I’ve been an avid reader for years. Each year I set myself a target for how many books I want to read and last year was one of my most prolific as I finished 52 books across the 52 weeks of the year. As we head into 2023, I thought I’d summarize ten of my favourite non-fiction reads from the last 12 months. Each of these books was thought provoking, surprising, entertaining and sometimes all three. Maybe you’ll find one that tickles your fancy. Enjoy. Geopolitics The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future by Stephen Marche This book is a bleak forecast of the future of America, e ..read more

TikTok. CCPA. DCIA. iOS14. What do they have in common? Privacy. And trust. As I wrote last week, there is an ongoing dearth of trust in the digital marketing industry. This wound is mostly self-inflicted and the outcome of many compounding activities, but can be distilled to this: Marketers took advantage of the near-limitless data available as people spent more and more time online, but didn’t always stop to think about how people would feel about it. We are in the midst of seeing a privacy-first digital marketing landscape emerge which is going to have a big impact on our ability to reach a ..read more

Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash Over the last year we’ve seen a series of events fundamentally shake and undermine peoples’ confidence in a variety of facets of our society. The global pandemic has redefined day-to-day life for people around the world – with almost two million lives lost and most peoples’ lives looking significantly different to how they did just one year ago. Widespread protests around systemic racism and racial justice led to a long-overdue wave of focus on diversity, equality and inclusion not only relating to the justice system but more broadly in society and the workplac ..read more

I was going to start this post with some joke about 2021 being a long year… but I’m tired. Last week was a draining week on many, many fronts. From the ongoing worsening of the COVID situation anywhere you look, to the events in the US – there’s a lot to be drained by. As I was reflecting on the tumultuous week over the last few days, I couldn’t help but be struck by a reminder that we as digital communicators should take from recent events – one that harkens back to narratives from a decade or so ago. If you rent your house, you risk losing it. Photo by Alexander Trukhin on Unsplash Politics ..read more

Photo by Anthony Tori I’m not usually one for new year’s resolutions but after the last year and amidst the turkey coma, tobogganing and frantically catching up on The Mandalorian over the holidays, I found myself reflecting on what I’ve learned and what I can do better. I don’t have a nice neat list of ten things because, well, that’s not how it shook out. But here’s what I’ve got. In many ways I was incredibly privileged and fortunate in how 2020 panned out for me. My family remained healthy and I was able to retain my job. I was able to take an unusual but rewarding paternity leave – someth ..read more

Today is my first day back in the “office” after a completely surreal three months of paternity leave. This was my second such leave, after I took time off in 2018 with our first-born (I wrote at the time about the conflicting emotions I felt about going out on paternity leave). This time things were… different… in some hugely obvious ways and some less apparent to those not in my immediate circle. And while last time around I learned a huge amount about being a parent during my leave as I was encountering every aspect of paternity leave for the first time, this time I learned a few different ..read more

I’m fortunate to have benefited from a number of strong mentors and leaders who have supported me or taken a chance on me throughout my career (thanks to Melissa Thomson, Howard Jones, Terry Fallis, Joseph Thornley, Tristan Roy and others). I recognize the massive impact those people had on my life, and do my best to pay it forward – whether meeting people who are looking for career advice, or connecting Canadian newcomers with people in the industry, or supporting the next generation of practitioners. One of my favourite ways to pay it forward each year is to help to support students in Sene ..read more

This past weekend Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving, and for me it was a special one as this was our first Thanksgiving since welcoming our son to the world. It was also my first weekend after returning to work from three months of paternity leave. When our son was born I made the decision to take some time off this summer. As I quickly learned, it’s not something that a lot of dads in our industry do however from the time we knew we were having a baby, I assumed that I would take this time. I saw a chance to build a bond with my son that will hopefully last forever, to gain some unforgettable ..read more

I recently had the honour of speaking at Seneca College‘s “Make it Happen” event for about 400 of their marketing students. I was asked to talk for a few minutes about my own career path and achievements, but there are few things I’d like to hear less than someone like me droning on about my accomplishments. Instead, I shared my story through five lessons that I’ve learned along the way. Lesson #1: Have a vision I saw a video recently that resonated with me. In it, Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about the importance of having a vision for what you wanted to do. For him it was moving to the US a ..read more

Building a successful team is one of the most important things you do as a manager, but it is also one of the most challenging. People are hard – and interviews aren’t always the best ways to get a real sense of the person – but in many cases that is what we have on which to base our decisions. At the beginning of this year we set out to fill a senior role on our Digital team. Every role is important to an organization but as the National Practice Lead for Digital this one especially was important to me – as part of the leadership group on my team this role would help set the direction for the ..read more