decade ago. That didn’t happen without controversy. Seaspan Coastal Intermodal Co. argued that BC Ferries’ service represented unfair competition because the ferry corporation receives government subsidies. The BC Ferries Commissioner ruled in favour of BC Ferries, a decision the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld in 2013. BC Ferries is looking to expand that drop trailer service despite facing space constraints. One way to address that is with more frequent ferry sailings. Another is to reconfigure the terminals to handle more freight and fewer cars. “And then, of course, there’s always the overnight hours. There’s no reason why we can’t operate overnight,” Collins says. However, Anderson cautions that if BC Ferries runs overnight sailings primarily for commercial vehicles, it could again run into criticism that it is subsidizing that service. Foot passengers at Swartz Bay already encounter frequent overcrowding. To alleviate that, Collins envisions merging the services for foot and vehicle travellers into a single concourse. Parking for foot passengers is also tight at Swartz Bay, particularly on holiday weekends. Proposals for Swartz Bay include replacing the Lands End Café building, first built in 1959 and last renovated in 2005, as well as creating a seaside boardwalk and more retail choices, even personal services like hairstyling. Collins also expects the terminals of the future to have much improved Wi-Fi. The tradeoff, though, might be no more Wi-Fi on the ferries themselves. The on-board service is the subject of frequent complaints for its slowness. “So no decision has been taken,” Collins says. “But as long as it can’t be fixed, we may as well turn it off because it’s just irritating.” WHERE TO BUILD A major sore point is the question of where to build the ferries. During the early years of BC Ferries, most of its new ships were made in B.C., including at shipyards in Victoria. That changed after the $450 million fast ferry fiasco of the 1990s, a scandal which likely contributed to the NDP government of the day losing the 2001 provincial election in a landslide. In 2003, the new Liberal government turned BC Ferries into an independent arm’s-length company after it had operated as a Crown corporation for about 20 years. After returning to power in 2017, the NDP commissioned a comprehensive operating review of B.C.’s coastal ferry services to ensure the services are operating “in the public interest.” Advisor Blair Redlin submitted his report to Claire Trevena, minister of transportation and infrastructure, in June 2018. The government released the report this past February. Among Redlin’s recommendations are that 42 DOUGLAS
“We’re designing transportation that will serve British Columbia for the middle half of the 21st century. And we’re not going to do that with last century’s ferries.” — MARK COLLINS, BC FERRIES PRESIDENT AND CEO
the government “should assess the potential costs and benefits to the B.C. economy each time BC Ferries builds or retrofits a vessel overseas” and make that information available to the public. Since it became an independent company, BC Ferries has built only two of 11 new vessels in B.C., Redlin notes. Most notably, the three big Coastal class ships were built in Germany, at a combined cost of $542 million. It raises the question of whether or not the new NDP government would use its legislative clout to require BC Ferries to build its new ships in B.C. So far it doesn’t look that way. A spokesperson for Minister Trevena ducked
that question and related ones, such as whether the government would convert BC Ferries back to a Crown corporation or require union labour on BC Ferries’ capital projects. As an independent company, “B.C. Ferries now makes its own operational decisions in its day-to-day decision-making, including matters relating to capital investments such as where vessels are built and how they are procured,” the spokesperson said. While Redlin’s report identifies areas for improvement, it observes that “BC Ferries is on the whole a well-run company.” Redlin also points out that BC Ferries is the largest ferry system in North America and the third largest in the world. In fiscal 2018, the system carried 22 million passengers and 8.7 million vehicles, according to BC Ferries’ most recent annual report. Looking toward the future, it’s not clear where the new major ferries will be built, but “it’ll be an international procurement process,” Collins says. That’s to ensure the best value for British Columbians. BC Ferries uses a triple bottom line, or “balanced scorecard approach,” to determine the best life cycle value, he says. SERVICE IS MORE IMPORTANT Anderson says the bigger prize isn’t where the new ferries are built, but where they are serviced and maintained over their decades-long life spans. “BC Ferries is very cognizant of the fact that if you don’t have an integrated supply chain and the capacity in our local market to service and do other things with the ships, then you’re not going to have a long-lived asset,” Anderson says. “And ferries are very long-lived assets.” Phil Venoit, president of the B.C. Building Construction Trades Council, says the province should require BC Ferries to build the ships in B.C. and hire local workers. Straight out of Dunsmuir High School in Colwood, Venoit went to work at the old Yarrows shipyard in Esquimalt. “The first job I was on was the Queen of Oak Bay,” says Venoit, who in January ended a 17-year stint as vice president of the Metal Trades Council of Vancouver Island, whose members include shipyard workers. Yarrows is long gone and no shipyards
remain in B.C. to build a ferry of that size, Venoit says. “But there’s no reason why the smaller ferries can’t be built here.” He notes that Victoria’s Point Hope shipyard plans a $50 million graving dock capable of building intermediate class ferries. Should the B.C. government commit to building one new ferry every year, that would offer an incentive for a shipyard to invest in the necessary infrastructure, Venoit says. The ABCMI’s Rueben recognizes that construction in B.C. boosts the economy and produces “substantial” spinoffs. However, relying on BC Ferries to promote shipbuilding in B.C. “is the wrong mechanism,” he wrote in a recent memo. It has been tried four times since the 1960s “and each time the industry has downscaled after the build programs wound up.” Instead Rueben calls upon the provincial and federal governments to support shipbuilding “as a matter of strategic national policy” that goes beyond the federal government’s current National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS). Curiously enough, Seaspan’s main build yard in North Vancouver is already booked solid for the next several years building ships under the NSS for the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy. As Redlin points out, Romania and Poland, where new Salish ferries were built and where the Spirit ships are being retrofitted, are “lower wage jurisdictions.” Average hourly labour costs in 2017 were 9.4 euros in Poland and 6.3 euros in Romania, compared with the European Union average of 26.8 euros. (Venoit, though, argues that a bigger disadvantage is that North America no longer subsidizes steel production, unlike Germany and South Korea.) “Don’t get me wrong,” Collins says. “I would love nothing more than to see these ships built down the road. Nothing could be easier for us. However, that comes at a premium cost. And who pays that premium?” His answer: ferry users. TOWARD ELECTRIFICATION BC Ferries employs a design-build process that gives shipyards the freedom to design whatever they choose “provided it meets what we call our functional requirements,” Collins explains. Those requirements — which include speed, passenger and car capacity and types of on-board amenities — drive shipyards to design “a certain type of ship.” For major vessels, those ships look like the Coastal class vessels. The three German-built Coastal class ships are each 160 metres long, can carry 310 cars and 1,604 passengers and crew and have a maximum speed of 24 knots. (The two Spirit ships are actually slightly larger, but have a
maximum speed of 19.5 knots.) The new ships will likely be fueled by liquified natural gas, Collins says. In the last five years, BC Ferries has invested more than $300 million in LNG-fuelled ferries, including Salish class ships and Spirit class LNG conversions. “It’s a great step between diesel and full electrification,” says Collins, noting that full-electrification of the fleet isn’t yet possible with the current technology. “BC Ferries is unfairly portrayed as being reluctant on electric. But nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve been operating electric ferries since 1991,” Collins says. By that
he means that onboard generators provide the propulsion. For the larger vessels, diesel powers the generators, whereas for certain smaller ones, it is LNG. “What we won’t do is we won’t experiment on the lifelines to the communities that we serve,” Collins says. Nevertheless, BC Ferries expects to design ferries that can be powered by LNG initially and then convert to batteries when that technology matures. Says Collins, “We’re planning for a future where the footprint of the ferry on the face of the planet is as light as it can be.” ■
