Before I show you the videos, I would like to point out my favourite quote by Brett was this one from last posting (emphasis mine, link added),
“I had the great privilege of working under Dan Sullivan, under Jim MacDonald, under David Wilson. People who went on to become icons of the industry were my training ground. That was my learning curve … was working under people where Integrity and a handshake meant everything. And so as a model, it meant a lot.”
I think it was Warren Buffet (the richest man in the world) who said this -- the moment Fuji bought the rights to become the official sponsor of the Olympics, then Fuji became a legitimate equal to Kodak.
I am a big CBC fan. Having said that, in this case, I have to send a big congratulation to the CTV business/negotiation/sports team that got the deal done and closed so efficiently. When the opportunity presented itself, and when time is of the essence, you guys get the deal done and closed in record time.
I will try to blog a bit more when the dust is settled a little more and I am finished covering the Banff World TV Festival.
Now, if you look strictly at the economics, CBC executives may be right to offer what it did and walk away from a “bad deal”. (I leave it as an exercise for the readers to calculate the present value of the estimated cash value of the theme until it runs out of its copyright protection. Hint: it is no small change.) And try to buy peace (or bribe us) by paying $100,000 as a prize for Canadians to come up with a new theme.
Because the theme has been used for closed to 40 years, it has become so well recognized and has acquired an almost national-anthem-like feeling to some Canadians. To me, the theme is a rock solid Lovemark.
P.S. In a Web 2.0 connected world, the rules, tactics and scope have been changed and redefined. Ultimately, I think missteps from either side can cause some unexpected damages rather quickly.
Last year, I had wonderful chats with five successful Canadian business people Arlene, Jim, Kevin, Laurence,Robert (”Dragons” to the fans of Dragons’ Den) and Dianne (host of DD).
This year, I had the great pleasure to chat with Brett Wilson, chairman of FirstEnergy Capital, the newest investor in Dragons’ Den. As a bonus to me, we chatted at Brett’s beautiful home (some pictures in this post).
The following are part of my video chats with Brett. Feel free to leave a comment or feedback. Enjoy.
I will be posting the other video chats next week. Stay tune.
I had thought it might take me a few weeks or a month or two to arrange an interview with Calgarian Brett Wilson, chairman of FirstEnergy Capital, entrepreneur extraordinaire, and newest CBC Dragon. So I was surprised and delighted to hear from Brett this morning (a Sunday) inviting me to have a chat with him in his home (wow, my first visit to a Dragon's home, a true Dragon's Den).
And as expected, I had a nice and insightful chat with Brett. And he was as nice in person as I have heard from others and seen from his interview with Dragons' Den host Dianne Buckner.
It will take me some time to process and upload the videos. So here are a few photos for now. Stay tune for the videos and more photos.
The New Transparency has proposed a series of lofty goals – to make “visible the identities of individuals, workings of institutions and flows of information never before seen” – using surveillance as the key to gather this data. The project intends to focus on “three vitally important questions”:
1) What factors contribute to the general expansion of surveillance as a technology of governance in late modern societies? 2) What are the underlying principles, technological infrastructures and institutional frameworks that support surveillance practice? 3) What are the social consequences of such surveillance both for institutions and for ordinary people?
In the blog entry "Canadians Stuck With Analog Rights in a Digital World", Michael Geist talks about how rights of Canadian consumers to "time shift" television programs (record a TV show for later viewing) in the digital era have been taken away.
A neat post about the Mars mission (with links) from an unexpected source.
Here is a neat Google Tech Talk video about a 3D live motion video camera (blogged two years ago) that uses LIDAR. I wonder if we are talking about the same LIDAR technology as the one used in Mars?
You can watch this insightful documentary from CBC Doc Zone Paris Hilton Inc. about our celebrity culture that dominates our daily media and social dialogue.
And if you are really keen and have nothing better to do (smile), then check out another hour long video of Rich speaking at Google, Headquater in CA (essentially the same speech but with a different set of Q&A starting at 48:45).
P.S. On a personal note, Rich reminds me of some of the great U of Toronto professors that I had. Great job in bringing Rich to Toronto. And I am looking forward to listening to Rich live at Banff World TV Festival.
P.P.P.S. I wonder if Rich gets some money from this BMW ad? (smile) By the way, I think I actually first read about Rich here in this UT magazine article.
Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada released two important privacy-related decisions, both addressing an increasing trend in which Canadian law enforcement agencies use police dogs to conduct random searches of public spaces.
The video of Chef Gordon Ramsay (Hell’s Kitchen fame) with Toronto Star’s Food editor Kim Honey at the Star’s test kitchen is real fun to watch. (big smile) Thanks Kim for sharing it with us. It is just priceless!
