Reading Time: 3 minutes One year ago, many of us were saying good-bye to our colleagues, who we were used to spending all our working hours with.  We looked into an uncertain future … when would we be together again, what might happen to our business, and how would we be there for each other? Not what we had planned!  We started 2020 ready to continue growing.  Ready to continue hiring more curious insight pros to support our clients. As the months progressed, the impact was clear.  element54, like most research companies, experienced revenue declines.  And thankfully, it was not the type of decline like companies in other sectors were facing.  We weren’t a restaurant, hotel, salon or gym.  We all continue to feel great empathy for those sectors. I made a promise to our team in March 2020 that there would be no layoffs, wage reductions and certainly no cuts to our team.  We hoped we could live up that goal.  And as a privately held business, I’m grateful that we were able to make business decisions which aligned with our values. Here are the 3 critical things to help your business persevere and grow during uncertainty. 1. Don’t give up faith. With […]

Reading Time: 5 minutes As a researcher, I often see the world through a lens of experimentation. There are hypotheses across all facets of daily life just waiting to be validated through data or observations. I am sharing the findings of my personal project to bring greater awareness to the importance of keeping active while going about our COVID-19 constrained lives. A few more steps each day can help mitigate the negative impact of the less obvious COVID health consequences, many symptoms of which may only surface over the longer term. Background: The Facts I am well set-up and adapted to working from home because I have been doing so regularly since the end of 2017 (i.e. long before COVID-19 hit). Pre-COVID, I did leave my home office for client meetings regularly and travelled for business on average about once a month. I also left the house almost every evening for either kid-related activities, shopping, socializing or to go to the YMCA. I keep a regular exercise routine which has not decreased since COVID. I continue to walk Churro (see element54 team page) twice a day the same distance pre and post COVID. My first ever lifetime episode of back pain happened 15 years […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes Even before COVID-19 hit, the holistic topic of food and everything related to its production and consumption had already been hot on the front burner for many consumers, companies, and the media. There are so many different diets that it can be a challenge to stay current. To name a popular few: ketogenic, intermittent fasting, low-carb, paleo, raw foodism, the full spectrum of behaviours around the consumption of animals (vegetarian, pescatarian, flexitarian, vegan… and then there’s the Whole Foods Plant Based (WFPB) diet, a term that is a mouthful on its own). There is also the myriad of nutrition messages and certification logos from different organizations on labels of consumer packaged foods. These include but are not limited to: organic, different sustainability claims (e.g. fair trade, UTZ certified), superfood, “absence-of-negatives” claims (non-GMO, no soy products, no sugar alcohols, no preservatives, gluten-free, no dairy) and which can also encompass dietary descriptors such as keto, vegan, or vegetarian. Amidst all of this talk, curiosity, experimentation, and not surprisingly, confusion abound. As an essential need, the food industry is recession and pandemic proof though consumers may choose to cut back on some categories of food that are more indulgent or decide to consume […]

Reading Time: 2 minutes May 1st 2020 … who would have thought today’s #FridayGratitude message would be written like this, in appreciation to my element54 team, our gracious and incredibly supportive clients, industry partners, family and many many friends. May 2020 will be a month we’ll want to put behind us. We are expecting some project deferrals (thankfully none of our clients has cancelled any projects and we continue to do inspiring work for a range of clients). But practically speaking, our revenues are down – and there’s no way to sugar coat that … it just is what it is. We appreciate that our business situation is very much like many others, including our clients who are seeing revenue declines as well. We are optimistic that May will lead to a brighter June .. and an even brighter July. So to get ready for that, we just concluded our weekly element54 Fireside Chat where I shared the following with our team: – element54 is a healthy business operating in a healthy market research sector, for which I’ve been blessed to be part of for over 30 years. – We work with amazing clients that are struggling through this crisis too, but we’re in it together! – Unlike the […]

Reading Time: < 1 minute Dear friends and colleagues, 11 years ago today, I was fired – for the first time in my adult life (on a Friday just before Canadian Thanksgiving weekend). No way to sugar-coat … it was a difficult day. But as each year go by, I am incredibly grateful for that day, in October 2008 – it was the beginning of an amazing journey. element54 was up and running within 3 days of getting fired. By Tuesday, we had our name and website domain. Within 2 weeks, our first project. Within the first month, 3 clients. 11 years later, we have an inspiring team of curious insight professionals across Toronto and Montreal (and hiring more!), amazing clients from coast to coast, and outstanding partnerships. So what did I learn? Most are unprepared for the moment when you are told to pack your stuff and leave in 30 mins, and getting fired seems like a catastrophic event. Then you realize that no person has power over you. So you dust yourself off, reassure those closest to you – and give yourself some time to regroup. You learn quickly who your friends are. Many will stand by you, have coffee, a chat, and when […]