After well over twenty years of thinking about this new venture, I have finally overcome the ultimate procrastination. Last January, with the aid of John Duff, a talented branding and graphics buddy, we came up with the name. Over the course of the next few months we finalized a new design. Then began a search for a supplier, a manufacturing facility, as well as the patience to overcome the dozens of hurdles you encounter on a new business start-up! This is my story of the new Signature Lapboard. I cannot now, for the life of me, recollect where our original lapboard came from, but I have lived with it for as long as I can remember. With certainty, I can picture the original, sitting beside my Mother’s living room chair back in the 60’s. Having been in my possession, as these many decades have flown by, I can also confirm that the original board had many uses, and became a very handy accessory for every member of the family. While I was still working at Standard Broadcasting in Toronto at CKFM, I overcame the first deferral of my creativity, by asking one of my best friends, (the late) Ted Pocock, to make me twenty copies of the board, to...
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Comments Off on Terry O’Reilly – Marketing Magic – September 27th
My business world centres primarily on marketing. The creative work and service that I provide, emphasizes protecting and increasing client’s top of mind position when a customer has a need for their product or service. Persuasion is a skill and an artform. During this lengthy career, there are few people who have had more influence on my creativity than Terry O’Reilly. For those who don’t know Terry, he is widely considered to be the most talented and effective creative writer, director, and producer of Radio ads in Canada over the last thirty five years. To refer to Terry as a marketing guru would not be an exaggeration. After an incredibly active and successful career with his company, Pirate Radio, Terry now is best known for his very popular Radio show on the CBC: “Under The Influence”. The program explores the world of advertising and marketing in general, in a fun and irreverent way. With over a million listeners a week in Canada alone, Terry knows how to target consumers and listeners! A successful writer of books, Terry also has recently delivered a wonderful new effort called “This I Know – Marketing Lessons From Under The Influence”. Other than being a fan, and enamored with Terry’s work over the years,...
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Comments Off on Unabashed Promo
There are times you are so happy with customer service you want to crow about it. A while back, we made a decision to ‘safety’ our property by adding a set of special railings for three sets of our stairs. Having looked around and seen different styles at various cottages we frequent, a mental consumer report was developed. We chatted with a few friends and envisioned the look and features of this important element at North45. We were motivated to ensure that all members of the family could manage our topography without mishap. My Dad had a fairly serious fall many years ago negotiating the original old granite stairs down to the dock with broken ribs the result. More recently, about ten years ago, a Welshman buddy took a serious dive off the same stairs, northbound, tumbling wine glass in hand, and was most fortunate to land feet first, lakeside. Think we were both emotionally bruised. Could have been nasty. Liability was paid up, but it’s hard to put a price on a friends body parts. So long-time friend, Randy Bennett, who does our amazing dock and crib work, basically did us a favor, and was first to install cottage-to-lake railings for us. They were very creatively conceived and...
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Comments Off on A Little Body Language Please
In two thousand and twelve, I was introduced to TED, or what many refer to as TED Talks. These are short talks, presented typically, by experts, LIVE on stage and videoed as content for the TED site for others to watch, learn, and benefit from. Oddly enough I learned about this non profit U.S. organization, through a innovating fellow, Luke Swanek, in Muskoka, who had the gumption to originate a ‘talk’ from Nipissing U in Bracebridge, Ontario. While at the Haliburton Broadcasting Group (Moose FM) at the time, the infamous Mike Fry and I made the decision to sponsor the event. This was leading edge technology. This morning, I was reading the Star Touch on line, and came upon an article about the remarkable Amy Cuddy who had overcome all odds to recover from a terrible car accident and educated her way to greatness. Having read the article, I went on to the TED site and decided to watch and listen to the talk by Amy. Fascinating, educational and in particular motivating, which is why i decided to offer the talk to you today. The topic is about the incredibly powerful attributes of body language, but more importantly how practicing various body language poses, can impact our organic state, furthering...
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Comments Off on Sean Connon
We lost our friend and associate Sean Connon this past January 20th, to an unrelenting cancer, following a triumphant journey against all odds. While this is a very difficult piece to write for many reasons, I felt compelled to share a few personal thoughts and anecdotes about this special individual. We originally met when I had been hired by Chris Grossman to present a ‘creative session’ in Sudbury for what had become a significant media group in Ontario: The Haliburton Broadcasting Group – HBG for short. A few years later, I was hired to help the Sales Division which Sean led as Director of Sales. And what a great leader he was! Like Christopher, Sean drove throughout much of mid and northern Ontario, to understand the markets, and most importantly, the personnel. This allowed for a much closer long distance relationship with the Sales team. On the weekly Monday morning conference calls, Sean often opened with his familiar: “Morning Angels”. No mention of Sean would be complete without mentioning his competitive spirit – in life’s everything! Closing a sale, ‘hitting a post’, exceeding a goal. Stubborn to a fault, when Sean had his mind made up, there was little that would halt his momentum. Once Sean had his sights...
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Comments Off on A Disappearance
A Disappearance It is indeed most unfortunate that Post Media pulled the plug on what was an institution in Muskoka: Muskoka Magazine, gone, along with a free, lesser known weekly: What’s Up Muskoka. Twenty jobs in these parts is significant, not to mention the deafening sounds of editorial silence. Jack Hutton’s column will be sadly missed. There were several very talented managers, writers, and graphics people operating this business. Muskoka Magazine adorned many decks, docks and coffee tables, and enjoyed a decent readership in particular, by Cottagers. Three Metroland papers (owned by TorStar) still exist: The Examiner, The Banner and The Forester, plus yet another magazine: Muskoka Life. Stay with me here, some research is involved. What is at play here is more obvious to some and less to others who may not pay much attention to the media of this fast paced era. The reality is yes, Paul Godfrey at Post Media is trimming costs and continues to do so with gusto, eliminating jobs. The print business is under siege and has been for some time. Just this week, it was announced that yet another (ninety) 90 Post Media Jobs were trimmed out west. Let’s get to the meat of the matter. Back in March of last year, Torstar...
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