CanInnovate

Eran Ben-Ari is Top Hat's Chief Product Officer, and oversees all product-related functions, including product management, development, design and analytics. 10 years ago our founders, while students at the University of Waterloo, felt there had to be a better way to drive engagement in the classroom. Today, Top Hat's active learning technology helps professors easily engage students and build comprehension before, during and after class.

Episode Overview:

This episode has a lot of 'AH HA' moments that got me really excited. In this episode you'll learn:

• How Top Hat is disrupting the educational industry at three different layers. Students, professors and textbook authors
• Even revisiting the publishing model of textbooks
• Their unique go to market & sales strategy
• Eran is pursuing Anthropology of Technology, which has me quite intrigued.
• Driving engagement in the classroom that really embraces active learning
• Embracing the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) model in the classroom
• Creating an Agile teaching platform for instructors

This episode is great for those educators, human resources, learning professionals and anyone who wants to make learning really STICK!

Top Hat is disrupting three different components or facets of higher education or teaching today.

• How the courses are actually being delivered and for the first time, active learning can be used at scale to leverage technology. Active learning is the ability of students to learn a little bit of interaction or engagement.
• Professors and teachers today are not as tech savvy as their students so most of them are struggling on how they can shine, how they can bring to life or realize why they came to this profession in the first place which is to really make an impact to their learners. Top Hat created a community of instructors, teachers are no longer alone in teaching and that it infused on Top Hat's content.
• The third disruption is about how they create content

"Students or learners nowadays have really short attention span"

Students are craving to study and learn in a more non-traditional way. Eran shared how students in this generation have shorter attention space and are often multi-tasking even when there is an instructor or a teacher speaking in front of them.

Classrooms are also getting larger and larger which also caused to the increase of students that a teacher can handle to be able to successfully make an interaction between the student and a teacher. Many of the more technology that we are introduced in the classrooms, they did not place the professors at the heart of what they are building because it was either for the students or the administrator. That created a lot of friction on how they use that technology in the classroom which created a disjointed experience when they are trying to learn in the classroom.

How Top Hat got into Universities:

The founders thought that if they focus on the professor and making sure that there are real value for the professor and at the same time, bring in the students as the paying customer. This will create a very fast adoption.

Lessons Learned:

• Focus on the professors and not everyone at the same time
• There is a lot of really valuable impact on the real time feedback system
• If you build, almost as of a reward system to student to play along with these new mode of teaching they can really harness the lessons.

Resource Recommendation:

Book Recommendation: The Interpretation Of Cultures Paperback by Clifford Geertz

Favorite Hot Spot: Hey Brothers

About Top Hat:

Top Hat is a higher education teaching app that makes active learning come to life. Their suite of easy-to-use tools address four teaching challenges: student engagement; textbook affordability and customizability; student comprehension; and secure test administration. More than 2 million students at 750 of the top 1,000 colleges and universities in North America have used Top Hat.

Connect with Eran:

Website: TopHat.com

Facebook: Top Hat

LinkedIn: Top Hat LinkedIn

Twitter: @tophat

Instagram: @tophathq

This week, I lost a dear friend of mine - Laura Holdcroft (Laura Kraemer). This episode is definitely dedicated to Laura. She was my roommate when I was studying, I was her Maid of Honour and she was just the most beautiful person inside and out.

As I was thinking of her, I really regretted not seeing her more often. We'd text and communicate but, I wish I would've seen her more often. It got me thinking, about how much I appreciated all the things that she taught me and brought into my life. The laugher, the chats, advice and just being free to be ourselves without judgement.

It got me thinking about others in my life. What was I grateful for.. It lead me to do some research, I know… I'm a consultant, I can't help but research. I started to wonder what is the definition of gratitude. Harvard medical School had a great definition:

"A thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals – whether to other people, nature, or a higher power"

There are so many definitions out there. What was fascinating to me was that there are 2 stages of gratitude according to Dr. Robert Emmons:

1. The acknowledgement of goodness in one's life. That we actually are saying YES to life.
2. That some of the sources of this 'goodness' is coming from outside ourselves.

What I find wonderful about this art of recognizing and be grateful, is that this recognition is being done unconditionally and unprompted from something. We are not doing it as an exchange in return. We are doing it because something or someone has given us 'something that is valuable to us and allows us to appreciate life'. It's a really great article from positive psychology program. Read the Gratitude Appreciation here.

Then, I started to wonder what are the benefits of being grateful. We have learned the positive benefits for being vulnerable, but what about gratitude. I have been hearing about gratitude journals for years. Didn't think much of them of them till today.