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he Arbutus Room at Brentwood Bay Resort is alive and evolving into something truly special. This is accomplished thanks to the creative leadership of the triple threat Culinary team, or, Fred and the Jets, who have taken on a refreshing, unapologetic and rule-bending approach to fine dining. The seasonal and local ingredients that fuel our dining room allow us to have a small, thoughtful, continually changing, and living menu. A menu that never rests requires a kitchen team with the same attitude. Meet Executive Chef Fred Bjarnason, Chef de Cuisine Jason Bivall, and Sous Chef James Pratap. We follow a strict philosophy: our dishes must create a completely unique experience of sight, taste, and excitement, or they are simply not worth making. We aren’t here to make you dinner, we are here to give you an experience that is truly exclusive to where you are. The concept for this menu is simple: sourcing ingredients from local farmers, and carrying not only high-quality produce, but strains of fruits and vegetables that many
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he year is 2013 and Morgan Jones is lonely. The Victoria girl was working in downtown corporate Calgary, making good money and working long hours. “It seemed really glamorous. The parties, the nice suits and high-powered board meetings,” remembers Jones, 30. “It was perfect on paper, but far from it in real life. I was missing the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself.” Instead of becoming complacent with the feeling of disconnection, Jones moved. Literally. She traded her suits for spandex and jumped into the fitness world, full-time. “I started teaching spin classes, and it reminded me of growing up and playing sports. Being on a team always gave me a sense of purpose,” says Jones. When she moved back home to Victoria, BC, she knew At Annex, you’ll also find over 1,000 square feet of functional that she wanted to bring that sense of purpose and connection fitness space fully equipped with all the strength equipment to the fitness scene. you’ll need for a full-body workout. Left tomy right: Fred Bjarnason, Bivall, Pratap “Then, now-husband andJason I made theJames decision to come “I wanted to have something for everyone,” says Jones. home,” says Jones. “Victoria is home. This is where we wanted to “Whether you love the cardio of spin, the slow burn of barre build our family and also or the major sweat in a bootcamp-style strength class, we want Chef de Cuisine Jason Bivall Sous Chef James Pratap Executive Chef Fred Bjarnason is the he Arbutus Room at Brentwood our dream, Annex.” to find it with is all us.” about wild ideas that is one of the youngest teacher of his kitchen. With ayou hands-on Bay Resort is alive and evolving bring truly unique experiences Chefs on the island. it’s easy to see that his Annex approach, is a 6,000-sqIt’sheart more than getting people to ditch theSous numerous into something truly special. This to his guests. formerpeople east- have Heto made break in the on the cooking line. As aboutique former memberships ft wellnesslays campus in soAmany gethis a wellcoaster, Jason is blown away culinary world working teacher and seasoned chef, Fred offers is accomplished thanks to the creative the heart his of Downtown rounded regime. For Jones, it comes back to community. by the wealth of produce for a plurality of high-end youthful culinary team an incredible leadership of the triple threat Culinary we don’t are privileged to built-in have on socialrestaurants in town, learning wealth of knowledge in ingredients andlike we Victoria. 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A menu that never rests requires ait will draw people in for definition means to connect a part to the whole. kitchen team with the same attitude. a different reason ... or “Our programming is designed to make you sweat and get Meet Executive Chef Fred Bjarnason, Chef twosays of our most“But dedicated have lost touch with. Good, locallookingfor three. the fresh, resultsand you’re for,” Jones. we alsoteam want de Cuisine Jason Bivall, and Sous Chef members per year. Coaching, produce are what inspireyou our to dishes - never feel like you’re part of something. You belong.”mentorship, James Pratap. andthis teaching are integral toinour overall the other way around. WhatAnnex resultsopens is an their doors Three workouts. upcoming fall. 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The concept for this providing There istoalso a barrea teaching culture within our feel you’re part ofmenu is simple: sourcing ingredients from local farmers, and kitchen, focusing studio to get your length on improving the technical something. You belong.” and lift on.and Butleadership wait, carrying not only high-quality produce, but skills of our entire team. We 849 Verdier Ave, Victoria @annexvictoria annexvictoria.com strainsfounder, of fruitsMorgan and vegetables that manythere’s more. make this easier by providing scholarships — Annex Jones 250.544.2079 | brentwoodbayresort.com
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AADDVVEERRTTOORRI IAALL FFEEAATTUURREE
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THE ARBUTUS AT BRENTWOOD BAY RESORT A UNIQUE ANNEX FITNESS ROOM TAKING BOUTIQUE FITNESS TO THE NEXT LEVELDINING EXPERIENCE
WHAT’S NEXT
The NEXT Gallery, a new extension of the AGGV, will include a sculpture garden, new café, expanded gift shop, and community auditorium and gathering space. And much more room to display many of the pieces currently in storage. Currently, only four per cent of the AGGV’s collection can be displayed at any given time due to lack of space. “The new wing,” says AGGV Director Jon Tupper, “...will repurpose a lot of the old building and put an additional floor on top, so that will increase our available exhibition space by about 30 per cent, and the addition of an auditorium means public program space will increase by 25 per cent.” More space means more room to welcome people, which means The NEXT Gallery will have an even greater impact on the cultural landscape of Victoria by expanding the forms of art presented there to include film screenings, music and
HCMA ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN
A
r t is always changing, morphing into new movements and transforming our perceptions of our inner and outer worlds. To meet those changes, the buildings that are home to the world’s art collections must grow and evolve as well, and that’s exactly what is happening at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) as plans take shape for The NEXT Gallery. The AGGV first opened in 1951 in the Spencer Mansion (circa 1889), a fantastic heritage home in the historic neighbourhood of Rockland. Before long, the collection had outgrown its space; so seven new modern galleries were added, attached to the mansion, the last in 1978. Forty years later, the AGGV is bursting at the seams once again with over 22,000 works of art, making it the largest public art collection in B.C. INGRID MARY PERCY
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ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA ADD ART TO YOUR LIFE
The NEXT Gallery project is "the largest capital campaign of any cultural institution in this region’s history.” — AGGV Director Jon Tupper dance performances, lectures and more. During the design phase of The NEXT Gallery, accessibility was top of mind. A new elevator will bring people to the second floor, the space will have wider doorways, and access to the Asian Garden outside will be improved. Seismic upgrades and building systems for optimum environmental performance (LEED Gold Equivalency & BC’s Wood First Initiative) will also be applied. The property is now home to about 40 Garry oak trees, and while one may have to be removed during the building process, there are plans to add 10 or more Garry oaks. Part of what makes The NEXT Gallery project unique is that, according to Tupper, it’s “...the largest capital campaign of any cultural institution in this region’s history.” The project will require about $30 million to complete; the provincial government has contributed $6 million, and the AGGV is waiting to hear from the federal government regarding their contribution,
A D V E RT O R I A L F E AT U R E
while the remaining third will come from corporate and private donations. Happily, the AGGV has already raised over $8 million itself, so, as Tupper says, “...we’re well on our way to finishing that off.” The AGGV hopes to begin construction in January of 2020. If that happens, Victorians can expect to enjoy the new space in late 2021 or early 2022. And with 16 to 20 exhibitions a year presently (and expected to continue), the existing AGGV and The NEXT Gallery offer plenty of reasons to “Add art to your life.”
