“I have had Della visit my Public Relations class as a guest speaker every year for the past 12 years, and each year she brings a thoroughly researched, fresh new perspective on current events that are shaping our world. Her boundless passion and rich experience in the communications field provide an incomparable education for my students, and a generous dose of inspiration as well.”

— Geoffrey Bird, Communications and Marketing Instructor, British Columbia Institute of Technology

“I have worked with Della in all three of my senior management positions, Vice President Operations at Greyhound, President of Brewers Distributors, Vice President Motor Coach at Pacific Western.

Della has always helped not only forming and setting our strategic direction, but once set, communicating it as well. Della is always prepared and very thoughtful in her approach and when buy-in on some of the issues with the team was critical, she delivered.”

— Garry Clermont, Past-President, Brewers Distributor Ltd.

“The team at Q Workshops is one of our boutique communications agency’s best assets. We work with a range of high-profile clients that attract extensive media attention on a regular basis. We work with the Q team for media and other training as a foundational part of our work with clients because we know the value that Q delivers. Every. Single. Time.

A good example of this is a client in the nanotechnology/healthcare field that played an important role in the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (including one approved for emergency use in Canada and globally). We knew that their work would attract media attention across the country and worldwide, so we asked the Q team to train the spokespeople and the management team. We were not disappointed.

The Q team’s extensive experience in the world of life sciences, and their ability to ramp up quickly in this niche scientific area, is exceptional. They collaborated closely with us to develop a media training session customized to the client’s organization – one that would support the spokespeople, who are scientists, to explain their work in a way that the average person would understand. Their work in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine work was a huge achievement for our client and one that they wanted to make the most of. Our client also wanted to ensure that they spoke to the safety and efficacy of the approved COVID-19 vaccines to help educate the public in this area. The client and AHA saw this as a social responsibility because of all of the misinformation and inaccuracies around vaccines shared during the pandemic. The Q team was right there with us in this.

The Q team helped our client define their key messages and get comfortable being in the spotlight on the world stage. We saw a clear shift in how they communicated – and not just for media interviews. Many on the management team, who were also media trained, have told us how effective it was and how they are using the skills they learned in many other areas of their professional (and personal) lives.

 We generated media coverage in outlets from The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star to CNN International, W5 and CTV National to Fortune Magazine, Maclean’s, Bloomberg and MSN.com (to name just a few). Our client did more than 45 interviews with journalists whose understanding of the science ranged from basic to expert – and the spokesperson did well in every interview because he had been media trained by the Q team, and he was prepared. In addition, multiple media outlets picked up the syndicated coverage from the interviews, and the client’s message (clear and engaging thanks to Q) was seen, read or heard in more than 300 different publications, radio and television shows, and podcasts.

 When we draft strategic communications plans for organizations, we always identify where we can engage Q Workshops because they bring so much value to our clients. They are smart, skilled and collaborative. Add to this that they are great humans and a joy to work with – and you can see why we consider the Q team as a key part of ours. ”

— Ruth Atherley, Senior Communications Strategist and Content Creator, AHA Creative Strategies

“We had an exceptionally complex and highly sensitive public policy issue that we needed to communicate across the province as fast as we possibly could with emotions running extremely high. We knew the communications challenge was immense as just one wrong step could have cost us credibility or sent us back to square one, and we knew we the town hall was our one shot to get it right.

Despite that immense challenge, Della somehow found that sweet spot where dynamic discourse and skilled facilitation allowed the profession to face the problem directly and honestly, but then moved us to a place where broad understanding and support for a solution was possible. Their deep knowledge of facilitation, technology, and the needs of people in the audience saved us time, money and endless frustration. Q was simply outstanding.”

— Mykle Ludvigsen, Former Director of Public Accountability and Engagement, College of Pharmacists of BC