Robert Emmons did some research about the study of gratitude. Here were some interesting findings:

1. Improved Well Being- being grateful made people more agreeable, open and less neurotic
2. Relationships - tend to be more willing to forgive others and less narcissistic
3. Optimism & Happiness - increased optimism, which makes sense because we've have learned that gratitude means that we are saying YES to Life. Which, apparently also reduces your inner fears. Love this one. This article from Wanderlustworker stated that it's a hard to be fearful and grateful at the same time. I guess it makes sense. We are optimistic about the future.
4. Stronger Self Control - This one surprised me. I'm just going to read what it says in this article. "Self-Control helps us to be disciplined and focused and to persist with what is subjectively the most important for our long-term well-being. A study by DeSteno et al. in 2014 found that self-control significantly increased when subjects chose gratitude over happiness and feeling neutral. One of the study's authors, Professor Ye Li, said:

"Showing that emotion can foster self-control and discovering a way to reduce impatience with a simple gratitude exercises opens up tremendous possibilities for reducing a wide range of societal ills from impulse buying and insufficient saving to obesity and smoking."

I had to digest this one for awhile to reconcile it in my head. I guess, if we are always thinking coulda, woulda shoulda and thinking about regrets, then we are looking backwards. But, if we starting to be more in the moment and appreciating the gifts that are around us, we tend to look to the future and about our future self vision and goals.

What I learned is that gratitude will give us an overall better life. It makes sense, we are in the moment not looking back. Seeing all the different elements that we appreciate and being thankful & grateful for these things. It would make life taste a little sweeter. By the way, this article had mentioned another study that was done by McCraty and colleagues in 1998 that stated that there was a 23% reduction in the stress hormone cortisol.

So, being in the moment and being grateful, we ended up having better lives, stronger self control, lower level of stress and more. I'm in! I've definitely drank the Kool Aid.

But where to start?

1. Listing all the people in your life that you appreciate. Your mom, dad, siblings, friends, colleagues etc… let's not forget those mentors, those that inspire you, your boss, colleagues and so on. There are so people in your life that go above and beyond to make things easier for you.
2. On that list, has there been someone that has done something that you truly appreciate, but may not have thanked them?
3. What did you appreciate? Write it down.
4. Send them a note or even a letter. Who gets thank you cards or letters anymore? What a double surprise to provide.

To my CanInnovate podcast listeners, I am really thankful that you invest in the time to hear me each week. I am always so grateful, when I get an email or review that told me what resonated with you. How it helped you. I often think that when I'm doing this episodes, that I'm just talking to myself. Like a little girl, pretending to hold an Oscar or pretending to do a cooking show. Those emails and messages that I get, are the most precious gift to me. So, I truly thank you all.

So, my dear friend Laura. I'm sooo grateful for having you in my life. You taught me how to be level headed and funny at the same time. Laura, used to work at Sick Kids Hospital in the Infectious disease division. Everytime I struggled with a problem at work and thought it was the end of the world. We've all had those moments. Laura, you always provided me with a real perspective. You really saw different dimensions of life. The good, the sad and the miracles. I thank you for all of those things.

I encourage each and everyone of you to take a pause and think about all the things that you're grateful for.

In fact, I've had the Golden Girls theme song stuck in my head for the past few days. So, I thought I'd close with this.

Thank you for being a friend.

Travel down the road and back again.

Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.

And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew.

You would see the biggest gift would be from me

and the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend

Till next week

Have you checked out the episode about Vulnerability: Episode 58: Vulnerability - the New Advantage

Golden Girls YouTube Song

Articles mentioned in this blog:

Wonderlust Worker: 7 Crucial Reasons Why Gratitude Can Change Your Life

Positive Psychology Program: Gratitude Appreciation

Gratitude Journals:

The One-Minute Gratitude Journal by Brenda Nathan

The Five Minute Journal: A Happier You in 5 Minutes a Day by Intelligent Change

Based in Toronto, Canada, David is the founder of The Poirier Group - a global company that specializes in helping organizations to implement and integrate significant change successfully. He is a Senior Executive who offers extensive experience in the retail, general merchandise, food distribution, health and life sciences and manufacturing industries, creating and executing operational strategies, business transformation and process improvements that positively impact organizations.

Episode Overview:

This episode is for those that are in service based industry. In order to be successful in a service based industry, you need to provide SERVICE. That's exactly what The Poirier Group has done to achieve a 100% referral rate.

This episodes, we talk about how:

• Impacts of value systems
• Consulting organizations are changing
• How consulting provides essential life skills
• Secrets of the values of success including his 100% Referral Rate
• And so much more

Impacts of Poirier Group 4 value system :

• Learning
• Serving
• Excellence
• Integrity

Consulting organizations are changing

Technology plays big role not only for Poirier's client but also for other consulting organizations with the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other tools that are available today are dramatically changing the ability and time-frame to deliver results.

It is important for organizations like the Poirier to embrace that technology so that they can compete going forward rather than waiting for the technology to go to them and make them redundant overtime.

How consulting provides essential life skills

We are in so many different industries with so many different situations that it helps grow our skills constantly. These skills that we learn in the process are so valuable in life. The Poirier group focuses more on the team performance rather than the personal performance. Pushing personal performance in one organization often leads to competition to one another.

