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44 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. |
Meet Lesli Boldt. President of Boldt Communications, civic affairs panelist on CKNW 980AM (Tuesday mornings at 9 with Frances Bula, Michael Geller and Bill Good), and a recent addition to the Board of Directors for the Georgia Strait Alliance.
We met at Terra Breads in the Village and she told me all about her company that she founded 11 years ago. What they do is specialize in helping clients tell their story — about who they are, what they believe in and how they do business — in a compelling and honest way. Clients include Vancity, UBC, The City of Vancouver, Rennie Marketing Systems, Fairware, Terra Breads and the David Suzuki Foundation, to name a few.
During the 2010 Olympics she managed the City of Vancouver's Games-related communications and has also worked on communications for The Village on False Creek with Rennie Marketing Systems, so she's now a go-to for me when it comes to finding more information about my new neighbourhood that I've been studying and WRITING about. Since meeting for this coffee a couple of weeks back we now have a running joke that between the two of us nobody knows (or cares) as much about the fine details of the Village as we do. Maybe the design manager who put together the Olympic Village, Roger Bayley, will claim his rightful throne as King but until he does Lesli and I have staked our claims on it.
But let's get serious here and talk about my one true love: fishing! As I mentioned, Lesli is now on the board of directors of the Georgia Strait Alliance, which is not a support group for workers of Vancouver's arts and entertainment weekly but is actually an environmental advocacy group. They're "the only citizen's group focused on protecting the marine environment in and around the whole Strait of Georgia - the place where most British Columbians live, work and play". As a sportfisherman and as someone who loves to travel around the coastal waters of our province (and someone who lives next to the water in the aforementioned Village on False Creek), I'm thrilled to have made Lesli's acquaintance so that in the future I might pick her brain about issues that affect something I love... and maybe even chip in and offer my help where I can.
Learn more about Boldt Communications HERE and the Georgia Strait Alliance HERE.
And stay tuned for more 50 Coffees!