Turn Audiences to Customers Broadcaster and producers refer to their fans as audiences. Unfortunately, these audiences don't want to be told how, when, what, and where to passively view content. I consider these fans as customers. We know their names, their email addresses, and their likes and dislikes. In fact, when speaking to broadcasters and producers in Canada I often ask what they know about their fans. They know very little. This must change. The Internet is a communications medium, it is not just a passive viewing system. Together we must develop relationships that allow everybody: the customer and the producer to benefit from knowing each other better.
Provide content not formats In music the transformation is almost complete. Customers no longer have to pay for format. Purchasing Queen on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, and digitally rights managed (DRM) digital download is over. Customers don't have to pay for the format, they just buy the content and move it around as they please. TV and movies will need to give customers what they want. They can't keep pretending. I know the customers I deal with are much smarter than that, giving them what they want is a viable business model. Providing seamless, unified, and flexible access to their favourite content is viable.
Celebrated Canadian chef, Susur Lee, moves his East-West fusion cuisine to New York this fall with plans to open with a restaurant inside the new Thompson hotel on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Mr. Lee says that he just couldn’t turn down the opportunity. He will close his Toronto restaurant, Susur, which opened to rave reviews in 2000, at the end of May but will continue the more relaxed eatery Lee, located right next door.
The 50-year-old chef told the Globe, “If I don’t change, I’ll get old. I always love the challenge. I always love to do new things. I’m not sad at all.”
The Hong Kong born chef, who moved to Canada almost three decades ago, is generally credited with developing a new form of cuisine that blends Chinese with French cooking.
I am surprised and angry of how arrogant the Conservative government/party has become when it decided to selectively invite some media outlets while excluding some large media outlets including the Canadian Press, the CBC, Maclean's, the Globe and Mail (original scheduled but later canceled) and the Halifax Chronicle Herald. Here is an excerpt from CBC report (with video) (emphasis added),
CBC News requested to attend the briefings, but was rejected and told by party spokesman Ryan Sparrow that it was a private meeting, Boag said, adding reporters from the Canadian Press, Maclean’s magazine and Canwest Global Communications Corp. were also not permitted to attend.
Giving some reporters a briefing before Monday’s court release of the warrant allows the party a chance to shape the story, but it also creates the impression that the Conservatives need to spin it, Boag said.
The federal Conservatives made “false and misleading” statements in their financial returns for the last election and exceeded their campaign spending limit by over $1 million, Elections Canada says in a warrant that led to a raid on party headquarters.
A copy of the warrant and supporting materials was provided to The Canadian Press.
The documents were supposed to be made public Monday, but a bizarre attempt by the Tories to get ahead of the news by briefing select reporters on Sunday led to a slapstick scene that saw party representatives switching hotels, slamming doors and scampering down fire exits to escape pointed questions from journalists who weren’t invited to the meeting. [K: Are they for real here?]
The Conservatives have contended ever since the raid last week that they did nothing wrong and were surprised when the RCMP, acting on a request from Elections Canada, showed up with the warrant at their offices.
Elections Canada officials offered stark disagreement.
“The Conservative party of Canada exceeded its election expense spending limit for the 39th federal general election,” the 68-page supporting affidavit for the warrant alleges.
The document maintains that the Conservative Fund of Canada, the party’s official agent, filed financial returns “that it knew or ought reasonably to have known contained a materially false or misleading statement.”
And the affidavit, signed by Elections Canada investigator Robert Lamothe, alleges that Tory advertising transactions - commonly known as the “in and out” scheme - allowed the party “to spend more than $1 million over and above” its legal campaign limit of $18 million.
Here is an excerpt of a report from The Globe and Mail (emphasis added),
In releasing the abridged version of the documents to select media, the party hoped to give Mr. Sparrow, campaign organizer Doug Finley and party lawyer Paul Lepsoe a chance to explain the Conservative point of view. In the end, the plan went horribly awry.
On Saturday night, Mr. Sparrow called a number of reporters to ask them to come to meetings that had been scheduled for yesterday at the Lord Elgin Hotel in downtown Ottawa saying it “would be worth their while.”
But media outlets who were not among those invited got wind of the meetings yesterday morning and began to ask what was going on.
When one reporter asked in an e-mail about the news conference, Mr. Sparrow replied: “No conference, not sure where you got that from.”
The reporter then flipped Mr. Sparrow back an e-mail in which he had told another reporter who was on the list that the briefing would be at “4:30 Lord Elgin, Boardroom 800. Embargo until 7:30 pm Sunday night.”
To which Mr. Sparrow replied: “I meet with journalists privately all the time.”
Shortly thereafter, the Liberals found out about the briefings and advised all of the Ottawa press gallery, some of whom were quite miffed to find they had been excluded. When they threatened to show up at the Lord Elgin, despite the lack of an invitation, the meeting was secretly moved to the Sheraton.
The first briefing for select television outlets took place but, by that time, the excluded reporters found out the new location and began to stake out the hotel.