Lessons Learned:

Find a balance on yourself between your work time, family time and recharging time; be rigorous and disciplined around those areas in order to make sure that you are creating the most fulfilling time of your life as you can.

Sales and Marketing Tips:

• To measure your success, know if you have succeeded your customers expectations
• Reach for a goal that will make your customer say "You are not like any other consultants"
• Look for a way for your customers/clients to say "We are glad to be a reference or a referral for you"
• Keep an ongoing communications on your clients

Book Recommendation: Measure what Matters by John Doerr

About Poirier Group:

The Poirier Group is a natural progression for David, who offers extensive experience in the retail, general merchandise, food distribution, health and life sciences and manufacturing industries. He thrives on creating and executing operational strategies, organizational transformations and process improvements that deliver on all business levels - particularly in complex and ever-changing business environments.

Connect with David:

Website: ThePoirierGroup.com

LinkedIn: David Poirier

Twitter: @thepoiriergroup

Facebook: The Poirier Group

Meredith Messenger is VERY well versed in the demands of running a one-person shop and the struggles that many startups have with developing predictable revenue. She is the founder of Selling With Soul and the host of the Selling With Soul podcast.

She is a Revenue Coach and Sales Consultant offering revenue strategy development, sales consulting and sales team building to start-ups, small and mid-sized companies. The mission of Selling With Soul is to help more small businesses survive, thrive and impact the world.

Episode Overview:

• How to make sales NOT so SCARY!
• How Sales is an essential life skill
• If the art of Cold Calling is Dead
• Sales Pet Peeves
• Common Sales mistakes & tips to how to avoid them!
• How to utilize Sales Technology

I also have another freebie for you - I just recently recorded a webinar on common sales proposal mistakes. Click here

How to make sales NOT so SCARY!

People have a negative impression on sales because they have gone through negative sales experience.

"We all hate that feeling of being sold to like we are trapped and we can't get out on the conversation with the person who doesn't care about us at all and who just want to push their product on us"

These experience doesn't make us feel good and so we tend to bring up this emotion and experience when we talk about sales. When you are being sold to effectively and you didn't know that, it doesn't feel negative at all.

In out of the business world, people tend to makes sales a little more complicated when it doesn't have to be. Meredith's mission and motto is to find how to we simplify sales, how do we put the fun back in sales and convince people that it is just about serving another person.

How sales is an essential life skill

Instead of making sales a thing about generating revenue, we should look at sales at a university level as a part of how we operate. An example that Meredith gave is when she had a negative sales experience in LinkedIn when someone sent her a message and tries to sell something about sales coaching. Immediately this made her feel that the person sending her the message is really obnoxious because it plainly tells her that these people don't care about who she is, who didn't even look at her profile and even worst, trying to sell a sales coaching program to a certified sales consultant.

This action tells us that if they are sending this message to her, they are also doing it to thousands of people who are on LinkedIn and this gives a bad impression to all sales person.

Measuring the right metrics are really important because if we are pushing all of our people just to hit activity numbers, we are pushing for the wrong things and that is where our quality starts to suffer.

Is Cold Calling Dead?

According to Meredith, cold calling is a hot and highly debated topic because there are people who stand very firm in saying that YES it is dead and says everything can be sold through social selling but there are also people saying NO because outbound reach is very critical to a business.

In Meredith's point of view, there is no right or wrong answers to this because there are companies who are doing cold calling and outbound emails who are doing it really well and it also depend of the type of people you are talking to. There are also people who are using social selling all the time and are doing really good but you also have to understand what social selling is.

Social selling is just providing value and getting into a point where they can get a phone call or a meeting from you because you provided value.

Tip:

When you are at that point of your business, you have to proactively develop business. The business is not going to come to you and so therefor, outreach that area where a lot of people get really uncomfortable, talking to people they don't know in one form or another has to happen in order for your business to be successful.

Check out Selling with Soul Podcast Leveraging Technology to Make Sales With Miles Austin

Big mistakes that start-ups usually make:

• People don't ask for the business
• Rushing the sales cycle
• Just because you are the seller doesn't mean you have the say on everything than the buyer does.

Recommended Tools:

• Nimble.com
• SalesForce.com
• HubSpot.com
• Mailchimp.com
• Drip.com
• Bots

Book Recommendations:

• Selling Boldly by Alex Goldfayn
• Little Red Book by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Stop Selling and Start Selling by James M. Kouzes

About Selling with Soul Podcast:

Selling With Soul is on a mission to enable more women to enter into entrepreneurship and grow a profitable business that changes the world while supporting their family through education, inspiration and support.

Social Media:

Website: MeredithMessenger.com

Twitter: @MerMessenger

Facebook: Selling With Soul Podcast

LinkedIn: Meredith Messenger

Podcast: Selling with Soul Podcast

Ross Andrew Paquette is the founder and CEO of Maropost, North America's fastest growing marketing automation company, as ranked by the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. After founding Maropost in 2011, Ross has gone on to double annual growth every year since, turning a one-man operation into an international business. Acting as the strategic center of the company, Ross is responsible for determining both business and development direction.

