Category Archives: Uncategorized

Power of Social Media – Example

I enjoy story lines that develop at the WSOP. What’s that you ask? It’s the World Series of Poker. From late May to early July every year, sixty or so tournaments “unfold” culminating in the “Main Event” which has a $10,000 buy in.  Who can afford that right? Well not many…so “staking” has become a thing. You can put your money on a player and ride his coat tails. This has been done for decades but not formally through a website until recently. 

Then about five years ago, the “poker vlogging” phenomenon emerged. Players started video taping their results from their poker sessions and then posting the footage on Youtube. It became a way to get some hand histories while learning and also take in the Vegas nightlife over the net. 

Fast forward to 2019 with thousands of vlog subscribers now interested in staking their Vegas friend in the main event through access to a web portal in order to execute the deal. You guessed it. The volume of traffic was so overwhelming today that the technology could not cope.

What if your business experienced the same kind of phenomenon because of the following you develop through personal affiliation arising from social media content? Could you “break the internet” too? 

Top Ten Symptoms of Polar Vortex Cabin Fever

  1. You’ve been beaten at Risk so often by your adolescent that your getting a complex
  2. You’re going broke after making so many auto deposits over at pokerstars
  3. Your privates are getting chaffed from…..
  4. Your heating company has called looking for an advance payment
  5. Your spouse has cleaned the house
  6. Your once docile canine has eaten the laundry room door
  7. The little one has actually produced melody on her toy piano
  8. You’ve baked bread
  9. You’ve finally put to work that grocery delivery app
  10. Dum te de dum…..you’ve unboxed and glared intently at your elliptical trainer  

Browns Social House

What I like about Browns Social House: It’s friendly and has high padded bar stools with foot rests. It has properly controlled climate. Décor not overly imposed by big screens. Happy hour. Four dollar draught. Quick service. Reasonable prices. Did I say that? Square bar accommodating for socializing. You’re not there just for the booze, right?

Distracted Driving At Centre of Humboldt Bus Crash

While much focus has been on the driver of the Humboldt bus crash, it’s become evident that an insidious behavioural pattern of distraction while at the wheel is underlying the cause. Although it was a flapping tarp and not a cell phone, every single driver who owns a smart phone and is compelled to jump to its chime indicating the latest facebook notification should take heed. Speaking to passengers is distracting, changing CDs is distracting, and soothing crying babies is distracting. Some minds may be better equipped to deal with distractions than others but should you really be assigning yourself the confidence to multi-task while at the wheel when one misstep can lead to a life-long occupation of guilt. 

It’s certainly easy to judge this man responsible for the deaths of these Humboldt teens but hypocrisy given one’s own behaviour is peculiar.

In addition to the driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, law enforcement and the regulatory framework of the transportation industry must also answer to this event. We put doctors in this country through seven years of training and a driver of a transport truck through three weeks, if that. Mr. Sidhu  may have lacked training in how to properly secure a load. Our justice system is structured in such a way that police tend not to put resources where they believe that the probability of conviction is low. I postulate that in the minds of law enforcement, the process of obtaining the necessary evidence to charge a suspected distracted driver is not worth the application of resources and hence this matter is at large with you and I witnessing distracted drivers in metropolitan centres daily.

If the financial penalties were materially strong and the justice system had the practical powers to enforce, we could actually make headway toward significantly reducing this problem.         

Who Was Allan James McKinnon

He was one of the very nicest people that I’ve ever come to know and he was my boss for a brief period of time around 2003. He practiced public accounting and the dynamic between the two of us was mutual respect. Upon helping him through one tax season, I pursued another opportunity which helped paved the way to establishing my own practice. 

Al should have been winding up his practice right around the time I had come on board. However; it’s clear that his clients and the game of golf were preeminent interests which weren’t going to go away. We had lost touch between my tenure and his passing but I can only imagine that he had a tremendous home life with loving people around him. Evidence of his high intellect is referenced from his obituary listing his university graduation at the age of 19 from our common alma mater, the U of A.

Upon reflecting this morning of one particular collaborative effort on a file with Al, I just had to draft a blog post in remembrance of him. He was one of many fine folk instrumental in assisting me with the street level application of tax accounting.  Al was one of those people who knew exactly how to treat people respectfully. He was a soft spoken big man who carried clout through his unspoken word.