Douglas magazine December 2015 - January 2016

The New Gaming Reality It’s Virtually Here

Dec/Jan 2016

RETAIL REVOLUTION

Why enterprising retailers are winning

Peak Performance What entrepreneurs can learn from elite athletes

Agents of Change How local innovators are making the world a better place

Try to Say

Yes The business philosophy of Al Hasham

Entrepreneurship issue PM41295544

Al Hasham, new chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce

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Contents Dec/Jan 2016

Features

20 “Find a Way to Say Yes” Douglas talks to Al Hasham, owner of Max Furniture and Maximum Express, as he takes on his new role as chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.

By Kerry Slavens

28 Retail Revolution

The growth of online shopping has led to a revolution amongst bricks-and-mortar retailers, who are more focused than ever on the local human touch. by andrew findlay

32 Agents of Change

For these passionate local innovators, making the world a better place goes well beyond a trendy marketing strategy.

by Athena Mckenzie

48 Peak Performance What business owners can learn from high-performance sports training.

24

The New Gaming Reality

It’s Virtually Here

by Andrew Findlay

by adrienne dyer

departments Special in this Issue Th e

B lu e Book Your EssEntial GuidE to BusinEss s E rv i c E s o n v a n c o u v E r i s l a n d w i t h E x p E r t t i p s a n d s t r at E G i E s

Good Service Grows Business

I n n ovaT I o n

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G r ow T h

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S T r aT e Gy

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B uS I n e SS

2015

4 Douglas

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P r o d u cT I v I T y

37

The Blue Book

Your go-to guide for Vancouver Island business services

6 From the Editor

INTEL

9 In the Know

52

[Business Intelligence]

Island economic benchmarks, a luxury marina for Victoria, Harbour Air to the rescue, and 10 to Watch nomination time

14

digital life

Is a driverless car in your future? by david Alexander

People in Business

The who, what and where of the business scene

54 Entrepreneur

18 Take Three Upping the social quotient at your office

Finding the missing link

24 THE BIG IDEA Virtual reality in Coombs

By andrew findlay

58 Last Page Extreme makeover, charity edition

by Athena McKenizie

by Peter Elkins

56

sales & Marketing

Why you shouldn’t ignore inbound marketing by mike wicks

“With major architecture and engineering contributions from our Victoria office, I’m proud to be part of the design team helping to bring two new hospitals to Vancouver Island.”

Tariq Amlani, P.Eng. Lead Mechanical Engineer, Victoria Office

Campbell River Hospital (95 beds) Vancouver Island Health Authority Comox Valley Hospital (153 beds) Vancouver Island Health Authority

Design with community in mind stantec.com | (250) 388-9161

Jeffrey Bosdet/Douglas Magazine

From the Editor

What Brands Can Learn from Trudeau’s Big Win

If you’d asked me in 2014 if Justin Trudeau had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the election, I would have said (in fact I did say) only the slimmest one. By September, I was thinking minority. Then two weeks pre-election, I realized Trudeau was riding a wave of political positivity I hadn’t witnessed since Obama beat McCain in 2008.

As a former branding expert, I was fascinated by how “brand Trudeau” tapped into the zeitgeist or spirit of this age. Suddenly, Stephen Harper’s “it tastes terrible but it’s good for you” political remedy felt passé. In contrast, Trudeau’s brand of cure seemed more palatable and it tasted a lot like hope. That’s not to say it was totally without guile — but it all appeared so darned spontaneous, optimistic and bold.

There’s plenty that brands can learn from the kind of wholesale political change people like Trudeau effect (and, it must be said, the kind of change Harper ushered in when his party decimated the Liberals several elections ago).

Regardless of your politics, there are brand lessons we can learn from the new prime minister: Never assume you don’t need to evolve with the times, no matter how solid your brand feels.

Like it or not, in politics and in business the constituent/customer is always right, and if they are changing, you need to pay attention. Don’t think so? Watch how fast they’ll turn to your competitor if they sense you don’t listen/don’t care/don’t understand.

Be authentic. Whoever gave Thomas Mulcair or Harper advice to smile more had it wrong.

Only Trudeau and Elizabeth May looked like they actually liked to smile and weren’t faking it.

When something doesn’t appear natural, consumers or constituents pick up on it on a deep level and it unnerves them.

Don’t let your competitors decide the agenda. Agree or not with Trudeau’s plan to run a deficit, there’s no doubt this move distinguished him from Mulcair and Harper. Trudeau essentially found a track no one else was running on.

It’s something smart brands do as well. Think Uber.

... it all appeared so darned spontaneous, optimistic and bold.

You can’t just play one note and expect people to listen. Harper’s “Proven Leadership for a Strong Canada,” with its underlying “don’t change a thing” subtext began to seem more like a background hum as the election deepened. In contrast, Trudeau pivoted around the flexible slogan “Real Change” by carefully targetting the message to distinct groups, from seniors to youth.

Be visible. In the absence of information, people will fill the vacuum with their own information. Harper’s media-adverse and anti-social approach to politics only led the electorate to draw their own conclusions. Even the Tories’ social media campaigns seemed stilted when faced with Trudeau’s seemingly more spontaneous approach, which embraced hashtags, selfies, video and newsjacking.

Have a great big audacious idea (or sound like you do). Even if you’re selling widgets and your competitor is selling widgets, be more excited about your widgets. Give your widgets purpose and meaning and a story people will want to tell over and over.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you voted for Trudeau, it’s still worthwhile to pay attention to winning political strategies, because usually the winner is giving voice to something that is trending deeply in our society. In Trudeau’s case, it was a national desire to be better than we are, to look better than we do on the world stage — and for someone to tell us we can be better than we are. It’s a brand called optimism, and right now it’s selling well.

— Kerry Slavens kslavens@pageonepublishing.ca

6 Douglas

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Volume 10 Number 1

Editor-in-chief Kerry Slavens

Creative & Technical Manager Jeffrey Bosdet

Production Manager Jennifer Kühtz

Editorial Designer Jo-Ann Loro

Associate Editor Athena McKenzie

contributing Designer Janice Hildybrant

Contributing Writers David Alexander, Adrienne Dyer, Peter Elkins, Andrew Findlay, Mike Wicks PROOFREADER Vivian Sinclair

Contributing Photographers Jeffrey Bosdet, Jo-Ann Loro

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Contributing Agencies Thinkstock p. 15, 28-29, 4243, 54; Shutterstock p. 37

Advertising Representatives Vicki Clark, Lory Couroux, Cynthia Hanischuk

general inquiries info@douglasmagazine.com

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Cover Al Hasham, owner of Max Furniture and Maximum Express, is the new chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.

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

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

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

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Client: Maycock Eyecare Publication: DOUGLAS Magazine - JAN 2016 Shipping Date: 9 NOV Ad Size: 4.94” X 4.7”

Undeliverable mail should be directed to Page One Publishing Inc. 580 Ardersier Road, Victoria, BC V8Z 1C7

Douglas magazine is a registered trademark of Page One Publishing Inc.

Advertise in Douglas!

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

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

Innovation | Design | Business | Style | People 

[In the Know ]

Bodyflight Mobile Systems Inc

Many skydivers describe free fall as floating on a cushion of air. Bodyflight’s portable wind tunnel simulates a skydiving free fall in both length and sensation.

parachute not required Thrill seekers can now experience the inimitable sensation of a skydiving free fall without having to jump from a plane.

Victoria-based Bodyflight Mobile Systems’ simulator, a portable wind tunnel, has been used for skydive training, adventure tourism and corporate teambuilding, and recently it was used to create a little Hollywood magic.

Production crews on the blockbuster Tomorrowland used

a Bodyflight simulator to add realism to key action scenes that involved free falls.

“It allowed them to do things they could never do with an airplane,“ says Peter Zaoralek, owner of Bodyflight. “The stunt guys were really excited about having a machine that could simulate those wind speeds.”

The film production used the Bodyflight X1 machine, a fully portable skydive simulator that produces wind speeds up to 230 kilometres per hour and can be converted between a clear wall-to-wall air-flight chamber or an open-air flight system with custom net rigging or aircushion systems.

With the success of the Tomorrowland project, Zaoralek is hoping to attract the attention of other productions looking to film realistic free-fall, flying or wind-related scenes.

“The film industry is very busy in Victoria and Vancouver currently,” Zaoralek says, “and we hope this means more interest in the technology.”

Douglas 9

Business in Action ▼ Black Ball Ferry has secured a 60-year lease with the province. The lease is for a 30-year deal with three 10-year options. The long-term lease means the company will be able to fund a dock upgrade, and it sets the stage for the new Belleville Terminal.

Toni Desrosiers of Abeego Designs is a finalist in SheEO’s Act of Radical Generosity, an initiative designed to dramatically transform the support, finance and celebration of female entrepreneurs.

The 2015 goal is to have one thousand women contribute one thousand dollars each, which will be divided among 10 ventures run by women.

Viking Air has sold a Twin Otter Series 400 to Skydive Dubai, a commercial skydiving operation based in the UAE. The aircraft arrived in Dubai for the start of the World Air Games being hosted by Skydive Dubai on November 30.

Two new co-working and meeting spaces opened in Victoria in October.

The Landing Pad, a rentable meeting space at 1113 Langley Street, is a partnership between Brenda and Bob Louie of South Bay Properties and Shea Philips, Jordan Rodier, Rebecca Kirstein and Peter Elkins. The Nest, at 1114 Langley, is a co-working space launched by The Freebird Collective.

Jawl Properties is purchasing the former Capitol 6 theatre building at Yates and Blanshard. The sale was expected to close November 19. No plans have yet been announced for the site, which is zoned for commercial and residential use.

Colwood’s first hotel, an $11-million, 80-room Holiday Inn Express, opened in November on Wale Road. The franchise is owned by Lloyd Wansbrough, whose company, Westridge Lodging, developed the hotel on land owned by his family business.

10 Douglas

Benchmarking the Island’s Economy

Building Permits

by Regional District January to June 2015 (in 000s)

H

ousing starts are up, tourism is thriving, consumer bankruptcies are down and labour force participation is also down on Vancouver Island.

Those are just some of the insights from the first State of the Island Economic Report released by the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance (VIEA) at the organization’s October 28 and 29 summit in Nanaimo.

George Hanson, president of VIEA, says that the report reveals potential areas of opportunity on the Island.

“What stands out to me is that there’s clearly an immediate-term opportunity to take advantage of the low Canadian dollar in the tourism industry,” he says.

Hanson also notes that the size of the Island’s service sector continues to eclipse the goods-producing sector in terms of numbers of people employed. “I’m glad we had a focus on manufacturing [at the VIEA summit] because there’s an opportunity for us to grow the that sector. And it’s clear that to

Source: Statistics Canada Produced by BC Stats

strengthen our economy there needs to be a focus on value-added in the resource sector and on growing our tech sector.”

The report, says Hanson, serves as a consistent measuring stick of Vancouver Island’s economy, something desperately needed.

VIEA developed the report in partnership with MNP’s economics and research team.

“This report is a benchmark,” says Hanson, “and anyone who is making investment, business or community decisions will benefit from it.”

“The Island will likely experience modest but sustained growth through 2015 and 2016 due to population growth, strong performance of the tourism sector and increases in forestry product exports to the U.S.”

Big yachts, Big Money?

If the long-planned Victoria International Marina opens as scheduled in the spring of 2016, luxury yachts will have a dedicated mooring spot on the Victoria Harbour.

The supervising company, Community Marine Concepts, believes the yachts could have a local economic impact similar to the cruise industry.

The marina project has been 30 years in the making, with initial stakeholder meetings in 1986. Its current incarnation was unveiled in 2008.

