Boiling Point Podcast

Introducing Mel Norton  Sometimes the best way to tackle an issue is to stop perceiving it as a problem but as an opportunity to make things better.  This is the approach that Mayor Mel Norton has decided to take while attempting to steer Saint John, New Brunswick in the right direction.  Saint John has lots to be proud of; it houses two of the largest IT firms in Atlantic Canada, as well as having Canada’s only liquid natural gas plant and its largest oil refinery.  However, Saint John has a number of social issues including a very high child poverty rate, and some of the oldest housing stock in North America.  Mel’s solution to some of these types of problems is to get people involved, and to stay positive.  About three years ago, Mel visited a conference in New York City that was honoring seven of innovative cities in the world of which Saint John was one of them.  During the conference, one speaker discussed taking cities into a new renaissance.   This was a concept that Mel has taken and ran with in Sa

Introducing Glenn Cox  So often, innovation is inspired through the day-to-day lives of people.  However, these innovative people are stopped from pursuing an idea because of fear of the unknown.  Our guest this week, Glenn Cox, didn’t allow anything to stop him from pursuing his innovation that can save money, people, and the environment. In his previous life, Glenn was an RCMP officer stationed out of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  He received a call that a tanker truck had been in an accident and was spilling diesel fuel onto the highway and it was threatening to pour into a nearby river.  Arriving on the scene, Glenn felt somewhat helpless, as he had to wait almost two hours for someone from the Department of Environment to arrive from Victoria to plug the gash.  After leaving the force, Glenn came to the understanding that the process for fixing ruptured tanks hadn’t changed much.  So, he formulated a design and started a business from his home.  The product that was developed was the Rupture Sea

Commander Hadfield expresses the lessons he has learned from floating around our little blue dot that we call home.  Greg is struck by the idea that the higher you get into space the more you can understand humanity.  Dave notes that in the commander’s case the message and messenger are totally aligned. Dave is also impressed with Chris Hadfield’s comfort in expressing the lessons from his success.  Greg recalls a moment he felt connected to how astronauts feel looking down on humanity.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing Andrew Tidby  Andrew Tidby is a filmmaker, explorer, space worshiper, and our host Greg’s BFF.  Through the course of events, Andrew has many amazing experiences and stories to tell.  For example, he and Greg produced a show called “Planet Luxury” which showcased the world’s most expensive luxury items and the people who own them.  Andrew has had over a decade of experiences while traveling the world and telling stories, but some of his greatest life lessons come from the past year or so working and learning with astronauts. A little over a year ago, Andrew was thinking up new shows he could pitch to networks around the world.  He decided to try and pitch a show for kids on one of his greatest passions, space.  So, at 2 am one morning, he started to film a pilot episode of his new show.  He brought the idea to Canada’s National Film Board, who loved the idea and wanted to produce a series called NFB’s Space School.  Space School would lead to schools ditching boring textbooks on space and give s

Introducing DJ Waldow It is coming upon that time of year again where many assess changes that need to be made in their lives. A course of action is taken where we vow to make these changes and we call them New Year’s resolutions. Many will choose to lose some weight; others will choose to quit smoking. Perhaps for your next New Year’s resolution, you might consider a plan to follow your passions. Our guest this week is just the guy to get the ball rolling for you. DJ Waldow was formerly an email marketer and a product evangelist for Marketo. A little over six months ago, DJ came to a crossroads in his life. He just didn’t have the passion for what he was doing anymore. This is particularly difficult when one of the most important parts of his job was to show a passion for the company’s products and services. So in June 2014, DJ quit his job and focused all of his energy into finding work that he was passionate about. In this process, DJ decided to write a blog post about what he was doing and why, which rece