1040 Moss Street, Victoria 250.384.4171 | aggv.ca
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SOUTH ISLAND PROSPERITY PARTNERSHIP
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hree years ago, leaders from local governments (municipal and First Nations), businesses, institutions (like the three post-secondaries), non-profits, and business and industry associations took a leap forward in creating a regional alliance to pursue economic development across the Greater Victoria region. The South Island Prosperity Partnership was founded by 28 members. Today, we stand united together with more than 55 members. Our collective belief is that through collaboration we can achieve results that would not be possible working alone. We’re honoured to work together with our members to boost prosperity in this incredible region we call home. Every day we aim to create a lasting and sustainable economy. Nothing could be more important than ensuring South Vancouver Island remains strong, resilient and future proof for the next generation. How does SIPP boost prosperity in the South Island? Here are some of the approaches the region undertakes through this collaborative approach:
Cluster and Innovation Development The regional economy is comprised of multiple businesses and employers, but did you know that when like-minded firms locate near each other, their productivity increases? Only at the regional level can we pursue bold strategies that transcend borders and create the next generation of careers right here at home. Business Growth and Expansion Research shows up to 80% of job creation can come from existing business growth. This means that by providing services and programs that help growth-oriented companies expand, we will achieve the results we want. SIPP has a focus on increasing exports and internationalization by offering both one-on-one guidance and workshops to help facilitate export and international trade. Business and Investment Attraction By taking the “Greater Victoria Story” abroad, SIPP works to attract values-based companies that care about the future of the region. We do this through developing a diverse mix of marketing and recruitment strategies.
First Nations Economic Development We are not a truly prosperous region unless everyone is included. The South Island is home to ten First Nation communities and over 17,000 Indigenous people. SIPP supports First Nation-driven economic development activities by collaborating with communities, sharing leading practices, and creating an inclusive platform for broader collaboration. Collaboration, Communication, and Research Working together requires a number of key ingredients. Among these are a compelling regional vision that achieves buy-in, a solid strategy that moves us toward the vision, good governance that is accountable, and solid data that tells us where we need to improve. SIPP brings partners together through shared governance, special projects, dialogues and roundtables, citizen engagement activities, economic research, exploring big ideas through thought leadership, and by advocating on behalf of regionally significant issues.
For more information, please visit our website to read our 2018-19 Annual Impact Report.
901-747 Fort Street | southislandprosperity.ca
@SIProsperity
@Southislandprosperity
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South Island Prosperity Partnership
BACK TO BUSINESS GUIDE
30 Remember those late summer days of preparing to go back to school? Buying your books and pens and rulers? Strategizing who to sit next to or how to convince a certain teacher you had turned over a new leaf? It’s really not that much different from gearing up for the full-on fall season of business after a summer of sun and possibly a vacation or two. Douglas has put together this back-tobusiness guide, chock full of ideas, tools and tips to put your best foot forward. ■ BY KERRY SLAVENS
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Tools and Tips To Reach Your Goals This Fall 1
Embrace the Power of Punctuation
People need fresh starts, clean slates and new beginnings, according to Ian Chisholm of the Roy Group. His advice? Instead of living our lives like a run-on sentence, full of commas, we need to put down periods and start the next sentence with a capital letter. “The leaders who I see thriving put down these ‘full stops’ often,” he says. “Each year, each quarter, each month, each week is a brand new chapter to be born, brimming with potential.”
“As entrepreneurs,” he adds, “we need to pay extra attention to the kinds of days and the combination of days we are creating for ourselves. If every day can be a work day, then every day will be — and we lose the punctuation. To bring the kind of creativity, focus, vitality and quality that the world needs from us, we have to prepare well, we have to review, we have to rest and then we need to bring it. If you try to bring it all the time, you will bring less and less and less over time.”
2 WHAT’S YOUR KILLER IDEA? YOU’VE HAD THE SUMMER TO THINK ABOUT IT. Now what’s your killer idea? The one that’s going to set the tone for your business as you move forward. If you’re thinking it’s all just business as usual, you might not be seeing the big picture. In this market, nothing is “usual” anymore, and you can bet your competitors are all looking at their next moves. And if you are struggling to be innovative, who says you have to have all the big ideas? Why not tap into the ingenuity of your team? Still stuck? Try working with one of the many business idea generator methods you can find on the internet, from the Goldrush method (“In a gold rush, sell shovels”) to the Rip, Pivot and Jam (RPJ) method. With RPJ, start by looking at another successful business and copying its business model (rip), then apply it to a new vertical or industry (pivot) and, finally, focus like crazy on getting customers to buy into your idea (jam).
(3) Pinpoint Your Pain Create a list of everything that’s stressing you out about your business — even minor details like a door that always sticks — because these irritations can all add up to bigger problems. Then create a column of solutions with your team and assign action items to get things done. The beauty of creating a pain list is that you get all of your worries down in one place and out of your head where they’ve been causing anxiety. Writing them down is the first step toward doing something about them.