“However, they are now proposing significant changes to that plan,” says Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps. “Shifting from two

buildings to one, shifting from buildings on piers to a floating structure, changes to the sea wall, etc. That requires a new development permit, which they have applied for and are working through the details of

with [city] staff.”

The new design also adds access for the local community, including a canal for self-propelled craft between the docks and the shore, and floats for launching paddle watercraft.

“These yachts, their owners, guests and crew could potentially bring millions of dollars into the local economy.”

— Craig Norris, director of strategic planning at Community Marine Concepts

Simon Desrochers

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Tall Tree Physiotherapy

24th Annual Commercial Building Awards For more than two decades, the Commercial Building Awards have recognized the businesses and people stimulating urban renewal and enhancing commercial real estate throughout Greater Victoria. Established by the Victoria Real Estate Board's commercial division, these awards have grown from 11 projects in 1991 to 23 projects in 2015.

This year’s honourees include McCauley Lodge, winner of the Douglas magazine Community Award; Tall Tree Physiotherapy Clinic, winner of the Victoria Real Estate Board Green Award; and 2950 Jutland, winner of the esteemed Judges’ Choice Award.

For this year’s winners, visit cba.vreb.org

Eco Awards Celebrate Green Economy Leaders The environment was spotlighted at the 2015 EcoStar Awards on November 10 at Inn at Laurel Point. The awards were hosted by Synergy Sustainability Institute, a non-profit with a mission to catalyze the Island’s green economy.

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“Most people think good communication is talking.

Good communication is listening, understanding — and then talking. Listen to your clients, understand their needs and then respond.”

— Al Hasham, President of Maximum Express

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SOHO

Small office/home office Conference On January 21, the Victoria Conference Centre will become business solution central at the inaugral SOHO Conference. Featuring keynote speakers Mandy Farmer of Accent Inns and Hotel Zed, and Marc Stoiber, global brand consultant, SOHO aims to connect business owners with the solutions and services they need. keynote The conference is the speakers brainchild of Chris Burdge of BWest Interactive, cofounder of the Social Media Conference. He says he came up with the idea after finding value in being part of a group of business people who Marc Stoiber meet regularly to share ideas and solutions. “So I said, ‘Why not multiply this by 100 so that other people can get access to solutions and meet the right people?’”

“As a small business Mandy Farmer owner,” Burdge adds, “I know I’m really good at what I do, but there’s all those other things you have to do to be successful like invoicing, hiring, training and bookkeeping, etc. There are probably 20 things critical things I need that I’m not good at — and I suspect other businesses are in the same boat. So I thought, ‘Why don’t we find a way to connect?’”

SOHO, which is expected to attract 400 delegates, will feature panels of business experts, workshops, advisor sessions and a trade show. SOHO takes place Thursday, January 21 at the Victoria Conference Centre. sohovictoria.com

2015 Cruise ship stats 533,000 passengers  227 ship calls at Ogden Point  The arrival of the six millionth 

cruise ship passenger on board the Golden Princess.

Certificate of Excellence

12 Douglas

Best of Victoria

Top 20 Restaurants in BC

Jo-Ann Loro/Douglas magazine

 Expecting 227 ships in 2016, including the largest cruise ship ever on the Alaskan route. Royal Caribbean International’s Explorer of the Seas, will make 21 calls to Ogden Point.

Harbour Air Helps Save Seal Pups Harbour Air Seaplanes is marking its fifth year of airlifting abandoned or injured seal pups to rescue centres where they can be nursed to health and then released back into the ocean.

The airline began partnering with the Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre in 2010 to Seal pup Peter Reid, named after triathlete and Harbour Air pilot Peter Reid, is shown here with Emily Johnson, assistant manager at Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre.

Is Your Business worth watching?

Nominations now being accepted for Douglas magazine’s 7th annual 10 to Watch Awards.

Did you know that some of Vancouver Island’s most successful businesses have been Douglas 10 to Watch winners? Flytographer, MD Esthetics, SendtoNews, Vibes Fitness and IKAN Installations are among the 60 winners of this distinguished award for new businesses.

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save the animals. Since then, 324 seals have been airlifted, free of charge, to the rescue centre, where they receive medical care before being released.

“It’s a unique West Coast service…” says Randy Wright, Harbour Air’s executive vice-president of corporate business development.

“Passengers are sometimes a bit surprised when they find out they are flying with a seal in the back of the plane. But everyone appreciates that saving seals is the right thing to do.”

If your business is three years old or less and is located on Vancouver Island, please visit douglasmagazine.com for competition information and to download the nomination form. Winners will be selected by an independent panel of business experts. All winners will be announced at a spring gala (date to be announced) and featured in the April/May 2016 issue of Douglas magazine.

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Douglas 13

Innovation | Design | Business | Style | People

One of Canada’s Top Researchers to Help Bring Tourism Victoria to New Heights

Appointed Catherine Riggins has been appointed associate vicepresident of Marketing and Alumni Relations at Royal Roads University. Riggins joined Royal Roads as director of Branding, Marketing and Recruitment in 2010 from Canada Post, where she was director of Marketing Communications, Sponsorship and Brand since 2000. She was the driving force behind Royal Road’s rebranding in 2011, which garnered industry awards in Canada and internationally.

Leading Canadian tourism researcher and big data analyst David Rioux will join Tourism Victoria in 2016. Over the past eight years, Rioux has worked with the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture.

“This is a key milestone for Tourism Victoria, moving from outsourced and simple social-science survey research provided by consultants to advanced in-house research and data analytics capabilities,” says board chair Dave Cowen.

Rioux’s priorities will include benchmarking the effectiveness of the Victoria Conference Centre to help inform key performance indicators and improve performance, applying advanced analytics to Tourism Victoria’s key source markets of Seattle and San Francisco and creating a platform for economic-impact studies of festivals, events, meetings and sporting events.

On the Board The Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce announces its board for 2016: The executive: Chair Al Hasham, Maximum Express and Max Furniture; Vice-Chair Dan Dagg, Hot House Marketing; Past Chair Frank Bourree, Chemistry Consulting; Secretary Mark Mawhinney, Odlum Brown; Treasurer Sang-Kiet Ly, KPMG; Patricia Jelinski, United Way; and John Wilson, Wilson’s Transportation.

The directors: Shaun Cerisano, Royal BC Museum; Lise Gyorkos, Page One Publishing — Douglas and YAM magazines; Kathy Khouri, CHOICES Adoption; Gary Kinar, Kinar Curry Lawyers; Troy MacDonald, HeliJet International; Natasha Reger, The Reger Group; Tom Roemer, Camosun College; Mark Smith, Monk Office; Captain (Navy) Steve Waddell, CFB Esquimalt; and Kris Wirk, Dickson Dusanj & Wirk.

On the move

LORY COUROUX has joined Page One Publishing as an advertising consultant for Douglas, YAM and Salt magazines. She was previously an account manager for Western Living magazine.

Sasha Angus has been appointed CEO of Hyas, a Nanaimo IT security firm.

Angus is former CEO of the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation.

Brian Findlay has retired as president of Andrew Sheret Limited after 50 years with the company.

Eric Findlay succeeds him as president, and Dan Miller and Scott Starkey have been named VPs.

Awards

Unsinkable Anchor From CHEK to the New VI, A-Channel and CTV, Hudson Mack was the face of TV in Victoria for decades. Now, Mack has penned a highly readable autobiography, with compelling pieces of drama (“I had confided to friends and trusted colleagues that I always knew there was a bullet with my name on it some Friday afternoon.”) But Unsinkable Anchor is not a pathos-filled gripe about an unceremonious termination (is there any image so bizarre as Mack taking a bus home with his termination package in hand?) so much as a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a spectacular career forged in television’s heyday.

Mack, who now teaches at Royal Roads University, writes, “What follows is not a lurid tell-all, peeling back layer after layer to expose the rot in Canadian broadcast journalism, ripping away the covers to reveal the soft underbelly of local TV news in a mediumsized Canadian city. (Well, maybe we’ll have a bit of that.) If it’s not that, what it is, is my story.” (Harbour Publishing, 232 pages, paperback, $24.95) 14 Douglas

Todd Dunlop, president and CEO of Ring Partner, a pay-per-call performance marketing network, has been named runner-up for Startup Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. Dunlop is VIATEC’s 2015 Colin Lennox Technology Champion.

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Reward the special people in your life with the gift of a great night out at Clive’s Classic Lounge or Vista 18 Westcoast Grill & Wine Bar. Chateau Victoria Hotel & Suites 740 Burdett Avenue 250-382-4221 chateauvictoria.com

Introducing CITIZEN®’s Navihawk A-T. With Atomic Clock synchronization, this perpetual calendar chronograph is radiocontrolled with world time in 43 cities. This watch functions on solar power and never needs a battery. $795 Ann-Louise Jewellers Mayfair Shopping Centre The Bay Centre, Hillside Centre annlouise.ca

Douglas 15

Italian-made leather briefcases by Bosca, wild socks by Marcoliani, a woven belt by Anderson’s, shoes by Loake from England, or scarves by Germany’s Dante. These and many more excellent choices in store.

Outlooks Menswear 534 Yates Street 250-384-2848 outlooksformen.com

Just $48. 75 to see as many films as you want! 10 showtimes everyday and less than $5/month. It’s a gift that always gets a BIG thank you.

For the earth lover on your list.

Level Ground’s NEW 1 lb coffees in compostable packaging.

IMAX® Victoria (Inside the Royal BC Museum) 675 Belleville Street 250-480-4887 imaxvictoria.com

Delicious coffees from small-scale farmers, roasted locally in Victoria.

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Introducing our special edition Mile High growler — the perfect gift this holiday season.

Visit the brewery to choose from eight different brews for a fill.

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Glerups from Denmark.

Handcrafted from 100% pure, natural wool. The best-fitting and most comfortable indoor footwear you will ever wear. $95 Heart and Sole 1023 Fort Street 250-920-7653 heartandsoleshoes.ca

16 Douglas

This year, give the gift of nothing!

Relax the body and calm the mind floating effortlessly on the surface of skin-temperature water saturated with 1,200 pounds of Epsom salt.

Experience nothing in this unique light and soundproof environment.

Float House Victoria Sensory Deprivation & Floatation 662 Herald Street 778-433-3166 floathousevictoria.com

What will you be giving this year?

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Douglas 17

21%

Take three 

395,900

Number of self-employed people in B.C., which accounts for 21% of private-sector employment in the province Source: Small Business Profile 2015, BC Stats

Brain Trust Every great business starts with an idea.

This book, The Idea In You: How to Find It, Build It, and Change Your Life by Martin Amor and Alex Pellew, is designed to help you find yours. An inspirational tool kit of processes and insights from two experts in innovation, it’s presented as a simple step-by-step guide. It also features stories and advice from a diverse selection of successful creators, so you get to learn from their mistakes and find out what they wish they’d known when they started.

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Business Lingo

Mood Lighting

startup makes just enough money to cover the founders’ meagre living expenses, such as inexpensive food.

The term grew out of the pattern where new companies in the tech sector quickly moved from debt to the first stages of revenue and that small revenue was enough to fund years of development and growth without requiring outside investment.

Next to music, nothing creates ambience for a social setting like lighting. These dazzling fixtures do double duty as mood lighting in your lobby and dramatic decor when the space is used to host any events.

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18 Douglas

Foscarini Caboche LED Suspension Lamp, $2,902, Gabriel Ross

Party Talk The Real Talk game was invented by Lululemon and Kit & Ace founders, the Wilson family. Useful at staff functions or dinner parties, the cards ask conversation-spurring questions, such as, “Would you go on a manned mission to Mars?” shop.kitandace.com

Station to Station The hottest trend in party catering?

