Meet Jason Mainella of Teeny Drones

Jason Mainella is the co-founder of Teeny Drones, a company based in Montreal, Canada which builds nano drones that are so small that you can hold them in the palm of your hand. Learn more at www.teenydrones.com.

1. Why do you think that more and more people are interested in drones?

I think it's the combination of people's desire to fly, and advances in technology that have made remote-control aircraft more affordable and stable.

2. What inspired you to start your company?

We noticed that people are buying remote-control helicopters that were falling apart too quickly on consumers. You crash them once, they blow up, they fall to pieces, and people are disappointed. We wanted to sell something that is a bit higher in quality along with being fast and affordable--something that wouldn't break easily.

3. How would you describe your goal with Teeny Drones?

We would love to see mini drones in the hands of one million people. I enjoy introducing people to the fun and art of droning. Drones are a great nexus for combining the power of games and technology, and the power of having fun. We hope to bring as much fun to as many people as possible with our Teeny Drones.

4. Why did you choose the quadcopter as the drone to launch your company?

I love gadgets and the fun of taking things apart and putting them back together. Drones are so interesting to me for their technology, and especially the quadcopter. With the quadcopter, there are four motors going on, plus the gyro system to calibrate. I think everyone will enjoy giving it a try.

5. How do you see Teeny Drones expanding over the next couple years?

We plan to sell accessories for the quadcopter as well as other drones. Our idea is to expand from the starter drone to a medium drone and then to a larger drone. I also would love to create and sell a small drone integrated with a virtual reality headset.

Thanks, Jason!

Meet Mohammed Alami, SEO and E-Marketing Consultant, and E-Commerce Specialist

Mohammed Alami is a SEO strategist and e-marketing consultant based in Montreal. He is very experienced in SEM (search engine marketing) as well as SMO / SMM (social media optimization and marketing), and he holds a master's in e-commerce. He is just launching a new website, Mozalami.

1. How did you first become interested in e-marketing and SEO?

After launching TEXILOG in Morocco in 2004, I began specializing in web marketing in 2007. Of course I began with the creation of websites, web design, and flash animation, etc. I did a variety of work within the web agency that I had started. But I quickly realized that the return on investment (ROI) was the main KPI (key performance indicator) for measuring the success of businesses' internet projects. So I got interested in SEO, which is the safest way to drive traffic. It has a major advantage compared to traditional marketing techniques: its price. It's not cheap, but it's definitely affordable!

2. What can readers expect to find on your new site, Mozalami?

The site is dedicated to SEO and internet marketing services, and includes web marketing advice and strategies for e-commerce. Social networks are no exception as I do some consultancy in this area, too.

At the same time, Mozalami is my new blog. The name is the contraction of "MOZ" (for marketing optimization) and my name "Alami." So it will be also my SEO journal. Readers can subscribe to my feed and follow me on social networks to get the latest news, information, and analysis of search engine optimization strategies and tactics that drive results.

3. I feel like SEO is a bit of a moving target. What do you think? Is SEO always changing, and if so, how can business owners and/or webmasters keep up with the best practices in the industry?

This question is really interesting. Indeed, a few years ago, the EMD (exact match domain) and PMD (partial match domain) were the way to go ahead and create a big SEO signal to Google via keywords contained in the domain name. So as an example, years ago I launched two websites: Referencement-site-montreal.com which has long been positioned as first on the keyword "Montreal SEO" and Marketing-internet-montreal.com which was first on the keyword "Internet Marketing Montreal" (in French). Now, however, I'm including the content of both sites under the new domain Mozalami.com to avoid this kind of hack.

The only constant in SEO is change. Since we know that, everyone in this field should keep reading blogs and articles from industry to stay up to date. That's why Mozalami can be great resource for beginners and even advanced search strategists looking for the basis of SEO art and science.

4. What is the importance of positioning your business locally when it comes to SEO?

I'm also an expert in local SEO, having participated in bundling the yellow pages Canada's local product for SMBs. So I know that it's crucial that Mozalami shows prominently in search results when search intent is local like "SEO Montreal." My job is to conduct strategies for my clients but also to make sure best practices are applied to my own website. SEO unfortunately has no entry barrier, and anyone can claim to be a SEO guru or expert, whatever the title they choose. But there's a great way to avoid inexperienced SEO service providers: just ask for references and results against KPIs.

