Francesca Gabaldon, above: “I don’t want anyone to feel lost and alone, like my mom when she came to Canada.”

RECYCLED: This article was originally published in October 2007

Dozens of women sit at hexagon-shaped tables eating from paper plates piled high with rice noodle salad, cornmeal tostadas, meatballs and bison cranberry stew. International potluck cuisine, I call it. One woman skillfully nabs a chocolate-dipped strawberry with her chopsticks while a young girl in a frilly pink dress happily eats with her fingers. Their meals are interrupted by some yelling at the front of the room.

“I want to apologize,” Lynn Berry shouts over the jackhammers ra-ta-ta-tating one floor below. “Normally they aren’t doing construction at night. I don’t know long this will go on.”

I think back to the conversation I had with Berry yesterday, when she gave me directions to this gathering at Bow Valley College in downtown Calgary. “There’s so much talking going on at these sessions,” she said, “sometimes I think I need to bring a blow horn because there’s so much energy.” And that was sans jackhammers.

Tonight’s potluck is a graduation of sorts for this year’s New Horizons Mentoring Program. Established in 2004 by the Youth in Motion education foundation, a charitable organization with offices in Calgary and Toronto, the six-month program pairs mentors with immigrant protégés. It’s designed not only to help immigrant women find jobs and settle into their new lives in Canada, but also to give mentors an intimate window into cultures around the world. Through monthly get-togethers such as this one, as well as phone calls, e-mails and one-on-one meetings, mentees get help in their search for meaningful work. But as mentors discover, immigrant women, no matter where they’re from, inevitably encounter hurdles.

Tonight’s jackhammer symphony is a small glitch compared to the onslaught of obstacles new immigrants confront every day: language barriers, cultural differences, housing problems – even shyness can be a major challenge. I learned a lot about these stumbling blocks while living and working in Afghanistan for most of 2004. Based in Kabul as a stringer with the Toronto Star, I started and ran a monthly political newspaper for a Canadian non-governmental organization. Rah-e-Naw (translation: enlightenment) was written and produced mostly by women.

Although the dozen women I worked with were aspiring journalists, many were timid and shy. They lacked self-confidence. That was understandable: their spirits had been beaten down for years by Taliban men who believe that women are weak and feeble and should be cloaked in burkas. Even today, many women in Kabul (which is far more liberal than rural Afghanistan) don’t go out at night because, as the newspaper staff told me and believed, no respectable woman is seen in public after dark.

One 17 year old, Ellaha, was painfully shy at first, rarely making eye contact. She always wore bulky, dark clothing. But after several weeks as the newspaper’s graphic artist and editorial cartoonist, she transformed into a determined woman who cracked jokes, wore colourful clothes and made regular trips to the male-dominated printing house.

Gawhar, a journalism student at Kabul University, blushed and giggled – a lot – when we met. But after a few months of hard, dedicated work, she began to shine as the newspaper’s star, crafting impressive investigative articles. She single-handedly broke a story about election corruption after ferreting out Afghans who had several voting cards, which they discreetly sold to political parties, who in turn stuffed ballot boxes. The story was a coup for Gawhar because it beat all international journalists in Kabul and received a mention in the New York Times. Our newspaper, published in three languages, focused mainly on Afghanistan’s first-ever democratic elections. After a few months, many of the women proudly evolved into assertive journalists, interviewing male wannabe politicians – a bold move because women, in typical Islamic tradition, aren’t accustomed to questioning men.

Three years later, I’m thinking of Gawhar and Ellaha as I look around the room at Bow Valley College. I’m wondering about the mentors, about what they feel while coaching and guiding their charges. After my experiences starting a newspaper, I know this type of teaching can be frustrating, but if you persist and remind yourself frequently of the goal at hand – helping women get careers – the personal rewards run deep.

Mostly young but established professionals, the mentors tell me that, indeed, they “get” as much from their mentees as they give. They learn about their mentees’ foreign (and sometimes quirky) cultures and customs. They are humbled by the strength and courage of their mentees. They are emboldened; one mentor summoned the nerve to start going on blind dates after hearing how her mentee arrived pregnant from the Philippines. They translate everyday expressions such as “What’s up?” and explain what “camping” is to women who are baffled by the familiar tent-and-trailer icon on highway signs. They talk about Canadian office attire; one mentor spent a full hour discussing socks with her mentee. Some mentors are from immigrant families themselves; they empathize with their mentees’ daily struggles. Some simply cherish the opportunity to help other women.