The food station. From the comforts of grilled cheese and tomato soup to the elegance of local oysters, let guests wander from offering to offering to customize their nosh. toquecatering.com

Set the Bar

Vintage French Factory Bar Cart, $1,590, Restoration Hardware

Give the local experience with hand-selected Vancouver Island products packaged in a unique gift box!

If your workplace cultivates team bonding with regular Friday gatherings, consider keeping a well-stocked bar cart (complete with fixings for mocktails for the non-drinkers). This industrial-looking option seems apropos, given it was inspired by a steel desk from the early 1900s.

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Victoria | Brentwood Bay | Campbell River | Kelowna metroliquor.com Douglas 19

In conversation with al Hasham ■ BY kerry slavens ■ photo by jeffrey bosdet

“ Find a Al Hasham keeps up a rigorous work schedule, which he balances with a regular running program and time out at his Shawnigan Lake getaway.

20 Douglas

way to say yes” One on one with Al Hasham

Al Hasham is an entrepreneur with an innovative mind, a philosophical spirit and a drive to make a positive difference.

Douglas talks with Hasham as he takes on his new role as chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.

I

f you ask Rahim Khudabux, partner and general manager of Max Furniture, about Al Hasham, he’ll tell you straight out: “Al saved my life.”

Hasham didn’t rescue Khudabux from a burning building, but in some ways he, along with his brother Al Verjee, did something just as profound.

“He essentially took me under his wing and kind of saved my life because I was not on a very smart path,” recalls Khudabux, who was 18 when he met Hasham.

“He showed me the ropes in business and in life.”

Seven years after their initial meeting with Khudabux, Hasham and his brother felt such confidence in the young man, they became partners with him in Max Furniture. It was the start of a successful business.

In fact, a generous spirit and humanitarianism are frequently mentioned in conversations about Hasham.

Whether it’s the BC Cancer Foundation, The Mustard Seed or the Prodigy Group, where he has mentored young entrepreneurs, Hasham always tries to find a way to say yes. He takes the need to give back seriously. He’s also very humble about it.

“I know where I came from and I’ll never forget that,” he says. “Hence, I’m always wanting to give back where I can, when I can.”

Hasham was 10 when he left Uganda for an Austrian refugee camp, escaping the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin. He then came to Canada where he was later reunited with his parents. Hasham’s parents set up a hardware business in Kitsilano and later expanded to other areas. He and his siblings helped out in the family business.

Douglas 21

“Sometimes our parents would question our work ethic if we’d try to take weekends off,” he says, laughing. “Because they’d been working seven days a week, they couldn’t figure out why we wouldn’t want to do the same!”

That work ethic stuck. With two successful businesses — Max Furniture and Maximum Express Courier, Freight & Logistics — and his new role as chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, Hasham’s days often start at 4:30 a.m.

He also inherited an entrepreneurial streak.

In 1977, age 19, he approached Fred Mortensen of DanFoss Couriers & Freight for a job. “I just hired somebody,” Mortensen told him. So Hasham said, “I’ll work for you for free for two weeks ... After those two weeks, you decide between the person you’ve hired and me who you want to keep.”

He got the job.

Years later, when the business was expanding to Victoria, his boss said, “Well, you got the license. You did the work. It’s going to be your office.”

But Hasham had bigger plans. “I said, ‘Well, I have a different idea. My brother and I would like to be partners in the courier business on the Island together with you.’ If he didn’t want to do that, then I was going to give notice and start my own courier business in Vancouver.

22 Douglas

I thought he was going to throw me out! But he embraced it. He said, ‘I’m so proud to hear what you’re saying. You remind me of me.’”

After Mortensen’s death, Hasham and his brother sold their shares back to his family and launched Maximum Express Courier from scratch.

I want members to find value the way I’ve done. I’ve been on the [chamber] board for six years, but I’ve been a member since 1987. I’ve completely utilized the chamber to grow my business, and I’ve done everything possible to make it positive.

Once you get to know what the when I can see somebody has made chamber actually Congratulations on your a difference and actually changed their stands for and new role as chair of the life. It’s pure satisfaction. what it does, you Victoria Chamber. You own understand it’s two businesses and do lots of charity work. Why do you want yet another job? the voice of business. So I learned you actually [Laughs] Well, it’s funny. Everyone says, “Why have to speak to the chamber in order for the are you doing this? You obviously don’t get chamber to sound your voice out to create paid for it, and it takes a lot of time.” But I’m change. passionate about our community, and as much Beyond being very engaged, what mandate do you as it’s not a paying position, it depends on how want to accomplish? you think about payment ... I’ve learned that To see the Greater Victoria Development when you give back, you get back tenfold.

Agency [GVDA] become its own agency. It’s something [past Chamber chair] Frank Bouree As Chamber chair, what will your style be? started together with Dan Dagg [of Hot House I’m a people person, so I want to hear from Marketing and GVDA chair] and the GVDA our members, to retain our members and have committee. I want to help make that transition more people engaged, more directors engaged. successful and create a great organization.

I want to get them talking more. I don’t That’s what happened with Tourism Victoria, want to always be the face, and I don’t want VIATEC and the Film Commission — they were Bruce [Carter] to always be the face. I want all committees of the chamber that were spun our directors to be the face and to use their expertise... off to become their own organizations.

I’m so proud

I believe you told me that you’re the first non-Caucasian chair of this chamber. Things have changed.

Things are evolving. When you think back 50 years, it was so different. For instance, it used to be known as an old boys’ club whereas today we have a lot of members and directors who are female. It used to be the club where everybody wore suits and it was stuffy and you had to follow protocol. It’s a little more relaxed now. You can go in shorts sometimes.

And I have, over the summer [laughs].

When you embrace that, you attract entrepreneurs and young professionals. You help guide them in, and they help you relax and have a bit of fun. They help you change the environment of the boardroom.

What’s your philosophy in business?

Listen to your customers and team. It’s quite simple, actually. Try not to make emotional decisions. Take time to listen. Don’t get your pride involved, because a lot of times you’ll make harsh decisions or wrong decisions because of it. Then, all of a sudden, you don’t want to let your guard down.

So take a breather. Listen. Get one thing in your head: You’re not always right and you’re not perfect. Once you relay that message, not only to your team but to your customers, they’ll know where you stand and know you’re going to make mistakes. It’s how you deal with mistakes that matters.

A lot of people see you as a mentor.

It’s just helping out — paying it forward.

It’s trying to help somebody be successful or get on the right path. ... I’m so proud when I can see somebody has made a difference and actually changed their life.

It’s pure satisfaction. I’m just happy. It’s hard to describe that happiness, that tingly feeling that you get when you see somebody succeed. I just love seeing people succeed.

Where do you find time amidst all of this to plan and reflect?

Running is one of the most important things for me and I do that a ton. People ask me to come running, but I like to run on my own with my music, and I’m in a land nobody can imagine because all I’m thinking is, “What do I have to do? How can I change things?”

What message would you like to pass on to others in business?

I’d just like to tell people to be open minded — to try and help out where they can, to try and pay it forward. That’s huge for me. And to try not to be in a hurry to say no. Think before you say no. I always tell my team, “Try to find a way to say yes.” ■ Douglas 23

the big idea BY ANDREW FINDLAY photos by jeffrey bosdet

In the sleepy town of Coombs, famous mainly for goats on the roof of the market, another layer of reality is being created by one of the world’s most promising virtual-reality companies.

T

here’s only one thing more surreal than the technology itself, and that’s the dizzying pace of change and innovation in the world of virtual reality.

Cloudhead Games started as a basement shop of three game designers in Qualicum Beach in 2012 and has since grown to 14 employees, attracting a talented team of digital creatives while quickly gaining international recognition for the development of a pioneering virtual reality (VR) game. And it’s all happening in quaint Coombs, known more as place where goats graze on the roof of the market and people shop for imported gifts and kitsch than as a hotbed of VR innovation.

“Technology is changing so fast. It’s incredibly rewarding but also incredibly frustrating,” says Denny Unger, founder, CEO and creative director of Cloudhead Games.

In other words, when Unger and his team of designers encounter problems, there are no quick Google-search fixes; VR technology is still largely uncharted territory and is the new frontier of the digital gaming world.

The New Gaming Reality

it’s Virtually To Boldly Go Cloudhead’s flagship built-for-VR game is The Gallery, a four-part episodic fantasy-exploration game based on what Unger calls “1980s-era fantasy movies.”

The first episode, Call of the Starseed, is receiving rave reviews. Its promo touts “a missing sister, an ancient machine and a sinister presence.” It invites users to “reach out and touch a forgotten world filled with bizarre characters and wonder.” Unger hopes The Gallery will raise the bar of the VR gaming experience with its focus on interactivity and user locomotion.

In a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s fictional VR unit, Unger likens Cloudhead’s technology to a “first generation Holodeck,” a high-tech experience that allows users to walk through walls one moment and inhabit other planets the next.

“The Gallery was our initial starting point in late 2012, but over the course of development we have amassed a number of R&D tools and skills which 24 Douglas

Here cemented us as innovators in the VR space,” says Unger, while taking a break from a busy schedule.

“Since then we’ve consulted with 20th Century Fox, Legendary Pictures, Valve and others to further branch our potential reach into the entertainment market. We are pursuing parallel projects in other areas and responsibly expanding the team to meet those demands.”

Cloudhead Games has attracted the attention of VR heavyweights and at the time of this interview was in negotiations with HTC and Oculus, two major competitors in the VR platform arena. But it hasn’t come without a lot of long days and short nights. Before launching Cloudhead Games, Unger was already well established in the gaming industry as owner of the small but successful firm

WorldWorksGames, which he launched in 2002. He still owns the company, but as his new venture takes off, it’s a juggling act that’s becoming more difficult to sustain.

“I’m looking for a buyer,” he says.

Entering the Elite Realm Cloudhead got its start with roughly $82,000 in crowdsourced funds, followed by a round of family and friends funding, to the tune of $185,000. After establishing itself as an upstart in VR technology, Cloudhead applied to the Venture Acceleration Program, an initiative of the BC Innovation Council that helps tech companies get investment ready and is offered through regional partners like Nanaimo-based Innovation Island. This program in turn enabled the company to tap $1.1 million in private investment capital (Unger says once an investor understands the groundbreaking technology, it is very attractive,) leading to further expansion for the Coombs tech upstart.

 Denny Unger is founder, CEO and creative director of Cloudhead Games in Coombs. He hopes his company’s flagship built-for-VR game, The Gallery, will raise the bar of the VR gaming experience with its focus on interactivity and user locomotion.

 Tracey Unger, general manager of Cloudhead Games, wearing the HTC Viv VR headset, which will be one of the first platforms for The Gallery.

Douglas 25

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See things differently.

“Cloudhead is in an elite category in VR game development,” says Graham Truax, executive in residence and business adviser with Innovation Island. He has worked with Cloudhead since the company entered the Venture Acceleration Program in October 2013.

Over the past two years, Innovation Island has helped 17 companies, including Cloudhead Games, secure a total of $1.5 million in private investment capital, $400,000 in government grants, $1 million in new revenue and 35 partnership agreements.

Truax says innovators like Cloudhead can use what he calls “Canadian characteristics,” such as doing more with less and being more humble than many of its U.S.-based counterparts, as a market advantage and opportunity.

It also helps that Cloudhead is on the cutting edge of a gaming platform that is set to take off.

“Cloudhead is one of the few indie game developers that was started in the past few years to focus 100 per cent on VR,” says Cumberland-based Nygil Goggins, a VP with GEX Capital, a boutique venture-capital firm focused on early-stage tech companies.

“Given that VR really is a new entertainment medium in its infancy,” he adds, “Cloudhead is a pioneering group working to solve problems and create better VR experiences for players. I think they’ll be well situated as a first mover with limited competition.”

