The art of storytelling is key for communications and media industries

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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_02: Hello, I'm Mario Toneguzi, Managing Editor of Canada's Podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_02: Today on Edmonton's Podcast, my guest is Gary Lamphier, who is Principal of Lamphier
[00:16] SPEAKER_02: Communications.
[00:17] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us today, Gary.
[00:20] SPEAKER_02: Oh, my pleasure, very happy to see you again.
[00:22] SPEAKER_02: Okay, now when I collected in the intro to mention that you're a veteran journalist,
[00:26] SPEAKER_02: a business journalist, some more than 30 years with places like Edmonton, Gerneau, Vancouver,
[00:32] SPEAKER_02: Sun, Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times of Canada, probably more.
[00:37] SPEAKER_02: We'll get into that a little later in the podcast.
[00:42] SPEAKER_02: But let me just ask you, first of all, Gary, tell me what you're up to these days and
[00:46] SPEAKER_02: what you do now.
[00:47] SPEAKER_02: Sure, yes, so I'm a communications consultant.
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: So I work on a wide variety of projects, whether it's website contact for a private client,
[00:58] SPEAKER_01: or the University of Alberta, the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, have done
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: some work for them.
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: And it really just depends on the nature of the work depends on the needs of the client,
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: of course, it's all over the map.
[01:09] SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll do a little bit of media relations if let's say our researcher has done some
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: interesting stuff and wants some publicity, I'll try to help with that.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: So again, just depends on their needs.
[01:20] SPEAKER_02: Okay, so tell us the story of how you got to where you are now in doing this.
[01:26] SPEAKER_02: Sure.
[01:27] SPEAKER_01: Well, as you mentioned, I work as a business reporter, slash columnist for 30 plus years,
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: in a variety of publications and cities across the country.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: I wound up in Edmonton in 02 and worked as a business columnist for the Ebb and the
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: Journal.
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: I'll fill out retired from there in 2016, a little over seven years ago, which
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: unannocks me out to think that it's been that long already.
[01:50] SPEAKER_01: And so I decided about three months after I retired to put out a shingle and start to
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: advertising my services as a communications consultant.
[01:58] SPEAKER_01: I did that for a period of about four plus years in Vancouver during a sort of, I don't
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: know, a break from the world of journalism.
[02:05] SPEAKER_01: So that was from 98 to 02.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: So I had some skills that I'd developed from those days.
[02:11] SPEAKER_01: I decided to utilize that to try and make some money as a semi-retired guy as I say.
[02:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm tired from newspapers, so I have a bit of a pension, but I needed to top that up and
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: also keep active.
[02:24] SPEAKER_01: So that's what I'm doing.
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[02:35] SPEAKER_02: You know, for a long time, journalists, how difficult was it to make that transition?
[02:43] SPEAKER_02: We grew up in this industry.
[02:46] SPEAKER_02: You were not the almost seeing two opposing camps.
[02:50] SPEAKER_02: The journalists and the communications are spin doctors, right?
[02:55] SPEAKER_02: You consider yourself a spin doctor now.
[02:59] SPEAKER_01: If I am, I'm a pretty crappy one I have to say.
[03:03] SPEAKER_01: I'm basically telling stories from a different perspective.
[03:06] SPEAKER_01: From the perspective of a guy trying to help a client get their story out and often the
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: stories I'm telling now as a communications advisor are pretty freaking complicated.
[03:16] SPEAKER_01: The world of science trying to explain how a brain scientist's research translated
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: the potentially a medication or treatment for people with depression or anxiety issues.
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: That's complicated stuff.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: That's the skill set.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: I'll just go back to what I said earlier in the intro.
[03:35] SPEAKER_01: I did do this for four or five years in Vancouver.
[03:38] SPEAKER_01: During those years, I was a more conventional corporate communications advisor.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: I was working with public trade companies, technology companies, biotech companies, resource
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: companies, helping them tell their story.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: At that juncture in my life, I was doing things like quarterly conference call scripts,
[03:59] SPEAKER_01: corporate presentations to investors, advising on media communications.
[04:05] SPEAKER_01: If a company had some kind of issue that had to address, so that was a little bit more
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: corporate and big picture.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: The stuff on the big house was small, smaller clients and many of them are private.
[04:16] SPEAKER_02: It all comes out whether it's a journalist or whether it's a communications person.
[04:20] SPEAKER_02: It all comes down to the storytelling, right?
