Calgary

Annabelle Mastalic went from trained nurse to interior designer in pursuit of her passions

Based in Calgary, Alberta – Annabelle Mastalic officially launched ADM Interiors in May of 2019. With 17 years of experience as a trained nurse, Annabelle transitioned to interior design, leaning into two of her passions, a love for minimalism and a life-long fascination for design.

Because of her background, she brings a unique lens in her approach to designing spaces that are both beautiful, but also take her client’s health and wellness needs into consideration. Through her medical training, she is able to identify solutions and prompt conversations with clients to consider how they can bring wellness to the forefront of their homes and designs.

She is the first designer in Alberta to become a Certified Living In Place Professional (CLIPP) from the Living in Place Institute (Living In Place focuses on making all homes accessible to people of every age and ability, including helping seniors to age in place) and a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) from the National Association of Home Builders. Both designations enable her to identify and offer solutions for home accessibility, comfort, and safety in every home.

Annabelle’s timeless aesthetic and ‘less is more’ design approach/philosophy, focuses on removing daily burdens to create functional spaces that allow people to live with ease, comfort and beauty. Her designs are inspired by three core values – wellbeing, minimalism, and bringing the homeowner’s story to the forefront of the designs. Especially as we have spent more time at home over the past year, she is passionate about designing homes that are beautiful, meaningful, and are spaces where we can live well and thrive.


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Paula is a storyteller and tells us about the importance of PR, social media and brand strategy

A respected entrepreneur and communicator, Paula Worthington is the founder and principal of Worthington PR & Story, a Calgary-based communications agency specializing in public relations, social media and brand strategy.

She launched Worthington PR & Story in early 2018. The agency’s current client roster includes a who’s who of Alberta businesses, including Calgary Co-op, ATCO, University of Calgary Properties Group and Parks Foundation Calgary.

Worthington PR & Story services include public relations, strategic communications, media relations, media training, issues management, social media strategy, project management, content writing, influencer campaigns, event management and marketing.

The agency also supports changemakers, social enterprises and charities in the community through an agency division called Noble Arrow Projects. Current clients include the Women In Need Society, Paul Brandt’s #NotInMyCity anti-human trafficking movement and the Quinterra Legacy Garden.

Paula is a storyteller at heart. Occasionally, you can find Paula travelling the globe as a notable freelance writer and photographer, with her work appearing in national newspapers and magazines. The yellow arrow in her logo was inspired by her travels (on foot), following a little yellow arrow several hundred kilometres across Spain. She never forgot the power and importance of having wayfinders in order to accomplish our goals.


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How The PIVOT Project Helps Canadian SMEs Future Proof Their Business for a Changing World

Led out of McGill University, The PIVOT Project is an action research project that uses social media to bring small business owners across Canada together to share their climate action goals, struggles and achievements and shift Canadian perspectives on our country’s green future.

We will be interviewing PIVOT participants over the next few months. We love this kind of initiative. In this interview we talk with Drior Etcion an Associate Professor at McGill and one of the drivers of the initiative.

PIVOT is an action-research project that amplifies the action of small business owners across Canada as they transition to the low-carbon economy. PIVOT harnesses the power of stories to document the growing movement of SMEs that are future-proofing their businesses and setting themselves up for success in a changing world.

PIVOT is spearheaded by the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill but is collaborating with many other departments including biology, informational science as well as external stakeholders like the National Film Board of Canada The project is funded by the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative.


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Connecting medical cannabis patients, licensed producers and processors

Joel Taylor, Co-founder of Patient Choice, has been at the forefront of the ever-changing cannabis industry for many years. He helped transition black market cannabis cultivators to the legal market, connecting them to the regulators of Health Canada and British Columbia.

Patient Choice is a licensed online medical platform that connects medical cannabis patients, licensed producers and processors.


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PLAY is the new frontier of creativity and innovation

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose childhood was full of mud pies and leaf soup, snow castles, and swings. The little girl believed very much that anything was possible and spent much of her time imagining worlds filled with magic and mystery.

As she grew up, people told her that “life was not a fairy tale” and “in the real world it was different,” and she started to believe this was all true.

Yet, no matter how she painted the picture, it was never complete.

So the girl decided to change the script and became the Master of Play.

The tools we need for navigating change and challenge have been in our back pocket our whole lives, but we left them on the playground long ago. We traded imagination and discovery for stability and steady.

But we know that when creativity and innovation intersect people thrive, and profits dramatically increase. COVID has left little space for new, bold, ideas and actions. Now more than ever businesses face larger hurdles in complex problem solving, employee engagement, retention, communication, and ideation.

PLAY is the new frontier of creativity and innovation.

Play is the catalyst for, undefeatable resilience, increased employee engagement, and empowerment. It’s not ping pong tables and pool tables, it’s knowing and understanding whole people, what motivates and inspires them and drives them to share ALL of their strengths at work.

Brandi Heather is a respected award-winning, passionate trailblazer powered by 25+ years of success developing, directing, and optimizing innovative strategies and programs for education and industry leaders. She is well known for spearheading, influencing critical organizational change initiatives. As the co-founder and co-owner of AMPED2PLAY INC., and best-selling author of Return to Play: Rebuilding Resilience, RIsk, and Reconnection she is helping organizations get back “in play”. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) and frequently speaks about using the power of PLAY for navigating diversity, inclusion, change management, communication, self-care, mental and physical health.