That led the Conservatives to cancel all subsequent briefings, including the one they had planned with The Globe. And Mr. Sparrow, Mr. Finley and Mr. Lepsoe fled from the Sheraton down a back set of stairs.
CTV News (see its report) and Toronto Star (its report) are amongst the media outlets that got invited. But sadly, they now have, in my eyes, credibility problems simply for the fact that they were the “chosen” media outlets. Can I trust them to report fairly? Or are they known to be easily controllable and are on the “good side” of the Conservatives?
I haven’t gone to J-school and don’t know what is the proper journalistic and ethically right thing to do. But I wonder if and should the reporters from CTV News (Mike Duffy) and Toronto Star (Tonda MacCharles) have done the honourable thing and share their media package (hundred of pages of documents and CD) with their colleagues in other media outlets that got excluded?
Canadian Press said it right, it is surely one “bizarre farce”!
I loveallkindsofgoodcomedies and I’ve always been curious about how comedies are created and the working of stand-up comedies as a business. I am excited and lucky that Calgary-based comedian Carmen Stockton has kindly agreed to help me to look into the funny business of stand-up comedy. (You can see a clip of Carmen’s comedy on Comedy Central here.)
In the beginning of this creative journey of cooperation with Carmen, l want to get to know more about her and we ended up chatting for 2 hours on and off camera.
In Part-1a, Carmen and I talked about many things including,
* How Carmen started doing comedy. Her trouble of doing “comedy” in class in grade 9 and what happened when the teacher found out.
* Her marriage, at 19, to a vacuum cleaner salesman with a lazy eye.
* Her first two shows - Rubberneckin’ (1993) and Afterthoughts (1995).
* And her leaving comedy behind (she thought at the time) after two years at that point and became a hair dresser.
In Part-1b, we talked about many things including,
* Carmen’s treasured comedy bag with all her notes, notebooks and ideas for her show. A look inside Carmen’s comedic mind.
* The material for CBC Comedy Festival in 2007. And how she created the show.
* Carmen showed the working notes that helped her remember the flow of each and every joke in the show. She walked through a three-minute joke in particular and gave us some interesting insight. (Note: This joke is in the Comedy Central clip.)
* Talked about the use of teleprompter in telecast performance.
* The poodle (Carmen’s step-mom) segment.
* Writing lots and lots as many jokes will never work.
In Part-1c, Carmen and I talked about many things including,
* The story of her comedy bit “Jesus Christ Carmen”.
* Carmen’s style of slow-burn comedy. A story teller of dry humour.
* The stories of Carmen’s four trips to LA to try to be a comedian there. [K: Very honest and insightful.]
* The logistic of a Canadian comic working in the US (especially in recent years).
* What bought Carmen back to Calgary from her most recent 2-year stay in LA?
* Coming back to become a comedian once again after 6.5 months of being a hair dresser.
* Carmen talks about her up-coming trip away to just write her new 45-minute show call Waiting to Exist. The general structure of the show.
By the way, after doing the researches, chatting with Carmen, and watching some of Carmen’s clips and performances, I have quickly become a fan of her. She has worked so hard. I wish Carmen will have a creative and fruitful trip in creating some wonderful comedy in the next few weeks. It has truly been my pleasure to be in this creative journey of cooperation with Carmen to look into the funny business of comedy.
P.S. Special thanks to my friend Christine Cheung for connecting me to Carmen.
*******
Carmen Stockton Bio
Carmen’s comedic career began in 1993 when she wrote, produced and starred in her first one-woman show Rubberneckin’. This was a love story for the ages; the haunting tale of her falling head over heals in love with a rubber sex doll. In 1995 the curtain rose on her second show Afterthoughts, the lighthearted look back on her not-quite-forever-marriage to a lazy eyed vacuum cleaner salesman. In 1998 Carmen took her unique comedic voice into the world of stand up comedy. She won the Yuk Yuk’s new talent competition in 1999 and during that same year was invited to perform at the prestigious Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. She has twice been featured on CBC’s nationally broadcast radio program Madly Off In All Directions in 2001 and 2003. In 2004 Carmen drew critical acclaim for her Canadian television debut for the CBC Comedy Festival and was invited back to film another gala in March of 2007 (airdate tba). In 2005 she made her American television debut for Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. After living in Los Angeles for the past few years, Carmen has come home to Canada…plastic surgery free and is now feverishly working on her new show Waiting To Exist scheduled to delight audiences in Spring of 2008.
Kempton has worked as a software engineer for ten years in two large Canadian projects. After that, he attended the University of Calgary to earn a MBA degree and acquired some management consulting & entrepreneurial skills. With his MBA, he then decided to jump field and made a documentary. With no formal training, his first documentary "Long Hair Revolution" received funding from the National Film Board of Canada and was screened at the Calgary International Film Festival. Currently, Kempton holds what Charles Handy may call a "portfolio career" - blogging, business consulting, online content creation, etc. See his personal blog at WordPress (where I've posted my email address).
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