5. When it comes to getting a website ranked highly in the search engines, do you feel that there are particular concerns that are especially relevant to business owners and webmasters in Canada?

In Canada we face two challenges: our websites are bilingual, and this both dilutes PageRank and makes positioning on double sets of keywords harder. And in the meantime we're competing with French websites in Google Canada French search results. It's unfair as other countries do not have this problem to solve. However, using best practices and especially by applying semantic markup to website pages, we're able to explain to search engines what the website is about and what's the target, and then we have better results in SERPs. Semantic Web (3.0) is one of my passions: expect in 2015 to see a huge surge of these techniques all around the web.

Thanks, Mohammed!

Meet Laura Dufresne, Artist and Craftsperson

Laura Dufresne is an artist in Montreal, Canada who creates unique handmade items. She currently specializes in fabric bow ties and coin purses / cell phone cases. If you like work with a geeky-cool aesthetic, be sure to check out Laura's creations. Learn more about Laura and her work on her website called Retroactive Legacy and in her Etsy shop.

1. What inspired you to start making handmade bow ties?

That's kind of a strange story. My boyfriend and I both have an affinity for geeky items and are both aficionados of the creative process. As my sewing skills grew, I found that smaller accessories with bold or interesting themes or characters became more important than the overall look. As a result, I tested a bow tie. I made a simple, Spiderman-themed bow tie for an event we attended. I received a number of responses--and to my surprise, excitement, and horror, people wanted to order them from me.

The experience blindsided me; I had no clue what to charge, how to proceed, and whether selling handmade bow ties made any sense at all. It turns out it does make complete sense because current mass-produced bow ties are poorly made, kind of boring, and mostly are pre-ties, which detracts from the allure of self-tied knot.

So in essence, what inspired me the most was the ideal of a great tradition, brought into modern times, made into something more interesting than the novelty ties our dads would wear once a year.

2. I see you are expanding into coin purses and cell phone cases. How do you get ideas for your products?

The coin purses was first inspired by this awesome fabric I found on Spoonflower featuring cameo skulls. I wanted to really showcase the skulls because the entire look was so well done. I thought it appropriate to create something heart-shaped and it just so happened that I had a batch of purse frames in my crafts stash. I tested patterns until I found one that suited the fabric perfectly and voila.

I think fabrics often inspire my work: I don't want to do what might be obvious with them; I want to do the unthinkable, the out-of-the-box, without over-reaching and not being relatable. There should be some sort of connection, but it won't necessarily be immediately obvious.

3. How do you choose the fabrics to use in your creations?

For one, most of the fabrics I choose are not commercially available. I do sometimes use commercially available fabrics, typically when it involves creating something using a copyrighted character. I think copyright is extremely important and believe that as customers become more and more aware of the issues of copyright, this will become of significant importance in the future.

It is also important to me to support independent artists. I love finding independent designers and creating something that really highlights their work. Bow ties are great for this; all bow-ties have a "window" of sorts, and I look for designs that meet the size requirements for this 1" by 2" space.

My fishing tie is a perfect example. The fish on this fabric are quite large and take up a significant portion of the window. I chose it because it fit the personality of bow ties as the modern replacement to the ubiquitous novelty fishing tie of our fathers, and also because the dimensions that would allow me to showcase the fabric in a way that might otherwise have been overlooked.

4. As an indie artist/craftsperson, what do you feel are the pros and cons when it comes to selling on Etsy?

I'm really not sure about Etsy anymore. I have found that the philosophy that made me jump into the mix has been lost with the refusal to address resellers in the marketplace. It really has torn me apart. I could continue to sell there, and with a little more involvement, I know I would/could be highly successful, but I am still not very sure I want to continue with this medium. This is a discussion for another day and another interview.

In favor of Etsy, there are still numerous independent artists and producers on the website. It is essential we support that as much as possible. In doing so, we solidify the economic sense of maintaining a handmade marketplace. For myself, even if you don't buy my products, I hope you buy things through Etsy that aren't produced in factories.

Cons: often times it is hard to tell what is handmade. :(

5. What do you think that people creating handmade objects can do to make their work stand out online, where buyers are inundated with cheap, pseudo-handmade imports?