4 LOOK BACK TO LOOK FORWARD
At the Roy Group, a new start often means looking back over the last quarter to squeeze it for useful information. “Success is a great source of information,” says Ian Chisholm, “but instead of just celebrating it, why not take time to break down our successes to identify why it all came together in such a magnificent way? “The same goes for failure,” he adds. “Break it down. No judgment. No blame. It’s a chance for people to get real with each other about what happened — using the same looks on their faces and tones of voices that we broke down our successes.” Chisholm says three questions to consider are: 1) What worked well? 2) What was tricky? 3) What might we do differently? “Seriously,” says Chisholm, “what else is there? When we put ourselves and our teams in the presence of good information, we make great choices in the chapter ahead of us.”
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TOUCH BASE
September is a great time to reconnect with your clients, before they become too busy with the holiday season, which seems to start earlier every year. It’s the time of year people in most sectors are getting back in gear and planning what’s ahead. You need to be part of it. Take key clients for a lunch to reconnect to show how much their business means to you. Find out what’s top of mind for them and really listen to their needs and ideas. This will form the basis of your relationship for the year ahead.
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Break Down Your Client List
Victoria-based Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) Evelyn Andrews-Greene advises reviewing your client list to identify and focus on your “A” revenue-generating clients. These clients are generally the ones who pay quickly, are happy with your business and provide assignments or work that you enjoy. Once you’ve identified the A-listers, explore who they are and how they heard about you. Strategize how to find more of these A-types.
7 GET REAL Meghan McKenzie, director of enterprise sales at Crowd Content, says that when she gets a feeling a client may not be interested or has other priorities, she often sends out a friendly email with the subject line: “Not trying to be a pest, but…” Her multiple-choice email seeks to identify, in a fun way, the reason a client might not have responded: ➊ You’ve been busy but are still interested; ➋ Your priorities have shifted; or ➌ You’ve been eaten by alligators. “It makes it easy for clients to respond and it injects some humour,” she says, “as they feel more comfortable communicating their needs.”
(8) STOP DOING THAT SH*T Do you ever feel like you get stuck in destructive cycles that hold you back? Stop Doing That Sh*t (HarperCollins) by Gary John Bishop is a great back-to-work wake-up call that helps you connect the dots of your “stuff” all the way from your past to the present. You’ll make sense of yourself and set the stage for the kind of profound shift needed to get your life on track. As Bishop says, “The future has arrived. Now what the hell are you going to do about it?”
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Decide to Delegate, Then Actually Do It!
We’ll ask you again — are you working in your business or on it? According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, two-thirds of small business owners and entrepreneurs are personally responsible for three or more areas of their business, including marketing. So who is looking after the big picture? A smart way to approach this is to consider how much you are worth an hour, then compare that with how much you would pay a professional to do jobs that eat up your time. What could you do with that extra time to strategize and grow your business?
10 Get Your Receivables in Order OK, so some customers were slow to pay over the summer. You’re not alone — 64 per cent of SMEs have unpaid invoices at least 60 days old, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. But now it’s time to pay up, so send out a reminder email. If that doesn’t work, it’s time for a personal phone call. The idea is not to let overdue accounts hit the 120-day mark, at which point your chances of being paid decrease dramatically. Remember, many businesses go through hard times, so a willingness to work with those who have previously been good payers (with payment plans, etc.) will often pay off in the long run. DOUGLAS 49
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CLEAN OUT YOUR EMAIL
Don’t go back to work with an overflowing email inbox. Clean it out. Better yet, decide if your email program is working well for you and, if it’s an option for your business, consider moving to Gmail, one of the best tools out there for email management. Not only can you easily train Gmail to filter out spam, you can schedule emails to send at a later date, set reminders, create robust filters to sort email and easily connect to organizational apps like Asana or Trello to turn your emails into tasks you can then assign to yourself or your team.
(12) FIX WHAT’S BROKEN From squeaky doors to wobbly tables to slow computers, things that don’t work right will bog your business down and lead to a sense of entropy and malaise. So send in the painters and repair people and watch how fast your people (and your clients) will feel better about their workspace.
13 CHECK YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Canada’s trademark laws changed recently: Have you noticed? In any case, it’s a great time to review your trademarks and intellectual property to ensure you have a lock on the key elements of your brand, including your business name, tagline, logo and the names of your key products.
14 Review Your Processes Processes determine end results, but sometimes we can’t see our processes are broken until we are in crisis mode, so take the time to fix them before it gets urgent. For example, what is your process for onboarding new clients or employees? How are contracts handled? What about receipts for business expenses? Identify processes that aren’t working, then create workflows for key tasks. Watch productivity soar.
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Craft Your Time Time moves forward whether you want it to or not, but there are ways to “craft” your calendar so you feel more in control, says productivity expert Mike Vardy of TimeCrafting.com. “One of the biggest things you can do [in September] is set clear monthly objectives leading up to the end of year, because the holiday season will arrive faster than you think,” he says. One of the timecrafting strategies Vardy suggests is theming, where you create themes for certain blocks of time, from hours, days and weeks to months, quarters or even years. Theming helps create focus on priorities. Vardy says one group he worked with wanted to set highlevel monthly themes, like ‘outreach month,’ and have weekly themes that are more specific like ‘media outreach.’
(16) Examine neglected projects Every business has a dustbin project, one that has been sidelined or stalled due to lack of funding, lack of time or both. Decide now whether to take action on it or cross it off the list forever. Keeping something that won’t happen on a list just contributes to mental clutter.
(17) TIDY UP YOUR
SALES PROCESS Does part of your sales process feel broken? Old demos? Outdated CRM? Steps in the process with lower conversion rates? Staff who don’t perform? Take action now, because when sales doesn’t work, eventually nothing in your company will.
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Bring Back the GANTT CHART
Hate your Gantt chart software? You’re not alone, but charts can be very useful for keeping short-term projects on track. Gantt charts have come a long way, according to Mike Vardy of TimeCrafting.com, thanks to the online solution GanttPRO,
which can be mastered in minutes, not days, and is ideal for keeping your team in the loop and sharing progress with clients. When your team is informed, everything runs smoother, and when clients feel informed, they are happier clients.
19 THINK LIKE A STARTUP AGAIN Remember how you felt when you first started your business? Full of excitement, energy and, OK, maybe some fear too. Why not go back to that entrepreneur frame of mind? Enjoy looking at the fun things like growth, market trends and the high-level stuff that excited you about being a business owner in the first place. Problem-solve the big problems, not the hundreds of small ones.