"Let us go invent today rather than what happened yesterday" - Steve jobs

Episode Overview:

In this episode, Ross Andrew Paquette talks about the value of delivering great customer services and scaling your business. Here we will learn:

• Why is this important for small-medium sized businesses?
• Sales and Marketing Tips
• Understanding how marketing and sales strategy works
• Introducing Maropost platforms that brings CRM and Email Marketing into a seamless platform
• The difference of how mid-market and small businesses uses CRM and Email marketing platforms

How did you come up with the idea of Maropost?

Ross started out as a sales representative in a small tech startup in Ontario and in a short time he really understood the value of customers and what they needed in order to move their companies forward.

Maropost started out as an email marketing space which as of today, focuses on mid-market and enterprises. Maropost is a B2C, cloud-based revenue optimization suite that gives companies the ability to increase cross-channel customer engagement to maximize revenue.

Their first product was the email marketing and the social media marketing platform and recently they launched their second product which is a CRM in the service and support arena.

Why is this important for small-medium sized businesses?

A lot of small businesses knows about MailChimp or other CRM and email automation software while Maropost is incorporating both pieces in their product to make it more seamless. Therefore, their customers can actually see the sales lead and marketing leads that they are sending out there so they will be able to actually close the actual sale.

"When you think about the amount solutions any organization uses, there is a huge cost from a time perspective and the resources that you have in place to make that happen."

Email marketing and CRM are the backbone of any company which Maropost provides.

Maropost is currently focusing on a single customer view. The unfortunate thing about single customer view is that there are only a few platforms that provides this service. One the important thing that Ross also noticed is that nobody ever talks about the customer life cycle for a while, which is very important in any businesses out there.

Here are some of the customer life-cycle:

• Customer acquisition which is more on the marketing side
• Purchase process

Ross at first didn't have a marketing strategy when he started Maropost but he went to $25M in annual revenues during your 1st 5 years. His initial innovative approach is to brought in clients and then client referrals.

What excites Ross about this industry:

Ross is really excited about the single customer view which is not all about the sales and marketing. What it really means to Ross is to define who your core personas or customer and lead groups are that you are going to be marketing and selling your products to.

In addition, Ross is really excited about the evolution of sales, marketing and AI evolution and how AI we would incorporate AI into providing us with more in depth understanding on what we can do to our lead groups in marketing and sales perspective.

Sales and Marketing Tips:

• Pushing the limit is terms of what you idea or concept is, think of something that companies and individuals that could benefit from forever.
• You don't need someone to give you $500M to startup your idea
• Doing most things for yourself will help you understand and see what your customers needed and what you need to do in order to help them
• Have an idea that is bigger than yourself thinking of companies buying your business
• Have a big vision and don't be afraid for people to see it.
• Putting the right system in place is critical

About Maropost

Maropost is a powerful platform designed to help businesses scale in every area — shaping the way organizations operate through technology. Ambitious, entrepreneurial, and results-focused, their team is committed to collaboration and innovation.

Above all else, they believe in building it themselves. Whether that means expanding their development team to create new products, or investing in professional development for promising employees—it starts with Maropost.

Connect with Ross:

Website: Maropost.com

Instagram:

• @rossandrew
• @maropostcares
• @Maropost

Twitter:

• @RossAndrew
• @Maropost
• @MaropostCARES

Non-Profit: MaropostCARES.org

Mohamed is passionate about Blockchain technology and is committed to help growing the Blockchain ecosystem in Canada and around the world.

In addition to being CEO of Fast Access Blockchain, he is program manager at The BlockchainHub, a member of the Blockchain Global Consortium and leads the C-Lab program, the first peer-to-peer community based incubation program for Blockchain startups.

Mohamed is also a recipient of the "Durland Innovation Award" for a Blockchain use case and is a holder of the "Beta Gamma Sigma Scholastic International Award". He is a world traveller and speaker on Blockchain and also the Blockchain Global Ambassador.

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Episode Overview:

• What is blockchain and why is it important
• Other visual assets besides cryptocurrencies
• How blockchain works from a security perspective
• The connection between privacy and blockchain
• Is there a dark side about blockchain?
• Is the technology ready to support blockchain in the ICO perspective
• Tips on how to get into blockchain as a clear specialty

What is blockchain and why is it important

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that can manage pier to pier transactions in human world.

Blockchain was made to solve the double step problem. Double step problem is a process for when we send money from our banks to our recipients, we no longer have access to that money once sent. As Mohamen quoted:

"If we are able today to send many email in just seconds why is it not the case for visual assets like money and this is why bitcoin came about, to solve this problem."

Bitcoin is just one of the centralized technology but Mohamed gives credit to the bitcoin as one of the most viable application of technology. Blockchain came after bitcoin just to describe the technology that is powering the bitcoin or any application that ran on top of this technology.

