Chatting with Brett Wilson, chairman of FirstEnergy Capital, CBC newest Dragon - Part 2

As promised, here is part 2 of my chat with Brett Wilson, chairman of FirstEnergy Capital, the newest investor in Dragons’ Den.

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.”

Incidentally, Brett's discussion of integrity and ethics has reminded me of another wonderful Calgary businessman and leader, Mr. Dick Haskayne. His book "Northern Tigers: Building Ethical Canadian Corporate Champions (a memoir and a manifesto)" is a must read and a wonderful way to learn from the former CEO, president, or board chair/member of companies like Hudson’s Bay Oil and Gas, Interhome Energy Inc., TransAlta Corporation, TransCanada Corporation, MacMillan Bloedel, Weyerhaeuser, NOVA Corporation, Fording, Manulife, CIBC.

Oops, sorry for this long “incidentally”. (big smile)

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How rich is Brett?
Brett’s views in charity

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Dragons’ Den experiences
The qualities that Brett look for in entrepreneurs or deals

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Advices to entrepreneurs

CBC vs CTV Hockey - Kodak vs Fuji

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.

Now, CTV has bought the rights to the theme of Hockey Night in Canada, it may have pulled a "Fuji" on CBC. The 40 years of familiarity of the Hockey theme music on CBC has now been transferred to CTV.

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.

National Anthem for sale? - The story of Hockey Night in Canada theme

I probably shouldn’t be blogging tonight as I am driving early tomorrow morning to Banff to attend two conferences (Future of Digital Content & Banff World TV Festival).

Anyway, I will spend a few minutes here to share my thoughts. CBC's official blog and CBC National (as the lead news item) that the deal to keep the Hockey Night in Canada theme has fallen apart. So no more Hockey Night in Canada theme. Toronto Star reports (with video) here.

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.

In our capitalistic world, it is up to Dolores Claman (composer of the theme) and her agent to negotiate a best deal. It might be fun to apply some game theory and the PARTS strategy (the elements of a game are: Players, Added values, Rules, Tactics, and Scope) to analyze this particular business situation in a step by step manner.

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.

Chatting with Brett Wilson, chairman of FirstEnergy Capital, CBC newest Dragon - Part 1

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.

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Engineering & Business school,
Early investment experiences

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Early work experiences & Business School
Consumer & Buyer behaviour

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Starting his business

Ad Links: 2008-05-29

• QUIT - Anti Smoking Charity - a really cool concept. Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi London
• Covenant House - a really neat and cool idea. Agency: Taxi, Toronto
• Big Brother Bus Stop - A neat way to use Blue tooth to advertise. Agency: Marketforce, Perth, Australia
• White wins - quite neat. Agency: Grey Istanbul, Turkey
• VW Ads - very charming "interviews", very effectively gives VW an added "personality". Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Honda ASIMO Conducts Orchestra and Dances

Honda ASIMO conducts The Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Honda ASIMO Dances, Walks, and Runs at Kennedy Center

Paris Hilton Inc.

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.

ShoeTube

ShoeTube ? Yes, ShoeTube. If “Live Life. Love Shoes.” describes you, check out “The Daily Shoe” @ ShoeTube. [via AdAge]

P.S. If they are going to be successful, they will have to get shoe lovers to create and post their videos/stories, otherwise there isn’t really a community.

Pressuring Olympic sponsors

From Guardian UK - "Follow the money: Olympic protest movement turns its sights on to sponsors"

My Starbucks Idea

After founder Howard Schultz came back to be the president and CEO of Starbucks in January to put some magic back, I hope the ideas at mystarbucksidea.com can add some needed love and $$ back as well.

Since the Starbucks blog has only been launched for days, it is particularly nice to see the two things customers want most - some freebies (although not quite free coffees for frequent purchaser) and complementary Wi-Fi will be added soon.

Here is an excerpt from Brad Stevens’ March 24, 2008 entry, (note: why is the entry not linkable and the blog doesn’t have an RSS feed?) (emphasis added in the following excerpt)

So, starting in mid-April, when you pay with your registered Starbucks Card here’s what you’ll get at participating stores:

• Complimentary customization (add selected syrups or modify your milk – soy or breve), on us. For instance, a Tall Vanilla Soy Latte will be the same price as a regular Tall Caffè Latte. A 70-cent savings in most places.
• Free refills on brewed coffee.
• Tall beverage of your choice with the purchase of 1 lb. whole bean coffee.

And in the near future, we’ll be adding complimentary Wi-Fi access—another hot topic on this site.

OpenSkies (a tiny part of British Airways) starts blogging

Virgin is one of my Admired Companies. If it is up to me, I prefer flying with Virgin over British Airways.

But I will definitely give BA some credit in starting the OpenSkies blog (all three entries so far have been written by Managing Director Dale Moss (PDF file)). Quoting their “Behind te blog“,

Our lines are open, so are our minds.

Let’s start with a brave statement: We don’t want you to simply witness the creation of an airline, we want you to be part of it. That may sound like puffery, but it isn’t. We hope to prove that your contributions will help make OpenSkies a unique and, invariably, a better travelling experience.

