DerekMajor.com

Arrived in Stresa

Well I have arrived in Stresa, Italy.  We were quite fortunate on our flight down with KLM as the plane was completely booked so they went ahead and bumped us into Business class.  I had that chair reclined back as much as possible.

It is early morning in Calgary and almost noon here in Italy.  What a wonderful town this is and the people are just as friendly.

Cathy and I arrived in Milan yesterday afternoon and were shuttled into Stresa shortly after.  I must admit that the drivers here are quite aggressive and definitely came close when we took a taxi to our Bed and Breakfast.  The guy had a Mercedes as his taxi and nearly hit a guy head on.  The roads are incredibly narrow here in Italy but this is without a doubt a great town of 5,000.

Last night Cathy and I met all of the other Canadian young entrepreneurs for dinner at the Regina Palace.  Also there was everyone from the executive including Vivian Prokop who is an excellent person who was very friendly and welcoming to all of us including myself and Cathy.

Today is an event packed today as we break off into bilateral meetings with entrepreneurs from around the world.  Later on this evening we have a dinner with all of the entrepreneurs from all G8 countries and then we will get back to some sleep.

The jet lag wore off already as I learned from my trip to France it is important not to go to sleep right away when you get to town but get on the regular sleeping schedule right away once you arrive.

Anyhow, stay tuned.  I believe I forgot my power cable in Calgary so my laptop is nearly dead.  I am at an Internet cafe right now so I will try and post some more information over the coming days.

Hours away from our flight to Italy

So depending on how much Internet access I have over the coming week will depend on how much I will be blogging to my web page.  We have a fairly packed agenda in Italy coming up and I can’t wait to get started!

I will be flying out this evening from Calgary for an 8-hour flight to Amsterdam where I will then take a connector to the Milan Malpensa airport.  I am looking forward to meeting other entrepreneurs right from the get go when we land in Italy as the conference organizations are picking us up right from the airport and taking us to the town of Stresa.

So this will be the first Canada Day ever that I will not actually be in Canada for the celebration.  As many know I usually throw an annual Canada Day BBQt instead this year I will be having dinner at the Regina Palace along with our fellow entrepreneurs from across Canada.

Going through the list of entrepreneurs representing this country and CYBF is really exciting.  There are some very well seasoned business people and others that are well on their way to business success.  I am really looking forward to learning and sharing with these individuals our experiences.  I think the best way to learn in life is to take what others have done to apply it to your own life in a uniquely different way.

Anyhow I am hoping to post some pictures and more information as I continue my adventure with Eligeo IT and our representation at the G8 Young Business Summit in Stresa, Italy.

Trip to Italy is just around the corner and the Press Release is going out today!

Young Entrepreneurs Bucking Economic Trend – 2 of Calgary’s Young Business Owners Part of Canada’s Delegation to the Young Entrepreneur’s G8 Summit in Stresa, Italy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Info, to set up interviews or for more information:

• Gena Rotstein, Founder & Advisor in Philanthropy, Dexterity Consulting – 403-860-7572; gena@dexterityconsulting.ca; www.dexterityconsulting.ca; Twitter: @DexterityCon
• Derek Major, CEO, Eligeo IT – 403-770-9238; dmajor@eligeo.ca; www.eligeo.ca;
• Katrina White, VP Marketing & Communications - Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) - 416-408-2923; kwhite@cybf.ca; www.cybf.ca

Calgary – Two of Calgary’s emerging entrepreneurs will be joining a delegation of 10 other Canadian business owners at the inaugural Young Entrepreneur G8 Summit (YE G8) in Stresa, Italy. Gena Rotstein, Founder and Philanthropic Advisor, Dexterity Consulting and Derek Major, CEO of Eligeo IT, are bucking the trends of our current global economy - these two business owners have set high, yet achievable goals for their businesses, and are well on their way to meeting those objectives.

What makes these two individuals unique?

• Eligeo IT and Dexterity Consulting target a typically under-serviced sector – the small and medium sized businesses and those individuals who make them run
• Initial funding capital for their businesses was provided by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF)

About Dexterity Consulting – Canada’s first-ever philanthropic brokerage firm, Dexterity Consulting provides Canadian donors and their companies the strategies and peace-of-mind that their charitable investments and corporate citizenship programs are on target thereby reaching their desired social goals. Gena is the matchmaker to the social service sector. Launched in 2008, this small company has helped guide philanthropists and their companies in investing over $500,000 to charities around the world.

