Category Archives: Small business

MediaStyle Studio presents: The Beau’s beer documentary

As mentioned previously, MediaStyle decided to give our video equipment a workout by producing a mini-documentary on one of our favourite local brands, Beau’s All Natural Brewing Co. Beau’s Co-Founder Steve Beauchesne and Creative Director Jordan Bamforth were gracious enough to sit down for an interview at the brewery to discuss branding, working with family,…
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A first look at our Beau’s feature

MediaStyle decided to give our video equipment a workout recently. We’re producing a short feature on one of our favourite local businesses, Beau’s brewery. Here is a teaser for the video, which will be an interview with co-owner Steve Beauchesne and designer Jordan Bamforth. Enjoy!


Social SIgnal talks “open source consulting”

Rob Cottingham and Alexandra Samuel are early movers in the social media world. Their combined online presence leaves a big impact. Alex’s articles appear online for the Harvard Business Review and Oprah.com and Rob’s cartooning is a mainstay of several well read blogs. Most interesting to me is their commitment to the ideals of their…
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First look at the new Phillip Van Leeuwen

Phillip Van Leeuwen was an Ottawa institution for modern furniture lovers in Ottawa well before the ByWard Market became a destination for high-end furnishings. They have been on the Ottawa scene for over forty years, and the first of the mid-century modern classics they are now known for are coveted heirlooms. Local Ottawa vintage modern…
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Is not voting ever an option?

Ryan Taylor is a fair trade jeweler. No, it’s not an oxymoron. It’s just really not that common. The standard business model in the mass-market jewelry business is to design your wares to appeal to the lowest common denominator, source and buy materials as cheap as possible (regardless of the long-term social impact), then sell…
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MediaStyle is proud to sponsor Magic Boxes

A week away from the blog is forever in online time. But, it was with good reason, so I hope you’ll forgive me. MediaStyle recently wrapped up our largest sponsorship and event to-date: Planned Parenthood Ottawa’s Magic Boxes. It was a glitzy gala for the 45th anniversary of Ottawa’s best pro-choice sexual health organization.  We…
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Social Signal creates open source consultancy

In a bold move a Vancouver-based company is turning the traditional business model of a consultancy on its’ head. Social Signal CEO Alexandra Samuel explains in her blog post announcing the move: “We’re taking the intellectual property we’ve generated and gleaned from Social Signal’s four years of consulting, strategy and development and making it available…
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Co-working in Ottawa

This week MediaStyle.ca moved into an amazing co-working space in downtown Ottawa. This brings us a little closer to the action, a professional meeting, access to super flexible event space and a great community of other small businesses, social enterprises, tech companies and start-ups to learn from. MediaStyle will be offering some workshops and training…
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Zen Kitchen creates culinary community

Zen Kitchen has generated a lot of positive buzz in Ottawa. It’s the newest addition to the resurgent Chinatown area of Ottawa. In this interview, Dave and Caroline talk about how building a community for their food was crucial to success. They used community dinners – large group, small fee parties – where Chef Ishii…
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Interview with Don Tapscott for Rabble.ca

A few weeks back, I interviewed best selling author and researcher, Don Tapscott. His most recent book, Grown Up Digital, is the result of a $4 million dollar research project and has countless contributors, interviews, and quantitative data backing up the findings Tapscott reaches.  In this interview we talk about the book, his demographic view…
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From the Blog