This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Supporting Canadian businesses with innovative energy management and automation solutions. Schneider Electric…your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency. Click here to learn more.

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A Flower Shop Named After a Shakespearean Character

Marika Styba is the Owner of Peaseblossoms, which opened its doors in 1995 with a unique name based on the work of playwright William Shakespeare.

Peaseblossom was an attending flower fairy to Titania the fairy queen in William Shakespeare’s play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. As time wore on, by the Victorian Era, a peaseblossom became synonymous with simply being a flower fairy. Sweet, charming and whimsical are all traits Styba loves about her shop and she thinks the name suits them to a ‘t’. The small flower shop has seen steady business in the past year even during the pandemic as people continue to want connections with others through the beauty of flowers.


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Lessons learned from legend Wayne Gretzky applied to MRI technology company

In the podcast, Sean Krakiwsky talks about his hockey playing days and lessons learned from legend Wayne Gretzky.

Nanalysis trades on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) in Canada with ticker symbol ‘NSCI’ ,Over the Counter (OTC) in the United States under the ticker symbol ‘NSCIF’, and on the Frankfurt Exchange (FRA) under the symbol ‘1N1’. Nanalysis is an international business focused on capitalizing on its proprietary technologies in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that go into NMR spectrometers and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Nanalysis operates out of two subsidiaries, Nanalysis Corp. and RS2D S.A.S. (RS2D). Nanalysis Corp. is an industry leader in developing and manufacturing compact NMR spectrometers for laboratory and industrial markets. Its cutting edge 60 and 100 MHz spectrometers require no liquid helium or other cryogens. Its spectrometers are used by chemical professionals spanning industries, including, but not limited to, oil and gas, chemical mining, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology. Through its European subsidiary RS2D, the Company offers electronic boards and software used to drive MRI equipment in pre-clinical configurations and are being incorporated into next-gen MRI systems.


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ALLPA is a hydroponic microgreen company with a focus on giving back

The three university students from three different countries serendipitously crossed paths while working part-time at a local hardware store. Little did they know, their common interests for business, tech and sustainability would result in the launch of ALLPA Vertical Farms in 2019, a hydroponic microgreen company located in Calgary, Alberta. ALLPA is named after Mama Allpa, in South America’s Inca religion and empire, the goddess of the Earth and fertility, responsible for fruitful harvests. Their civilization was one of the first to grow vegetables in water and this inspired us deeply. They contribute to the local economy by buying their compostable containers and seeds from Canadian companies. The thing that really makes them unique is that every one of their microgreen packages has a donation built into it! They carry four products: Arugula, Radish, Sunflower and Broccoli.


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How Dawn O’Connor built a virtual work community during a pandemic

Driven by a need to connect people in the throes of pandemic-life, Dawn O’Connor built a virtual community for individuals to work ‘separately-together’ inside a Focus Bubbles. Since formally launching in January 2021, Focus Bubbles has supported over 1000 hours of productive outcomes in 175 sessions. Participants work on small tasks and big projects, ranging from administrative to creative, while overcoming procrastination and immersing into deep work mode with the support of a committed community of Bubblers.

When not inside a Focus Bubbles, Dawn is a productivity trainer and facilitator with over 25 years experience. She has helped more than 10,000 clients around the world enjoy being more organized and less stressed. She is also the Chair of 2 Women’s Presidents Organization chapters in Calgary. Dawn has built and sold two businesses in the past and is excited to end her entrepreneurial journey with Focus Bubbles, which she plans to grow for the next 5 or so years before retiring.


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Dan Bergeron is helping companies scale up with brand, marketing, sales and customer experience

Dan Bergeron is a 25-year veteran of the marketing industry and leads Everbrave, a Calgary based growth marketing agency founded in 2015 by Dan and his two savvy business partners. With a passion for creativity and an instinct for business, Dan brings a strategic outlook to the most pressing challenges business face when trying to scale opportunity and stimulate growth. Recognized internationally for achievement in brand strategy, Dan is continually looking for opportunities to help companies disrupt the status quo, differentiate and stand out from the pack while employing cutting edge strategic, creative and technological solutions. When not obsessing over complex growth challenges, Dan can be found spending time with his family of five, camping, skiing, mountain biking and golfing throughout western Canada.

Everbrave is a Calgary based growth agency specialized in helping organizations scale up. Through a unique approach that blends creativity with brand, marketing, sales and customer experience, Everbrave takes a more comprehensive approach to the challenge’s businesses face in a high-paced competitive marketplace. Originally founded in 1999, the company became known as Everbrave Branding Group in in 2015 after the merger of RFX Brand + Communications & Squeeze Creative into one unified team. Everbrave serves a diverse group of clients ranging from start-ups to fortune 1000 companies across a broad set of verticals, including technology, health care, non-profit, hospitality, construction and many others. With a growing team of 13 specialists that span the talent spectrum, Everbrave is continually growing to serve new and existing clients throughout North America and abroad.


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