About Eligeo IT - Eligeo IT provides small businesses with unique and innovative information technology, servicing small businesses ranging from a single owner to 500 employees. Eligeo’s clients range from a variety of industries including oil & gas, construction, business consulting, financial services, education and many others. Launched in January 2008, ongoing double digit growth and zero customer defections is a testament to the value Eligeo continues to provide to its customers during tough financial times.

Purpose of the YE G8 Summit – To bring together young entrepreneurs from around the globe to discuss areas of green technology, social entrepreneurship, international M&A, and other leading edge ideas. During a conversation with the delegation, they expressed the outcome “…that Canadian leadership will say that they recognize the importance of the contribution that young entrepreneurs play in Canada’s and the global economy and that these businesses are a vital component to strengthening Canada’s economy, and the economies of all the G8 countries.”

Countries represented: Canada, United States, Italy, Germany, UK, the EU, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, China, India at the Summit.

An upcoming Italian Experience

It has been over 10 years since I’ve gone overseas.  During that trip I got to visit France and many of the incredible historic sites and as well had the opportunity to do a couple of quick trips to Monaco and a small village along the outskirts of Italy.  In a couple of weeks I will be participating in an G8 Young Entrepreneur conference to discuss ways to help stimulate the economy.  The web site for the event is: http://www.forumdistresa.it/

This is a really exciting opportunity for myself and our entire company, Eligeo IT.  We’re starting to grow and bring on some incredible clients who are helping us grow our business and really bring a quality product to them.  We’re being recognized as leaders in our industry and because of our association with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation we are starting to be seen as an emerging company with young leadership who are ready to answer the call of the future corporate world of Canada.

I am quite proud to share with everyone the accomplishments I have achieved.  There are so many people who I want to thank that I don’t quite think I could fit into a blog post.  It is amazing how you begin to work through life and meet so many different people who affect you in one way or another.  Whether it is a significant other or someone you’ve recently met at an event, they all seem to have some input to your life that makes it that much more special.

The Italian experience, as I call it, will be a significant milestone for us.  We are going to sit down with, I am guessing, around 100 entrepreneurs from around the world.  I’ve been asked which countries I’d like to sit down with to share my experiences and learn from them.  I have no doubt that we’ll have the opportunity to share many of our views too.  This is without a doubt an opportunity of a lifetime for all members involved with this group.

I can’t thank CYBF enough for the leadership that they have taken on to help promote awareness and rewards for young entrepreneurs who have a vision for themselves.  A reward such as Italy goes without saying is a great opportunity.

I am leaving Calgary on June 30th and you can bet that throughout Eligeo.ca and many other portions of this blog I will be sharing stories and information about the experiences that I will encounter while in Stresa.  I will be staying with my girlfriend at a Bed & Breakfast in the town of Stresa along with a colleague of mine from Canadian Youth Business Foundation.  We’re all very excited and can’t wait to get there.

Stay tuned.

Another long overdue blog

It was kindly pointed out to me today by a client of mine that I hadn’t updated my personal blog in quite some time. When your client calls you on it then you know you better get on here and make sure you are posting again.

Pretty exciting times since I last wrote a blog entry. I will be joining other entrepreneurs around the world as we meet in Stresa, Italy during a conference on July 2^nd and 3^rd. We will be discussing economic stimulus and a host of other great topics including technology, social responsibility, green awareness and much more. I am quite excited and my girlfriend will be attending with me.

I attended a fantastic Law of Attraction course put on by Awareness Strategies and all I can say is that Michelle is absolutely wonderful. She brought a lot of insight into many people in the room and in many ways inspired others too. I’m looking forward to recommending people talk to her about a variety of different things.

That’s it for now but I’ll start plugging away entries as I now know people are watching intently and I thank them very much for that. It is greatly appreciated and it’s nice to know people are following and looking forward to my blogs.

My little hiatus from blogging

It’s been a few days since I’ve sat down to write a blog so I figured I should get one in while I am waiting for a backup to perform on one of my customers’ servers.

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks in a VERY good way.  I am pretty excited with the way Eligeo is growing and the opportunities that we have ahead of ourselves.  We have brought on some fantastic clients that are not only good customers but are already becoming really good friends.  I am a big believer in relationship building and I am very excited that they chose us over many other great firms in the city.  We certainly appreciate our customers and will always work hard to ensure they are happy.