Other visual assets besides cryptocurrencies:

There is an evolution where some people call bitcoin blockchain 1.0 which is basically financial assets like money to move from different participants. After that, there is a debate from the local system which was, "if we are able to send the cryptocurrencies other visual assets can also be sent."

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality. Ether is a cryptocurrency whose blockchain is generated by the Ethereum platform.

One of the process that Mohamed is working on right now is called Artscryption which uses blockchain technology to secure payments, reduce forgery and creates value for arts for musicians and etc.

How blockchain works from a security perspective:

Blockchain technology use cryptography which is the art of writing and solving codes and had been around for decades.

We have heard a lot of news about hacks and etc. but technically the blockchain has never been hacked. The bitcoin system has never been hacked especially. On the education perspective, we need to understand the technology and the tools as well.

The connection between privacy and blockchain:

Using the bank as an example: when you open an account the bank will ask you for your ID, but they really don't need all the information on your ID. However, they might choose to get an additional information that they have such as your age and address as a tool for marketing.

With blockchain technology, you can enable the self control of identity that give the power back to the users.

The country that has the highest adoption rate in blockchain is USA and Canada but other countries are already picking up on the blockchain. The understanding in blockchain has now evolved and other countries are already adopting it to use n terms of marketing and security.

Is there a dark side about blockchain?

Mohamed tells us that there is a privacy paradigm when it comes to our transactions without really knowing the identity of the recipients. This is an issue in some cases but on the other side, if you look at the illegal traffic and etc, cryptocurrency is also used in drugs or illegal arms.

Mohamed think that today there is no in-depth research on how cryptocurrency is used in the dark side. It could be used but they don't have the exact numbers about the problems. On the bright side, the blockchain technology has the chance to improve transparency .

Is the technology ready to support blockchain in the ICO perspective.

ICO also known as Initial Coin Offering is the cryptocurrency space's rough equivalent to an IPO in the mainstream investment world. ICOs act as fundraisers of sorts; a company looking to create a new coin, app, or service launches an ICO

In these situations, we should be looking at used cases like the people using the world blockchain. The questions that people should be asking is; "is technology ready to support this kind of application? It is like YouTube in the mind's safety which is impossible because the foundational technology which is the internet could not at that time support YouTube. So, it is a used case that really doesn't make sense in the technology perspective.

Another example is when we are looking at the chain which is actually involved in the process like using people's name and pictures and they are not even aware that they are part of the project which basically taken this extra step to talk into the people to get involve into the project.

Tips on how to get into blockchain as a clear specialty:

There is a lot of opportunities in career for people who want to work in the blockchain because it is an industry that is rapidly evolving. Here are some tips that Mohamed gave us.

• Do some homework and reading about bitcoins and blockchains
• Understand what is the logic behind this technology
• Go to events and talk to people who are involved in doing projects
• Know and see if this is something you like to do
• Start educating yourself with the programs

Recommended Resources:

Book Recommendation:

• Blockchain Revolution by Don Topscott
• Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy by Melanie Swan

Other sources:

• Medium
• Newsletters

Favorite Hotspot:

• The Rushton in St. Clair, Toronto

About Fast Act Blockchain:

Fast Access Blockchain (FAB) is an enterprise-grade, next generation blockchain application platform for global enterprises that aim to fast track the adoption of blockchain technology. Using a unique architecture, it is scalable to over one million transactions per second.

Unlike other blockchain platforms for business which are mostly private or permissioned, FAB is a true public blockchain, providing the highest level of trust and reliability and includes pre-built applications that speed integration with existing enterprise systems.

FAB provides a comprehensive framework for large-scale applications for enterprises from all sectors to take advantage of the burgeoning, blockchain powered, decentralized trust economy.

Connect with Mohamed:

LinkedIn: Mohamed El Kandri

Twitter: @FAB_coin

Website:

• Fast Access Blockchain
• The Blockchain Hub

Dr. Ann Cavoukian is recognized as one of the world's leading privacy experts. She is currently the Distinguished Expert-in-Residence, leading the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence at Ryerson University. Her Privacy by Design framework is now the International Standard and has been translated into 39 languages.

Listen to Episode 1: Privacy, the foundation of your freedom featuring Dr. Ann Cavoukian and Episode 28: Insiders Guide to GDPR & turning it into a competitive advantage with Dr. Ann Cavoukian

Episode Overview:

• The elephant in the room about her resignation from the smart city Toronto project and how the world reacted.
• Ann also talked about the places where our identity is taken that we didn't even know
• She also talked about all the different things that are coming into play and other new things that we could look forward to this 2019
• Ann shared some tools that we should be using and the questions that we should be asking when it comes to our privacy.

Positive expectation for privacy in 2019:

In 2018 the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect and it is raising the bar into privacy and data protection all around the world. It returns control back to the data subjects so that individuals should be in control of their information. It also strengthen privacy dramatically and for the first time, it includes Dr. Ann's Privacy by Design Framework.