Small Town, Fast Lane Though Coombs seems an unlikely location for a VR gaming company, Unger believes the small-town Vancouver Island lifestyle has allowed him to attract experienced employees looking for a change from the city and a place to raise kids.

“Best-in-class, world-changing technology can be built anywhere,” says Innovation Island’s Truax.

“When our staff needs to step out of the office, they’re not in the middle of a big city,” Unger says. “They’re in a place that’s beautiful.”

That is, if they have time to step out of the design studio for a break; these days it’s game on for Cloudhead Games. ■

Is your business worth watching?

IF THE ANSWER IS “YES,” APPLY NOW FOR DOUGLAS MAGAZINE’S 7th ANNUAL 10 TO WATCH AWARDS.

WINNER, 2015:

Stocksy

The Douglas 10 to Watch Awards shine a big spotlight on the best new businesses (three years old or less) on Vancouver Island. Now in their 7th year, these prestigious awards provide the publicity and positive “rocket fuel” that startups need in those critical early years of enterprise.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BEING A WINNER? • The credibility of winning a well-recognized award • Positive exposure to 120,000+ Douglas readers • A feature in the April/May 10 to Watch issue of Douglas magazine (30,000 copies in circulation) and on douglasmagazine.com • Recognition at an exclusive awards gala in front of an audience of hundreds of the Island’s business movers and shakers • Social media mentions WHO CHOOSES THE WINNERS? An independent panel of business experts reviews the applications and choose the winners.

MY BUSINESS IS READY! HOW DO I APPLY? Go to douglasmagazine.com/10 toWatch for application details and rules. Complete the application and submit by 1pm on January 15, 2016.

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TO WATCH SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES By sponsoring the 10 to Watch Awards, your business will play a leadership role in growing a vibrant business community. Reach a qualified audience, enjoy a positive association with the widely recognized Douglas brand and receive the recognition of giving back.

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★ 28 Douglas

★

★

★

★

l i a t Re n o i t u l o Rev Findlay

by Andrew

dollars, savvy for shoppers’ on ti ti pe m co mething iff online and offering so es ch Faced with st ni r ei th man touch. are honing Internet: the hu e th of ge local retailers a e lutionary in th seemingly revo

S

helagh Macartney, owner of sister stores She She Bags and She She Shoes is a veteran of the highly competitive boutique retail scene in Victoria. The art history major opened her first store 25 years ago, a gift shop in Trounce Alley, when there was no Internet, and Omnichannel was still a distant shopping innovation.

Then seven years ago, because she “couldn’t look at another Christmas ornament,” Macartney decided to open She She Bags, a boutique specializing in handbags, an idea that was hatched in San Francisco where she observed ordinarily dressed women carrying amazing bags. That idea then grew into another idea: a separate sister boutique for specialty shoes, the kind not sold in your average department store.

Macartney’s niche focus was successful and today her customers span the age demographic from styleconscious 16 year olds to elegant octogenarians who don’t mind shelling out for a handmade Karen Wilson purse, or a Liebeskind bag from Germany, or unique and chic footwear like Ruby Shoo and Poetic London.

Macartney’s secret? She never stops talking to her customers and she never rests on her retail laurels. Last year, she relocated her shoe store from Trounce Alley to a new location beside She She Bags on View Street.

Together, the sister stores, with their complementary and very targeted branding, pack a double-whammy of fashion that attracts stylish shoppers.

★ 29 Douglas

★

★

★

★ Douglas 29

This past October, Macartney picked up on the pop-up store trend to sell off old stock, opening for a weekend, just around the corner on Government Street. The stylish event rewarded her loyal clients and introduced her brands to a new market. The event far exceeded her expectations, Macartney says.

A Fickle Landscape

Retail matters a great deal to Victoria for many reasons. Not only is healthy retail a key indicator of a city’s success and vibrancy, the sector is a significant employer.

In 2011, the most recent year for which Statistics Canada gathered data, the entire Greater Victoria retail sector accounted for 20,085 jobs, up two per cent from 2006, with food and health, and clothing and sporting goods as the two largest retail subgroups.

As vital as it is to a vibrant city, retail is a fickle beast. It’s a constantly shifting landscape that is also rooted in basic principles that hearken to the very dawn of retail sales; that is, quality products backed by friendly, knowledgeable, trustworthy service. There’s no doubt being nimble and responsive is not only good business; it’s a matter of survival.

The online world has enabled consumers to customize their shopping experience like never before. Yet even though many prognosticators predicted the death of Main Street with the proliferation of big-box retailers and online shoppers, for the small, independent boutique retailers like She She Bags and She She Shoes, time has proven there’s still a demand for bricks-and-mortar retail where proprietors knows the customers’ names and tastes. competing with online and big box

In fact, according to some astute observers, the future of small retail may be brighter these days than it has been in a long time. Last March, author and venture capitalist Arlene Dickinson of Dragons’ Den fame made a post on her Facebook page that gives independent retailers considerable reason for optimism.

“The demise of so many big-box retailers in Canada leaves a real opportunity for entrepreneurs to fill the market’s evolving needs,” Dickinson wrote, in an obvious reference to Target Canada’s spectacular failure. The future of bricks-and-mortar retail, she added, will be in “specialty stores” and “those specialty stores will do well because they offer a fabulous and unique customer experience.”

Furthermore, Dickinson went on to say that “online is not the death knoll of retail stores. It’s the signal for a pivotal change in them. Bakeries, artisanal products, 30 Douglas

What gives small retailers their edge? locally grown produce, butchers, wellness services: the list of what we want and will buy from local retailers is still endless. It’s exciting even as it’s changing. And interestingly enough, it’s ultimately changing back to what it was 100 years ago.”

Lisa Hutcheson is a retail expert and consultant for J.C. Williams Group and is based in Toronto. Like Dickinson, she says fears that the online shopping world would eradicate bricks-and-mortar retailing have not been borne out in reality, even though online shopping in Canada now accounts for a whopping $30 billion in sales annually, according to stats gathered by J.C. Williams.

To be successful, she adds, retailers must embrace and understand the shopping habits of modern consumers. People are customizing their shopping experience like never before, often pre-shopping online and reading online reviews of products and stores before walking through the doors.

Details are crucial, says Hutcheson, like the feel and atmosphere of a store, the service and the little extras like serving coffee or, in the case of Lululemon Athletica, offering free in-store yoga classes every weekend. Lululemon has experienced some high-profile publicity flops and product gaffs, a few at the hands of its colourful founder and former CEO Chip Wilson. However, the company’s commitment to quality, service and community permeates

to the core of its corporate culture. And though Lululemon has quarterly revenues in the realm of $500 million, there are lessons for even the most boutique of boutique retailers.

“The question to ask is, when a customer comes into your store, what kind of experience will they have?” Hutcheson says. “It’s extremely important because you won’t be able to compete on price with the big-box stores.”

Creative Strategies

Hutcheson says progressive retailers are taking personal service to the next level with curated collections to suit the individual tastes of customers. For example, Frank & Oak, a Montreal-based men’s clothing chain, sends curated collections to select customers once a month; customers pay only for what they keep and send the rest back free of charge.

Specialized, personal service is a hallmark of She She Bags and She She Shoes. It’s also the calling card of D.G. Bremner & Co. Menswear.

David Bremner opened the Sidney-based high-end men’s clothing store in 2002, and last spring cut the ribbon on its second location on Broughton Street in downtown Victoria, filling a void left by the recent closure of Philip Nyren Menswear and Womenswear (formerly British Importers). It’s a family affair: David manages the new downtown location while daughter Erin, who was elected to Sidney municipal council in 2014, looks after the Sidney store.

Trend Report 2016 3 Retail Strategies to Fuel Growth

★ 1

Omnichannel Retailing

Create a seamless experience for customers across multiple channels.

Do have a current website with a mobile component. A customer should be able to walk into your retail location and seamlessly reference a product they saw online.

★ 2

The buying journey

Take advantage of up-selling and cross-selling. It is vital to retailers’ growth to identify those items that drive traffic to their store or site.

These items need to have something that will entice or hook consumers who are not as brand loyal as a retailer would wish.

★ 3

Targeting Millennials

Millennials are now the biggest generation in the Canadian workforce. As they become increasingly affluent, Millennials will play a central role in retail’s profitability moving forward.

Source: Adapted from cpcstrategy.com

“My dad has an old-school philosophy. That is, to treat customers the way you’d want to be treated,” says Erin Bremner about her father who has worked in retail since he was 15. “It seems simple, but we have very loyal customers and they are our best advocates.”

The younger Bremner also has decades of retail experience. While studying business administration at Camosun College, she worked at Roots, then after college went overseas to work for another clothing retailer. Erin returned to the Island, because she says she missed home and also felt she could make a difference with the family business.

The flagship store on Beacon Avenue is a cozy 1,200 square feet, with an elbow-room sewing space in the back where alterations can be done while customers browse. A pair of friendly Australian shepherds, the store mascots, faithfully greet clients when they walk through the door. High-end brands, like Liberty Print Bugatchi shirts and Alberto jeans, which retail for more than $200 per pair, fill the shelves.

The shop has the feel of something from a bygone era fit for a Norman Rockwell period piece, but the Bremners don’t ignore the modern realities of the Internet; doing so would be at the businesses’ peril.

Though they don’t sell online, Bremner says social media is extremely important as a way to dialogue with customers, tease them with product offerings and keep them informed about in-store events, like when visiting reps are in town to showcase new product lines.

To keep their two stores vital and distinct, Bremner

says the respective stores are stocked with inventory and brands reflective of the slightly different 45-to70 year old clientele — on the one hand, downtown working professionals interested in the latest trends, while in Sidney, a little more relaxed and casual.

“Our customers care about how they look when they leave the house,” Erin says. “I have faith in the human connection. Customers can come in and feel the fabric, and we’ll do deliveries just as if they were to buy it on Amazon.”

Knowing Your customer

As for Shelagh Macartney, she knows all about retail and the human connection. At the time of this interview, she was gearing up for one of her big fall weekends, the Victoria marathon that she says floods downtown with fit, affluent consumers who are “excited to be in the capital city.”

As a sole proprietor with two full-time and three part-time staff, and two small businesses to manage, Macartney admits she has little time for strategic planning, other than staying attuned to her clientele.

And she does this well, going out of her way to talk with her customers and learn their tastes and interests.

As it turns out, that ability to connect closely to clientele — to provide the all-too-rare human touch — might just be the thing that gives Macartney and retailers like her the competitive edge. And yes, for retailers doing business in an increasingly online and big-box world, that's revolutionary. ■

T

he demise of so many bigbox retailers in Canada leaves a real opportunity for entrepreneurs to fill the market’s evolving needs.

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Douglas 31

Hugo Ciro/Level Ground Trading

Reg Van Lierop, operations manager for Level Ground Trading, with a worker at the Fero Co-op in Yirgalem in Sidamo, Ethiopia. Coffee is the primary source of income for the people in Yirgalem and farmers in the Fero Co-op receive premiums for their coffee because it is considered among the best in the world.

Agents of Change

By Athena Mckenzie

32 Douglas

For these passionate local innovators, making the world a better place goes well beyond a Trendy marketing strategy.

In today’s socially conscious economy, there’s no shortage of socialmedia-savvy businesses claiming to “make the world a better place.” The expression is so popular, it has its own easy-to-hashtag acronym, #MTWABP. As a marketing strategy, it’s been used to describe products as varied as fund-raising software to time-saving apps; the practice of startups making the assertion has become so ubiquitous, it’s a running gag on the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley.

So, what businesses are actually doing things to improve the human condition?