Introducing Lauchlan Ough Sometimes the most effective form of leadership involves empowering the people who work for you to be leaders themselves.  A lot can be said enabling leaders, as well as getting them to jump right into unfamiliar tasks.  This is exactly the approach Greg Hemmings takes with the people who work for him.  One of the greatest examples of this is Greg’s employee, Lauchlan Ough.  Lauchlan was one of the original employees at Hemmings House, and the youngest at the time.   Lauchlan was around for the humble beginnings, where the production company was working out of the basement of Greg’s home.  Fast forward to 2014; Lauchlan is now an experienced director, cinematographer, photographer, and editor, running shoots with a number of people under him. Coming out of high school, Lauchlan had a passion for the process of filmmaking.  He knew that he wanted to work with morally good people, he wanted to learn on the job, and he enjoyed the process of filmmaking more so then its end goal.  Upon

Introducing Jeff Roach These days most businesses try to get with the times and engage people through social media with mixed results.  Many take the route of duplicating the ads they use in traditional marketing and posting them to social media.  Jeff Roach would tell these people they are going about social media marketing all wrong. Jeff is the founder of Sociallogical, a company that works with other businesses to embed social media tools and practices into their operations.  His company helps those having trouble understanding how social media can be an asset to them by initiating a strategy, training their people, and developing and managing content.  Jeff’s main beef with how many companies use social media is that they are using it for advertising and not sharing the stories that the company has to tell.  Jeff tells us that social media is NOT another advertising channel.  In fact, using social media this way many companies turn their customers off.  Consider what a customer might be likely to do if

Introducing Peter Stoddart It is the dream of many to open their own restaurant, café, or pub.  However, the food and beverage industry is not an easy business to succeed within.  Most restaurants fail within a few years of opening, so what can you do to stand out and atop the rest?  Peter Stoddart is an entrepreneur that did just this.  Peter is the owner of The Saint John Ale House in beautiful uptown Saint John, New Brunswick.  Peter opened the Ale House in 2004, but had the inspiration to open such a business for much longer. Peter was amongst the first in his local market to focus on locally sourced, seasonal ingredients for a pub environment.  Even his chef, Jesse, runs his own farm to help grow the ingredients they need on a daily basis.  Beyond taste, there are other reasons to consider sourcing locally and seasonally.  First off, you get to know the people and places that your ingredients come from.  You also have the opportunity to spend your money so that it stays within the local economy.  Not t

Introducing David Meerman Scott Sometimes you can learn aspects of business from obscure and seemingly unrelated places and people.  Like learning lessons of marketing from the Grateful Dead.  David Meerman Scott did just that.  David is an international best-selling author of several books and speaks routinely around the world.   David doesn’t like to write typical, boring marketing books though.  He looks to write about things he enjoys. David came up with the idea of taking business concepts from the jam band, while working with his friend and CEO of Hubspot, Brian Halligan.  Hubspot is a leading online provider of marketing and sales software, but they offer a ton of free digital content as well.  Brian and David, both huge dead heads, decided to try making a fun marking webinar on the Grateful Dead.  The webinar they produced became the most popular one Hubspot had to that point, and so together they decided to write the book version.  For those of you not in the know, the Grateful Dead was a band sta

Introducing Jason MacLean Jason MacLean is the type of entrepreneur that just goes for it.  This includes opening a health and lifestyle business in an industrial town not known for patronizing such businesses.  However, Jay’s huge personality, passion, and work ethic have made his yoga studio, The Yoga Haus, a great success. Jay originally worked with big corporate in their marketing division.  He credits a number of learning opportunities and lessons to the time he worked under someone else.  However, Jay is an entrepreneur and needed to follow his passions.  This led him to opening other businesses in the past, which emerged from his love of cooking.  Always the marketer, Jay called one such business Awful Falafel, Not so Bad Waffle, and the other Sterno Inferno. However, the yoga business didn’t come to Jay as easily and required a bit of serendipity.  His love from yoga came from a soul searching trip when he was 23-years-old.  Jay had decided that he was going to travel to Mexico via the Pacific coas

