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Calgary & Alberta Economy

InfrastructureEnthusiast said:
But each of those startups will employ at least a few local people, and lease a bit of office space. Some of the money will go into things like legal council, or engineering consultants which may or may not be local. Ditto with the data side, though many startups may not fully trust the cloud with their brainchild and decide to use a local data center instead.
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Agreed, for a smaller company a lot of the IT stuff could end up being remote, possibly all of it being remote. My own experience with IT is that in almost all cases they would still need a company that could at least provide local IT people, even if all of the servers and storage were in the cloud. I think that's the reason companies like Emphasis and Infosys set up offices here. Many companies like to have people with a local presence, plus some of the IT like network and desktop needs someone local, especially if the company starts to grow.
This is just from from my own experience, but I have seen that going to the cloud 100% isn't feasible for many situations. As companies grow I predict most will be hybrid environments.
 
My experience dealing with IT that was remote was 100% terrible and my company ended up going back to hiring some local people, but still keeping some of the IT remote, which amounted mostly to simple things like helpdesk taking tickets and even then they were awful at it. Like in, I don’t know how these people could be so bad. It was mind-boggling. Lol
Anyhow, for whatever reason, the company decided to keep some of the IT stuff remote, even though everybody including management knew it was terrible, probably because it was alot cheaper I’m guessing, but a lot of the other IT functions ended up, coming back to in-house.
We got involved with Longview, which was probably more money, but had a local presence and better service. We had a Longview guy on site plus other people coming in regularly.
 
CBBarnett said:
I always wonder about the actual value in these kinds of VC funding numbers broken out by city - how much, if anything does it translate to on the ground in the cities they list?

I assume there’s a few jobs that are supported, but loads of this work is distributed and international, raising money here doesn’t mean jobs or spending here necessarily. Plus funding is spent on all sorts of random things like data storage and processing, so doesn’t really mean anything to the locality in which the money was raised.

These articles are always a bit too boostery- big numbers with arrows that point up to help sell cities, but always stop short of explaining what practical value has been created in jobs or spending or local investments.

Perhaps I’m just too old now and don’t get this part of the economy, but these articles comparing VC funding seem a bit more of a sales pitch than a useful economic indicator. Would appreciate if someone was able to explain this to help change my mind.
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The articles are what they are, they’re meant to capture readers, but this is good news no matter which way you look at it.
There’s no way to break out exactly how much economic benefit comes to Calgary but one thing for sure is there will be an economic benefit of some kind. It’s the same with Vancouver or Toronto, and that’s why it doesn’t hurt to compare against those cities. Comparison really is more of a gauge to see where Calgary is at in general.
Articles like that make me feel good about Calgary’s situation and for good reason.
 
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Chinook Arch said:
My experience dealing with IT that was remote was 100% terrible and my company ended up going back to hiring some local people, but still keeping some of the IT remote, which amounted mostly to simple things like helpdesk taking tickets and even then they were awful at it. Like in, I don’t know how these people could be so bad. It was mind-boggling. Lol
Anyhow, for whatever reason, the company decided to keep some of the IT stuff remote, even though everybody including management knew it was terrible, probably because it was alot cheaper I’m guessing, but a lot of the other IT functions ended up, coming back to in-house.
We got involved with Longview, which was probably more money, but had a local presence and better service. We had a Longview guy on site plus other people coming in regularly.
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Don’t even get me started on remote IT support. 😡 that’s a whole thread unto itself.
 
From Calgary Economic Development, so a bit of a chest puffing piece, but it still highlights good things that are happening.
calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com

Why international tech firms are choosing Calgary for their North American expansions | Calgary Economic

Calgary is a top destination for global tech expansions and VeriPark, a leading fintech firm from London, is the latest example. The company opened its new Calgary office this month, drawn in by the city’s impressive talent pool, business-friendly environment and unmatched livability.
calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Big fan of the show, something my wife and I can watch together, wonder if it is a season (as they've done recently) or a quick trip abroad. If Top Chef US is here, I'd say our food scene is on the map!
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The next season of Top Chef US has been announced as being in "Canada" (with the promo featuring judge Gail Simmons in her hometown of Toronto). There's been a lot of filming in Toronto apparently, although host Kristen and Gail were posing at Inglewood Drive-In on Kristen's instagram. The way the US show is filmed is typically with a single major location, with one or two episodes filmed doing an excursion nearby during the season and then the last few episodes filmed somewhat later in a completely different location. For example, the most recent season ("Wisconsin") was filmed in Milwaukee; there was a two episode trip to Madison fairly early in the run, and then the finale was filmed on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Vancouver/Whistler was the finale location of one season (the not-great Texas season). The show does a lot of work on promoting local restaurants and food businesses, and is underwritten heavily by tourism boards.

My guess is that the main season is set in Toronto, with a couple of day trips (Niagara for sure, perhaps cottage country?), and then Calgary/Banff is either the semi-finale location for the last 6-8 chefs with an overseas finale, or we are hosting the actual finale.

Albertasaurus said:
Good to see. I have nothing against Westerns, but its nice to see things filming here that aren't Westerns. To see our movie industry really thrive we need to be more than a niche player.
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A rumour is that a challenge will involve cooking on covered wagons.
 
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