I’ve spent the last decade riding trails from Hardwood to the Don Valley to Hornby Island, but like any junkie will tell you, you can never reclaim that first high. And I don’t expect to – my current bike is a more capable, robust sample of American engineering (and Taiwanese manufacturing) than that white Norco, and my skill has increased exponentially since that August ride in 2008. But there’s something more at work…
Read MoreThe impact of your friends can be limited to your personal life, if you so choose. And if all you want from them is to drag you out hiking or introduce you to your new favourite sushi restaurant, that’s okay. But your five closest friends represent greater potential for growth than just expanding your culinary horizons; if you let them, they can make you smarter. And as far as your career is concerned, your friends can bring you closer to the people and solutions that will give you a definitive edge.
Read MoreWhat’s the first thing you see when you land on a recruiter’s website? If you’ve been wrapped up in the hunt for jobs or clients, you’ve probably begun to notice a pretty pronounced theme on all the ‘sites you visit: pictures of trendy young professionals cheerfully collaborating. Then, there’s lots of information: a forward-thinking mission statement, a go-get-‘em story… you get the picture.
Read MoreAll our lives, we meander through plastic fields of impending garbage. Our thousand-dollar iPhones, our flat-screen TVs, our designer toasters, and of course, our fickle printers – all of it rapidly approaching the eternal ignominy of the trash heap.
Yeah, super original thought, I know. But this isn’t a cliché rant about the opulent waste left behind by the developed world. We all know that it’s easier and often cheaper just to replace something when it breaks, and that “back in my day, we built things to last.” That’s not my point here.
Read MoreThat satisfying tactile kuh-klunk of the gearstick slamming its way through what appears to be a billion-speed gearbox is evocative. The offbeat bellow of a cross-plane V8, the squeal of tires, the tactility of the manual transmission… it’s raw, and it’s primal. You want to be that chisel-jawed young man careening in a state of suspended catastrophe through a crowded city centre. You want to be the one stomping the clutch pedal and sweating into the soft Alcantara steering wheel.
Read MoreI was surrounded by MBA students and enterprising grads. And I was Shane: one of 70 graduates of a small high school in southern Alberta. I did well; I had to. My role was to recruit relevant industry experts, either on behalf of current clients, or proactively for future needs. As a pet project, I started to recruit nobel laureates, going so far as to snare the inventor of the MRI machine. I was recruiting people, yet I didn’t suspect I’d ever become a recruiter.
Read MoreIt’s hard to quantify your impact, but I believe we can always be more. If you, like me, found yourself drawn to Vancouver, you’re aware of the limitless sense of possibility surrounding us. Nobody is just an urbanite; we’re active, we’re versatile, and when we look beyond the cityscape, we see ourselves in the mountains, the forests, and the oceans. There’s always more here.
Read MoreSome of us worry about picking the perfect gift. Others try to push the mounting credit card bills to the back of their minds. Still others lose sleep at the thought of one more trip through the crowded halls of Christmas jingles and anxious shoppers that are shopping malls this time of year.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in all the personal and family stress of the holidays, but at one point or another we end up in a warm, bright room with our family and friends, eating a regrettable amount of food and passing out gifts.
Read MoreThis summer, I was faced with finding an internship placement to round out my education at the Ryerson School of Journalism. Vague, general job descriptions clearly written as an afterthought pervaded the RSJ job boards, but one of very few exceptions was the post for Glance Marketing. Among the single-paragraph, cookie cutter job descriptions was their two-page PDF that listed specific tasks with more enthusiasm than the rest of the postings combined. This was the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
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