Countries all around the world want to be in compliance to this new EU law because they want to engage in trade.

There had been a dramatic growth in surveillance in the past year, tracking on all of our activities which is outrageous. The good news is that there had been a real reaction against it in the part of the consumers. In fact, 90% of consumers are concerned with their privacy and 92% are concerned about the lack of control for personal information.

The story on why Ann resigned from her role on Sidewalk Lab:

"The absolute no break in this deal is we have to de-identify data at source."

The minute data is collected from the censored and all the emerging technology that are going to be in place in the envision smart city 24/7, there will be able to obtain consent from people because technology is always on. The minute the sensors collect some data, right there at source it should be de-identified. In that way, they will still have a lot of data but it will not be linked to any identifiable individuals so that the privacy harms will be removed.

Sidewalk Labs wanted the Privacy By Design embedded into the smart city that is why they hired Ann but there are a number of parties were not happy being the Sidewalk Labs being the only body to govern the use of the data that they have collected even though that it was going to be de-identified.

In response to that, Sidewalk Labs created the Civic Data Trust. The intention of the Civic Data Trust is for Sidewalk Labs to be able to govern the body of the data. There are a number of bodies which will be involved in delivering the data such as IT companies, Waterfront Toronto and different levels of government.

In that way, multiple parties will have a say in the data but then Sidewalk Labs will be able to control what they do with the data collected and encourage them to de-identify the data at source however they can't insist that they do that.

And the minute Dr. Ann Cavoukian heard that, she knew she had to walk away. The reason of this is because the minute that they impose it as a must, it is not going to happen because there are thousands of identifiable data and everybody will just be asking for the same access to the data.

The Issue on Statistics Canada:

"Privacy forms a foundation of our freedom" - Ann Cavoukian

Statistics Canada went to all major bank to collect all of our very sensitive financial information which includes:

• Credit History
• Bank Statements
• Payments
• Bills
• And more

The banks refused to give these data to Stats Canada and also said that they will de-identify the data and will give data that was requested but will also make sure that all personal identifiers are stripped. However, Stats Canada said NO.

The reason that Stats Canada doesn't want this kind of data is because they wanted an identified datas so that they can match it with the other information or data that they have.

Things that are going on that we may not know about:

• The Growth in Facial Recognition
• • There are facial recognition anywhere we go and the problem is, we don't know that it is taking place. One of the biggest issue on this case is identity theft.
• The Issues on DNA Tests
• • Our DNA is our most sensitive personal information. This also includes your parents, children and families information.

What Questions Should We Ask To Make Sure That We are Protected:

• The minute you raise your concerns about your privacy to the seller you will get a good response because they are getting more people who are asking for their privacy in terms of transaction online and offline.
• Just ask the question and let them know that you don't want your personal information to be used in any purpose other than completing the purpose of that transaction.
• When using search engines, use Duckduckgo.com because in any searching you do, they will not share in any third party.

Ann is also working on a Smart Data Agent which is a software agent that will go out and act on your behalf. All the data that is being make in terms of your request using the smart data agent is encrypted, the search that it engages in is totally secured and it doesn't stay in the cloud.

For the first time ever, Canada's privacy laws for The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is no longer equivalent to the new law in the EU, the GDPR which is also a real blow because we enjoy a same equivalent of privacy laws. Dr. Ann Cavoukian's Privacy by Design is also included.

Andrew Graham is co-founder and CEO of Borrowell, a financial technology company that helps consumers make great decisions about credit. Borrowell was the first company in Canada to offer credit scores for free and has grown to be one of the country's largest fintech companies, with over 800,000 users. Borrowell has won numerous awards, including being named one of the top 100 fintech companies in the world by KPMG.

Andrew holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in economics from the University of Edinburgh. He was recently a finalist for the Ontario region for EY's Entrepreneur of the Year award.

"Money is a really challenging topic for many people."

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Episode Overview:

I thought we should talk about the 'scary' credit score topic. I get to sit down Andrew Graham is co-founder and CEO of Borrowell, a financial technology company that helps consumers make great decisions about credit.

• Borrowell is FREE credit score tool
• How credit scores can help you save money. After all the holiday parties/shopping.. Who can't use more money?
• Gives us tips in how we can improve our scores
• Debunk the myths checking & monitoring our credit scores
• How entrepreneurship is a lonely road, with an emotional rollercoaster

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The Idea behind Borrowell is to help people make the right decisions about using credits so that they can accomplish what they want to accomplish. The fact is 20 percent of people in Canada don't pay their credit card balance every month.

After a year in the business of lending people credits, Andrew realized that many people did not know what their credit situation was and in 2016, Borrowell became the first company that offers credit scores for free in Canada.

Does checking our credit score actually decrease our credits?