Not surprisingly, Vancouver Island — with its thriving triple-bottom-line economic ecosystem — is home to several entrepreneurs and entrepreneurially minded organizations whose work has true potential for a substantive positive impact on many people’s lives.

Conscious Capitalism Charity is not a word the founders of Level

Ground Trading like to use. The Island company deals directly with many small-scale farmers and producers in developing countries, giving them a fair price for their goods — and offering consumers an ethical product.

“We never use terminology like ‘helping farmers,’ because we’re not sponsoring them, we’re doing business with them,” says cofounder Stacey Toews. “We have as much to gain from the partnership as they do; it’s how we run our business.”

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ocean networks canada

In October, ONC completed Expedition 2015 Wiring the Abyss. The complex operation saw 268 instruments serviced, recovered and installed during a total of 43 dives on eight sites in the Pacific Ocean.

Fifteen kilometres of cable were also recovered and recycled from the marine-protected area at the Endeavour site in preparation for extensive cable installations scheduled for 2016.

This will support a wide range of scientific observation at this extreme environment.

ocean networks canada

The company was founded in 1997 by two couples: Hugo and Tracey Ciro, and Toews and his wife, Laurie Klassen, and the initial headquarters were in Hugo and Tracey’s garage.

The motivation was addressing trade inequity and what the Colombian-born Hugo saw as a detrimental lack of communication between producers in developing countries and North American consumers.

“It’s not just throwing money at farmers,” Toews says. “Connecting a good price to good quality is central to this. We want farmers to see that it’s a replicable relationship, season after season and harvest after harvest. You didn’t get this money for this product because you won the lottery: you gave us a really good product and because of that we are buying at a really good price. It really has a cause-and-effect sensibility to it.”

Level Ground’s first trade relationship was with a cooperative of small-scale coffee farmers in Colombia. Eighteen years ago, with world coffee prices at a record high, its first purchase was a half-container of coffee that launched under the brand of Café San Miguel. From interviews and visits with the trade partners, Hugo learned the farming families’ greatest ambitions were to see their children go to school. He found a group of dedicated teachers and community members who joined together to form Famicafé. In that first year, six students were provided full scholarships to high school.

Those original students all completed high school with top marks and attended university and technical colleges on Famicafé scholarships.

Now, in 2015, the company uses the tagline “5,000 farmers in 10 countries.” It is a direct importer and roaster of specialty coffees from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, DR Congo and the Philippines, as well as of tea from Assam, India. Using the same Direct Fair Trade model, Level Ground also imports organic dried tropical fruit and sugar cane, and, most recently, heirloom rice from the Philippines and spices from Sri Lanka and India. Results from its fair trade practices include: premium prices paid to 5,000 farming families each year; annual enrolment of 120 rural students on scholarship to high school and university; infrastructure improvements for rural schools; health-care benefits for mothers in Tanzania; and microcredit loans.

“Every country is different; every producer group is different,” Toews says. “Whatever they want, we endeavour to see that come about, never presuming we’re the saviours walking in and telling them how to do it. It’s more listening and then responding with a business partnership that puts money at the specific issues they’re wanting to see addressed.”

Level Ground is a great example of conscious capitalism, where profit, sustainability and achieving social good are not opposed to one

another. By viewing the business holistically, and as part of a larger ecosystem, there is no need for the business to sacrifice its social mission.

“A critical part of what we want people to see is the power of your everyday buying decisions,” Toews says. “Charity is not where the bulk of Canada’s money goes; most people donate a couple of per cent at best ... so why can’t those everyday exchanges, especially the purchase of food, be part of a better life for farmers?”

The result is a company that is excelling both in profitability and in its social mission.

Innovating Change The ability to make the world a better place is greatly enhanced by fostering a deep understanding of how the planet works. The ocean, which covers 70 per cent of the planet, provides food and resources, moderates the climate and supports most of life on earth.

With this in mind, Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) was established in 2007 as a major initiative of the University of Victoria to operate and manage the world’s leading ocean observatories. These observatories comprise hundreds of miles of cables along the ocean floor — the Neptune and Venus systems — that contain hundreds of sensors over a wide range of ocean environments. ONC provides the collected data freely to anyone.

“Understanding the pace of climate change in the ocean, how the change is affecting ocean ecosystems and human society on small and large scales, and what steps might be taken to mitigate adverse affects of change is paramount,” states the ONC strategic plan.

The impressive depths of its research notwithstanding, ONC’s president and CEO, Dr. Kate Moran, is an integral element of ONC’s potential to be an innovative force of positive change in the world. Before coming to ONC in 2011, the world-renowned ocean engineer was seconded to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she served as an assistant director and focused on Arctic, polar, ocean, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and climate policy issues.

Moran calls her move to ONC serendipitous.

After she was invited to apply for the job, she came to Victoria to visit and meet the team.

In the cab on the way home from the airport in Washington, she happened to catch a radio interview with President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren.

“The interviewer asked John, ‘Among all the science that you are responsible for in the United States, what is the most important?’ And John — who is a brilliant scientist, whose office spans all kinds of science, from the research needed for spies to nuclear issues — said, ‘The most important thing we need to do today is observe the Earth.’ And I just had an interview where I could be running one of the world’s best Earth-observing systems. It made me think I should roll up my sleeves and do it.”

Moran believes that in terms of climate change, the observations made by ONC are crucial. And the longer the records are kept, the more valuable the data can be.

“The critical part about what we do is that it’s not just one measurement,” she says. “As we observe whether it is warming or more

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acidification or decreased dissolved oxygen, we can detect that impact, if you will, but then we can also observe the impact on life in the ocean at the same time. And that’s the real power of these observatories. It’s within the multiple types of observations we are making that we can sense the change.”

A non-profit society, ONC still brings an entrepreneurial approach to its organization.

Recently it has been using its research and technologies for wider purposes. Its Smart Oceans program is developing data products that serve a wider range of stakeholders than just scientists. An example is a sensor for the

36 Douglas

shipping industry for improved marine safety.

“We’re also working with two Canadian companies that have the best digital hydrophones in the world,” Moran says.

“We are able to use that technology to actually locate the positions of marine animals and understand their interaction with these environments much better.”

Recently, ONC revealed its earthquake notification technology. Its offshore sensors can detect the first signs of an earthquake and send out notifications, allowing critical actions to take place that can save lives and mitigate damage.

“It can provide a 30-to-90-second alert ahead of major earthquake ground shaking,” Moran says. “And we have a whole list of other ocean analytics that we are working on.”

Culture of Caring Sometimes making the world a better place is as simple as a business emphasizing public service and volunteerism among staff. While many companies take part in occasional events, be it food drives at Christmas or charity fundraisers, the truly noteworthy make giving back a yearround integral part of their company culture.

Elton Pereira, co-founder of the Victoriabased software company Paretologic, believes it’s important for a business to share success and take part in local and international causes that speak to the company’s values.

“Our charitable activities give our team a sense of pride and purpose and have provided valuable opportunities for bonding and working toward common goals,” he says.

In 2014, ParetoLogic invested in Change Heroes, an innovative social enterprise that gives individuals and charitable organizations a powerful platform with tools to effectively fundraise, resulting in the building of schools that impact hundreds of thousands of children in the developing world.

It was seeing Change Heroes founder Taylor Conroy’s TEDx talk that inspired Pereira.

“I wanted to be part of something new, exciting and impactful,” Pereira says. “He allowed me to be his first guinea pig and fortunately I was successful in utilizing social media and personalized videos to recruit 100 of my closest friends and family to donate $3.33 per day for three months for a total of $30,000.

This built three beautiful schools in Rajasthan, India.”

Shortly thereafter, ParetoLogic invested in and partnered with Change Heroes. Through the organization’s close relationship with Free the Children, they were able to raise $20,000 to build an additional two schools: one in Kenya and one in Haiti.

“The world has changed, and how people raise money has changed,” says Pereira. “With Change Heroes, it’s fun to be working with a social enterprise that connects people in a new and innovative way to positively impact as many children, families and communities as possible. We feel that education is extremely important and by providing access to education we can cause change and improve people’s lives – now and in the future.”

And that’s what #MTWABP is all about — it shouldn’t just be a marketing gimmick.

Whether your business is founded on a fairtrade model, your research has the potential to change the world, or you simply weave philanthropy into the fabric of your company culture, doing good is good business. ■

Th e

B lu e Book Your Essential Guide to Business S e rv i c e s o n V a n c o u v e r I s l a n d , w i t h E x p e r t T i p s a n d S t r at eg i e s

Good Service Grows Business

I n n ovati o n

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G r ow t h

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S t r at e gy

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B u si n e ss

2016

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P r o d u cti v it y

Get Organized New ideas require space to grow, so make sure you start the new year right with a floor-to-ceiling organizational cleanup.

Reboot your business

by kerry Slavens

How to Start a New Year of Growth and Opportunity

As the new year approaches, it’s a great time to clear out the clutter, think about what’s working — and what isn’t — and reboot your business for success.

Here are 10 ideas that will help you start 2016 off right.

1 Find Your New S Curve

➜

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The rise of a new curve emerges every time you break away

➜

➜

➜

Picture your business on a path that looks a bit like the letter S. As a startup, you Time to start climb the curve as your business grows, thinking of the but eventually most businesses reach next big thing a point where that growth begins to flatten out. That’s when it’s time to really boost your company’s The start of a innovation and make the leap to your successful path next S curve to begin a new phase Staying in the comfort of growth. The beginning of a new zone is easy, but year, when you are in a fresh frame of greatness happens mind, is a great time to figure out how when you escape from it to make that leap.

Think about the items you use daily and make a firm decision to get rid of what you no longer need. Make note of the spaces where clutter accumulates. If the shelves by the copier are always overflowing, invest in a new, closeddoor cabinet system. If cables for digital devices are scattered everywhere, there are great cablemanagement systems available.

If the mail always piles up on the reception desk, find an attractive shelving solution that hides the mail from visitors.

Think modularly by establishing work zones (supply area, meeting area, etc.) to keep clutter under control and away from client areas. Studies show most people function better in a clutter-free environment, and clients feel more confident about clutter-free offices. Don’t wait for the perfect time to declutter.

Now is good.

The condition of your office

YOU’VE CHOSEN THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED…

sends a signal to clients and others who work with you — and clutter sends the wrong message.

Helping you turn YOUR Dreams into Reality!  Small business owners and individuals  Tax, business and financial planning, and tax returns

2 Get Rid of What’s Not Working

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A clunky business strategy, a bad website design, an uncomfortable office chair, a broken printer? Why surround yourself with things that symbolize failure? Shred, refresh, rethink and recycle your way to a better frame of mind for you and your team.

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3 Decide to Delegate

If you want a job done right, you need to do it yourself, right? We all know that’s not true, but many of us tend to run our businesses that way. Get a smarter start on the new year by making a commitment to delegate or outsource those tasks that take you away from working on your business. For instance, do you need to do all of the social media yourself, or is it smarter to hire a savvy university student who can do it twice as fast, freeing you up to innovate, pursue opportunities and lead your team? The same goes for bookkeeping. Is your time worth more to your business when you are balancing the books or prospecting for new clients?

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4 Set Your Intentions

New Year’s resolutions aren’t just for losing pounds; they are for businesses too. This is a great time of the year to make a list of the business goals you plan to accomplish in 2016. Keep it in front of you and keep it simple. You can add it to your business plan later, when you’re ready, but in the meantime don’t bury it in a report. Create a poster of your intentions. Share it with your team. Make it your manifesto for the year ahead.

5 Break Bad Habits

Meetings that always go on too long?

Continual budget overruns? Sales targets that always fall short? Left untended, bad habits can begin to echo the broken-window syndrome, where broken windows that aren’t repaired simply attract more broken windows.

