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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Bristol shut down operations Monday morning. On the same day, St. John’s-based M5 said it had brokered a deal with Bristol’s receiver, Ernst and Young, to hire 78 employees, including senior executives, and take on its advertising clients. M5 president and founder Gary Wadden said his company is focused on “integrating new employees into M5’s corporate culture and developing new relationships with current Bristol clients.” It is not a cash deal, according to Jim Megann, senior vice-president client services for M5 in Halifax.
“We have not merged or purchased Bristol. We did work with the former management team and the receiver; they went into a voluntary shutdown with a receiver.” Megann said Bristol Group approached M5 a few months ago about buying or merging with the company. “We’re a fiscally conservative company, and … the opportunity was going to fall outside of our business model, so we declined.” Things changed in recent weeks. Bristol started out 34 years ago as Saga Communications. Once the pre-eminent advertising company in Newfoundland and Labrador during the days of the Tobin government, Bristol held a number of high-profile provincial contracts such as tourism.
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
When consultant Linda Pickard advises small businesses on their five-year strategies, the first place she turns is Statistic Canada’s reservoir of data from the long-form census. Ms. Pickard combs through StatsCan’s databases in search of population trends, local economic indicators, ethnic make-up and education levels – important pieces of market information in planning a company’s expansion. For Ms. Pickard’s clients, and for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs across Canada, the census is both a direct and indirect source of reliable information, and helps to form a road map for where they want to go. Now, the small and medium-sized businesses who lack the marketing muscle to conduct their own private surveys stand to be among those most affected by the plan to drop the mandatory long-form census.
Alternatives to the census are more costly, more time-consuming and will result in poorer information, says Ms. Pickard, whose firm, Pickard & Laws, is based in Mississauga, Ont. “The picture of life in Canada will be fragmented,” she said. With a voluntary survey, her company “won’t be able to provide the same level of service and quality of information as we’ve been able to do over many years.” The proposed changes have been widely criticized by economists, educators, city planners and religious groups. In hearings in Ottawa Tuesday, two former chief statisticians for Statistics Canada testified that the quality of data will suffer if the census becomes voluntary. Industry Minister Tony Clement said that the government believes some questions on the mandatory long form invade Canadians’ privacy and should not be conducted with the threat of jail terms. The Conference Board of Canada, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce are concerned about the change, and so is Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management and one of the country’s most respected experts on competitiveness and productivity.
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
A growing number of experts are suggesting a new demographic segment has entered the workplace: Generation U, or the Unretired.
The recession has driven many would-be-retirees back to the daily grind. For many though, retirement just wasn’t all they hoped it would be. Either way, research now shows older Americans returning to work are a considerable force to be reckoned with. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) says that 8 out of 10 baby boomers will keep working past retirement age.
The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire also released a study confirming that, since the mid-1990s Americans are retiring less and working longer, reversing a decades-long shift to earlier retirement. The study, "Older Americans Working More, Retiring Less", authored by Anne Shattuck reports that 22% of men and 13% of women over age 65 were in the work force in 2009, an increase from 17% of men and 9% of women over the age of 65 in 1995. The research also reveals the proportion of older adults working for pay is still growing thanks in no small part to the recession.
Meanwhile, a Charles Schwab study finds that as many as 9.5 million retired Americans are considering at least a partial return to the workforce and 32% of those currently employed expect to hold their job and delay retirement.
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
Launching a company as a Gen-Y is by no means the path of least resistance. But we’re seeing more and more Gen-Y’s get behind the wheel of innovative companies, changing how we perceive the stereotypical CEO. Whether I’m grabbing a pint with an aspiring entrepreneur or chatting about startups with family, friends or colleagues, there are some need-to-knows that occupy the minds of Gen-Y CEOs.
I sat down with a group of fellow Gen-Y entrepreneurs at the Ryerson University Digital Media Zone (DMZ) in downtown Toronto to build the “top five need-to-knows.” DMZ is an idea development space that has become the second home and launch pad for some young, rock-star entrepreneurs. It is an innovative initiative that helps keep our top entrepreneurial talent in Canada. Throughout our conversation we shared our successes, challenges and failures, to scope out the need-to-knows that keep us focused while we grow our companies: Find mentors and advisers : After a number of coffees and chats, it was my adviser who said: “Before I see you next, you must have started a company.” It was after this conversation that I took the first step toward starting my own business, Redwood Strategic. Advisers and mentors are critical, building confidence and helping young entrepreneurs navigate through decisions that are best known by the most experienced people. Seasoned entrepreneurs want to help. “To start finding mentors look to professors at school, friends of family, and other experts in the industry,” suggests Mike Lawrie, co-founder of the ultra-innovative Phosphorous Media.
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Monday, July 26, 2010
A St. John's company is playing a significant role in manufacturing a new aircraft to serve the United States. Northstar Network of St. John's manufactured the wing parts for the new aircraft for Lockheed Martin, which received a $156-million contract to build the aircraft, which will be used for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The President of Northstar Network, Howard Nash, says the current contract is worth over $7-million to the St. John's company, and they are expecting to add an additional $9-million to that in August. Nash says Northstar employees did an extraordinarily good job in meeting tight deadlines; instilling customer confidence and managing an extensive supply chain. Northstar Network has over 50 employees and are still hiring workers and looking for Newfoundland and Labrador companies to do more work.
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