Applying for loans can actually decrease your credit while checking your credit does not impact your credit score. Using Borrowell to check your credit score can actually help increase your credit score in time.

Improve your credit score by constantly monitoring your credits. You can also use Borrowell's new tool called the Credit Coach that analyzes your credit file as well as make suggestions on the actions that you could take to help improve your score.

How to build credits and credit history

One of the challenges of people especially students who are traveling and plans to stay on one country to another is to get their credit score. The best way to build your credit score is to pay your bills on time since credit bureau keep tracks if you pay your bills on time or not.

If you are new to Canada and you need to have a credit card, it is good to get a card with a really low limit so that you won't get yourself in any difficulty. If you purchase something with small amounts make sure you pay it in full and in the course of 6-12 months, you will start building a credit response.

Lessons Learned:

• Surround yourself with smart people to help you get around things that you might find difficult.
• When picking a name for your company, make sure that it is a reflection of you and make sure it make sense to individuals.
• Test early and often
• Don't always trust your gut. You got to have feedback
• Surround yourself with people who have a diverse point of view
• Getting the right people when starting and growing your company is so important.
• You don't need to have an idea to start a business. You just need to solve the problem that you are passionate about.

Sales and Marketing Tips:

• Word of mouth is really important to build your business
• Try to be everywhere
• Find great founders and cofounders to help you early in the journey is so important

Book Recommendation:

• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

About Borrowell:

Borrowell is a 100% Canadian company, with a single goal in mind: to help Canadians make great decisions about credit. Our job is to empower you by providing the tools you need to improve your credit score and save money.

While it's our technology that differentiates us, it's people that motivate us. We were the first company in Canada to introduce free credit scores and over 500,000 Canadians to date have received theirs.

Connect with Andrew:

LinkedIn: Andrew Graham and Borrowell

Website: Borrowell.com

Twitter: @andrewtgraham and @Borrowell

Adrian is the founder of DNA11 and CanvasPop, which he bootstrapped to 8-figure sales and helped to launch MyFax.com, which sold to J2 Communications for over 200M dollars. He is also a public speaker, start-up advisor, investor, and PR expert who is passionate about helping entrepreneurs amplify their companies.

Adrian has strategized the launch and continued success of many businesses, helping both his own and his clients' companies generate hundreds of millions of free media impressions. He is a global mentor for San Francisco based 500 Startups and and is the #1 rated advisor with a five-star rating on Clarity.fm

"This book is like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" - Sapna

Episode Overview:

I am so excited to be sharing our featured episode this week with the author of Free PR: How to Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring a PR Firm, Adrian Salamunovic. Adrian talked us through the importance of putting ourselves out there in front of the media and get their attention even without hiring a PR expert.

Adrian drops PR and business tips, best practices and value bombs that we should really look into. Plus, he's giving us free PR media kit and templates to help us write PR like a pro.

Be sure to tune in and I can't wait to hear all your feedback!

"You don't need to hire a PR firm in order to leverage the thousands of media out there that are looking you and your story"

How is it so hard to get featured in the media?

"It is not difficult at all but you have to know how to do it."

The secret is understanding how journalist and influencers see the world. Adrian also added that you have to know and understand your target market is. Understand where they consume information specifically which channels, websites, platforms or publications they to for information.

How did the Free PR book come about?

The book was co-authored by another Canadian author, Cameron Herold and was also the CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. The book was originally written by Cameron many years ago and asked Adrian to give his point of view on the book.

What is the media looking for? What are the hot topics that we should consider targeting?

Adrian considered the media as a very very hungry machine where everyday, there are literally thousands of articles being published and the media need fresh stories and contents. Those stories and contents have to come from somewhere, so why not YOU.

When you approach a media, you are giving them a favor. You are giving them a story, an idea or a pitch or an angle that could be interesting to their viewers. One important thing that you need to understand before you approach the media is that they need you. That is why you need to understand what's hot, what their audience care about.

Free PR: How to Get Top Media Hits for your Startup - DIY - how did the book idea come about?

The point of the book is to help companies especially startups how to take control of the company PR, do it themselves and save money. This is because most companies especially startups hire PR agencies to do the PR for them. While there is nothing wrong about that, most companies are unsatisfied because results are under delivered.

Another tip that we should remember when doing your own PR or if you consider hiring one is to hire a salesperson. The idea behind this is that you need to have people who pitch your company every single day because in realty, the person you need is a hustler. Someone who embraces being told "NO" and goes after the hit anyways.

Also, when you hire person with PR experience, they are going to do their job the old way which is writing press releases, communication breach or doing light outreach but they are not going to hustle everyday trying to tell your story.

Here is a Free Press Release Template and Starter Kit to help you start write a power press release like a pro.

We should remember that when we do PR, we don't always control the outcome. When you are doing a great PR, you can get a 9 out of 10 outcome but what some journalist are doing, things can go wrong.