“I really love working with women,” says mentor Lynne Perry-Reid. “I feel like there’s an automatic connection, no matter what culture you’re from, when you’re working with other women. It’s always a very caring, nurturing environment. It’s not competitive; everyone is working together.”

That’s so true. When women gather for a common purpose, a natural, instinctive bond often forms. Men do it too, usually while playing sports – it’s called male bonding. From my experiences, women tend to connect and relate differently. We have “hen parties” full of cackling and uncontrollable laughter. We nurture, support and inspire each another. We touch each other softly on the arm. We hug.

When the jackhammers stop rattling, Berry, New Horizons’ project manager in Calgary, looks up from the floor, from the source of the noise down below. “As always,” she says, “we begin with our bragging session. Anybody like to speak first? Remember we are all friends here.” Mentees may be uncomfortable speaking to a crowd, but getting out of their comfort zone is part of the program here.

Larisa Kulikova, a Russian who arrived in Calgary last year, stands up. “Most of us know that I work for a bank,” she begins with a thick accent. “The first week for me was a shock. I didn’t understand people. I had to read a lot of information online. It was so overwhelming, I asked the branch manager to switch to a teller position. I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to be fired.’ But I have a wonderful branch manager. She let me switch. Now I have more breath. I ask for help.”

After so many months in Afghanistan, I know too well about women being afraid to ask. In Canada – everywhere in the western world, for that matter – we’re raised and encouraged to question things. But in many countries, women are taught not to probe, especially one’s superior. It’s considered rude, disrespectful.

Before Kulikova sits down, the women break into applause. “That’s a very good message,” Berry says. “It’s always better to ask.”

Later, Berry tells me that running New Horizons feels like “herding cats” sometimes. Still, the program boasts a 95% success rate, with almost every mentee landing a job – many en route to their chosen career. At the beginning of each intake, Berry meets with mentors as a group. She tells them that while the program is “career focused,” mentors are urged to help mentees “figure it out” when they stumble in any way. Not to do the work for them, but to show them where to go.

“I’ve learned over the years that you can’t really separate life skills or personal issues from employability issues,” says Berry. “And mentees, and quite often mentors, have a lot to learn, and a lot to give.”

This article was originally published in June of 2008

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
_Dr. Seuss

As far as I know, Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) never visited Alberta. Yet one of his most popular books has proven to be an astoundingly prophetic parable about the nature of 21st century Alberta: the tremendous wealth we have created, the grave environmental problems that have accompanied it, and the seed of a possibility for another kind of future, one in which economic health does not come at the expense of a healthy natural environment.

First published in 1971, the year Peter Lougheed led the Alberta Tories into power for the first time, The Lorax illustrates the unintended consequences of unfettered (if well-intentioned) capitalism. Lougheed may seem, from the vantage point of 2008, a thoughtful and compassionate Conservative with a strong environmental ethic. But the party he brought to power has embraced a Milton Friedmanesque philosophy that, despite all the government’s crooning to the contrary, has promoted economic, largely industrial development at the expense of Alberta’s environment. Only a Thank You For Smoking-calibre PR genius could argue otherwise.

As in Geisel’s Lorax, as insightful a social commentary as any episode of South Park or The Simpsons, the direct and indirect impacts of industrial activity aimed at providing “things that everybody needs” are devastating our forests, poisoning and depleting our water resources, transforming our climate, and hastening the disappearance of numerous species from our mountains, forests and prairie. To be sure, these activities provide jobs and generate wealth, but the environmental and social costs associated with what we have come to know as the Alberta Advantage are enormous. Continue along the path followed by the greedy Once-ler character, Geisel warns, and the future we leave for our children will be fundamentally different in ways I can’t imagine we would have wished on them.

Thankfully, a new generation of Albertans are coming to this realization much faster than the Once-ler did in the land of the Lorax. No need to wait until the rivers are fouled (or empty), the air besmirched, the climate inextricably warmed, the Swommee-swans and Humming-fish and brown bar-ba-loots gone, our cities depopulated and ruined. Time, instead, to rise to the greatest challenge of the 21st century: reducing our unsustainable impacts on the environment without compromising, perhaps even enhancing, our quality of life.

