5.25 Floppy Disk, anyone?
I am at the age where I can just remember life before the internet. My first personal, non-Atari, computer was an 8086 (XT). I would spend evenings formatting 5.25 floppy disks for my dad and his computer business. Formatting these plastic squares was a very important job, according to my dad. I loved executing commands in DOS. Ever since I fell in love with MS-DOS and Windows 3.0 in the early '90s, I have have been earning a living helping businesses integrate digital operating principles, philosophies, and practices into their business to help modernize their organization, deepen their competitive advantage, and drive more business results. Keep Reading
The Past My first paying job in computers was at the age of 11 at my dad's computer booth in a poorly labeled commerce market called a flea market. I was selling Shareware (a free teaser of video games that anyone could download from the internet) and earned one dollar for every game I sold. On a Saturday, I could walk away with a cool $50, which was big money to me. More important than the money though, was the lessons about business and learning about why people buy. One Saturday while we were opening up our booth, I said to my dad: "If these games are free, why do people pay us for them?". His answer: "People are not paying for the game, they are paying for the convenience and accessibility to get the game". This is where I learned the value of a well-matched service offering. Over the next several years my dad moved his store out of the market and into a fixed retail location in a mall near our house. I continued down the path of learning how to fix computers, learning about how software works, and explored all the cool and fun technology that was coming out during that era. From 14.4k modems to the online forums, to the launch of Windows 95 from Windows 3.11, the computer industry was a ton of fun for a kid. I also took it upon myself to learn how to build websites and built my dad's business its first website in 1995, well before I could grow facial hair. After several wonderful years of working with my dad in his shop to help our family earn an income, I went out on my own and took my first corporate gig. In 1997 I joined an internet company called Cybersurf to help them provide technical support to residential and corporate clients for their internet service. My obtainment of this role also provided me with another lesson that I still use in my career when it comes to hiring people. To prove that I was the real deal at Cybersurf my boss gave me a broken computer and said "You want to work, you better fix that. You can't work with a broken computer". Today when I hire people, I get people to do real work to help me understand their competency level (technical, people, thinking) and this has helped me filter out the 'more sizzle than steak' type of people. To think, all of this happened before my 18th birthday! The Present Fast forward almost 30 years later and I still employ the same fundamental principles that I learned just after entering my double-digit age: give the people what they want, on their terms, and they will reward you with ongoing business support (a.k.a revenue). I am a data-driven digital business transformation executive who is focused on building and executing business strategy that is in alignment with great outcomes for all stakeholders involved. The best, most profitable, strongest business and digital marketing strategies are a win/win for business and its customers. I have worked with enterprise-level corporations in the credit union, oil and gas, professional sports, ad agency, agriculture, tourism, and retail industries, to name a few. My current role is as the Director of Strategic Business Innovation with Phoenix Group, with a prior role in the agency as the Director, Digital Strategy and Media.
Giving Back To Regina And Saskatchewan
I currently give back as much as I can to the organizations and the people who make Saskatchewan a great place to live and do business. Here are the organizations that I am currently involved with.
Data for Good Regina
Founder, Regina Chapter
Rotary
Member, Previous PR Director, Previous Board Member
The Progress Club
Member, Board Member, Chair - Gala of Hope, Incoming Vice-President
Mother Teresa Middle School
Student Mentor
Some Of My Favorite Recent Reads
Some Of My Favorite Recent Reads
Professional Life
I've been making a living in the technology, online, and digital space since 1991. My current role is with Phoenix Group as the Director of Strategic Business Innovation. Phoenix Group is an ad agency located in Regina, Saskatchewan. We are a full-service agency that manages the brand, communications, and marketing for Saskatchewan organizations such as the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Conexus Credit Union, Taylor Automotive Group, various ministries within the Saskatchewan government such as the Ministry of Trade and Export Development, Tourism Saskatchewan, Parks, Culture and Sport, and others.Keep Reading
I was originally hired by Phoenix Group as the Director of Digital Media Strategy. This role was focused on helping the agency increase our expertise, abilities, and revenue when it came to our digital marketing and technology offering. In this role, I led the digital strategy for all of our clients. By building our digital bench strength up in the agency and by increasing our competency to strategize and execute complex digital campaigns, we were successfully able to acquire new clients and increase our service offering to our current clients. This elevated ability allowed us to build more sophisticated user-journey focused strategies, develop data and analytics-focused campaigns, and implement stronger evaluation frameworks to determine campaign efficacy. While managing the media department, I doubled our team size, formed strategic partnerships with technology companies, and increased top-line revenue for the agency. In my current role as Director, Strategic Business Innovation, I continue to help oversee and drive the digital strategy and analytics for some of our major clients, but I now have a focus of providing direction on our business strategy for agency growth. Specifically, that means helping Phoenix increase its revenue by optimizing opportunities with our current clients, developing and integrating new revenue-generating service lines, and taking the leads on new client acquisition.
Some Of The Brands I Have Worked With
Digital Marketing & Social Media Speaker
Having spoken at multiple conferences every year for over a decade, my style of presentation is to deliver real life examples, actionable insights, delivered with humor and data-based stories. I've been hired to speak to executive teams, boards, and at conferences with several hundred attendees. If you are looking for a public speaker to talk about social media and digital marketing, I can help provide your audience with relevant, modern, and tangible advice.
What Others Have Said About Working With Me
Kevin is a top-notch digital strategist with a great knack for explaining digital strategy to everyone from the C-Suite to the intern. He's equally comfortable one-on-one or presenting to a crowd. He has wide-ranging experience from nonprofits to small businesses to international corporations and brands. I particularly valued Kevin's emphasis on results, something we refer to as conversion rate optimization, and the data-driven orientation that comes with that. His reporting, analytics and data visualization skills are superb. Kevin would be a great addition to any marketing team.
Doug Lacombe, President, Communicatto
I had the opportunity to work closely with Kevin when I was at the Calgary Zoo and he was with Communicatto. Besides joy, humour and a lot of fun, Kevin, brought an acute strategic mind to the variety of projects that we worked on together. He was always thinking bigger and broader, with an immense amount of data to back up his ideas. Kevin was also a great collaborator as he seamlessly brought together the Comms and Marketing teams and helped to develop an integrated cross-functional team. I would certainly recommend Kevin to anyone seeking a thoughtful and creative digital mind and would jump at the chance to work with him again.
Larissa Mark, Communications & Public Relations Strategist, Swoop
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