Chris Palliser's Presentation

Chris Palliser – Sarah Cousineau – March 26, 2019

Chris Palliser braves the dark winters of Fort McMurray to get started in radio, and eventually becomes an on-air personality at Victoria’s Virgin Radio station. Against all odds, this is where he is reunited and paired with Brittany King, an old colleague he worked with up north.

Originally named “Cool Radio”, Virgin Radio is now revamping its branding with the arrival of  Palliser, a key person in this fresh start. Despite the pressure felt by the change, Palliser is incredibly excited and honoured to be a part of it.

“We popped a bottle of champagne, and said let’s go get it,” says Palliser.

Palliser worked solo for over 15 years before he is paired up with King as part of Virgin Radio rebranding scheme. Some adjustments were needed but above all, Palliser and King needed to connect.  

“I went for numerous secret Penny Farthing pub dinners, and we just chatted,” says Palliser.

After chatting in person, conversing for hours on the phone, and doing it all over again, Palliser and King become the official morning team at Virgin Radio.

“Brittany and I, we seem to be bouncing the ideas from each other, our work ethics matches up, “ says Palliser.

The content on Virgin morning shows with Brittany and Chris has to be partly prepared beforehand. A topic is chosen the night before or morning of, and the two hosts have to come up with a show that seems as candid as possible, despite being rehearsed. Sometimes, one strays too far from the topic and have to come back to it, or choose to play a song abruptly.  After their show, Palliser and King discuss how the show went and how to adjust their performance to make it better. Working with another person this way is a constant work in progress, says Palliser.

“There is a certain amount of ego, personality you need to have to be ‘entertaining’,” says Palliser.

Palliser’s and King’s are both charismatic and great at working with people. This is a solid foundation to ensure their personality and chemistry will keep developing over the years.

As Palliser’s boss says, “give it time”.

The energy and the ‘community’ focus of Virgin’s radio station, as well as Palliser’s excitement for the radio’s revamp and his growing connection with teammate King, are looking promising for ratings to go up once again.

Steve Webb's Presentation

Steve Webb – Sarah Cousineau – Tuesday, February 5, 2019

After tens of thousands of dollars worth of mistakes, former promoter Steve Webb is now the proud owner of Metropol Industries and has revived Victorian’s love of Pinball in opening the retro Quazar’s Arcade.

Webb’s ambitious journey started with posting posters, promoting the various nightclubs in Victoria. He got to consolidate every nightclub’s poster service under one central poster system. He provided a fair representation for all the local nightclubs and solved a important ongoing problem in event marketing in Victoria. Following his success, his poster business turned into a full blown print business including self-print posters, stickers, business cards and so on.

16 years later, founder of Metropol Steve Webb has become an accomplished businessman. Webb prides himself by being an island operated business and by sourcing his products locally. Owning a growing business is not without its challenges though. Mistakes can be costly.

“In any business, you got to own your mistakes,” says Webb.

He explains that experience has driven him to take better decisions, make better assumptions and look further ahead. Thus, avoiding making expensive errors.

The online printing services has impacted negatively every single printing company, says Webb.

“What we have done, is find a thing that those online sellers can’t provide and that thing is customer service,” says Webb.

Besides Metropol, Webb keeps busy with his newly opened Quazar’s Arcade in Trounce Alley, in Victoria.  Webb’s love of machines rekindled the amusement arcade scene in Victoria.

“I stuck around for Pinball,” says Webb.

“It’s amazing to me that someone 30-40 years ago, or even going back further, made an entire world in a little box,” says Webb with passion.

The number of Pinball machines being made today is more than it ever was 20 years ago, says Webb. They are resurging and we are about to see a drastic influx of machines.

Webb’s words of wisdom to anyone starting their own business, is to start small with something you truly enjoy. 

“Become that business,” says Webb.

Webb intends to bring unseen innovations to Vancouver Island.

Stay tuned.

Analyzing Jeff Atwood's Blog Post

Analyzing Blog Post – Sarah Cousineau - January, 13^th 2019

            Jeff Atwood’s article is written with simple language and is easy to understand. This is an indicator his audience seem to be moderately educated and likely middle-class working people. With the easy access and low-cost of Internet, online articles can now reach most individual in the community. The author’s audience is probably between 18-40 years old. This age group is familiar with the media and usually comfortable surfing the web, reading blog posts and commenting.

            The introduction of Atwood’s piece was confusing. It did not draw me in as it was unclear what the author meant by the “number next to your name”. The author is trying to demonstrate people should spend more time listening (reading) as opposed to talking. He used the Ars Banana Experiment and the Slate Experiment to prove his point. Results show most people only read 50% of an article before commenting or simply moving along. The experiments are relevant and support his point well.  

            Atwood’s solution is to value listening as much as talking within the community. He says it would promote better conversations. He proposed four solutions. First, he recommended removing interruption while reading, such as pagination. That way, online articles would be a better flow. Second, he suggested measuring and displaying read times. This way, your worth would be evaluated and taken into consideration when engaging with the article’s authors. Third, he proposed a reward system such as giving a badge after reading a 100+ post topic. Fourth, Atwood emphasized on the importance of updating in real time. He explained it would encourage conversations to stay lively and engaging.

            Atwood’s piece introduction needs to be rewritten in a different way. A few simple and descriptive sentences would make for a smoother introduction, instead of an image and bullet points. On the other hand, his article is well supported with the two experiments described earlier. They helped prove his point as the results were surprising and in correlation with it. Furthermore, the images in his article add a strong and appealing visual. Lastly, his solutions are creative and would be worth a shot.