(20) DECLUTTER A study on the effects of clutter found that individuals who feel overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” in their homes were more likely to procrastinate. No similar study exists for workplaces, but if there’s even a chance a cluttered workplace is impacting employee productivity, it’s a good enough reason to “Marie Kondo” your office.
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COMMIT TO MICRO-COMMITMENTS
Meghan McKenzie of Crowd Content, says one strategy sales people can use to keep client lists energized and sales pipelines moving is micro-commitments. These are a series of mini-sales, where you are constantly moving a client along the pipeline. So instead of ending a
meeting with, “Let’s talk in two weeks,” use an approach that leaves no doubt about your intentions: “Let’s talk in two weeks on the 30th. I’ll put it in my calendar and send you an invitation.” When the client agrees, you have a micro-commitment that may lead to bigger things.
22 ENERGIZE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA Is your social media workflow broken (or non-existent)? Do you know what your social media ROI really is? It’s time to implement a social media content calendar. One of the best and easiest calendar tools is Loomly, which allows you to manage all your social media calendars from your dashboard. You can easily set up approval workflows so you have the final say on content affecting your brand. Plus, you can have seamless automated publishing for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn (and Instagram through a third-party app). By removing the guesswork and getting the data, you’ll know for sure if social media works for your business.
23 PAY ATTENTION TO PODCASTS Podcasts are a great way to absorb information on those boring commutes, or when you’re working out, or any time you can put the earbuds in. Three of our favourite entrepreneurial podcasts are: HBR IDEACAST: From the always insightful Harvard Business Review, this podcast features the leading thinkers in business and management. NPR HOW I BUILT THIS: Host Guy Raz weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists — and the movements they built. CBC UNDER THE INFLUENCE: Host and ad man Terry O’Reilly gives listeners a rare backstage pass into the hallways, boardrooms and recording studios of the ad industry.
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(24) DEEP-SIX THE PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi came up with the term “flow” in 1975 to describe a state of deep immersion in a single task where the rest of the world seems to just fade away. A 10-year McKinsey & Co. study found when executives are in flow, they’re up to five times more productive. Today’s constant push notifications from your phone, email and social media accounts are a danger to flow, so turn off all but the most essential ones. Your brain will thank you.
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Reboot Your Leadership
Why not start this fall with a fresh approach to leadership? In his new book Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, Jerry Colonna helps leaders make peace with those psychological habits and behavioural patterns that have helped them succeed but are
26
detrimental to their relationships and ultimate well-being. Reboot explores how a journey of radical self-inquiry can help you to reset your life by sorting through the emotional baggage that is holding you back from becoming a compassionate, bold and more effective leader.
UPDATE YOUR ORG CHART
Fall is a good time to review your org chart to ensure the lines of communication and your decision-making processes are clear as glass. Still making organizational charts the old-fashioned way? Pingboard.com is a tool that allows you to create a real-time, collaborative chart that makes it easy to organize teams, plan for growth and keep everyone informed. It’s also great for clarifying the decision-making process, and that’s critical because if the lines are blurred, so are the results.
27 Strengthen
Your Security More than one in five Canadian businesses were hit by cyberattacks in 2019, according to Statistics Canada. That means the time to pump up your security is now. The first (and easiest) thing to do is to make your business passwords unique and ultra-strong because, according to a 2019 Verizon report, 81 per cent of breaches were caused by weak or reused passwords. There’s plenty of information online about how to create robust passwords and how to set up systems to manage those passwords. Don’t have time? Hire a well-recommended security consultant. Yes, it’s that important!
28 Face Your Finances It’s a good time to check in on your business financial picture. Local CPA Evelyn Andrews-Greene advises that a quick way to summarize your current overall business picture is to look at money in/money out, plus current debts (business and
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personal), including bank and credit card debts, authorized limits and interest rates. Ask your CPA to spend a couple of hours in strategic planning with you. “If you have a CPA who has compiled your income tax returns for you,” she says, “you already have a super resource nearby.”
OPTOMETRISTS
(29) DO A
SOFTWARE AUDIT
With so many subscription-based online software services, it’s easy to incur monthly or yearly charges that may seem small at the time but add up to monster payouts over the long term. Drill down into what you are actually paying for and research alternatives. If you use Microsoft software, experiment with Google’s G Suite products, which are free, collaborative and on par, quality-wise, with most subscription-based software for word processing, spreadsheets and more.
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DISCOVER YOUR TEAM’S STRENGTHS
“It might sound counterproductive, but it’s critical to slow down to make sure you’re going in the right direction, especially when it comes to your staff,” says Mike Vardy of TimeCrafting. com. “The biggest thing people can do … is to really look at how you can empathize with your team ... Figure out what their work habits and styles are like and do a StrengthsFinder test to leverage your team better and create a positive team environment.” Vardy recommends the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book from Gallup and author Tom Rath, and Applied Empathy: The New Language of Leadership by Michael Ventura.