The antithesis of the Once-ler, the environmental stars profiled here represent the best and brightest of a growing constituency of Albertans choosing to pursue careers and business opportunities and (it’s impossible to put it any other way) lives that reflect their commitment to improving the state of the environment. Armed with the entrepreneurial, can-do spirit that has defined the province for more than a century, and bolstered by unparalleled wealth and triple-bottom-line thinking, these green hotshots are helping to develop and implement solutions that could turn Alberta into a true hub of sustainability. Into a global leader.

The variety and creativity of the work these people do represents the breadth and range of technological and policy solutions that will be required to make the jump from our currently unsustainable society to one that balances the needs and limits of the natural world with our increasing desire for luxury and comfort. There are no shortcuts; there will be no easy answers. The path to sustainability will take hard work and commitment, of which these entrepreneurs and environmentalists are in no short supply.

But there is more to the answer than simply discovering and applying technological solutions to environmental problems, or popularizing ideas that, if actualized, will help to transform society. The real transformation will be neither technological nor economic – it will be cultural. What makes many of the people profiled here exceptional is less the substance of what they do – cutting-edge solar engineering, say, or writing inspiring and well-researched books – than the courage and creativity and sense of responsibility (all hallmarks, by the way, of successful entrepreneurs) to choose careers and lives that veer from the conventional. Instead, they embody a new path to a more sustainable New World, the very beginnings of which we can only glimpse today.

“We need to be careful about heroes,” Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute, told me as I prepared these profiles. “In a lot of ways we’re a hero-driven society – that someone else out there will save the day for us – and that gives us an excuse not to get off the couch. We’re not going to win this game with heroes. We’re not going to tackle global warming with a few heroes. Ultimately, we have to look at ourselves for our own inspiration and take our own action.”

A sustainable Alberta, then, will be a place where our environmental stars are no longer exceptional, a place where all Albertans factor in the environmental implications not only of how they spend their money, but how they earn it. Had the Once-ler incorporated this kind of triple-bottom-line thinking into his business plan when he first arrived on the scene in The Lorax, of course, there would still be Truffula trees and brown bar-ba-loots aplenty (not to mention clean air and water), and the story would have a very different ending.

Although none of them characterized it that way, perhaps that’s exactly what these Albertans are doing today. Regular people trying to rewrite the province’s story, so that it always contains so many of the things we are precipitously close to losing. U

top

Danielle Droitsch
lawyer, executive director
watermatters + bow riverkeeper

I was a reporter for a newspaper in North Carolina. My editor asked me to cover a story about a pulp and paper mill that was polluting a nearby river. There had been fish kills and the community downstream had disproportionately high levels of cancer. These people needed help – not another newspaper article. I asked to be pulled from the story. It changed my life. I went on to become an environmental lawyer.

The intensity of our land use has grown to a point that’s unsustainable. Our water supply is decreasing and water quality is degrading. We seem to be operating on an assumption that we can build, drill, mine and pave anything and everything in Alberta. Every boom has its bust, and our water can’t be sacrificed as part of the deal. Our “business as usual” approach no longer works. We need new legislation that sets targets for managed growth for water, wildlife, air and landscapes. These targets would be established by considering the cumulative impacts of multiple activities on the landscape (water usage, oil and gas activity, recreation, urban and rural development) and then establishing thresholds based on a community vision and environmental protection. The only way to make this happen is by changing legislation, which would hold individual government ministries accountable to these targets.

Watermatters isn’t a big national environmental group, but I’ve seen our small efforts have a big effect. I know we’ve changed people’s opinions. I know we’ve influenced government decision-making. It’s true that a few people can make a difference. If only everyone thought that way.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Danielle

Matt Beck + Mark Blackwell
university of calgary students + co-chairs
alberta solar decathlon project

Beck (above right): I consider myself a systems entrepreneur. As Adam Werbach (U.S. Sierra Club president turned Wal-Mart consultant) announced a few years ago, “environmentalism is dead.” It is an outdated worldview that focuses on individual issues at the expense of complex systems relationships, when an understanding of both are needed to create a positive future. Through building an energy-producing home – rather than a home that consumes energy – we are showing Albertans that through efficiency and innovation, we can both reduce our impact on the environment and continue to develop our energy sector.

