Browsing “50 Coffees Series”

37 weeks ago I read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over 50 weeks I’m inviting 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m using this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #37 Name: Brent Toderian Occupation: City Planner + Urbanist Beverage: Hot chocolate

Meet Brent Toderian. Former Chief Planner for the City of Vancouver, current proprietor of Toderian Urban Works, he has influenced and implemented policy at City Hall for years and is now working as a consultant. Like my last 50 Coffees subject, Yuri Artibise (who sat in the exact same chair where he’s pictured below), Brent is the dictionary definition of the word “urbanist”: He’s “A specialist in the study and planning of cities” and from what I see, and what he tells me, I think he’s done a damned good job of it.

I introduced you to him last week when I shared THIS photo that he shot along with his thoughts on The Village on False Creek being not just balanced, but a remarkable community. He went into greater detail about the international awards that it continues to win month after month and I recommend you look back on it HERE. I also quoted him in my recent POST about the future of the viaducts and his opinion that they should come down.

And while I may have quoted him twice since we went to coffee I haven’t quite yet exhausted the trove of inspiration he left me with after we parted ways from Terra Breads. One opinion he shared, which I fully agree with, concerns The Village on False Creek where we met, where that Terra Breads operates, and where I obviously now live. He said that “Once fully complete, the new square and seawall may arguably be the best public space in the city”, By “fully complete” he meant once the Urban Fare, the London Drugs and the Tap + Barrel restaurant open up, those being what may be the final pieces to really bring the area to life. It’s been 4 weeks since I moved in to this place and after the first day it was obvious that this new neighbourhood, to me, and to my neighbours, is incredibly well planned. Follow my In The Village On False Creek series over the coming months as I bring you more.

And rest assured that you haven’t seen the last of Mr Toderian on our blog – he’s now one of my top go-to urbanists!

36 weeks ago I read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over 50 weeks I’m inviting 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m using this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #36 Name: Yuri Artibise Occupation: Director of Community Engagement Beverage: Dark roast coffee

Meet Yuri Artibise. Public policy analyst, urbanist, and sharer of ways to make our cities more livable, community-oriented places. He currently works full time as the Director of Community Engagement of Vancouver’s PlaceSpeak which, in case you’re not already familiar, is an online location-based community consultation platform. He also contributes articles to Spacing Vancouver, heads up Vancouver’s Jane’s Walks and has his finger in miscellaneous other urban pies.

We had chatted briefly in the past but prior to this coffee we’d never had a chance to really sit down and rap, and seeing as he’s actually a new neighbour of mine in the Village on False Creek we decided to meet up first thing in the morning at Terra Breads before we both headed to our offices. He’s been living in the Village for the last few months and so we talked about the community down there, then about his work with Placespeak, about the future of the viaducts (which you can see behind him in the distance) and about housing and development in Vancouver. We also discovered that we have more in common than facial hair and our thoughts on change being a constant: we’ve both spent years living and working in the states. In neighbouring states, no less; he in Arizona and I in California.

It was great to be able to spend some time exchanging ideas with Yuri and I really look forward to the possibility of collaboration and just general good-neighbour-ness with him in the future. Follow him on TWITTER, have a look at his PORTFOLIO SITE, and of course bookmark PLACESPEAK. Oh, and take the URBAN FUTURES SURVEY already! It’s one of the ways that you can truly help shape the future of our region. Don’t blow it!

35 weeks ago I read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over 50 weeks I’m inviting 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m using this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #35 Name: Robert Fung Occupation: President Beverage: Latte

Meet Robert Fung. President of The Salient Group (a neighbour of ours just a few blocks away in Gastown), member of UBC’s Board Of Governors, three time offender on Vancouver Magazine’s “Power 50″ list and an advocate for heritage buildings in our city. Robert runs his development company out of what is unarguably one of the most precious buildings in Vancouver, and we met next door at The Coffeebar, a retail tenant in a building which he also helped breathe new life into.

You might recognize The Salient Group’s name from the recent POST we did on their Trapp + Holbrook highrise project in New West, but unless you looked closely you might not have clued in to the fact that their work involves taking heritage properties and rehabilitating them. THAT IS SO AWESOME! Last year they received top honours from Heritage BC for their work rehabilitating large parts of Gastown, one part being the block pictured below which includes the aforementioned “unarguable” building officially known as The Alhambra which Gassy Jack has been standing in front of for decades.

Synonyms of the word “salient” include “important”, “striking” and “remarkable”, all of which I would equate with the work that Robert and his team do, as well as the opinions that he shared with me over coffee. As I learn more and more about development in our city I’m surprised by the amount of compassionate, forward-thinking folks involved at every level, especially the top as is Robert’s case. Having a degree in anthropology under his belt, I imagine it helps educate his work as he takes every human component into consideration to make sure the developments he’s working on benefit the entire community. Working with the delicate fabric of a city, keeping its past, present and future in mind are what I see as key factors in Robert’s work having positive impacts on our city. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more from him and The Salient Group in the future.