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FICTION ON FIRE Software for writers hasn’t changed substantially in decades. Now, a Victoria software-as-service company has taken their dream of an online story editor from fiction to fact. BY ALEX VAN TOL
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itting at anchor near George Town developing an expanded version called Story in the balmy Cayman Islands Coach. in the Caribbean, typing away “Editors haven’t changed their tools since on her third novel manuscript, Microsoft Word came out in 1983,” Kristina Kristina Stanley, author of the says. “Self-publishing has exploded over the Stone Mountain mystery series, last 10 years, but the tools to help the growing had no idea that the Excel spreadsheet she used community of writers and editors haven’t kept up.” to keep track of scenes and characters would Fictionary brings its new product to a large one day lead to a whole new tool for writers market at exactly the right time. While the and editors. company bootstrapped for the first two years, Stanley and her husband, Mathew, had the group just received a $100,000 grant from previously worked at Nortel and had exited Creative BC and closed its pre-seed round with while the getting was good, and were sailing investments from several prominent Victoria the ocean blue. While Kristina was looking names, plus one from Silicon Valley. about in her spreadsheet one day, searching The local contingent of investors includes through the 80-odd columns for the information Scott Lake, co-founder of Shopify; Stephanie to guide her next writing steps, Mathew looked Andrew of the Women’s over her shoulder and asked Equity Lab; Scott Phillips, her a life-changing question. president of StarFish “Do you think we could Medical; Ryan Douglas, build software to do that?” I think they a Software as a Service She did. could dominate (SaaS) pioneer in reading So the Stanleys — instruction; and serial Kristina with a computer that market. entrepreneur Josh McKenty, mathematics degree and I just don’t see any co-founder of OpenStack. Mathew with a computer The latest investor is other competitors science degree — joined JoEllen Taylor, founder forces with Ottawain that space who of Silicon Valley-based based computer systems FirstEditing, which has been are as advanced technologist Michael Conn in the editing business for to develop a data-rich as they are …” 13 years and has served over fiction-editing software they — SCOTT LAKE, 40,000 authors. called Fictionary. CO-FOUNDER, SHOPIFY “[FirstEditing sees] INTERACTIVE STORY Fictionary as game changing in the fiction-editing Here’s how Fictionary industry,” says Kristina, “and will be our lead works. You import your manuscript, and then, customer for entering the editor, agent and picking out key elements, the software not only publishing space.” creates a character list and links characters to Fictionary has been working with major scenes, but it plots word counts per scene and writing communities in more than 50 countries, even draws a story arc. including Wattpad, ProWritingAid and National Writers can visualize their stories, meaning Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). they can actually see where and how to “Our paid subscriber base has grown over improve their writing. Interactive elements 600 per cent in the last nine months,” says offer story insights and writing advice, helping Kristina. “Recurring revenue is growing at developing authors refine their craft as they go. 17 per cent a month.” Originally developed while the Stanleys Fictionary’s first-to-market status as an online were living at Panorama Mountain Resort in editing tool positions it well for the future. the Kootenays, Fictionary relocated shortly “I think they could dominate that market,” thereafter to Victoria, in part because of says Lake. “I just don’t see any other the strength of the local tech industry. The competitors in that space who are as advanced company joined VIATEC’s Accelerator program, as they are …” eventually pairing up with Shopify founder He hopes that as the market develops, Scott Lake, who provides guidance with Fictionary will keep evolving so that when marketing and partnership development. “Kristina has a lot of credibility because she’s people realize how many problems software can solve, Fictionary will be the solution they an author as well,” says Lake. “Just talking to choose. her validates a lot of what they’re doing. She’s “Fictionary will be sitting there,” he says, put her 10,000 hours into that.” “the same way that Shopify was sitting there A NEW WORLD FOR WORDS when people wanted to sell online without all Three years in, it’s apparent that Fictionary is a the hassles. We just happened to be there at the right time.” ■ great tool for editors as well; the group is now
DESIGNER Q & A
Why hire a Registered Interior Designer?
“
In today’s world, meeting the needs of the individual is as important as meeting the needs of the team, to support health, wellness and agility.” Laura Harlos, RID Graphic Office Interiors
A Registered Interior Designer brings a breadth of technical expertise, experience and training to balance aesthetic design with practical knowledge.” Tamara Bush, RID Inhabit Designs VISIT US AT DESIGNCAN.CA FOR A LIST OF REGISTERED DESIGNERS ON VANCOUVER ISLAND. DOUGLAS 55
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
BELLE WHITE/DOUGLAS MAGAZINE
INTEL
Marketing coordinators (l to r) Olivia Gutjahr, Kennedy Cullen and Ali Dennis in Orca Books’ boardroom, which holds every book, in every edition, the company has ever published.
NEXT LEVEL
BY ALEX VAN TOL
PLUS IT UP What if your workplace was one where everybody was happy to up each other’s game? Where egos took a backseat to a project’s betterment? Where a truly collaborative vibe reigned supreme? Douglas shows you how it’s possible.
56 DOUGLAS
T
he golden age of animation had already come and gone, but the atmosphere was still heady at Walt Disney Studios. It was before the turn of the century and before computer-generated imagery (CGI) ate hand-drawn animation, in that buzzing, interstitial space that nobody quite understood heralded the end of an era. Every day from nine til five (sometimes much later), dozens of artists worked feverishly, diligently, flamboyantly, as they had for generations, creating drawing after drawing, as they chased deadlines on the studio’s upcoming projects. It was the early 1990s, a time of staggering inspiration and creativity — the years of Pocahontas, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin. Years of intoxicating commercial success. It wasn’t just that the animators were a super skilled group of practitioners, and it wasn’t just that the stories being told
resonated with the public. It was also due to the rich and decades-long culture of collaboration at Disney: a culture where an animator could put down his pencil (they were almost all men in those days), look critically at his drawing and know in a moment which of his colleagues could make it better. He would take it over to that other guy and ask him to make it better: “Can you plus this?” At Disney, where all the artists worked on the same movie at one time, the team operated under the rock-solid agreement that every contribution should be additive. It kept them nimble and focused, open to feedback and betterment. The artists examined each other’s work and freely shared their thoughts on how they could support the best possible expression of their colleagues’ ideas. It was a company-
wide commitment to serve the project above all else, and especially above people’s own egos — a tall order for a bunch of world-class creatives. But it worked. And as the Pixar and DreamWorks studios grew and attracted former Disney animators, the culture of plussing followed, setting the stage for commercial smash hits like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo. Every story among them was created by a team of artists and storytellers with an agreeable common goal of making their next release the best film of all time. Imagine that: a commitment to serving the project above all else, without ego, but instead with a sharp focus on the end product, and making it the best it can be. What if this could be the culture in your workplace? It’s not as far-fetched as you’d think. There are more than a handful of Victoria businesses that operate with a culture similar to Disney’s plussing. They include Kano, Orca Book Publishers, StarFish Medical and Waterworth. Here’s how to adopt plussing for your own shop.
1
Hire for soul, train for skill. Who you’re working with matters, arguably more than the skill they bring to the table. If you focus on getting the right kind of people on your team — a process simplified if you talk about your values in the job interview as well as in the lunch room — your people will learn faster and travel farther, and they’ll be in harmony with one another. Those who don’t belong, or who don’t agree, will eventually find another place to work.
AS THE PIXAR AND DREAMWORKS STUDIOS GREW and attracted former
Disney animators, the culture of plussing followed, setting the stage for commercial smash hits like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo.
2
Talk openly about the power of collaboration. This means more than
just giving it lip service. You as a leader must be open to being “plussed” yourself, and asking for input. Discourage protectionist thinking around ideas. Look for ways to honour people along the chain of a project’s development, from initial idea, to draft, to prototyping, to finished product, so that you’re not just feting the person who ties it up with a bow.
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3
Leave room for risk. Every company has a different relationship to risk, but the simple truth is, those that don’t take risks ultimately fail. They fail to grow, to change, to innovate. Instead, they perseverate. And in an economy that moves at lightning speed, perseverating on an old way of doing things means your days are numbered.
4
Iterate. Ask any software developer: It’s tough to get it right in just one shot. Iteration is built into the concept of plussing. It’s what a good editor does for a manuscript, working quietly behind the scenes to make the words flow better, then passing it back to the author for another round of revisions. And so on, through design and production and marketing, until the book is polished and ready for publication.
