These are the stories that matter. This is what keeps me going!
Shannon Boland-Musseau used AI to make a major change in her small business.
“I had the opportunity to attend a Halifax Chamber of Commerce event in October. One of the presenters was Matt Symes, CEO of Symplicity Designs.
That one hour was mind changing. I knew I wasn’t using AI to the best of my ability, if at all.
You see, we are in the event and wedding industry and we handle a large volume of stationery for our clients. Everything from seating charts, place cards and menus and that process traditionally took several hours if not a full day.
Place cards especially were extremely tedious, with a high chance of human error because of the detailed information involved, like guest names and meal selections not to mention changing table numbers.
Leaving that conference I asked my designer to try to find a way to put AI to the test. She was hesitant and felt overwhelmed at first but I told her to give it a try for an hour and see what she could come up with by using Canva’s AI features. To our surprise it was not as difficult as we thought and within that hour she was able to completely streamline this part of our business.
Our clients can now fill out a simple form on their end with all their guest information, meal choices, and any other required details.
That information is then automatically populated into a working template we already use in Canva as part of our design process and now the errors are all on their end if there are any!
Once the form is sent and returned we download and literally with a single click, Canva generates the full set of 150 to 400 names (depending on the size of the event).
What used to take hours of manual work is now ready instantly to send to print.
This integration has been a game changer for us. It hasn’t just saved a tremendous amount of time and reduced labor costs, it has also revived a part of our business I was seriously considering letting go because of how demanding it had become.
Thank you for educating small businesses like mine with AI and I look forward to continuing to learn from your success.”
And I know that it is these stories that keeps pushing Becky Davison, MBA, PMP and Patrick Sullivan forward!
It is why I’m so grateful that Dave Doucette of Roynat Capital and Krista Han of Doane Grant Thornton LLP have joined Dhirendra Shukla and myself at the UNB’s J Herbert Smith Centre (JHSC)
There is no reason that every business can’t benefit from AI.
We’ve put these opportunities in front of more than 1100 leaders in the last
And in our check-ins we keep finding the return they’ve been able to unlock. It is so rewarding to connect so many business owners with real value just like Shannon.
BTW – Congrats Shannon on being a 2026 Halifax Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Finalist!