I think it is important not to jump on bandwagons. I know it can be hard to resist, but making a bow tie of blue boxes would be stupid-boring, because it's just too common. I don't want to be mean, but if there are a gad-zillion of something, there is just no way to stand out. If you want or need to be on trend, try to get ahead of the curve. Also, you really do need to KNOW your subject.

Research is the key to connecting with your potential customers. One of my most successful bow ties is a Godzilla bow tie, but customers are not directed to my product through the keyword GODZILLA, but through the keyword GOJIRA, the Japanese word for this awesome monster! Know the fans, know the lingo, and that is how you'll reach your key audience.

Thanks, Laura!

Excerpt from Me & Tuffy by Robbie Dillon

Robbie Dillon is a Montreal-based writer, lyricist, scenarist, and dramaturge who has worked with Cirque du Soleil and Vice Magazine. He has recently written articles for askmen.com and streetcarnage.com.

Robbie is currently working on Me & Tuffy, a piece of fiction about the meaning of friendship which he plans to publish as a collection of short stories or possibly as a novella or set of interconnected pieces. So far, he has posted three excerpts of this piece on his website. The selection which appears below is from part one; visit Robbie's site to read the complete text of part one.

***

It was a sweltering hot July afternoon. It was so hot that sometimes you'd see the air shimmer over the asphalt at the end of the street--it felt like God was flicking through the channels on his giant TV set. You could picture him sitting around with Jesus and the Holy Ghost, checking up on people all over the world. The only problem was you never knew whether he was watching your channel or clicking over to someone else's.

The heat settled onto our neighbourhood like a thick, soggy blanket, pushing everyone who couldn't afford an air conditioner--which was pretty much everyone--out of their apartments. Old people sat on their stoops and balconies fanning themselves, or cruised the frosty aisles of the supermarket down the street. Everyone else headed for the pool.

By noon, every precious inch of the concrete deck had been staked out by hundreds of brightly colored beach towels. A soothing cacophony of shrieks and splashing and laughter wafted out to the street as bodies of every shape and size were corralled into the shallow end. Swimming underwater was like getting lost in a forest of pasty arms and legs. Tuffy and I weren't old enough to go off the diving boards, but one of the big kids said the line-ups were so long you could catch sunstroke and die before you got your turn.

Lifeguards in red speedo bathing suits patrolled the sides of the pool like prison guards, doing their best to make sure that no one had any fun. No running. No roughhousing. No diving into the shallow end. Everyone knew the rules but broke them anyway. When the lifeguards blew their whistles and pointed at you, you stopped whatever you were doing, waited until their heads were turned, and went right back to doing it.

Tuffy and I were walking along the edge of the pool, looking for a good spot to jump.

***

"You know what we should do? We should come back tonight when the pool is closed and throw paint in the water. The janitor in my building has like, ten cans stored down in the basement. We can throw them over the fence and then no one will want to come to their stupid pool anymore and they'll all get fired."

I realized that Tuffy would just keep on talking. Maybe forever. I had to say something, if only to keep him from getting us into even deeper shit.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Tuffy? Are you an idiot? Why do you always have to go and ruin everything?"

He stopped and turned to face me. I could see tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. His lower lip was quivering. I looked around to make sure that no one was watching us--the last thing I needed was to be seen with a crybaby.

He swallowed hard and blinked a few times, trying to suck it up. I was backing nervously away when he reached out and grabbed my arm. "Mikey," he said, staring gravely into my eyes, "you're my best friend. And best friends stick together. No matter what."

I'd never had a best friend before and I wasn't sure I wanted one. To be honest, I was still wondering whether the lifeguards would believe me if I told them that I didn't even know who Tuffy was. I thought that maybe, if I could convince them he was some sort of deranged imbecile, and that he had only pushed the lifeguard because he was having a brain seizure, I might be able to get myself, or even both of us--but mostly myself--back into the pool.

Now that Tuffy had gone out on a limb like that, it didn't seem right to ask whether I had any say in the matter, or to point out that sticking together meant we'd probably be finished high school before we could go swimming again.

"With friends like you..." I muttered under my breath.

"What?"

"Ah, forget it."