Introducing Calvin Milbury Great innovations and inventions sometimes come from the smallest places.  Take the Boiling Point’s home province of New Brunswick.  This small province has been the home to things such as the snow blower, and the scuba tank.  Don’t forget the other New Brunswick innovation that affects all of our daily lives, the vortex flushing toilet.  Our guest, Calvin Milbury is the man in charge of making sure the next big New Brunswick innovation gets the launch pad it needs to succeed.  Calvin is the president and CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.  The foundation is a non-profit organization that was initially funded by the provincial government, which offers seed money and credibility to start-up companies doing unique things.  Originally from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Calvin studied biochemistry at the University of New Brunswick and then went on to get his masters of business administration.   His first job was with a national venture capital firm where he was responsib

Introducing Lee Odden Lee Odden has been called a pioneer and legend of SEO.  He has blogged over 1.2 million words on his TopRank Online Marketing Blog, and is the CEO of TopRank Marketing.  Lee is also amongst an exclusive club of marketers with beards. Our host, Greg Hemmings, met Lee at last year’s New Media Expo, which was one of Lee’s twenty-ish speaking engagements of the year.  Lee’s speaking engagements not only help to educate attendees, but also generate sales leads for his company, as well as offering numerous ways to network.  However, you don’t become a trusted source as a blogger, public speaker, or social media maverick from just thin air; Lee was in the trenches for many years.  He got involved with SEO in the late 90’s, but in 2001 he decided to take the plunge as an entrepreneur.  He decided to forgo a salary and focus in on online marketing while starting an online PR firm with a few associates.  This was just shortly after the dot com crash, and many online firms were not investing in m

Introducing Nancy Mathis  Nancy Mathis is a lady who knows how to lay down the framework that allows entrepreneurs to become better and achieve more.  She is the founding executive director of the Wallace McCain Institute; a group that was formed in 2007 to see the entrepreneurs of Atlantic Canada have a better chance of success.  Nancy has a background in chemical engineering, and a designer by nature.  Prior to the Wallace McCain institute, Nancy ran a venture capital backed company, which unfortunately went into bankruptcy.  Not to be dismayed, the unfortunate circumstance allowed her to take the reigns of an organization that has benefitted numerous entrepreneurs of her region.  The Wallace McCain Institute offers about 20 programs, serving 200 members.  It is based out of the University of New Brunswick, but is unaccredited.  Its main program is its Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, of which our hosts Greg Hemmings and Dave Veale are alumni.  This program takes in 16 rising entrepreneurs from the reg

Introducing Gene Fowler Gene Fowler is a man who knows the ups and downs of running a creative business in an untraditional location.  He is the owner and creative director at the animation studio Loogaroo, which is a boutique animation agency focusing on commercial animations and tablet gaming.  Gene is also the creative director at the publicly traded e learning company Blue Drop.  He works both jobs out of his hometown studio in Miramichi, New Brunswick-- an area mostly known for fishing and the pulp and paper industry. Loogaroo wasn’t Gene’s first kick at the “animation” can.  Back in 2000, he and a few fellow animators were laid off at another animation studio and decided that they would try to take the reigns of their own gig.  They formed Fat Kat Animation Studios in Halifax, Nova Scotia and made some animations and put them online.  Soon enough, they got noticed and started creating flash animated training videos.  Three years later, Fat Kat had 50 employees and was making animations for Fortune 500

Introducing Ibarionex Perello  Ibarionex Perello is a man who lives the creative life and knows how to parlay his lifestyle into a career.  He is a photographer, writer, educator, and podcast host.  In his previous life, Ibarionex was an editor for some photography magazines including Outdoor Photographer.  During his long Los Angeles commutes, he got into the habit of listening to books on tape and eventually podcasts.  He found that most of the photography podcasts he was listening to revolved around equipment choices and ways to practice photography, but not so much about the creative process.  So, Ibarionex decided to fill the void leveraging the skills he had as both a photographer and editor. Ibarionex started The Candid Frame in 2006 as a show with conversations with photographers and has since gone on to produce more than 250 episodes.  He has since been able to make podcasting a main component of his income and was able to retire from his editor’s job.  He did this by producing a show that he would