[04:23] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: Trying to engage people so that they have some understanding of what it is the client
[04:29] SPEAKER_01: is doing and trying to convey to them.
[04:35] SPEAKER_01: Often, when you talk to people who are neck deep and what they do, they are immersed in
[04:41] SPEAKER_01: it.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: They kind of lose touch with the way the world perceives them.
[04:46] SPEAKER_01: They think the rest of the world gets what they're doing because in our own minds, it's
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: really, really important.
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: It's not so easy for them to communicate what they're doing to the broader world.
[04:57] SPEAKER_01: That's where we fit in.
[05:00] SPEAKER_02: What makes a good story?
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: People.
[05:05] SPEAKER_01: I think that's a big part of it.
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: People always make stories more interesting because it's just about numbers.
[05:10] SPEAKER_01: You lose people pretty quick.
[05:13] SPEAKER_01: You have to communicate the way it's going to change people's lives if there's some human
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: impact.
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: What the client is doing, whether it's in the world of psychotherapy, brain science, pharmacy.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: One of my clients is a very entrepreneurial woman who's really got some pretty cool ideas
[05:35] SPEAKER_01: in terms of how to roll out medications to third world countries.
[05:40] SPEAKER_01: If I can use that term or developing countries in Africa.
[05:44] SPEAKER_01: She's trying to serve as an intermediary between the world of pharmaceuticals and the end user
[05:52] SPEAKER_01: in African countries where they don't have the money to typically buy or dispense pharmaceuticals
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: to the population.
[06:01] SPEAKER_01: She's got some pretty big picture ideas that are pretty interesting.
[06:04] SPEAKER_01: One little story that I communicated to the media recently about her is that she's got some
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: interesting backers in the US and Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
[06:16] SPEAKER_01: They funded Billboard and Times Square for her little company, your little tiny little
[06:21] SPEAKER_01: Edmonton company.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: We got some interest in local media here in Edmonton about that because it's kind of cool when a little company
[06:29] SPEAKER_01: locally gets on big screen in Times Square.
[06:32] SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of an example of that off-beat stuff that I do.
[06:36] SPEAKER_02: You'll have to send me their contact info because it sounds like a good topic for me as a podcast.
[06:43] SPEAKER_02: Sure.
[06:43] SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's a great idea.
[06:45] SPEAKER_01: Be happy to.
[06:46] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[06:47] SPEAKER_02: You know what?
[06:47] SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
[06:48] SPEAKER_02: You talk about the human element, right?
[06:50] SPEAKER_02: And I've done some media training for companies as well over the last few years and always bring this up.
[06:59] SPEAKER_02: And I always bring up the example of when taxes go off, property taxes or whatever say.
[07:05] SPEAKER_02: And in a neighborhood, you know, the Calgary Herald would go grab little granny Smith and who lived in inner city neighborhood
[07:14] SPEAKER_02: or seeing her taxes going up senior, you know, and what impact it has.
[07:19] SPEAKER_02: But that human element is something that obviously grabs people's attention more than, as you said, the numbers.
[07:27] SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask you how, you know, from now sitting on that side of the fence, so to speak, approaching the media,
[07:36] SPEAKER_02: what are your thoughts today about approaching the media?
[07:39] SPEAKER_02: We all know what's happened to the media over the last, say, five to ten years, but more so in the last five years.
[07:48] SPEAKER_02: How different is it to approach the media with stories these days?
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it's a tough sell.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's be honest, because these terms, as you alluded to, shrunk so much, I'll give you a concrete example.
[08:01] SPEAKER_01: When I came to Edmonton, an O2, to be their business columnist, we had a ten person business department.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: So we had reporters with dedicated beats, forestry, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, transportation, you name it.
[08:15] SPEAKER_01: When I walked out the door in December 2016 and seven years ago, I was the last surviving number of that ten person department.
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: And this is a hundred plus year old newspaper.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: So I was the last guy who's a dedicated business journalist at a hundred plus year old newspaper walking out the door.
[08:31] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: So yes, it's tough because there are fewer bodies.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: And certainly way fewer business dedicated business bodies.
[08:39] SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: So if you're covering business stories, I've heard you engage a general assignment reporter on a complex business story.
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: So you got to keep it short and sweet.
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: Timeliness is critical, right?
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: So whatever is happening in the 24 hour news cycle that day, if you can tie into that, that's great.
