One of the guiding forces in my adult life has been to ask myself: what would I have done when I was a child? This sometimes leads to interesting decisions and a simple outlook on a life that can often be overwhelming and confusing. What does this look like in action? Childhood Activities Updated for...
I am so prone to inaction in the glorious summer months. Lazing about on a patch of grass, or staying in bed reading, is really all I need to be satisfied in the warm months. But, this year will be different. I have lived in Vancouver for a year and a half, and I have...
Photo Credit: Hartwig HKD If you have an interest in the motivational and productivity movements, then you may have heard this little tidbit: You are an average of your five closest friends Now, I can neither prove nor disprove this statement, but I still think it’s bullshit. As part of the motivational ethos, it is...
Photo Credit: Peretz Partensky I was a very lucky child. I lived in the same house from as soon as I can remember until the ripe age of 19, at which point I moved into my university’s residence. Since that fateful day in September 2006, I have moved a total of ten times, and sometimes...
Image Source: Crystal Sing Photography A note: I was a co-organizer for the Founder’s Collective event It’s been one week and I’m still basking in the afterglow of Founders Collective. On Saturday April 20th, over 100 female CEOs, founders and game-changers took over Launch Academy, a co-working space that is usually full of men. Meredith...
Last week I taught my very first workshop on online community building. It was part of Trade School Vancouver, which is a barter-driven community of people trading knowledge. I signed up to teach this course on community building in exchange for design help and surprises. It was by far one of the most rewarding things...
Photo Credit: kaneda99 Achieving your goals is not impossible, it’s simply a matter of changing your behaviour. That’s the trick everyone – just change your behaviour. Unfortunately, I have never really learned a surefire way of changing my behaviour. Last month, I decided to use the Internet and social media to find better ways of...
Is it reasonable to ask people to never, ever utter another excuse defending their inaction? Is it reasonable to draw raw, emotional dialogue from a crowd of people who have only spent 1 hour together? Last week’s #UNREASOLUTION event was an engaging and disarming goal-setting workshop that took place in the packed Institute B office....
Eustaquio Santimano via Compfight There is so much more to forming a new habit than setting a goal and *hoping* that we will feel motivated every day after that. Here are some of my tips for setting effective goals and examples of the goals that I made this year. Tips for Setting Effective Goals Blend...
…Or how I’m going to earn your vote all year long. Today is the launch of Vancouver’s Social Media Awards and I was lucky enough to be nominated in the Top 7 for the Who To Follow 2013 category. I have only lived in Vancouver for one year, but I have met awesome people, worked...
Trey Ratcliff via Compfight Who doesn’t love a good prediction post? Social media has brought about a proliferation of “X Trends for 2013″. The Internet and psychology underlie many industries and disciplines. Marketing? Yes. Public Relations? Yes. Interaction design? Yes. I could go on. Here are some trends that I think we will see in...
This is a quick reference social media style guide to be used when creating and using social media accounts. Twitter Profile Your profile should reflect your personality or brand Make sure to add a profile photo, a header photo, a URL, and a 160 character biography that reflects who you are and what you will...
I don’t think I could have possibly remembered all the amazing things that happened this year without the help of Facebook and Google. Google released their annual Zeitgeist video, which has managed to bring me to tears each year. Watching all the invigorating events that have taken place this year reminds me how powerful we...
Photo Credit: Free Portrait Vancouver Facebook Free Portrait Vancouver is a yearly non-profit event, in it’s third year, where residents and neighbours in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside can get a free professional portrait taken. I was lucky enough to be a volunteer at this event. I helped students and educators (and all-around lovely girls) from the...
I have been having a bit of a professional existential crisis. Although similar, it’s not as dramatic as a regular existential crisis. It mostly involves telling people that you’re “funemployed” and then laughing that you don’t know what you want to do next, while crying inside. This has led to both Kristina Simmons and Danny...
It might frustrate me, but it doesn’t surprise me, that second languages can be challenging to pick up. Learning a language engages our long-term memory, listening comprehension, and muscles in our jaw and tongue (and sometimes your hands). I decided to learn Russian a couple of years ago and the results have been mixed. Anything...
Hitchhiker's Guide to Toronto Startup Ecosystem, which draws it's inspiration from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Boston Tech Community, I knew that Vancouver needed one of it's own. Thanks to both authors for inspiring this resource.
I hope that this guide helps anyone new to Vancouver, new to a career in startups, or with a...
This post originally appeared on The Community Manager Imagine you could build your own online community from scratch. Given what you as a community manager know, you would probably be using community-centered design to help achieve your goals. What is community-centered design? Perhaps the easiest way to explain community-centered design is to contrast it with user-centered design....
One of the great democratizing features of social media is that anyone has the ability to do it well, from whole teams to individual people. This social media strategy template would be useful for a wide range of companies, brands and products because there are a lot of variables that can be adjusted to suit anyone’s...
Yug_and_her via Compfight One of the best ways to get practice building and managing communities is to build a personal following on Twitter. Today I was researching Twitter resources to pass along to someone who was newer to Twitter. I found a lot of Twitter for business guides, as well as guides to the basics...
katiemarinascott via Compfight With the way the world is going it looks like almost everyone will be able to write code and program in the very near future. As more and more of our work and play involves using technology it makes sense that many people want to exercise more control over the tools and...
Pecha Kucha is a fascinating presentation style where people talk alongside 20 slides that are shown for 20 seconds each. In a world full of short quips the length of the presentation doesn’t seem short at all, and for some it’s too long. By shortening the presentation time and allowing the visuals to play an...
In the past year I have come across more mental health campaigns than I have in the past 5 years. In our hyper-connected times we are able to communicate daily with people all over the world, so it’s no surprise that we’re beginning to tackle widespread issues. There are two issues that prevent people living...
I was lucky enough to catch Vancouver Opera‘s final matinee performance of ‘The Barber of Seville’ (or Il Barbiere di Siviglia as it was originally called). This was my second time at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for a Vancouver Opera production, the first was for a showing of ‘La Traviata’. My interest in opera was...