Introducing Dr. Bill Howatt Dr. Bill Howatt has a goal to improve the lives of people and to improve the productivity of their employers.  Dr. Bill works with our host, Dave Veale, as a coach at Vision Coaching Inc., along with being an author of over 60 books, a columnist with the Globe and Mail, and a number of other things with his bag of tricks.  He has done all of this and achieved a PhD, despite not being able to read or write proficiently until the age of 19. Dr. Bill credits his success to a number of mentors that have helped him through the years.  Firstly, there was Bill’s mother.  Then there was Mrs. Stewart, his grade five teacher, who knew Bill was having difficulties and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.  Being a “Smart Alec”, Bill said he wanted to be a writer, and that was exactly what Mrs. Stewart made him try.  There was also Dr. Bill’s tenth grade teacher who exposed him to the legal world, which led to a fascination for Bill during graduate school.  These people didn’t need

Introducing Cathy Sweet Cathy Sweet has had the entrepreneurial spirit since she was a child.  She would collect and trade frogs with the kid up the street.  She came from a family business people in commercial real estate.  Cathy learned a lot of her lessons in business around the kitchen table.  Cathy started in the business in university by managing a few properties and continued to do so even while working for a few Fortune 500 companies.  Eventually, Cathy decided that she was going to focus on her entrepreneurial dreams instead of the corporate route and started Comztar Commercial Properties. Comztar is a client centric company that finds unique industrial, commercial, and office properties for its customers.  “If you can’t find your Prince Charming, build him,” is Cathy’s motto.   Cathy specializes in creating spec buildings for companies from 4,000 to 60,000 square feet.  She is also a trailblazer for her region as a female in the commercial real estate industry dominated by men.  Cathy’s business

Introducing Jake Palmer Jake Palmer always had a creative and humorous side to him.  As a young man, he even had is own sketch variety show on community television.  When Jake grew up he went toward a career path in IT and worked in the field for a number of years.  He had been interested in a career change to real estate, but a local broker had told him not to start until he had enough cash to float himself for six months.  This would happen soon enough when Jake’s employer came to him with an “opportunity” as Jake calls it.  “They came to me and gave me and outstanding opportunity to do anything I want, as long as it wasn’t there.”  Jake was laid off, but his six-month’s severance would give him the opportunity to change careers.  Many in this scenario might consider giving real estate a try, but Jake wasn’t just giving it a try, he wanted a new career and success.  He received his real estate license in April 2009 and hasn’t looked back since. People expect a level of aggressiveness and professionalism

Introducing Hal Somers Hal Somers is the type of guy that takes opportunities in life when they are presented to him.  Hal went to trade school to learn brick laying as a young man and for a short time worked in mining.  However, one day a friend in the used car business called him and told him that he was perfect for the job.  So, Hal decided to take a crack at selling cars.  He asked for two-weeks vacation from the mine to try it out, and after two weeks he put in his resignation at the mine.  Hal moved through the industry, starting with used cars, then moving to a GM dealership, and then he was offered a general manager’s position at a Toyota store.  When a Mercury dealership in town went out of business, they courted Hal to take it over.  However, there was a major problem, Hal didn’t have the cash to buy in.   Mercury was so interested in him that they set him up with a silent angel investor and soon enough Hal was a business owner.  He did this without a fancy diploma or degree, but with the right wo

Introducing Levi Lawrence Levi Lawrence is a trained chef that has cooked in kitchens throughout the world.  As a chef, he knows the importance of fresh, local ingredients.  However, for the longest time if you wanted fresh, local ingredients you had to attend your weekly farmers’ market.   If you weren’t awake early on a weekend morning, you would have to buy your produce from California via your local grocery store.  Having worked in Europe, Levi knew there was a better way to offer local food.  So, he went back to school, received a business degree, borrowed $3,000 and made a website called, Real Food Connections, to connect people with their local farmers seven days a week.  Soon enough he was building a network of food producers in New Brunswick.  Since then, Levi has expanded three times in four years.  Two years ago, he moved into his very own brick and mortar grocery store in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which also wholesales across the province, caters, and offers a vegetable box program in both Fre