[09:00] SPEAKER_01: That's a big plus.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: Trust is important like you and I have been around the block a few times.
[09:07] SPEAKER_01: So people know us.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:09] SPEAKER_01: The people that have survived in these newsrooms know us.
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: If you're coming in as a fresh face, it's tougher.
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: And I think just being able to connect the dots for people.
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: Like when you pitch them, you have to do a lot of the legwork that you would expect in the old days or reporter to do.
[09:26] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[09:26] SPEAKER_04: That's true.
[09:27] SPEAKER_01: When you do the pitch, you're like presenting a story on a platter, basically.
[09:30] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:31] SPEAKER_01: And if I people tell me, well, there was so much info in your release, I hardly had to do any research, right?
[09:35] SPEAKER_01: Well, I consider that, you know, thank you very much, your compliment because that's my job now.
[09:40] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:40] SPEAKER_01: To try and do the work that a reporter would have to because they have no time.
[09:44] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[09:44] SPEAKER_01: So if your body means less time and often they're doing two or three stories a day, not one.
[09:50] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[09:50] SPEAKER_02: And what you what you describe, they're Gary for Edmonton is the same story from from every say post media newspaper from Vancouver to Montreal, right?
[10:02] SPEAKER_02: That's the same issue.
[10:04] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[10:04] SPEAKER_02: You know, I know what the Harold the same thing, I think when when I left the Harold and so it would have been the January of 2016.
[10:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, January 2016.
[10:18] SPEAKER_02: So coming up the years actually next week.
[10:22] SPEAKER_02: Next week is eight years.
[10:24] SPEAKER_02: Anyway, same thing.
[10:25] SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, we had newsroom.
[10:28] SPEAKER_02: I think we had even more than 10 at one point in business in business because of the gas sector, et cetera.
[10:35] SPEAKER_02: And it was just literally like one or two left when I was gone.
[10:39] SPEAKER_02: So it's a.
[10:40] SPEAKER_01: How many are there now?
[10:41] SPEAKER_01: Do you know off the top?
[10:42] SPEAKER_02: No idea.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: You know, there's Chris Harco.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: I see his stuff, but.
[10:46] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's all around.
[10:47] SPEAKER_02: So so there are a couple of the old veterans, but.
[10:52] SPEAKER_02: But then you know, the thing is you multiply that across the board.
[10:57] SPEAKER_02: So it sports and it's arts and entertainment and it's city and politics.
[11:02] SPEAKER_02: All those departments, not just business, all those departments.
[11:05] SPEAKER_02: I got that.
[11:06] SPEAKER_02: So it does make it from a communications standpoint, much, much tougher for people to.
[11:14] SPEAKER_02: Get their story across what time?
[11:16] SPEAKER_02: You know, when when you look, you know, and spend a lot of a good chunk of time here in Alberta.
[11:23] SPEAKER_02: You know, what do you see in the Alberta?
[11:27] SPEAKER_02: I guess economy these days.
[11:29] SPEAKER_02: What are you sensing?
[11:31] SPEAKER_02: Is happening with this province?
[11:35] SPEAKER_01: Well, I get in the broad sense.
[11:38] SPEAKER_01: I get the feeling that we're in some sort of a weird limbo or pause with the right word is interact numbers.
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: Or something.
[11:47] SPEAKER_01: Because look, look at the big picture, national election in the US this year.
[11:51] SPEAKER_01: In the fall, that's huge.
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: Our own federal election, you know, next year, possibly the earlier who knows.
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: And I think that's going to have a huge bearing on the future of our key industry, oil and gas.
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: Which ever way those two elections go.
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: Because I'll just drop pull back from that specific question for a moment to give you.
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: A little bit more context.
[12:16] SPEAKER_01: So when I left the journal in 2016, there are a bunch of reasons, but one of the key reasons was I really reached the point in my career where I felt that.
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: I couldn't report on business anymore in the way that I traditionally had the politics to totally use served business.
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: And the most important industry in this province.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: So the big decisions were political decisions. They weren't business decisions anymore.
[12:41] SPEAKER_01: And I felt, gee, I mean, what's my point?
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: What's my purpose in life here in this newsroom where really the decisions about the companies I covered aren't being made by the companies I covered.
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: They're being made in Ottawa or.
[12:55] SPEAKER_01: Or elsewhere.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: So I just think since that time since 2015, what you know was elected.
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: And since Biden was elected, I think it's like the whole energy world is kind of on pause.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: And yes, we've got record production and the US has record production.