Best Practices:

• The foundation to a great PR is to have a market fit.
• He or she who gets the most attention will generally win.
• In a noisy world that we are in now, PR plays an important role in cutting the noise and getting your story out there and if done right, it could be for free.

Adrian is doing a giveaway, so you can get yourself a free copy. You can go to www.freePRbook.com/caninnovate and enter your email address to win a free digital copy!

Resources:

• Book: Free PR: How to Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring a PR Firm by Adrian Salamunovic and Cameron Herald
• Tool: Free Press Release Template and Starter Kit

Connect with Adrian

• Website: FreePRBook.com
• LinkedIn: Adrian Salamunovic
• Instagram: @King_of_Canvass
• Facebook: Adrian Salamunovic

Twitter: @asalamunovic

Michael Gord is the founder and CEO of MLG Blockchain, an enterprise blockchain and ICO consulting and development firm. He was the first enterprise blockchain developer at TD Bank, one of the largest Canadian banks.

Michael is also a director of the Blockchain Education Network, a robust global network of blockchain enthusiasts, sits on the board of directors of the Blockchain Association of Canada, is an advisor and investor into several prominent blockchain ventures.

Episode Overview:

This week I get to chat with Michael Gord. As you know, I've become quite the blockchain junkie and even got certified as a Blockchain Business Professional. I'm more a fan of the technology versus Cryptocurrency.

In this episode we will learn:

• What have been challenges getting into this space and launching MLG Blockchain consultancy
• Why is Blockchain Technology seen as so innovative
• What are some typical ways that companies have been utilizing blockchain technology
• Which industry &/or countries have the highest adoption rate
• What are some key legal implications/considerations

What is Blockchain?

As for Michael, Blockchain in the new internet. It is a better way of storing information and creating applications. The hype behind blockchain is based around the fact that we are reinventing the current internet, the current finances system, the current government system, the supply chain system and almost every existing industry is being disrupted by blockchains.

What have been challenges getting into this space and launching MLG Blockchain consultancy?

The biggest challenge that Michael experienced upon the blockchain industry is education and scalability provocation because most people are not yet familiar with blockchain. For scalability, MLG row-block is, for enterprises put on a hundred millions of users on top of blockchain today because blockchain systems are not scalable enough compared to 20 years ago.

Why do people say that Bitcoin is Blockchain?

Bitcoin on the topic, is a cryptocurrency that lives on a blockchain protocol. Bitcoin is also one of the thousands of cryptocurrencies and one of dozens of protocols which makes it one of the first cryptocurrency and the first to introduce blockchain as we know it today.

How do we classify cryptocurrency?

As of today, the use of cryptocurrency is still very few in terms of using it in our everyday life but Michael expects that by next year, the use of cryptocurrency will become normal to us. We will see the use of cryptocurrency mostly on games, restaurants, online shopping and everything else that accepts cryptocurrency.

How other company uses the blockchain technology:

Most companies use the blockchain technology through privy concepts and pilot applications. We have seen a similar case on the Venezuelan government that released cryptocurrencies. This made Michael believe that every government will release a government issued cryptocurrencies to power services to their country. Some countries are also looking into using cryptocurrencies for their government power services.

Which industry &/or countries have the highest adoption rate?

Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan currently have the highest adoption rate of companies and people who uses blockchain on their daily life. China and India also have a high adoption rate due to their online retail companies such as Alibaba or such. Most of these countries are used to paying using QR codes or digital dollars which is very simple to use.

In North America on the other hand, we are still predominantly cash-based or credit economy. It can be a culture shock if people will start paying with QR codes.

What are some key legal implications/considerations?

Traditionally, it was only banks that have to care about knowing your customer for doing money processing. Today, with token sales there are people all over the world needing to know their customers.

At the end of the day, it is not just about knowing your customer and raising capital in your country. You are raising potential capital for people in hundreds of countries. So you have to touch, know and understand the legalities from the very beginning because it is necessary.

Some companies are using ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) as a way to raise capital instead of going through the traditional VC approach. Is this a new growing trend?

ICO represents a better way of raising capital, according to Michael. Everyone should be able to have the support of raising their capital on a global perspective rather than forced to raise capital exclusively and locally.

Consider your thoughts, thoughts are real because what you think about is bound to happen.

About MLG Blockchain:

MLG Blockchain is a global blockchain development and consulting firm headquartered in Toronto with a distributed team across North America, Europe and Asia that is focused on building next generation applications using blockchain and smart contract technology.

We are blockchain agnostic and are experienced working with many blockchain fabrics including the Bitcoin Blockchain, Ethereum, Hyperledger, Ripple, Factom, Eris. We are also experienced working with many blockchain development APIs, software frameworks, databases, and devOps tools for testing and agile development.

Resource Recommendation:

Book Recommendation:

• The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Favorite Hot Spot:

• Fun Festival in Montreal every year
• Yasu Sushi Bar in Toronto

Connect with Michael:

Website: MLGBlockchain.com

LinkedIn: Michael Gord

Twitter: @BitGord