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Decide now to take action to create better habits and put in place strategies to succeed. Start the new year off with a new meeting format that saves time. Stop budget bleeds by working collaboratively with your team to create realistic goals and reporting protocols. Likewise, work with your sales team to set doable, concrete sales goals.

The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation by Josh Linkner, CEO of Detroit Venture Partners, explores purposeful transformation and why it’s important to make reinvention a regular part of your business strategy.

6 Think About Your Customers

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

by Ashlee Vance delves into the mind and ideas of one of the world’s most talked about entrepreneurs.

Like you, your customers will also be thinking about the new year and how to improve their businesses. You want to be part of that process, so start now to strategize how to boost your customer service — and then schedule new year’s meetings with clients to test the waters and find out how you can help improve their businesses in 2016.

How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery is a fascinating look at world-changing creative endeavours. Author Kevin Ashton, the man who invented the term “the Internet of Things,” tells us how the Wright brothers set out to “fly a horse,” how the stealth bomber resulted from a 25-cent bet, and more.

7 Get Smarter

If your business is quiet during the holidays, take the time to catch up on your reading.

Comb the Internet for ideas from inspiring sites like springwise.com or sit down with some of the year’s most influential business books for inspiration. Some of the top picks from 2015 include:

8 Give Back

Start the year off by committing to finding ways to contribute to the community through your business. You and your team will feel good

about helping out, and you may even find that you reach new audiences. Decide what you and your team are passionate about and then reach out to community organizations to find the best fit.

9 Expand Your Network

When you are a new entrepreneur, you are constantly reaching out to expand your network, but sometimes the longer you are in business, the more you tend to work in a closed-loop system of already-established contacts. This year, resolve to reach out beyond your business’s typical boundaries to expand your network, hear fresh ideas and meet new potential clients. Join a new business organization or, if you prefer something less formal, simply resolve to reach out to a few new contracts every week.

10 Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

This is the year to let go of things that are no longer rewarding or paying off. Take a pause to to clear the way for your business to achieve more revenue, reach and rewards. By setting your intentions, you’ll position your business and yourself to achieve great things in 2016. ■

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What, When and How to Outsource A guide for your small business

by athena Mckenzie

A

s a small-business owner, outsourcing may seem like an extravagance. However, your time is your most valuable commodity and wasting it on energysapping tasks is not the best route forward for your business. From managing day-to-day chores with contracted service providers to building your business with consulting professionals, outsourcing may be an integral part of your success. When it comes to outsourcing, the good news is that you can contract out almost any business-related task.

Timing is Everything The first question many small businesses have is: When should I outsource? The truth is that for very small businesses, it could make sense to start outsourcing from day one. You might start

TOO MANY HATS?

How many employee roles do small business owners fill on a given day?

0 = 1% 1-2 = 8% 3-4 = 46% 5-6 = 30% 7-8 = 7% 9-10 = 3% 11+ = 5%

Sources: Staples, eVoice, gnapartners.com

Your business is our highest priority We’re about making your business better with competitive pricing and customized service.

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maxcourier.com info@maxcourier.com 250.721.3278 42 Douglas

with a bookkeeper, add a virtual assistant when needed and then grow your team from there.

For others, the answer is just as simple: when you and your employees are unable to manage the day-to-day business of your company and continue to build the business at a satisfactory rate, it is time to seriously consider outsourcing.

To create more time and opportunity for your company to grow, there are several key areas where it makes sense to outsource.

Confused about importing?

 Bookkeeping

Ask any small-business owner where they’re falling behind and it’s usually with the financials — bookkeeping is routinely touted as the entrepreneur’s most neglected task.

But this is a slippery slope, and once you’re on that slide it’s hard to get off. You should be monitoring each month’s numbers to have a firm understanding of your small business’s health and future. By outsourcing your basic accounting to a professional bookkeeper, you will have all the financial information you need at your fingertips to run your small business successfully. And a bookkeeper will do your accounting work faster — and more accurately — than you. Ask another entrepreneur or your tax accountant for a recommendation for a bookkeeper. This is an affordable addition to your outsourced team that can make a huge difference in the management of your business.

Let us chart a smooth course for your business.

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 Payroll

If T4s and deductions and remittances keep you up at night, you’re not alone. By outsourcing your payroll, can you not only alleviate the time you spend calculating payroll, determining those tax obligations and preparing cheques, but you also sleep easier come income-tax time knowing that everything is in order.

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Payroll firms also make your life easier with automated signatures, envelope stuffing and the direct deposit of cheques. In addition, they can set up services such as retirement plans, allowing employees to designate automatic deductions from their paycheques.

Most important, payroll firms stay on top of any government regulations and changes.

 Administrative Support

There’s an old saying that administrative assistants rule the world, and the reason is simple — they keep many companies, large and small, in proper working order. Utilizing a virtual assistant — someone who provides help remotely — is a cost-effective way to handle those routine tasks that make you wish you had an extra set of hands. Use a virtual assistant to keep your personal schedule, maintain a database, prepare company mailings, email newsletters, make travel arrangements and handle those basic smallbusiness duties that often get left until the wee hours of the night.

 Marketing

Bringing your marketing efforts to a creative agency that can strategize and execute across multiple marketing channels could be key to your success, especially if you are launching a new product.

Additionally, you get all the perks of having experienced marketing experts working for your

Just released...

business, but you don’t have to carry them on your payroll. This provides flexibility and you can access professionals with a high level of expertise.

 Social Media

It’s not an overstatement to say that social media has evolved into a crucial marketing platform.

Which means it’s not really something you can do effectively off the side of your desk. Luckily, there are talented marketing consultants and social media marketing agencies ready to develop your social media strategy and web content. By using a specialist, you gain consistency in message and form.

This is an area where some small-business owners have trouble conceding control. Find a consultant you trust and be prepared to let that person be the voice of your company.

It’s also important to remember that social media is a long-term strategy, so this is not necessarily a quick-fix outsourcing contract.

NoT AN EXCUSE TO Slack One thing to remember is that outsourcing is not an opportunity to dump the less desirable tasks. The things that are important to your core business should remain in house.

By outsourcing, you take advantage of the talent of others and focus your attentions on things that you do best — all for the benefit of your business. ■

5

top

Outsourcing Small Business Benefits

1 I ncrease sales opportunities

2 Enable business

to focus on core competencies

3 Prevent missed opportunities

4 Reduce annual costs 5 Make time and resources available

2015 STATE OF THE ISLAND ECONOMIC

Th first report of its kind for Vancouver Island!

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State of the Island Economic Summit S

44 Douglas

October 26-27, 2016

Business Resources Your reference guide to Essential business services This directory is made up of Vancouver Island businesses and organizations who have supported Douglas during 2015 in our mission to provide 100 per cent local coverage on key topics such as business, innovation, technology and leadership.

Accommodations

Premiere Executive Suites premieresuites.com

Eclipse Creative eclipsecreative.com

The Beach Club Resort

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel & Suites Victoria DoubleTreeVictoria.com

Holy Cow holycowcom.com

Brentwood Bay Lodge & Spa

The Westin Bear Mountain Victoria Golf Resort & Spa westin.com

Chateau Victoria Hotel and Suites

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

Accent Inns accentinns.com beachclubbc.com

brentwoodbaylodge.com

chateauvictoria.com Hotel Grand Pacific

hotelgrandpacific.com Hotel Rialto

hotelrialto.ca Inn at Laurel Point laurelpoint.com

Advertising Agencies/Media Barlow Media Inc. barlowmedia.com

Hot House Marketing hothousemarketing.com Integral Creative integralcreative.ca Leap Leapxd.com McAllister Marketing mcallistermarketing.com Mediactive Inc. mediactive.net Media Experts mediaexperts.com

St. Bernadine Mission Communications stbernadine.com TAXI Canada Ltd taxi.ca Trapeze Communications trapeze.ca Treehouse Media treehousemedia.ca Vizeum vizeum.com Wasserman + Partners Advertising wasserman-partners.com

Three Point Motors threepointmotors.com Volkswagon Victoria vwvictoria.com

Business Apparel Ann Louise Jewellers annlouise.ca Bay Centre, The thebaycentre.ca D.G. Bremner & Co dgbremner.ca

YAM Magazine yammagazine.com

Heart & Sole Shoes heartandsoleshoes.ca

Automotive

Hughes hughesclothing.com

CTV Vancouver Island vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca

Noise Digital Inc. noisedigital.com

Circle Communications getcircle.ca

Page One Publishing Inc. pageonepublishing.ca

Magnolia Hotel & Spa magnoliahotel.com

Cossette cossette.com

Rep Lab replab.ca

Oak Bay Beach Hotel oakbaybeachhotel.com

DSA Media dsamedia.ca

Salt Magazine saltmagazine.ca

German Auto Import Network gain-vi.ca

The Parkside Spa Ltd parksidevictoria.com

Douglas Magazine douglasmagazine.com

Skunkworks Creative Group skunkworks.ca

Island BMW islandbmw.ca

Inn on Long Lake Emerald Isle innonlonglake.com

Porsche Victoria porschevictoria.com

BMW/Mini Victoria bmwvictoria.ca

Mayfair Shopping Centre mayfairshoppingcentre.com Outlooks for Men outlooksformen.com Woodgrove Centre woodgrovecentre.com Douglas 45

Business Services

Delivery Services

Acacia Landscape acaciavictoria.com

E-Quick Courier Service e-quick.ca

Atlas Audio Video Unlimited avu.ca

Maximum Express maxcourier.com

Beanstream beanstream.com BWest Interactive bwest.ca Camacc camacc.com Capital Regional District crd.bc.ca

Educational Institutes Brentwood College School brentwood.bc.ca Camosun College camosun.ca

FunctionFox functionfox.com

Royal Roads University royalroads.ca

Island Photobooth islandphotobooth.com

University of Victoria uvic.ca

King Bros. Ltd. kibro.com

Vancouver Island University viu.ca

Level Ground levelground.com

Event Planners

Return-It return-it.ca

Brink Events brinkevents.ca

Synergy Enterprises synergyenterprises.ca

Lewis and Sears Event Management lewissears.com

University of Victoria Degrees Catering degreescatering.ca

Catering Toque Catering toquecatering.com Truffles Catering Group trufflescatering.net

Construction + Engineering Coastal Construction coastal.cn Omicron omicronaec.com Stantec stantec.com

Consulting Angus One Professional Recruitment Ltd. angusone.com Chemistry Consulting Group chemistryconsulting.ca

Financial Services Adamek Financial adamekfinancial.com Andrews-Greene Chartered Accountants andrewsgreene.bc.ca BDO Canada bdo.ca Beacon Hill Wealth Management beaconhillwm.ca BMO Nesbitt Burns bmo.com/nesbittburns Business Development Bank of Canada bdc.ca Canadian Western Bank cwbank.com First West Credit Union firstwestcu.ca MNP LLP mnp.ca Odlum Brown odlumbrown.com

Food + Drink Canoe Brewpub canoebrewpub.com Cascadia Liquor cascadialiquor.com

Urban Smiles urbansmilesvictoria.com

Legal Services Cook Roberts cookroberts.bc.ca Dwyer Tax Lawyers dwyertaxlaw.com

St. Michaels University School smus.bc.ca

Property Management + Office Space Equitex Realty Ltd. equitex.ca

Reed Pope Law Corporation reedpope.ca

Watershed thewatershed.io

Nautical Nellies nauticalnelliesrestaurant.com

Robert S. Sheffman Law Corporation immigrationlawbc.com

Real Estate

Swans Hotel and Brew Pub swanshotel.com

Meeting Space

Victoria Real Estate Board vreb.org

Metro Liquor Specialty Liquor Stores metroliquor.com

Vancouver Island Brewery vanislandbrewery.com Willie’s Cafe & Bakery williescafebakery.com

Furniture Graphic Office Interiors graphicoffice.com Luxe Home Interiors luxevictoria.ca Max Furniture maxfurniture.ca Monk Office Supply Ltd. monk.ca

Gas, Fuel + energy BC Hydro bchydro.com FortisBC FortisBC.com

Mary Winspear Centre at Sanscha marywinspear.ca Victoria Conference Centre victoriaconference.com

Organizations + Associations Canadian Public Relations Society VI cprs-vi.org CFA Victoria cfavictoria.com CHBA Vancouver Island chbavi.com CPA cpacanada.ca Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce victoriachamber.ca

Peninsula Co-op peninsulaco-op.com

Institute of Corporate Directors icd.ca

Health + Wellness

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Peak

Performance

Kevin Light

Adam Kreek, Olympic goldmedal rowing champion

48 Douglas

Douglas talks to local athletesturned-entrepreneurs to find out how high-performance sports training can translate into tools entrepreneurs can use to take their businesses to the elite level.