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: And yes, crisis are still pretty good.
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: And companies are very profitable and the balance sheets are cleaner than in a long time.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless, there's still kind of a stymied sense of investment.
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: Your future confidence and investment over the long term.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: And you know, we got issues like this trans mountain pipeline never ending and budget just gone through the roof.
[13:38] SPEAKER_01: I just can't believe the numbers now that we see.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: So you just wonder how much stinky politics underlies those numbers.
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: And until that gets cleaned up and investors have confidence again in investing big.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: Soms of money tens of billions of dollars in projects.
[13:55] SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to be stuck in this kind of limbo.
[13:59] SPEAKER_01: And you know, there could be a sea change.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: If Biden's gone, if Trudeau's gone.
[14:03] SPEAKER_01: And the leaders that succeed them are kept two thumbs up for oil and gas again.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: And the kind of preoccupation with emissions, which I've had skeptical of.
[14:16] SPEAKER_01: And I think you probably guess.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: If that dissipates, then I think it could be a new day.
[14:21] SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, we're doing pretty good.
[14:24] SPEAKER_01: Having said all that, right?
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: Like the massive population growth.
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: House prices are, you know, up significantly in Calgary, not so much in Edmonton, but Calgary.
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: And our GDP, I think led the nation last year.
[14:37] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[14:38] SPEAKER_01: You know, we're probably going to do okay this year within a kind of sea of difficulty in Canada.
[14:44] SPEAKER_01: In relative terms, we'll do okay.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: So that's a long-winded answer to a short question.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
[14:48] SPEAKER_02: I know.
[14:49] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, when you look at the oil and gas sector, right?
[14:53] SPEAKER_02: Obviously the bread and butter for this province for decades, for decades, it's been under attack.
[15:00] SPEAKER_02: It's been, you know, the lot of calls over the years for diversifying the economy, et cetera.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: Yet it still are going to, right?
[15:12] SPEAKER_02: In the industry.
[15:12] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
[15:13] SPEAKER_02: And will continue to be, right?
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're 80% of Canada's supply and Canada's fourth biggest oil producer in the world.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: Fifth biggest natural gas, I think.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, on a positive note, we've got the Canada LNG plant coming on in BC.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: The coastal gas plant pipeline being completed.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: And so there's, you know, a little bit of, you know, enthusiasm.
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: Volusiness in the natural gas sector, given that.
[15:41] SPEAKER_01: And, now who knows?
[15:43] SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe 10 years from now, we'll see this fleet of LNG plants that, Christy Clark promised 10 years ago.
[15:50] SPEAKER_01: For timing was a little off, but maybe it'll actually happen.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: If it does, I think that'd be great for Canada and great for Alberta.
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[16:06] SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, when you started, say your career started not started career,
[16:13] SPEAKER_02: but started at the, at the journal and writing business.
[16:17] SPEAKER_02: How has the business environment in Alberta changed?
[16:21] SPEAKER_02: And I think more in terms of the types of businesses, obviously like back then.
[16:27] SPEAKER_02: Oil and gas was everything, right?
[16:30] SPEAKER_02: And today, you know, we're seeing smaller, you know, pockets of growth in what technology,
[16:38] SPEAKER_02: and alternative energy, agro food, and all that.
[16:43] SPEAKER_02: Is it, it's been a big change over the years that you've seen?
[16:48] SPEAKER_01: Sure. I mean, I think, you know, one, I give you one specific example.
[16:52] SPEAKER_01: One of our homegrown companies in Edmonton's stand type.
[16:55] SPEAKER_05: Yes.
[16:56] SPEAKER_01: So I remember writing stories early on at the journal saying, oh, we have our first billion dollar company.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[17:03] SPEAKER_01: And then we added another Canadian Western bank.
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: And that capital power was a third.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: So I just thought for fun the other day at Chuck's stand type market cap,
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: it's like 12 and a half billion dollars today.
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: And it's a global company, right? They're all over the planet.
[17:18] SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
[17:19] SPEAKER_01: So, and that's massive.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: So they've got tens of thousands of employees.
[17:23] SPEAKER_01: So it's grown, it's mushroomed.
[17:26] SPEAKER_01: And there are others not as dramatic in terms of their growth, but steady eddy growers.
[17:33] SPEAKER_01: And so it has diverse economy.
[17:36] SPEAKER_01: And I think the future looks right for agriculture.
