Island Thrive: Conversations with Business and Community Leaders.

At Smart Dolphins IT, we use Microsoft 365 apps like Bookings, Teams and OneNote to enhance our efficiency during recruitment. In this podcast, we share how these tools have streamlined this process.

Microsoft is making two significant changes which are getting conflated: price changes to seat-based subscriptions and the launching of the New Commerce Experience (NCE). In this brief session, President Dave Monahan and COO Jesse Smith summarize the changes and explain how Smart Dolphins IT is helping our clients navigate them.

In this episode, Paul and Dave talk with Co-owner David Logan of Duttons Property Management & Boutique Real Estate Sales, a Victoria-based firm located in the heart of Fairfield. The three engage in conversation about workplace culture, leading with values and the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) — a system of concepts and tools that leaders can apply to help manage and strengthen their businesses. 

David passionately shares his optimism of the local real estate market and the economic resilience of the city itself to continue to thrive despite the unprecedented economic impact on some sectors of the local economy caused by the pandemic.

In this episode, Paul Holmes, and fellow Smart Dolphins employee, Ty Hedden, introduce listeners to Aaron Kraus, information systems and cloud security trainer and consultant. The three of them talk about cybersecurity through the lens of risk management. They outline some of the different types of risks, interesting socioeconomic motivations behind hacking and the tools that are used to exploit software vulnerabilities. Paul, Ty and Aaron conclude with a discussion on just how important it is to maintain a strong security-minded culture in a business environment where technology permeates everything we do.

In our first episode of Season 3, Paul Holmes, chats with Jeff Bray executive director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA). Despite the ongoing challenges due to the pandemic, Jeff draws attention to the resilience and collaboration of the downtown business community. He talks about two specific marketing campaigns “Save the Sales” and “Downtown Deliveries” — both initiatives that were created to get folks supporting downtown Victoria businesses. Jeff highlights the vibrancy of the downtown core and encourages listeners to get to know some of the business owners who bring energy and life to our city in their Meet Downtown campaign.

In our final episode of Season 2, we talk with Eric Jordan CEO of Codename Entertainment.
 
Eric shares with us some business and industry highlights from the past year, emphasizing the significance of “discovery” and internal marketing. He breaks down for the listening audience, some common misconceptions about gamers and the terminology that the industry uses to define them.
 
During the thought-provoking, 64-minute podcast, Eric shares with us compelling insights of the transition he experienced from selling his previous company, PureEdge Solutions, to IBM and the deeply personal journey that landed him in a position where he gets to bring people happiness everyday in his role at Codename.

In this episode, Dave and Paul chat with award-winning journalist Tess van Straaten about her role at CHEK News and as a columnist at Boulevard Magazine. She shares the origin story of how CHEK News became North America’s only employee-owned TV station and explains how the pandemic has impacted the everyday work of journalists. 

Tess highlights the significance that both values and passion play in local entrepreneurship and encourages us to stay positive as we continue to live under provincial restrictions.

In this episode of Island Thrive, Paul and Dave chat with Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte about tried and true practices to business success. Isabelle shares her insights on the timeliness of education-based marketing. She recommends business leaders focus on educating their clients while listening more closely (than ever before) to their needs.

At the heart of this episode is uncovering your X-factor, that is how to get your clients to "know, like and trust you" while you navigate common business challenges, such as overcoming fear, building your culture and making tough trade-offs for example, saying goodbye to the mammoth client. Despite these business-specific growing pains many face, Isabelle reminds us to treat ourselves like our million-dollar client.

In this episode, Paul and Dave talk with Jill Doucette, founder of Synergy Enterprises and Synergy Foundation — two separate organizations with the same mandate: to get business leaders to reduce their carbon emissions.

Jill highlights some of the ways in which the pandemic has resulted in a mind shift among many business leaders to embrace sustainable development as part of their post-pandemic recovery.

She explains the nuances of each of the three focus areas of her foundation; green business, food security and the circular economy and draws attention to some of Vancouver Island’s leading green businesses.

 Lastly, Jill, Paul and Dave chat about how our consumer and business decisions can have a significant environmental impact — in a good way — when we reconsider how we approach everything from small office furnishings to recycling to travel. 

In this episode, Paul and Ty chat with Brandon Laur of The White Hatter. They talk about security awareness training and the human firewall, drawing attention to social media phishing. 

They also chat about how different generations respond to online scams, intensifying business risks due to the recent shift to remote work, password management and much more.