Statusfirm Blog

3:00PM

Sitting at my computer completely oblivious to what time it is, a reminder pops up. Honestly, what could be so much more important then the work I am doing right now? Not even reading what it says I click ignore. I've got projects piled on my desk, things that need to get done, shaking my head as I think of all the work; this is going to be another long day.

3:05PM

Another reminder pops up. Seriously, I don't care if Jeff needs to have a meeting with me. I've got projects to cut and really whatever it is it can wait. Settling down, I take a sip of my tea, calm myself and try to focus on what I'm cutting. I need a good "Beep!" for the beginning of this commercial. Nope that one is too high pitch, that one too space-y that one too short. YIKES! My ears! That one WAY too loud!

3:10PM

What the ?!? Another reminder, I am soon going to throw outlook out the window. Still searching for the perfect sound effect, Andrea breezes by my office. "5 minutes," she says. 5 minutes to what? I've got work to do. Suddenly my MSN starts blinking, it's Shelley. What does she want? The message flashes, "5 minutes!!!" Do people even work in this place?

3:15PM

My edit suites fills with people, someone hands me a CD yelling, "Track 6!" I turn around and wonder what the heck, why is everyone here?? Duncan says, " Sarah, it's dance party time, wipe that stupid look off your face, get that song playing, we're wasting time!"

Finally like a smack in the face it hits me, it's the Thursday 3:15PM Dance Party! I spin around; get the cd in, hit track 6 and Amy Winehouse's Rehab starts blaring from my speakers. Ella pulls out these wicked moves, Allyson is grooving away and Paul looks like he is on another planet. I look around and realize just how cool this really is, all my buddies dancing away the day's stresses, mile wide grins, and not a care in the world. It seems like everyone needed this break as much as me.

3:20PM

The song ends, everyone files out. Allyson looks at me and says, "Next week it's my song." I can hardly wait, I wonder what she is going to pick.

Chops here.

I can’t believe it was just a year ago. Time flies when you’re having fun.

I first met Chris Sealy, President of Statusfirm, in August 2006. We both flew into Las Vegas to meet a co-partner in RawVegas.tv, Brian Balsbaugh, and map out this concept we had for our new groundbreaking I-TV channel.

My head was spinning for a couple of weeks on the prospects of how to launch RawVegas.tv. I was in Vegas for the 2006 WSOP and the first person I bumped into at the Rio was Brian Balsbaugh. He said, “Dude, this is serendipity. I just got out of a meeting with this great guy who runs a technology firm in Canada and I’d like to get you involved.” I said, “When do you have some time to talk about it.” “Right now.”

So we went to sweat Erick Lindgren in the bleachers at the final table he was playing at (he eventually finished second to Jeff Madsen) and started the first real batch of creative discussions around what RawVegas.tv would be.

By the time I met Sealy in August, I knew exactly what I wanted the channel to be, where the brand should go, and how to build the business model.

Now I just needed to make sure I got the job.

Fortunately, Sealy, Brian and I saw eye-to-eye on everything. It wasn’t long before I was packing my bags, my wife, and my life and moving to Vegas.

One of the most incredible things about the experience of launching RawVegas.tv for me has been the speed to which things have progressed. I handed in my site map and information architecture on what the site needed to be in late October. At that point, we hadn’t filmed a minute of content, and really wouldn’t until December. But by January 19th, we had built the site, brand, and a vault of really unique, cutting-edge content.

Here we are just 9 months later, and without spending a cent on advertising have grown our audience to almost 20,000 visitors a day. We’ve had our content showcased on everything from NBC to tmz, ESPN to TSN. And the whole process and content just keeps getting better.

It’s launch day at Statusfirm.  This exciting, emerging broadband network company’s most ambitious project yet is about to hit the worldwide web.  Back from touring oil and gas trade shows, shooting stories like the one on a rig seven hours north of Edmonton and meeting with industry experts like Petro-Canada’s Vice President in charge of branding and junior CEO’s for advice along the way.  Statusfirm’s new headquarters are in Edmonton so Mayor Stephen Mandel, MP’s Rahim Jaffer, James Rajotte, MLA Gene Zwozdesky along with the Edmonton Sun, Gordon Jaremko from The Edmonton Journal and a host of other invited guests.  The reaction is universal; everyone is surprised and impressed by our 10,000 square foot production suites and studio.  We cut the ribbon and opened Alberta’s newest media outlet.  It’s hard to believe but TheEnergyNews.com is up and running

Every day I am amazed by what Statusfirm’s computer programmers, web site designers and graphics producers are able to create, especially when we are asking them to build the conduit for stuff they’ve never heard of.  We need a broadband newscast to talk about everything from oil sands production to mergers in the patch and Imperial Oil’s crack split…whoa!  What?  The atmosphere in a meeting changes in a hurry when you toss that out.  A few jokes later they learn a crack split is actually the margin between what a company pays for a barrel of oil and what it can sell the products it makes from that barrel for.  No one has nearly as much fun when we tell them about AECO, they just go about building the commodity price board we need for that natural gas storage hub and every other market number we want to cover.  TheEnergyNews.com is taking shape and the odyssey pulls on everyone’s area of expertise, from megabytes to appraisal wells, we’ve got a team now that covers it all.  Brett Harris is a huge asset in particular.  He has joined TheEnergyNews.com as Calgary Bureau Chief and with his on-air profile as an ROB-TV reporter we add a trusted, experienced authority to provide our coverage of the oil patch.

It’s official, I am the first employee of TheEnergyNews.com.  The feeling is a mixture of excitement and terror, but hey, what could go wrong?  It’s a great idea.  All we have to do is… create a new network.  No problem!

The project is a concept right now from the minds of a leading Canadian television producer, Scott Moore and Statusfirm Inc. President and Vice President, Chris Sealy and David Nedohin, who, as it turns out, is much more than just a world champion poster boy for curling.  Scott has helped develop household brands such as TSN and Sportsnet and has produced coverage of major international events including the Olympics, Champ Car and the Asia Pacific Games, so I’m willing to sign on with such capable hands.  Scott offered the opportunity to anchor TheEnergyNews to me after I served as one of his hosts for the Alberta Centennial special he produced.  Scott is big league, so it’s flattering to join his roster.  My first take on Chris is that he is an imaginative entrepreneur for whom failure is not an option.  He has some oil patch experience but most importantly he’s a big picture guy willing to turn a mammoth idea into a broadband network property.  David is actually an engineer by trade and just as ambitious as his partners. 

The first days involve creating a brand, finding staff to fuel this thing and asking, “the geeks”, as the software programmers call themselves, if they can turn our ideas for a broadband energy news network into a functioning web specialty service.  So, how many geeks does it take to create TheEnergyNews.com?  We’ll find out in the days and months ahead.