What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from High-Performance Sports Training

by Adrienne Dyer

S

tudy the personality traits of athletes and entrepreneurs and you will find striking similarities: they both possess a great deal of inborn tenacity, passion and confidence. Plus, they are self-driven, competitive and highly motivated to work toward their goals.

High-performance sports training builds on those traits, honing athletes’ abilities to set goals and drive toward them with a mental toughness that gets them through the worst moments and enables them to achieve peak performance consistently under tremendous pressure. Translated into business practices, this specialized training can propel an entrepreneur in exactly the same way.

Translate Dreams into Goals, Create a Path to Reach Them Chris Abra took his sports training straight from the Camosun College volleyball courts into business, as the director of South Island Volleyball Association, among other ventures.

In 2010, former Camosun and SFU basketball player Greg Wallis recruited Abra as VP of technology at Passion Sports Custom, a sportsapparel company Wallis founded in his parents’ garage and grew into a thriving business. Abra says the key business tools he took from college sports all centre around the ability to set goals and create a solid path to reach them.

“In sports and in business, you need the ability and desire to constantly evaluate the path you’re on — to set concrete, specific goals and then ask yourself: ‘What do I need to do to get there?’” Abra says. “When you come across hardship, you have to be able to step back and Douglas 49

say, ‘OK, that wasn’t what I wanted, so where do I go from here?’”

Greg Wallis agrees. Athletes, he says, start with an end goal — say, winning a national championship — and then work backwards, breaking that goal down into specific and achievable tasks by the year, month and day to create the path to achieve that goal, constantly re-evaluating along the way. The same strategy, he says, works for business.

“Look ahead five years. Where do you see your business? What do you want to achieve by then? Now scale that back to today. Can you act like you’re already there? What business

practices can you implement now to save time and make things better down the road?”

By starting with the end goal and working backwards, Abra and Wallis say you’ll make better decisions along the way, about everything from assembling the right team to establishing the right priorities.

Get A Coach and A Team: The Winning Combination The team mentality is integral to an athlete’s success. “You can train or work hard on your own, but the low days will be lower, the troughs of demotivation deeper,” says Olympic rowing

A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

gold medalist Adam Kreek, who now teaches high-performance strategies for business through his company, Kreek Speak Enterprises.

Abra and Wallis say that every business owner needs to remember that, just as in sports, entrepreneurship is never a journey alone. You need to recognize that you can’t manage all aspects of your business by yourself.

“Rely on your team,” says Wallis. “Evaluate where you need help, then hire good people and get out of their way.” Focus on working for team betterment and you’ll be able to look at yourself objectively to evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, working for your team will drive your business forward.

If you’re a one-person show, your network becomes your “team.” Kreek, who works out of The Watershed co-working space, says there are many benefits to working outside the home in a shared office space where you can network with other entrepreneurs.

“Highly motivated, hardworking people produce a contagious energy that will help you achieve up days more consistently,” Kreek says.

Reach out to other entrepreneurs, he suggests.

Sit down over coffee with others on a similar path; share what works and doesn’t work, strategies for problem solving. And get yourself a coach.

Both Kreek and Wallis work closely with an executive coach, who provides motivation, feedback, strategies for growth and selfmanagement practices. You can also seek out mentors, others in your profession who have come before you and can share everything they learned along the way.

“Why reinvent the wheel?” says Kreek.

“Everything becomes so much simpler when you sit down with someone who has already travelled your path. That person will become someone you can reach out to for productive direction when you run into challenges.”

Training Tips from the Athletes

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Chris Abra Engage in personal development.

Books that focus on mental performance for athletes, like Mind Gym: An Athlete’s Guide to Inner Excellence by Gary Mack, or The Mental Edge by Kenneth Baum, help hone an entrepreneur’s business performance as well.

Greg Wallis Get an executive coach to help you define your goals and create a path to reach them, to motivate you and hone your confidence and trust in yourself.

Remember: no failure is ever final.

Competition and Winning: What’s Healthy?

“Competition is the thing that separates the average and good from the excellent,” says Chris Hinton, who works with highperformance athletes through the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence.

Athletes, he says, draw energy from the drive to win. “High performance athletes have another gear that they can shift into. When they’re tired or beat, they can still give 150 per cent.” If you’re surrounded by a good support network, that innate passion for greatness will propel you through hard times and allow you to view failures as learning opportunities.

Kreek warns that seeking to win in the business world can lead to problems, though.

In sports, the wins are easily defined. But how do you define the win in business? How do you measure success? “Striving to win might drive some people through the low points,” he says. “But in other people, it might bring out their worst selves.”

Instead of relying solely on that competitive drive, Kreek says entrepreneurs must develop a sustainable work pace so they can “work as hard as they possibly can when it’s time to work, and then recover.” How is this done? By taking care of your biggest asset: you.

For an athlete, self-care is obvious. Athletes are nothing without excellent nutrition, adequate rest, physical training and stable mental health. But entrepreneurs tend to forget they also need those things. Good health is vital for the energy, mental clarity, endurance and long-term dedication they need to stay in business.

“Strategies for endurance, like meditation, regular exercise and a clean diet, take extra time,” Kreek says. “But if you take that extra time, you will see consistent peak performance.” ■

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Adam Kreek Pick a sport, sign up for a race and then train for it.

Experience the highs and lows of an athlete’s training first hand so you fully understand it. You will learn fitness, nutrition, and valuable tools and practices you can implement in your business.

Chris Hinton Build a good support network and then hone your competitive drive.

Set the next peak you want to hit, then work toward it. If you don’t keep up with the people who are hungry for success, they will soon surpass you.

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Douglas 51

INTEL

[business intelligence ]

52 Digital Life Driving the Dream 54 entrepreneur The Missing Entrepreneurial Link

56 Sales & Marketing Inbound Is Where It’s At

Google’s self-driving car prototype relies on its sensors and software to drive itself.

It uses lasers, radar and cameras to detect objects in all directions and its rounded shape maximizes the sensors’ field of view.

Electric batteries power the vehicle and it has a computer specifically designed for self-driving, with back-up system for steering, braking, computing and more.

DIGITAL LIFE by DAVID ALEXANDER

Driving the Dream With Ontario set to test driverless cars, the future is near.

D

riverless cars may feel like a George Jetson technology, existing in a faroff futuristic utopia along with robot maids and floating cities. In the 1960s, when The Jetsons aired on TV (we’ll ignore the much-inferior 1980s version), the technology portrayed was unfathomable outside of a cartoon. But today, driverless cars are on the cusp of being commercially available. Ontario is set to issue the first licences in early 2016, with the provision that these cars include a driver who can override the controls if necessary.

Google has been testing a fleet of driverless 52 Douglas

cars since 2012, and Tesla is about to release a model that includes automatic passing, relieving the driver of that often-feared task.

And the soon-to-be released BMW i3 drives itself in stop-and-go traffic. Colwood Crawl, anyone? It isn’t just cars either. In Australia, the mining industry has been testing heavy-duty, driverless trucks; 50 of them are in operation.

The Same But Different When it comes to the engineering, driverless cars, also known as autonomous vehicles (AVs), will be surprisingly similar to current cars. The big difference between the BMW you drive to

work now and the driverless BMW of the future is awareness.

Driverless cars are covered in sensors that map road features like edges and lane markers, and read traffic lights and signs. They have cameras and radar that identify risks like pedestrians and other cars. Ultrasonic detectors provide maps of the surrounding area, which help with tasks like parking. GPS satellites offer wider positioning in the world, allowing the car to plan and stay within a route.

Google’s driverless cars continuously scan their surroundings to create a 3D map of the terrain — each subsequent pass by a Google

BECAUSE AVs could free as much as 50 minutes a day for users.

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The time saved by commuters every day might add up globally to a mind-blowing one billion hours — equivalent to twice the time it took to build the Great Pyramid of Giza.

—McKinsey & Company, 2015

car updates this map; the cars learn their environment together. Driverless cars will be a lot like what we sit in now but much more sensitive to their environment and what’s happening in it.

Before you jump into your new autonomous car and leave the driving to someone else, let’s separate some myths from reality.

Myth Driverless cars won’t save lives False After 1.9 million miles of testing, Google’s fleet of driverless cars has had 14 accidents. Eleven of those were the result of being rear-ended. It seems 95 per cent of accidents are caused by human error, a significant percentage, so reducing human intervention could save lives.

Myth Autonomous cars will be everywhere True These cars probably will be everywhere in the long term, but in the short term, not so much. The reason a car can drive itself right now is because it knows where it is in the world.

There’s still some work to do. For instance, if you eliminate a GPS signal, which can often happen in a parking lot, the car is no longer aware.

Throw in bad weather and you have a very confused car.

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Myth Driverless cars will save energy Probably true Once you take the human out of the driving equation, cars become much safer. If the car is safer, it needs significantly less of the metal skeleton that protects us — thus a lighter car, resulting in energy savings.

Myth The auto industry will be impacted Probably true The auto industry will very likely see a long-term drop in car sales, as there will be fewer cars on the road. If a purely autonomous car drives everyone to school, work and soccer on its own, say goodbye to two- or three-car families. Eventually, transport vehicles like taxis and buses will also drive

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When your ride is over,

the car makes sure that you get all your stuff by giving you a reminder to not leave any belongings.

themselves. Helsinki has announced plans to transform its public transit system into a driverless taxi-like service that consumers hail with a smart-phone app.

Myth It Will Change Business No doubt Without a driver needed, transportation will become more efficient, both long haul (imagine fleets of transport trucks running 24/7 without the worry of driver fatigue) and short haul. Daimler AG has been testing its first driverless 18-wheelers in Nevada. For consumers, services like same-day delivery will be expected; for retailers, this will be easier with a fleet of driverless cars doing the work. This all has the potential to displace a hefty chunk of the workforce. But your commute will be more efficient if you’re no longer doing the driving. You’ll have a new window of productivity — or more time to read the morning paper.

Fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) being developed for consumers

Consumers begin to adopt AVs

AVs become the primary means of transport

2015-2020

2020-2040

2040-2050

➊ AVs are already a

➊ The after-sales

➊ AVs free up 50

reality in industrial fleets

service landscape is reshaped

minutes a day for drivers

➋ Car original

➋ Insurers shift from

➋ Parking space is

equipment manufacturers (OEMs) begin to assess strategic impact

covering individuals to covering technical failures

reduced by billions of square metres

➌ New mobility

➌ Supply chain and logistics are redefined

models begin to emerge

➌ Vehicle crashes fall by 90%, saving billions of dollars

➍ AV technology accelerates development of robots for consumer use

The Self-Driving Vehicle Revolution A Look at potential growth Source: McKinsey&Company

Myth Driverless cars are just about here

David Alexander is head of Archives, Access and Digital at the Royal BC Museum and has a keen interest in technology trends that affect our businesses and lives.