I had a few comments from clients over the last couple of days where they indicated how happy they are with the quick response that we provide to our clients’ needs.  I feel that it is important to be there to answer the phone, email or in-person for our clients.  We’re growing but we are doing a great job I think.

Tomorrow is moving day for us at Eligeo and we will be in the new digs at Southcentre Professional building.  We will have a little more room to hang out and most importantly a window.  Yes, a window.  Those that haven’t seen our current office, well it is a closet pretty much.  But you need to start somewhere and that’s what we did.  Now it is time to move onto the next phase of our lives.  It won’t be long before we need to move into a larger facility.

That’s it for now.  But stay tuned for some pictures that I will be posting from our move tomorrow and over the weekend.  We’re also re-launching the Eligeo web site with some new content and a brand new YouTube channel with some video’s on computer tips and a walk through on a server implementation that we are performing for a client this weekend.

Using YouTube for your Website

What a wonderful weekend I had with my family and friends.  Although I don’t some of my family very often it is always good to sit down for special dinners such as Easter with them to catch up.  It was also nice to take a few days off to re-energize and get focused for this week and the rest of April.

I am currently working on a special project for Eligeo and to introduce a brand new feature to the web site.  We are working on bringing an Eligeo YouTube Channel to the web site that will actually be integrated right into it.  We are preparing video’s such as an introduction of myself to our prospective clients and existing customers.  Not only that but we are posting video’s on common solutions to things such as maintaing your computer and other tasks such as defragging.

I always tell my clients how important it is to focus on promoting your web site by using the various tools on the Internet including YouTube.  I offered last week several clients a steak dinner to the first client to post a video on their website using YouTube.  With that said I need to put my money where my mouth is and show everyone how easy and effective it is.

Stay tuned in the next few days for a pretty exciting change to the Eligeo web site which I will be posting on here as well.

Memory, Memory, Memory

And I’m not talking about the short term or long term memory in your head!  It seems like a big drive to upgrade computers this week as I’ve been picking up RAM like it is going out of style.  We are upgrading one client with some new RAM to speed up the computers a bit more.  I find it amazing that some fairly powerful computers in terms of CPU power have little RAM in them.

Very busy day today.  An exciting day at the TELUS store for me as I went in to have my phone fixed.  The piece I needed for my Blackberry was a latch that connects on the back plate.  I broke it and lost it however a great lady at the TELUS store gave me a call and told me that she had a blackberry in that had water damage and that I could tear it apart.

I got there and tore that phone to pieces.  I got the latch AND a brand new back plate for my phone.  The ladies were so impressed with my Blackberry tearing apart skills that they didn’t even charge me.  God bless them!

Busy day but we’ll be back at it again tomorrow.

Virtualized Environments

I am becoming quite involved with using virtualized technology and it is also so easy to use.  Many of our clients in the coming months will be taking advantage of IBM Lotus Foundation’s Virtual Server component VMWare to do a lot of interesting windows tasks.

Have you ever thought you would run a Windows Small Business Server off of a Linux machine?  Not to mention using it as the primary domain controller.

How about running Vista, XP, 2000 and other operating systems for testing purposes all in a virtualized environment?  What about where you are developing code and need a controlled environment for testing?  Gone are the days of having to build computer systems.  Now all you have to do is load up an image of a virtual server and voila you are up and running.

IBM now includes the VMware components free of charge and is becoming an interesting product situation.  I am looking at a few of my clients who will be offered this type of solution for their business.  One computer with intelligent backup capabilities will go a long way to providing stability and efficiency for small businesses.

I will keep everyone posted over the next few weeks about the new things popping up in the shops of my clients.

Inspiration from Others

A really good friend of mine sent me an email today after I’ve been sharing a lot of things about law of attraction and the things that really drive me.  This is what I received:

“What makes me the proudest is that you have decided that you are going to make every day of every week of every year count for something by approaching it with positive and prowess.  That kind of energy and resolve helps not only you but those around you….and that includes me.”

This is by far the coolest comment I have ever received from someone.  So you know who you are, thank you!!  I hope I am having that effect on anyone else reading these posts as well.  I am so happy in my life and the things that are going on that I am glad that I am starting to have a real positive impact on those around me.

You can do the same and you can start today.  Start by picking up the book “The Secret” and then take it from there.  I am also starting to follow the Daily Teachings from the same author and it helps motivate me every morning.  You can do this too.