Monthly Archive: May 2023

My name is Rod McQueen and I want to be a CEO. Not one of those home-based businesses or some tiny tech firm, I’m scaling the corporate cliffs and getting ready for the pinnacle by looking like I deserve to be there. First, I have to assemble the appropriate accoutrements. There will be no casual Fridays, puh-leez. I plan to get myself a few Kiton suits (at $10,000 each), a raft of Brioni shirts ($800 each), and a shelf-full of Ferragamo shoes ($1,000 per pair), and then accessorize the dress-for-success wardrobe with a top-of-the-line Cartier watch costing up to $250,000....

I was talking recently to a friend with whom I worked at the London Free Press. He still lives in London and told me that the Free Press building was being demolished. Demolished, I thought, it was just built in 1965. Then I thought, oops, that was fifty-eight years ago. We must have been teenagers at the time. I was lucky enough to win the London Free Press Editorial Award as a result of writing a high school news column in Guelph, my home town. The award paid for half my tuition at what is now Western University plus $1,000...

My book on BlackBerry, published in 2010, took four years, twice as long as any other book I’d written at the time. Convincing the company to grant access was a lengthy effort. Even then, getting interviews on a timely basis was problematic. In all my years as a journalist and author, I’d never run across such a poorly organized company. The book came out in March 2010 when the popularity of BlackBerry was at its peak with 75 million sold and a 50 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market. Another book, Losing the Signal, by Jacquie McNish and Sean...