[17:40] SPEAKER_01: I think it's a sector where there's, you know, great global demand for our products,
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: high quality products, there's innovation happening.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I also have to say, if I'm honest, that we sometimes get a little bit dazzled
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: by the prospect of economic transformation through innovation.
[18:02] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what I mean by that.
[18:04] SPEAKER_01: So when I started working as a journalist in the late 70s and early 80s,
[18:10] SPEAKER_01: there was always talk about Canada and Ontario outside of Ottawa,
[18:13] SPEAKER_01: becoming Silicon Valley North, right?
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, 40 plus years, almost half a century later, right?
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: We've got some success stories, it's true.
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: But I think if you added up all the tech companies in Canada,
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: they wouldn't be equal a quarter of one Microsoft, right?
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: So I think we got to get real too about what we can do in terms of diversification,
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: in terms of scale.
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: Yes, we can diversify.
[18:39] SPEAKER_01: And there are a thousand opportunities out there to do that in smaller ways.
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: And maybe out of those thousand opportunities will develop two or three, you know,
[18:48] SPEAKER_01: mid-size, publicly traded companies.
[18:51] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: That may happen.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: But that's kind of the opportunity as I see it.
[18:55] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[18:56] SPEAKER_01: I think we have to get real about what we can do.
[18:58] SPEAKER_01: We are relatively isolated.
[19:00] SPEAKER_01: We don't have the population of big US states like California.
[19:03] SPEAKER_02: So, no, that's true.
[19:06] SPEAKER_01: So Gary, I'm still an oil and gas booster.
[19:09] SPEAKER_02: That's where I think our future is.
[19:11] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I think a lot of people are with you on that.
[19:14] SPEAKER_02: So Gary, over the years, you've obviously talked a lot of,
[19:16] SPEAKER_02: what I'm quote, movers and shakers out there in the business world.
[19:22] SPEAKER_02: You know, Alberta has kind of been known for its entrepreneurial spirit.
[19:30] SPEAKER_02: Do you believe, is that like an image that's been concocted out there to sell everybody?
[19:37] SPEAKER_02: Or is it something that you've truly seen over the years that we do really have this entrepreneurial spirit in this problem?
[19:45] SPEAKER_01: I think it's real.
[19:46] SPEAKER_01: I think it's genuine.
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: And I say that as a guy who grew up in Ontario and spent 13 years in BC before coming here.
[19:53] SPEAKER_01: I think it's in the DNA of the province.
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: I think, and I can't count the number of entrepreneurs that talk to who started from nothing and built real companies.
[20:02] SPEAKER_01: I mean, stand back some example, right?
[20:04] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
[20:05] SPEAKER_01: Massive company.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: But many, many others that built companies upscale by starting out with a pickup truck.
[20:12] SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of, you know, it's, it's a bit of a, I may some people, people may think it's kind of a myth, but it's true.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: I've seen them.
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: And I think if we do get the wind in our sales again in the oil and gas industry, if we do see political change.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: And there is a renewed confidence in investing.
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: That's going to trickle down to all these mom and pop companies and all these service providers.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: And it will be on the oil and gas industry to all the other industries.
[20:40] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you and I will remember the days when they couldn't hire people in fast food restaurants.
[20:47] SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
[20:47] SPEAKER_01: They're offering them like 20 bucks an hour to serve burgers because of, you know, job, uh, a shortage of employees.
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: They're all being sucked away by the oil and gas.
[20:57] SPEAKER_01: And so nobody wanted to work in other industries.
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: I don't think we want to see that again, exactly.
[21:03] SPEAKER_01: We want, you know, people to enter a variety of fields and industries and develop the talent base here.
[21:08] SPEAKER_01: But I do think that entrepreneurialism is a real part of the fabric here in Alberta.
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: And I think it will remain so I'm confident enough.
[21:22] SPEAKER_02: All right. Wonderful. Well, thanks very much.
[21:24] SPEAKER_02: Gary, particular time today.
[21:26] SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's my pleasure, Mary. I think it's a great pleasure to chat with you again.
[21:30] SPEAKER_02: All right. Super. That was Gary Lamphere, who is the principal of Lamphere communications in Edmonton.
[21:36] SPEAKER_02: And also a former business columnist and journalist with various newspapers and publications over the years.
[21:44] SPEAKER_02: I'm Mario Toneguzy, managing editor of Canada's podcast today on Edmonton's podcast.
[21:50] SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.