Chris Troelstra of Realty Butler talking with presenter Dana Stephenson, cofounder of Riipen, at Capital Investment Network’s Pitch & Mix event on October 28.

54 Douglas

ENTREPRENEUR by PETER ELKINS

The Missing Entrepreneurial Link Growing a vibrant entrepreneurial economy is a worthy goal of the Mayor’s Task Force on Economic Development and Prosperity, but accelerating this vision requires seed capital.

A

Maryam Morrison/BK Studios

Sort of While Ontario begins testing driverless cars in January 2016, the concept still has a ways to go. Driverless cars will bring fundamental changes to insurance, a host of legal questions, safety issues (cars have been hacked) as well as major changes in societal norms. While we are close to living the driverless dream, there are still a few blocks on the road to a true driverless car. ■

s I read through the recent draft economic action plan from the City of Victoria Mayor’s Task Force on Economic Development and Prosperity, I’m drawn to reflect on what I know about our local business community as well as various conversations I’m involved in outside of our community. My thoughts keep coming back to seed capital as the missing link.

The “Entrepreneurship, Start-Ups and Social Enterprise” section of the draft plan suggests startups, scaleups and businesses are well funded, and investors looking for projects can find them easily, with a range of choice on the risk-and-return spectrum. The reality is that to attract and retain entrepreneurs and innovators en masse to the region, we’ll have to invest a portion of our own collective wealth in their visions. We also need to look to our thought leaders to innovate and to our entrepreneurs to create first-dollar sectors in the new economy.

One way to achieve this is to introduce more people to angel investing and the private placement market, which is regulated through our provincial securities act, administered by the British Columbia Securities Commission.

The Power of Angels Angel investing is where an individual provides capital for a business startup, usually in exchange for ownership equity. It can be a lot of fun once you decide on your investment

thesis and feel comfortable within your local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

But the challenge with angel investing, as everyone eventually figures out, is that it requires a great deal of personal capital and it takes time to work through the due diligence on potential opportunities. These factors make it tough to become a successful angel investor without a sizable personal commitment of time and capital.

Without a lot of active angels, like we see in the Silicon Valley, it’s harder to move the needle in our communities. I don’t doubt this will happen increasingly as company founders reinvest personal wealth into other startups. We’re seeing this on a modest scale, and it can only increase over time. But really getting things rolling usually takes about 20 years, according to entrepreneur Brad Feld of Foundry Group. In his YouTube video Startupville, Feld refers to his Boulder Thesis — the idea that certain factors (including entrepreneurs taking the lead) are essential for unleashing the power of a startup community.

Doing the Heavy Lifting To really accelerate our local economy, a logical next step is to consider seeding the creation of a professionally managed early-stage investment fund that focuses on accelerating local companies’ growth. We do this by pooling our wealth.

In B.C., we can take advantage of what is called an “offering memorandum exemption” to ensure

it’s accessible to everyone. To stimulate such investment, the B.C. government would offer a 30 per cent provincial tax credit through the Small Business Venture Capital Act. Additionally, such a fund can be both Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) eligible, allowing for further benefits.

Economic Engines In the Making Victoria draft plan, the task force identifies six sectors as primary “engines” for driving growth: Advanced Education and Research & Development; Ocean and Marine; Experiential Tourism; Government; Technology; and Entrepreneurship, Start-Ups and Social Enterprise. Assuming we all agree we want to accelerate in these six areas and get behind deploying our limited government economicdevelopment funding to meet these objectives, I can’t stress enough that everything laid out in this draft plan should be pre-empted by the development of local investment vehicles in order to “grease the engines” as we move forward.

We should also explore local investing methodologies that emerge from research by community economic development practitioners like Michael Shuman, author of Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity.

At the invitation of task-force member Nicole Chaland, program director of Simon Fraser’s certificate program in Community Economic

Development, I had the pleasure of sitting in on Shuman’s course, Locanomics: Principles & Practice for Community Prosperity, which he teaches through SFU. In his course, Shuman talks about “local living economies,” the complex world of community capital and the growing number of tools communities and “unsophisticated” investors use to invest locally. His suggestions include targeted certified deposits, creating a local stock market, moving our municipal money into local investments, creating a mutual fund that invests locally and managing a local investmentopportunities list that is accessible online.

Whichever economic philosophy you subscribe to, I believe we can agree that seed capital is the missing link in accelerating our entrepreneurial economy. This is where our resources should be focused before we move on to addressing other aspects of the task force’s report.

If we’re serious about economic development, we need to create local investment vehicles to provide seed capital to our entrepreneurs and thought leaders in order to unleash their full leadership potential in the new economy. That’s how we move the needle — and that’s a bet I am willing to make any day of the week. ■ Peter Elkins is co-founder of the Capital Investment Network, Kick Victoria and Business As Unusual.

He is passionate about driving Vancouver Island’s entrepreneurial economy.

Douglas 55

SALES & MARKETING by MIKE WICKS

Inbound Versus Outbound Marketing

Inbound Is Where It’s At When it comes to outsmarting your competition, aligning your content with your clients’ interests is a winning strategy.

C

ontent marketing, or inbound marketing, as it is sometimes referred to, is the number one form of marketing for most businesses today. If it’s not on your marketingstrategy radar, it should be.

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), content marketing is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and ultimately to drive profitable customer action.“ Get it right and your content marketing strategy will promote brand awareness, generate leads, engage your market (customers and prospects), bring in sales, keep leads and prospects interested, promote customer loyalty and help upsell or cross-sell.

So given everything it can do for your business, why do some businesses continue to shy away from it? Well, it’s a massive and increasingly sophisticated topic, so that can be off-putting, but the benefits are high, so I’ve developed the following tips to help get you up to speed.

What is “Content”?

First, what the devil is this “content” anyway? Well, it’s pretty much any information you distribute to people who could be interested in what you sell or who are currently your customers. Be aware, this content is far more than just the material you would use in a typical blog post.

Instead, it needs to demonstrate that you have a high level of expertise in the topics you are discussing — because one of the aims of this

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strategies, with 48 and 50 per cent respectively reporting they have a non-documented strategy.

As with most strategies, the hardest job is telling whether the strategy is working and if you are getting a return on investment. There are several ways to evaluate the success of content, such as number of website visits, leads, sales and customer feedback. These measurements should be built into your strategy.

Quality content matters. As mentioned earlier, How Does Content Marketing Help there is a lot of content out there and most of it is Your Business? fluff — and repeated fluff at that. To be successful So let’s say you have created great content. How you will need new, valuable, educational and do you get it to your market? The most-used engaging information. And you need a great methods of disseminating content are Facebook, diversity of content.

Twitter, YouTube, Slideshare, Vimeo, Pinterest, There’s a cost to everything and content Instagram and Google+. In all cases, usage is marketing is no exception. Of their overall increasing, except for LinkedIn, which has levelled marketing budgets, B2C businesses spend off over the last 12 months. Twitter rates highly approximately 25 per cent and B2B businesses for both B2B and B2C businesses in terms of spend 28 per cent on content marketing. effectiveness. Instagram is proving more effective Although these figures exclude staffing costs, for B2C than in previous years. your primary cost will be hiring someone who In the B2B world, the most popular and most knows what the heck they are doing and can effective content-marketing platform is LinkedIn, create top-notch content. Don’t get hung up on according to CMI’s survey. In fact, 94 per cent of the technical stuff — it doesn’t matter how well B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content you infiltrate every corner of the Internet if all you and 63 per cent find it effective. Alternately, 94 are putting out there is the same old, same old. per cent of B2C businesses use Facebook and Keeping the hopper full of quality material is 58 per cent find it effective. Basically, your a major challenge. Everyone starts off with best content has to appear in places your typical intentions, but you need to keep it up — this is a customers visit. long-game strategy.

Once you have decided (wisely) that content A good content-marketing strategy is one marketing is a necessary part of your overall that makes you a magnet company, a company marketing strategy, you need to research how that people gravitate to for it works, find out which information when looking companies do it well and to purchase products or what your competitors are Content can services in your marketplace doing. Plan for how you are manifest itself or industry. You need to make going to handle content in many forms. your company the first port of marketing for your business.

Here are just a few: call — the go-to company.

If you have the budget, hire someone who has social media More than a Fad? the expertise to do this, or e-newsletters Is this a flash in the pan or a choose someone in your website articles marketing strategy that will marketing department who stick around? That’s hard blog posts has some knowledge of to say with any degree of content marketing and get in-person events certainty, but CMI’s study them trained. If you haven’t case studies shows that 59 per cent of got the budget, find it! It’s videos and images B2Cs and 55 per cent of that important. white papers B2Bs surveyed plan to spend more this year than last, and Your Content online presentations only two per cent across Strategy infographics all businesses will decrease Next on your agenda, webinars spending. develop a documented mobile apps Taking your place as an content strategy. Businesses expert in your field has never that have a documented been more important. ■ strategy report their content ✺ It’s worth noting marketing is more effective; the fastest-growing Mike Wicks is an award-winning 35 per cent of B2B and 27 form of content is author, blogger, ghostwriter and per cent of B2C businesses publisher. He is president of Blue infographics.

Beetle Creative Media. have fully documented content is to increase your industry and market credibility.

Content quality is rising exponentially, so it’s no good to simply repurpose your old material or regurgitate material others have posted on the Internet. Content marketing today is about producing engaging, useful, informative, educational and new material that is directly relevant to your market.

86% of B2Bs and 77% of B2Cs use content marketing.

— 2015 Content Marketing Institute (CMI)

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yammagazine.com Douglas 57

Extreme Makeover Charity Edition

by Athena Mckenzie

58 Douglas

HeroWork founder Paul Latour likens his charity’s undertakings to modern-day barn raisings. The non-profit helps other charities by renewing and refreshing their aging buildings and infrastructure through weekend-spanning events called Radical Renovations. These are rousing occasions with live music and catered meals, each seeing the participation of over a hundred local businesses and huge teams of volunteers.

“We even have the whole ‘Move that truck!’ reveal,” Latour says.

Latour designs the events around four key factors: How cool can it be?

How big of a change can it make?

For HeroWork founder Paul Latour the idea for the charity evolved out of helping a friend with multiple sclerosis renovate her backyard for mobility — a project that Latour calls its own “mini Extreme Makeover.”

The Rainbow Kitchen (shown here) will be HeroWork’s next Radical Renovation, estimated between $400,000 and $500,000. Preliminary plans include new electrical service, kitchen reconfiguration, a new dishwashing area, a walk-in fridge and freezer, new windows, replacing roof shingling, new flooring and new offices.

How can it maximize the sense of community? And how cohesive can the whole event be with respect to organization and branding? A self-described storyteller, Latour has each renovation filmed for the inspiring HeroWork video series.

“We put these things together to create win-win situations for everybody — it’s a magical thing,” Latour says. “I think that these are some of the foundational reasons why these businesses and people are so excited to be involved.”

HeroWork’s last renovation was the Citizens’ Counselling Centre of Greater Victoria. The King Street centre received more

than $200,000 in improvements to its 3,000-square-foot building.

The next HeroWork project is Esquimalt’s Rainbow Kitchen.

Moving forward, Latour would like to see the HeroWork program duplicated in other places “In every town and city across the country, charity infrastructure is diminished, from our food banks to our shelters to our youth housing, because a charity with increased needs and decreased resources is just trying to deliver their mandate,” Latour says. “It’s very difficult for them to maintain their buildings … so I do see this happening in many other places.” ■

Jeffrey Bosdet/douglas Magazine

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