34 weeks ago I read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I’ve decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over 50 weeks I’m inviting 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m using this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #34 Name: David Allison Occupation: Marketing professional/President Beverage: Cappuccino

Meet David Allison. President of Braun/Allison and a somewhat close neighbour to V.I.A. on Pender Street. David runs his real estate marketing company out of the Sun Tower, where we met for coffee, and his Twitter bio will tell you that they “build marketing campaigns for resort/residential real estate projects, globally. I blog for @RENXca www.renx.ca I am Metis, and I collect contemporary art.”. This bio is pretty much a perfect shining example of my understanding of what it is that they do: they promote transparency at every stage of development projects and utilize storytelling to engage an audience and market real estate.

One of the projects that they’ve done recently is in the aforementioned building that their office is in; the historical Sun Tower. Using the SunTowerBuilding.com web site as an anchor showcasing the history of this great piece of our city’s history as well as sharing its current amenities and running a regularly updated blog, even if you’re not the least bit interested in renting a spot there to run your office out of it’s still an interesting online destination. In my eyes it’s a great example of marketing done right, and if you were to write a book about new ways of marketing real estate it could be a chapter in it. Oh, wait… Braun/Allison released a book on that very subject. And it’s free. HERE.

Beyond real estate marketing I learned that David is also the director of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, and that he’s an avid art collector. See that boy scout uniform behind him? It’s an art piece that Doug Coupland put together for him as a gift. Nice!

Follow David on twitter at @BADavid and stay tuned for more 50 Coffees!

I recently read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I’ve decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over the next 50 weeks I’m going to invite 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m going to use this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #33 Name: Rachel Thexton Occupation: PR Professional Beverage: Latte

Meet Rachel Thexton. Partner in Dunn PR, dog lover and another friend of mine that I’m breaking my own “strangers only” rule for so that I can introduce you to her. I’m breaking this rule because Rachel sums up all of the qualities of somebody that I would vote for if there were a “Best PR Person in Vancouver” award and I was on the judging panel as a publisher.

Yes we’ve gone for coffee before, in fact the very first time she reached out to me via email with a story that I thought was interesting she followed up by asking if we could go for coffee so she could learn about what we do here and what she should and shouldn’t be pitching to me. To put this into perspective for you, there are PR people in Vancouver who have been sending me emails for 2 years whom I have never picked up a story from, but whom continue to BCC me on their mailing lists, never actually asking me what I want to hear about or bothering to spend time on our site to see what we’re all about so they can specifically pitch me subjects that might have a better chance of getting published. I have never met these people in real life nor talked to them on the phone and I doubt I ever will. Rachel is the extreme opposite of those faceless PR people which is the reason why I’ve picked up arts stories from her over the years and continue to work with her. In fact I look forward to hearing what she’s got for me next. She reaches out with stories that she thinks I might like, and there are clients and stories that she knows I won’t be interested in, so she doesn’t contact me about those. And she can take no for an answer. And she works with us on stories. AND she’s been connecting us with awesome rescue groups that we’ve been featuring on our Dogtown Vancouver and Van City Kitty features because she’s an animal lover. And she’s just generally really nice. Just look at that smile!

It was a pleasure to spend time at Everything Cafe near the V.I.A. office talking with Rachel about her work and what she’s been up to lately. Check out what she does on the Dunn PR website, follow her on Twitter at @RThexton and stay tuned for more 50 Coffees!

I recently read a theory that going for 50 coffees with people you’ve never met is the entrepreneur’s equivalent to the theory that doing anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert on it. While I get the idea, 50 coffees is far easier than practicing something for ten years, and while I’m far from lazy I’ve decided to set out on a fairly simple mission: over the next 50 weeks I’m going to invite 50 interesting Vancouverites, most of whom I have never met before, to go for coffee. I’m going to use this as an exercise in networking for myself and for V.I.A. while also using it as a platform to introduce you to some people who are doing really cool stuff in the city you live in. COFFEE #32 Name: Mark Brand Occupation: Entrepreneur Beverage: Dark roast

Meet Mark Brand. Proprietor of the latest incarnation of Save On Meats, a serial entrepreneur who has launched a number of Gastown/DTES restaurants and businesses, and the recent subject of a documentary TV series which you can now watch the entire first season of online, for free (HERE).

We met inside the diner side of Save On, a place I’ve been visiting semi-regularly for lunch since it re-opened. In case you haven’t been yet, the next door over to the West is where the butcher shop and the meat counter is, and it’s a place I’ve also been visiting for months, picking up meat after work for my family’s meals (sausages are a weekly favourite in our household). Though a loyal patron and a fan of what he and his team have been doing less than three blocks away from the V.I.A. office, Mark and I hadn’t formally met before this coffee went down.

After a quick chat Mark took me upstairs and gave me a tour of what you’ll see in all of the episodes of the show, Gastown Gamble, that’s all about how they’re running this social enterprise doing a ton of good for the DTES community and the entire city. The show is real, so authentic that you may have noticed I call it a “documentary TV series” as opposed to a “reality show”. Since our first coffee we’ve met a few more times and I can safely say that Mark is an incredibly awesome and inspiring human being, and I am extremely happy that we’re in the middle of cooking up a collaborative project we’ll be launching here in the coming months. Stay tuned for much more Save On Meats x V.I.A. goodness in the future and, in the meantime, go watch the SHOW!

And stay tuned for more 50 Coffees!