Virgin Mobile is stepping it up in the customer service department. This summer, some Virgin Mobile members may get an extra surprise with a special hand delivery for replacement phones.

Sir Richard Branson personally made one of the first deliveries in Toronto to unsuspecting Virgin Mobile Member Adam Morrison. “I don’t even know what to say right now. I can’t believe you guys did this!” said Morrison. “I got my new phone right away and Richard Branson is here. He’s the coolest delivery person ever - and I didn’t even have to tip him!”

“Virgin Mobile is taking the idea of service to a whole new level and delivering it right to our Members’ doorsteps… literally,” said Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group.

Feel challenged yet? Service-based companies should look to Virgin as a benchmark. Thinking outside the box is certainly his trademark, but there’s no reason companies can’t follow Branson’s lead.

After nearly a century, The Canadian Press news service struck a tentative deal to transform itself into a for-profit company from an industry cooperative, the Globe and Mail reported.

According to an internal memo obtained by Canwest News Service, CP’s three biggest members — CTVglobemedia, which owns the Globe and Mail, Torstar Corp., which runs the Toronto Star, and Gesca, which owns La Presse — would become equal partners in a for-profit entity, to be called Canadian Press Enterprises.

The restructuring of the co-operative is a result of financial troubles — the news service struggled after CanWest Global Communications Corp. ended its subscription in 2007 and Quebecor Inc., owner of Sun Media Corp., left this year, the newspaper said. The new agreement is not final and would be subject to federal government approvals, it said.

We all understand the need to stay afloat, but I struggle with this move. CP is already fairly partisan on the side of the liberal party and the deal only confirms it. Partisan news is sticky, in my opinion, and undercuts the objectivity that news sources should aim for. Thoughts?

Walmart Canada announced today that its recent Children’s Miracle Network fundraising campaign raised a record $5.4 million to support Canadian children’s healthcare. Money raised will help fund critical hospital equipment, ambulatory-care services, research, education programs, and specialty services at children’s hospitals across Canada.

This is obviously great news. As is the company’scommitments to green business practices.

Question: Does local CSR cancel out practices that neglect the needs of the international community?

The GTA just experienced an earthquake! The first of my life. We’re okay. But I haven’t run faster down a flight of stairs in my life.

An expert and former oil worker from the U.S. Gulf is visiting Toronto today with a message for the Ontario Government: use the occasion of the tragic BP oil spill to chart a pathway off oil. Jerome Ringo will be speaking this evening at an event hosted by Environmental Defence called Bridging the Gulf: From Oil Spills to Clean Energy.

“If Ontario wants to help us down in Louisiana, it can do so by helping itself at the same time,” said Mr. Ringo. “We must all stop sending our money to oil companies to take ever bigger risks like offshore drilling and mining tar sands, and instead create jobs at home by powering our vehicles with clean energy.”

Mr. Ringo is a longtime U.S. Gulf advocate, a former Board member of the National Wildlife Federation, and past President of the Apollo Alliance, a group dedicated to the next ‘moon shot’ - the transition to clean energy. “I know from first-hand experience that what is happening in the U.S. Gulf is a heartbreaking tragedy, but an even bigger tragedy will be if we fail to learn from this and don’t chart a pathway off oil,” he said.

I would love to see this happen in my lifetime. But as a daily oil consumer (like the rest of us), I don’t see how this is viable. Most people can’t walk to work (especially in the GTA) and electric cars are expensive. I’m interested to hear Ringo’s ideas.

Back in April, when George Media attended the G8/G20 Business Summit in Gatineau (coverage can be found at www.cbj.ca) I witnessed some of the most enlightened business leaders in the world present the reasons to do business, together. It took me some time to let the real impacts of this event sink in, but alas, here we are and I’m really coming to grips with the messages conveyed at the Summit-just in time for the Leaders’ Summits later this month.

Along with other politicians, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the stage, for quite some time on the second day of events. Normally, Harper is a PM whom I’m fine to support-provided his platform is based on solid fact. For the most part, he did a great job in Gatineau. Harper was quick to illustrate, during his panel discussion with John Manley and Perrin Beatty, that Canadian society is just as well-balanced as its economy.

However, much to my chagrin, he also made a very contentious general statement about Canadian society. I count this as a massive PR mistake, despite the fact that I was likely one of only two or three people that took issue with Harper’s statement (if they heard it).

“I think something has to be said about the Canadian society itself. It’s not that we try to tell our foreign visitors that this country is perfect, but Canada has, in a sense, the first truly globalized population. It is a country where we have people from every background, for the most part successfully integrated, and we have none of the deep social tensions and cleavages that mark so many other societies” Harper said-surely much to the disappointment of anyone in the audience of First Nations origin, or anyone from Quebec. I’m sure there were other audience members who felt alienated…but who am I to say anything? I just think whoever prepped him did a half-baked job.

I had to ask myself, more than a few times, did he really just say that? Stay tuned for an article in CBJ about social tension and how it affects business relationships.