5
Check egos at the door. I saved the trickiest one for last. We’ve all got an ego shadow somewhere, especially where we possess specific expertise, or think we know best. Conduct yourself in a way that consistently demonstrates that service to the mission — or the project, or the mission of the project — comes above all else. Figure out what gradient your project or product is solving and challenge your entire workforce to help each other’s ideas along to solve it. Focus, don’t filibuster. And finally, as much as possible, finish each project you collectively undertake. Completing the things you take on and putting a good finished product out into the world lets your team feel the satisfaction of a job well done that they accomplished together, which reinforces the collaborative nature of plussing. Your workplace can be one where everybody is happy to up each other’s game, where egos take a backseat to ideas and where a collaborative ethos guides your every move. All you need to do is look for ways to add value — and ask for the same from others. ■
Alex Van Tol works with organizations to shape and communicate their brand stories. From real estate to tech, she uncovers what makes organizations tick — and what can help them grow.
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LEADERSHIP
BY ERIN SKILLEN
Why You Should Have That Difficult Conversation Those conversations you keep avoiding may be the most important ones to have.
D
ifficult conversations are, well, difficult. We know there are issues to be addressed, things to be said, progress to be made, but it’s going to be tough. We delay, distract, vent to others, doing whatever it takes to avoid the very conversations our company needs to move forward effectively. It’s human nature to dodge conflict, and many business leaders are guilty of it, to the detriment of their businesses. In fact, one of my co-founders called me out on being a dodger. And, yes, I’ll admit I’m good at identifying the need for a conversation and requesting the time and space to have it. But when we’re there and about to dive in, I somehow transform into a verbally incontinent comedian. I babble, I spout off irrelevant information as if it’s urgently important and then I roll into as many jokes as possible to postpone getting to the tough part. I do this because difficult conversations are so damn difficult.
REFRAMING THE CONVERSATION You won’t improve as a leader, nor can your company thrive, when you dodge your weaknesses. With this in mind, I participated in The Art of Leadership workshop for five days last summer. One of the greatest lessons I learned from its presenter Robert Gass, co-founder of the California-based Rockwood Leadership Institute, was how to have a courageous conversation, versus a difficult one. “Part of why conversations actually become more difficult is because people have put 58 DOUGLAS
them off for so long,” says Gass, whose background includes training former U.S. President Barack Obama’s team at the White House. Whether it’s training a two-person company or the U.S. government, Gass has seen first-hand how reframing conversations can play a key role in an organization’s success. “The problem with calling them difficult conversations over and over,” he adds, “is that it can help reinforce the feeling that important conversations are going to be difficult. I’m choosing to call them courageous conversations to help evoke that quality of heart
and spirit that is core to powerful leadership.” Most of the time, it’s actually the issues between the people that are in the way of them being able to harness their collective wisdom to address their problems, Gass says. “And so, again and again, the greatest services I bring to teams and organizations is getting them to deal directly, honestly and constructively with each other through courageous conversations.”
HOW TO HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS Before you launch into a courageous conversation, you need to know why you’re doing it and what you hope to achieve. Here are some strategies to help. POP to It › Gass advocates the POP model, which involves taking a look at the Purpose, Outcomes and Process for the conversation prior to having it. Focusing on why you’re having the talk, the goals for it and how to best structure the conversation to achieve those goals is essential to creating the foundation for a successful result.
Own Your Sh*t › It’s rare that an issue in your business exists without you playing some part in it. To have a genuine, productive conversation, you need to look at the role you played in creating the problem. Consider the other person’s point of view — how will they see your role in the issue? Sure, maybe there are cases where your leadership hasn’t been a factor, but if you make the time to pause and question yourself, you may discover some unexpected contributions you didn’t realize you were making. Take a Test Drive › Courageous conversations are a big deal, and just like sales pitches or other important presentations, they benefit from practice. So make your mistakes in the test run, hone your messaging and hear how your thoughts sound out loud. During the leadership workshop, my name was pulled out of the hat and I ended up practicing a courageous conversation with Gass himself in front of 50 other attendees. It was one of the greatest moments of growth in my professional development to date.
THE POP MODEL BEFORE EACH AND EVERY CONVERSATION OR ACTIVITY, MAKE SURE YOU ARE CLEAR ON THE POP
P
O
P
PURPOSE
OUTCOMES
PROCESS
Why are you undertaking this conversation or activity? Make sure you are clear on the cause and the motive.
What are the specific end results you hope to achieve as a result of this conversation or activity?
What steps will you take to achieve these outcomes and fulfill the purpose?
It’s rare that an issue in your business exists without you playing some part in it.
To have a genuine, productive conversation you need to look at the role you play in creating the problem.
Get Over Yourself › A key thing I took away from the workshop is that courageous conversations are not about me (or you). They are about the mission of the company and how the people it serves will benefit from having an issue resolved. They highlight the fact that there is a purpose to our work and our organization that goes far deeper than simply advocating for our own feelings or ego. I matter, and you matter, but not to a degree where purpose should be dismissed or ignored. Do it in Person › Much to my cowardly dismay, Gass says email is definitely not the right forum for a courageous conversation. Instead, find an appropriate time and space for a distraction-free face-to-face conversation. But don’t allow yourself to procrastinate at this step and keep putting it off. Be Human › As much as businesspeople may try to pretend otherwise, we’re human beings and we come with human motivations and needs. To be a courageous leader, you need to create safety and trust in your business. Empathy, vulnerability and honesty should be present in your conversations whenever possible. No, this doesn’t mean you should begin rampantly oversharing and flooding the conversation with dramatic shows of emotion. It means listening, attempting to understand the other person’s position and keeping shame and blame out of the equation. We’re humans, not robots, and keeping our humanity in mind is integral to the success of our conversations.
AL’S BUSINESS TIP FOR SUCCESS “Take advantage of your slow season to re-evaluate your supply chain strategy. Look for time and cost savings to benefit you during your busy season.”
AN AUTHENTIC FUTURE Gass has so much more wisdom than I can include here, so do yourself (and your business) a huge favour by going to the Tools & Resources section on stproject.org to learn more about having effective and courageous conversations. It’s not an easy skill to master — I’m still learning and nowhere near comfortable with it yet — but our teams deserve brave, authentic leaders, and we need to continue striving to become those people. ■
Erin Skillen is the COO/cofounder of FamilySparks, a mental wellness startup for families and businesses. She is also a VIATEC board member.
