Canada’s plan to mobilize science to fight COVID-19

$250 Million in funding allocated today for creating vaccines and potential treatments

The Government of Canada is supporting our country’s researchers as they do critical work to protect the health and safety of all Canadians, and people around the world, during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced support to quickly mobilize Canadian researchers and life sciences companies to support large-scale efforts towards countermeasures to combat COVID-19, including potential vaccines and treatments.

Read more

The elegance of nothing

What ever happened to details?

The red sole of a Louboutin shoe, or the elegant tag on a pair of Tom’s? The sweeping fenders of a Porsche 911 or the needless complications of a fancy watch…

Today, a certain kind of customer is using a Muji notebook, or wearing a plain Everlane t-shirt. Is this what we’ve come to? One might come to the conclusion that consumers have rejected all the effort that designers and marketers have produced in a statement that rejects design. Not so fast.

Read more

IBM Delivers Online Merchants New Cognitive Capabilities That Turn Commerce Insights into More Powerful Customer Experiences

CommerceInsights_Social Tile

Watson Analytics Allows Brands to Use Everyday Language to Identify Hidden Data Connections and Drive Better Business Performance

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today (Dec 3rd) announced new commerce capabilities that help online merchants easily gain the insights needed to evaluate category and product performance and make quick and effective merchandising decisions. Leveraging cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics, IBM Commerce Insights allows practitioners to gain a real-time view into customer behavior and market factors that are impacting their business, proactively identify opportunities and roadblocks and take informed actions to increase sales and business performance.

Read more

RFIDpalletTwo early pilots were facilitated by Supply Chain Network and carried out in 2003 and 2006 with both representing successful demonstrations of the potential supply chain benefits available through ‘Internet of Things’ implementations.

Key to both of these pilots were RFID enabled pallets and the first project was the SCN Grocery Pilot which was carried out utilizing RFID at the pallet level for automated Distribution Centre (DC) receiving.

For the second pilot in the Office Products Industry, a combination of both pallet level and case level RFID was utilized to deliver significant results for both automated Distribution Centre Receiving and automated Direct to Store Delivery receiving.

Read more

Newegg Launches Bitcoin Payment Option in Canada: BitPay Service Powers Expanded Virtual Currency Acceptance

August 26, 2014 ­ Los Angeles, CA ­ Newegg <http://www.newegg.com>, the leading electronics e-retailer in North America, today announced that bitcoin payments are now accepted from Canadian customers. Canada is the first country outside of the United States where Newegg accepts bitcoin payments for merchandise (#NeweggBitcoin). Canadian customers can now purchase thousands of products including electronics, computers and game consoles using bitcoin through the BitPay platform. The secure payment method gives customers another convenient option to fulfill their e-shopping needs.

³Newegg is deeply committed to growing its business internationally ­ serving customers overseas, introducing new products from key Asian markets and evolving the way we transact with our global customer base,² said Soren Mills, Chief Marketing Officer of Newegg North America.

³Extending bitcoin acceptance to our Canadian customers is yet another important milestone as we build the company¹s international presence.²

Read more

My Recent Abomni-Channel Retail Experiences

OMNICHANNELThe entire retail channel is ablaze these days with talk of Omni-channel retail. Who’s doing it right, what are the best logistics strategies to support and the like.

Well those of you who know me will agree that for a retail guy I’m really not that much of a shopper. And funnily enough on two recent store visits to different retailers in the Greater Toronto Area I experienced not one but two abomni-channel retail trainwrecks.

Recently I went to a store in Newmarket around 4 pm to get two products with my son. He had seen the products on the retailer’s website and site did not say it was only available online so we went to store to pick one up.

Read more

Professional headlines sell: improve your LinkedIn search ranking

Your odds of getting introduced to a CEO on Linkedin increase dramatically when you use the platform correctly. So, in the professional network of more than 150 million, how do you get noticed? Here’s a tip that will improve your LinkedIn profile and make you more visible.

Make the most of your professional headline.

The professional headline is the area that most users just fill in with the title from their business cards. For example, “Vanilla Sales Associate,” or “Lukewarm Account Executive.” What should they really state there? The headline should reflect a person’s full business scope or capabilities; the savvy user goes beyond their title and shows their skill set. This is crucial because the professional headline is often the gatekeeper for someone clicking to find out more about you.

Read more

Badgeville Partners with Yammer to Enhance Employee Performance and Engagement

Badgeville, the gold standard for gamification, today announced a key integration that builds on its partnership with Yammer, the leading provider of enterprise social networks. With this integration, companies can enhance employee performance by leveraging Badgeville to reward high-value user behaviors across the enterprise, and showcase them in the Yammer Ticker, a real-time activity stream.

“We are committed to partnering with first-class business applications to create a powerful social layer across the enterprise, increasing visibility and insights in every corner of an organization,” said An Le, VP of Business Development, Yammer. “Badgeville’s behavior platform helps us deliver on that vision by rewarding employee performance and pulling those key milestones into Yammer where the whole company can discover them.”

Read more

Deloitte Digital Gamifies Executive Training with Badgeville

Press Release: Badgeville, The Behavior Platform, today announced Deloitte Leadership Academy, an innovative digital executive training program for more than 10,000 senior executives at over 150 companies around the world, added Badgeville’s gamification and reputation solution to reward participation, lesson progression, and to certify program completion with an optional diploma.

Deloitte Leadership Academy delivers lessons and insight from some of the world’s best known business schools, such as Harvard Business Publishing and IMD, and global leaders in an easy to consume format via their online portal, newsletter, and mobile access. Badgeville’s dynamic behavior management technology enables Deloitte to measure, surface and reward engagement across this online education platform. 

Read more