Over the last few months I have read some pretty amazing articles, stats and heard stories from friends and family that really confirm my belief that we are on to something here at Biz Pod Interactive.

The adoption rate of corporate video podcasts are taking off. A friend of mine works at a clothing store and every 2 weeks she gets a video message from the CEO of the company which shows her the new merchandise and tells her about new company initiatives and promotions. Another friend works for the BC Forest Ministry and his son for the Alberta Ministry of Transportation and they too receive video messages from their superiors regarding the latest information about their organizations.

On the cover of WIRED magazine in March was the featured article by Clive Thompson entitled “The See-Through CEO”. It’s about how more and more CEOs are becoming more personal and honest with their staff and customers and how they’re using new communication tools to connect. Here is an excerpt…Radical forms of transparency are now the norm at startups - and even some Fortune 500 companies. It is a strange and abrupt reversal of corporate values. Not long ago, the only public statements a company ever made were professionally written press releases and the rare, stage-managed speech by the CEO. Now firms spill information in torrents, posting internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right - and wrong.

Am I Crazy: Chronicles of an Entrepreneur Part 7

It’s been one year exactly since my last update on the quest to bring my new tool design to the world…and today is great news. Actually Friday was the great news…I received my first royalty payment from sales. Yes indeed, we landed our first two orders about two weeks ago with some larger US retailers and it has converted into my first earned income in over 6 months. Now I have a partner in Shanghai, an apartment an office, and we start shipping August. We will see this Christmas how the public likes kelvin. If all goes well, then 2009 will be a great year…which I think it will. That’s why I am playing this crazy game…because I am thinking kelvin.23 is going to be the next Leatherman or Swiss Army Knife. One Million kelvin’s…that is my motto for 2009.

... is up for grabs at www.hockeystars.com   Contest closed Monday June 9, 2008!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

In other words a picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound.

In our series of Biz Pod Showcases we also explored Video Podcast as an educational tool. Looking at the three different ways people take in information - visual, auditive or tactile/kinesthetic - we found that Video Podcasts cover two out of the three different learning styles. Of course people don’t just learn one specific way but certainly there are preferences in which way each individual can be educated best. Adopting Video Podcast as an Educational or Training tool chances are high that your audience is more receptive than to a memo, newsletter or a voice message.

For our Showcase we featured Bill is the Head of HR of our Showcase Corporation. Professional further development is important and part of the company culture. To educate his staff about conflict management Bill uses a series of Video Messages. In this Video Messages Bill speaks about the O.T.F.D Method that helps in a practical way how to deal with conflict situations at the workplace

“Let’s go to the bakery….” you could hear us already from far away.  Rolling through Fort Langley with the Bakery Van, two still very young Gingerbread Men, a Toast Boy and two Adult cookies. And we were armed! Armed with 1000 cookies! That is how many the Fort Langley Bakery baked, wrapped and gave away at this Year’s May Day Parade. But guess what? The cookies didn’t last very long. To many people wanted more.
Young and old loved the sweet treats and were craving for more….no wonder the bakery was packed after the parade.  Well now we have to consider baking even more for next year…let’s see. www.fortlangley-bakery.com

Hello, Readers -- If you are a Vancouver resident who chafes at the lack of affordable housing, you can imagine the hopelessness of my dtes neighbours as nearly half of the barely-affordable housing for low-income people has been wiped out in the past short while, in favour of development.

Now I'm not against development in my neighbourhood. But I want it to be thoughtful, visionary and inclusive. I want it to be a mixed income area where we continue to come up with empowered, creative ways of helping each other out.

Instead, I am personally witnessing a reckless, market-only-driven displacement of members of my community. It's happened so fast and furiously there hasn't been much chance to react.

Hi there -- my bank (Citizens Bank of Canada, VanCity's answer to the, errrr, orange bank) is soft-launching a community site about hockey (players upload stats etc).  They're starting out with a fun contest:



Here's the contest: submit your favourite photo or video connected to hockey and you could win:

Grand Prize: $1000 gift card Second/Third Prize: XBOX 360

My dream of having a brick-walled office in Gastown with big huge windows, high ceilings and art on the walls has finally come true. Best of all, now I can work without the urge to sweep the floor first (the floor here is really clean!)

What I am working on:
I'm a part of a start-up called Qrimp, one of increasing numbers of start-ups creating products that will probably come to be known as "browser-based application development platforms".  These tools replace traditional methods of creating software applications by putting the framework in a web browser and eliminating the need to write code.

(+ day job - office admin)

I look forward to spending many an evening and weekend here and meeting my fellow workspacers.

Biz Pod Video Podcasts are used in many different ways to reach many different audiences on either a private or public network. Examples include; internal messages to staff, reports to investors, updates to business partners and new information for clients and customers. You can also use Biz Pod for training videos or for promotional purposes. We put together a 3 Minute Video to explain how Biz Pod Video Messages can improve Business Communications.

Since it’s Earth Week, it really got me thinking about this topic. I am happy to be able to offer an alternative to traditional communication tools such as printed newsletters, memos, brochures, etc. Of course you can recycle most of those papers, but unfortunately, not everyone does or has a system in their workplace set up to handle this.
A typical business office generates about 1.5 pounds of waste paper per employee per day. And Americans just throw away 4 million tons of that office paper every year -enough to build a 12-foot high wall of paper from New York to California! (American Forest & Paper Association, 2004)
If you want to make a difference in our environment it doesn’t take much. For example, if offices throughout the US increased the rate of two-sided photocopying by 40% they could save the equivalent of about 15 million trees (Choose to Reuse by Nikki & David Goldbeck 2004).