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ENTREPRENEUR
BY JIM HAYHURST
OLD SCHOOL ADVICE FOR STARTUPS In an era hooked on shiny new ideas, it’s important to revisit some old-fashioned business rules that are still relevant for today’s startups.
L
ess than a year before the Great Crash of 1929 — and more than 40 years before the Mad Men era — my grandfather started an ad agency. He announced it with a printed card. Like any startup, his company needed to do three things to get noticed: Concisely present its story (the cover was almost tweetable); demonstrate relevant experience (his dad came from an established agency) and declare the company “persona” (classy and understated, just like my grandfather). People who worked for my grandfather’s ad agency told me it
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succeeded because it kept things simple. And so, perhaps it’s not a bad time to revisit some Old School Golden Rules that remain relevant for startups today.
1
It’s not about your grass seed. It’s about their lawn. The story goes
that in the mid-70s, a grass seed company started selling in Canada. During the agency search, the company focused on the science behind their product. Decades of research and millions of dollars had created the perfect mix of seed and fertilizer.
Naturally, most agencies created pitches around that. But one agency surprised the client by not mentioning the product at all. Instead, it told the story of people’s lawns: Lawns that impressed neighbours. Lawns that kids played on. Lawns that made people happier just by being green, lush and full. In startup land, we’re all proud of our technologies, products and services — and rightly so. But no one really cares about that. We all use phrases like unique, innovative and patent-pending. But no one’s actually buying our intellectual property or processes. Our customers are buying what the product does for them. And the better we describe that — and the sooner we stop talking about our grass seed and start describing their lawns — the quicker we pull them into the picture.
2
When they’re talking, we’re winning. My father
joined the agency in the 1960s. He loved to tell stories, interact with employees and strategize with
“
I’m not looking for a new telephone.
I’m looking for a human being who will be the first person clients meet when they come to my office. – JFP HAYHURST (JIM’S DAD)
clients. And he was brilliant at it. Under his leadership, the agency grew to be one of the largest in Canada. Whenever there was a big account to land, he was invited for the first meeting to show how important that client was. But before he walked in, his team would pause and say: “Remember, Jim … When they’re talking, we’re winning.” The obvious truth here is that we need to listen in order to understand. Less evident is this: People like to talk about themselves. And when they do, they feel better and share more. My wife’s father does not have the same affliction as my dad. In fact, he had a rule for his daughters when they were growing up: “Spend 80 per cent of any conversation asking questions.” He’s so good at it that people leave his parties saying, “I just had the most fascinating conversation with Brian ...” even though all he did was let them talk. Try reminding yourself about what winning “sounds like” next time you meet a client. See how it feels and what you learn. You might be surprised.
3
Everyone sells our services. Everyone services our clients. Everyone is our brand. In the late 1970s, my father needed a new executive assistant. The head of HR said, “Go down to the second floor typing pool and pick one out.” Looking back, my dad’s response was pretty advanced for its day: “Look, I’m not looking for a new telephone. I’m looking for a human being who will be the first person clients meet when they come to my office. In 30 seconds, how that person acts will be how our agency is remembered by the people who pay our bills.” Not finding suitable candidates in-house, he looked further afield without success. Finally, on a flight from London to New York, he found someone. She had never worked in an office, rarely answered telephones, barely typed and knew nothing about advertising. What she did know about was customer service, in stressful situations, for high-end clientele. She was the head of the airline’s first-class flight crew. And he made an offer on the spot. Over the next 30 years, she personified the agency’s brand for many. She may not have signed clients, but she certainly saved some. And it wasn’t by typing 80 words per minute. Think about who interacts with your clients and who doesn’t. Every interaction they have is an opportunity to reinforce (or diminish) your company’s value and brand.
THE BASICS OF BRAND LOYALTY My experience of taking technical employees out “into the wild” for client discovery almost always ends well for all sides. When wellprepped, the employees tend to talk less about our “grass seed” (the cool stuff they build) and ask more questions about clients’ “lawns”
(what they’re trying to do with it). It’s a perfect combination of lessons one and two. Business was tough in 1928, and it remains so today. Competition for talent is fierce, markets are ever-changing and clients have more choices than ever. As Mad Men’s Don Draper said, “The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.” He was right. But so were my grandfather and my father. They knew that some basics have remained
unassailable. Business is about lawns, not grass seed; listening to win and knowing that your brand lives in everything and everyone with your name on it. Any company that does that should be around for a long time. ■ Jim Hayhurst is a trusted advisor to purpose-driven organizations and leaders. He is currently active in six companies and social impact projects that elevate Victoria’s reputation as a hub of innovation, collaboration and big thinking.
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A HEAD FOR GAMES NANAIMO’S LDRLY TOUTS ITSELF AS THE WORLD’S LEADING PUBLISHER OF CANNABIS GAMES.
Each day when mobile games expert Jean-Guy Niquet rolls into his new office in Nanaimo, he’s aware of his good luck. As the live operations lead for LDRLY, a company that specializes in cannabisrelated mobile games, he’s heading up one of the first businesses in a newly established industry in a region so beautiful those in his company refer to it as a resort. LDRLY started out in Vancouver as the sister business to the popular and award-winning industry veteran Eastside Games, founded by Joshua Nilson, Jason Bailey and Galan Akin. “There’s definitely an opportunity in Nanaimo,” Niquet says, adding that he hopes to see more gaming companies established in the region. “I knew it would be hard, and we had a lot to do to build a community here. But it’s also a blank slate, so there’s an opportunity there to go into a city where an industry doesn’t exist and really leave your mark and feel like you’re actually doing sometime that contributes to the community.” Niquet describes LDRLY’s games, like Bud Farm, as falling into the light-hearted “green culture” category. Designed for iPhones and Androids, they are similar to the popular agricultural social networking game FarmVille — but with players growing cannabis instead of strawberries. Instead of battling for space to expand in Vancouver’s expensive real estate market, LDRLY looked to the midIsland, landing in Nanaimo with a hand from the Mid Island Business Initiative. In December 2018, they landed a 3,200 square foot waterfront office in the Port Authority building that currently serves their staff of 10 with room to grow. “When we have people coming over from Vancouver, we can actually watch their planes land and just walk over, grab a coffee, meet them and walk them back to the office,” Niquet says. “It’s convenient for us to go to Vancouver for meetings, or have them come here.” And there’s no lack of interest in green culture games. To date, Pot Farm, Eastside’s flagship game, has had more than 20 million downloads and 3.5 billion active play sessions.
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Terra Groenewold (left), Jaclyn Warnock (centre) and Zach Williams (right), of LDRLY, a gaming studio in Nanaimo.
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