This blog is the heart of our conversation.

Dale seems to be creating some buzz and quite responsive to readers’ comments/feedbacks even their first flight is months away in June 2008.

I agree with Neville’s analysis that Dale’s “commentary has far more impact than the massaged press release text”.

Thanks to Matt, I am happy that OpenSkies’ blog is now on my radar screen and I am paying attention to it. (smile)

Now, why doesn’t Virgin have a blog?

Dyson sucks - Vacuuming Futureshop for free and fun

My regular readers know how much I love Dyson vacuum as I’ve blogged about it many times and in particular - “Two things I love but don’t own - Dyson and Lexus” in 2007 and then recently in “Mr. James Dyson, Tear Down This Wall!“. In fact, I love it since April 2000 when I read about Dyson in The International Design Magazine.

Few days ago, I finally got my chance to play with a real Dyson vacuum cleaner for over 30 minutes in Futureshop (OK, that was a really quiet morning after all the “Sales” the days before!) while chatting with a nice Futureshop salesperson. During that time, I practically vacuumed Futureshop’s dirt-filled home appliance area for free! (smile)

Now, I have some real experience of using a Dyson (in a heavy traffic area) to share,

1. The Dyson sucked (sort of)! The demo carpert (the one with a big Dyson logo) was pretty dirty. After the first pass, it looked a lot cleaner and there wasn’t that much dirt left. But as I vacuum that demo carpet more, it did become cleaner and cleaner. So I guess the first pass didn’t pick up *all* the dirt (say only 85%). I guess I expected magic and magic I did not get.
2. Stones and tiny particles. Now, the Dyson made this really annoying noise when it sucked up the tiny stones or tiny hard particles on the floor. And because the stuff/dirt inside the Dyson internal chamber was spinning at such a high speed, the noise was noticeable and a bit annoying to me. Room for some noise cancellation?
3. Burning smell. I don’t know what from the floor got into the Dyson but I smelled something burning (rubber?) a few times during the vacuuming process. Again, I don’t know did something got suck up inside the Dyson and then the high speed spinning created the burning smell. Thinking about it, I wander if Futureshop had installed the HEPA filter correctly? The burning smell was not pleasant at all!

So I now have some real experiences with a Dyson and I can no longer think it is perfect. (nothing is “perfect”.) But I still think it is the best vacuum around even it has the flaws (and may be more) that I listed above.

Of course, the vacuum is great but the price is still in the moon, so I repeat my request to Sir James himself or his Canadian sales team, “Mr. James Dyson, Tear Down This Wall!” Please offer more reasonable prices or wider product range that covers more price points. I truly want you to do well in Canada. I hate to see you suck in Canada. And this is not a good “suck”!

Finally, most people on Flickr love their Dysons as you can see in the above photos and here,

• “domestic princess” - cute
• “Clean-up, clean-up, Everybody do your share” - lovely
• “dysongirl” - very cute dress
• “Barefoot and pregnant” - ha ha cute

and a not so happy customer shookiemookie with her f-starting-4-letter-word one.

Magazines Subscriptions

Over the last 20+ years or so, I had some fun in subscribing to different magazines and reading them on a regular basis. These magazines included - Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Canadian Business, Ivey Business Journal (I paid good money for it until they turned it FREE and never return my unused PAID subscription money), many computer magazines, Communications Arts (probably my most expensive mag sub and it worths every penny! some great free content), The International Design Magazine (I fell in love with Dyson Vacuum since it was covered in the April 2000 issue of I.D.), Psychology Today, and the more exotic ones like the University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, plus The New England Journal of Medicine (I did enjoy my one year subscription and tried to think and read like doctors (big smile)). I read a lot of Wired and Fast Company but then they set a stupid high Canadian subscription prices, plus most of their stuff are online even a few years back.

Now, how many magazines do I subscribe to? Well, not even one! My friend Margaret is brave and she subscribes to and reads The Economist! I know The Economist is a great source of information and supposed to be “Good For Me” (like Cod Liver Oil) but I could never stand reading more than a few articles in it at a time (leaving 99% of the magazine to waste).

So here is what I do these days. Like this morning, I spent 90 minutes just browsing the magazines section in the library and then borrowed a stack of 8 magazines to read one (or may be two) articles in each magazine. Ha ha, no wonder many magazines are trying hard to re-invent themselves (e.g. Business Week).

When I find some time, I will blog about the 8 magazine articles that I borrowed to read. I will see if I can find the link to them for you as well. Happy reading.

To me, library is the greatest equalizer of knowledge (thus “power”, if you want to think of it that way) and experiences. I paid my $12 per year. And then, I periodically clean up their magazines, their books, their DVDs, etc to find stuff that I enjoy and find interesting.

With borrowed materials, one thing I missed is the ability to mark up the magazine/book while I read but I can make a photo copy for personal research if I need to. (smile) I will later try to blog about the 8 articles I borrowed today, possibly with links to them so you can read them as well (if they are available online).

Happy reading and learning.