In the meantime, discuss.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, publically faced criticism against the company for its failure to safeguard user privacy in a column in the Washington Post. “In the coming weeks,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use…[and]…give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services.”

Many Facebook users, too many for Zuckerberg’s liking, are organizing a “Quit Facebook day” to show their displeasure with their privacy being threatened. On May 26, the “Quit Facebook Day” website was reached 20,000 members who see Zuckerberg’s mea culpa as too little, too late.

Facebook has the whole privacy settings in reverse. Instead of having to go and manually “opt-out” of privacy settings that potentially sell your personal information to companies, users should have first been required to opt-in.

Will you be deleting your Facebook account? Is privacy on the internet concern you? Share your thoughts with us on the privacy matter.

Here I was, sitting at my desk trying to articulate for our readers how frustrating it is that no-one has really measured the amount of oil spilled off of the Gulf of Mexico in the last few weeks (one of the PR mistakes in this disaster), but I thought I’d point to another blog about this very same topic, which illustrates the exact point that bothers me.

Felix Salmon, a writer with Reuters, puts it perfectly when he says “So let’s get down there and measure this thing” since no-one has really reported a true figure of barrels of oil spilled.

Felix asks “Why release a point estimate? Well, if the NOAA had released a range — say 3,000 to 30,000 barrels a day — then the press would have gravitated to the higher number, and talked about a spill of “as much as 30,000 barrels a day” – which, true to his thoughts, is exactly what the media is going to do.

No matter which way you flip it, this is all very, very bad. And a difference of a couple of zeros isn’t going to change public perception that someone needs to pay for this accident.

See Felix’s piece:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/05/14/lies-damn-lies-and-oil-spill-statistics.

CBJ is back the G8/G20 Summit, with a huge task on our hands—to put together coverage from what was coined as the “most important business event of the year”. We met many dynamic business and political leaders at the event, and we plan to share with you our stories from the Canada/EU Forum and the Summit in the June issue of CBJ. For now, take a look at the Honourable Perrin Beatty’s remarks about the event, posted today on the Chamber’s website at www.chamber.ca.

“Representatives of the leading business organizations in the world joined Canadian businesspeople, academics and government officials this week for the Canadian Chamber’s Canada-EU Forum and our G8/20 Business Summit. The meetings were particularly timely, coming as Canada negotiates a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with Europe and as our country prepares to host world leaders at the G8 and G20 meetings in June.

While the global recession took its toll on Canadian businesses and families, just as it did throughout the world, our country weathered the storm much better than most others and is looked to as an example for other countries to follow. Prime Minister Harper, who spoke to the G8/20 Business Summit, set out a clear agenda for the leaders’ meetings and has an opportunity now to help steer the global economy away from recession and towards greater prosperity.

The chair of The Canadian Chamber’s Board of Directors, Shauneen Bruder, did an outstanding job of presiding over the meetings and of helping to build the international business community’s agenda for the G20 heads of government to consider when they assemble in Toronto in less than two months. Both the heads of international business associations and Canadian CEOs like Rick George of Suncor and Bruce Ross of IBM Canada underscored how interconnected our economies have become and how we have to look for new technologies and new strategies to overcome the pressing challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that exist at this point in the world’s development. It will take a combination of wise national policies in each country and concerted global action for us to succeed.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest was our keynote luncheon speaker at the Canada-EU Forum. He made a compelling case for Canadian and European leadership in negotiating a comprehensive agreement that can help restore momentum to the effort to eliminate global trade barriers. Success in negotiating an agreement would send a powerful message to the rest of the world that the way to achieve economic health is through increasing our trade and investment with one another, and not by erecting barriers.

These back-to-back international conferences demonstrated how the Canadian Chamber, as the voice of Canadian business, can play an essential role in promoting growth and opportunity. We were proud to welcome the world to Canada this week and we look forward to working with our Canadian and international partners to ensure a healthier economy both in Canada and around the world.”

- Perrin Beatty, President and CEO, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Today, I joined some of the top business leaders in Canada and Europe for an open dialogue on bi and multi-lateral trade at the Canada-EU Forum hosted by The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, along with the lead negotiators in the current discussions for the Canada - EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This event took place following the third round of the negotiations, and I have to say, it was impressive to see so many people from different countries in the same room—with the same ultimate goal of promoting business.

The CETA is estimated to create $40B in trade and services opportunities, and the group that assembled in the theatre at the Hilton Lac Leamy Casino in Gatineau all conveyed the same message: CETA can only benefit Canadians and Europeans, especially in this time of economic recovery. Although it was a relatively subdued event, things were lightened up when Hon. Jean Charest, Premier of Québec delivered his keynote address at lunch, and attendees were treated to a candid speech about the importance of developing business relations.

In-depth coverage of the Forum, and the G8-G20 Business Summit (happening tomorrow) will be in the June issue of CBJ—but for now, stay tuned for an updated blog after the event. It was announced today that PM Stephen Harper will be showing up—with any luck, I will run into him at the luncheon.