Blackwell: With a project like this we have a real opportunity to really change how people perceive sustainable housing design. Consumers need to be aware of how their actions – like switching to a more efficient insulation system – will decrease the demand for fossil fuels. There is so much criticism on the producers, but the place people need to be looking at for fault is in the mirror. Until people are able to manage how they live their lives and rely less heavily on fossil fuels, no real change will take place.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Matt & Mark

Claire Ellick
engineer, sustainable transportation
city of edmonton

I’m a bike ninja. OK, I also do strategic planning and design for bike facilities in the city, as well as operational reviews and improvements, and generally anything else related to on-road cycling. After I finished my engineering degree, I wanted to do something that benefited people and that I really believed in. That’s this job. Cycling has always been one of my biggest passions, and it’s great to have input on city policy with respect to how bicycles are integrated into our transportation system.

If you can avoid driving a car to work and get there by biking or walking, or by taking transit or carpooling, these are all cost-effective alternatives to driving a single-occupant vehicle. With increasing gas prices, I think people will start to realize how little sense it makes to drive alone everywhere. Cycling makes sense on so many levels – but the most obvious are the environmental and health benefits. Look at the rising obesity rates in North America. Cycling saves you time and dollars: there’s no need to drive to the gym and pay for a gym membership to sit on a stationary bike for an hour. Cycling can add so much richness to the quality of anyone’s life.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Claire

Jon Mitchell
group lead, environmental strategies
encana corporation

EnCana is the biggest natural gas producer in North America and one of the biggest companies in Canada. I work with the leadership of the company and our operating divisions to identify areas where we need to develop a corporate approach to sustainability issues, coordinate our activities to address these issues, and work with external agencies on developing solutions. While the work involves issues related to air, water and land, the majority of my work at the moment is leading EnCana’s climate change strategy.

There is no longer a choice about whether to think about the environment or not. This is business. Environmental issues must be managed as they can represent a significant risk to the bottom line, now and in the future. Those that identify the opportunities to excel will be better positioned than their competitors in the long run. You can debate how effective certain initiatives are, but there is no debate about the need for them.

Environmental issues are front of mind for boards and executives – it’s our job as professionals to provide advice and input to help them make informed decisions. The discussions are no longer focused on “if” but have shifted to “how.” That is why it is not enough to just understand the environment; you must also understand business and politics. How could you not be motivated when you work in this field? There has been no time when environment has captured the attention of the public, business and politics like it has right now. If I wasn’t motivated by that, I’d be overwhelmed.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Jon

Stephani Carter + Brandy Burdeniuk
interior designer, sustainable building material specialist + industrial designer
ecoammo, green alberta

Carter (sitting): Our companies are designed to make the transition to a more sustainable building industry fun and easy. We educate people about building green and choosing healthy building products and materials. There is no “organic door” to a world where everything is perfect. We are living in a time of transformation. Each of us has to pick what is most important to us and act on it. We should no longer point fingers at one another. Instead, we must encourage everyone’s green actions. If all the energy spent pointing fingers was used to take action, we would certainly speed up this peaceful revolution.

Burdeniuk: As an industrial designer, I am a trained problem solver. We help facilitate the LEED certification process and ensure that the vision of a green building is maintained all the way through the design and construction process. We try to simplify the process so that it isn’t overwhelming. I’m not going to lie: we’ve had our financial ups and downs, but now we are really busy and the money is steadily coming in. I think today it is possible to be both environmentally and financially sustainable. It is essential to have this balance, as it allows for long-term planning and realistic solutions.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Stephani and Brandy

Justin Thompson
energy-efficient homebuilder + rancher + wind power consultant

Spending a lot of time in the foothills of southern Alberta as a child I gained a love for wildlife and wide open spaces. I also spent a lot of time in the wind near Pincher Creek, so when it came time to look for work, wind energy was a natural fit. As for the green building effort, this was a very conscious decision to try and influence an industry that to me has no excuse not to improve its practices, because so many of the improvements are so simple to make.

Most struggles in our history have involved an external enemy. This time, we are the enemy: it’s a struggle within ourselves to change our consumption patterns. That’s hard to reconcile for most of us, especially amid such wealth in Alberta. I struggle with it all the time because I know my personal footprint could be smaller and my quality of life would not be threatened.

The myth of the incompatibility between profitability and sustainability has been perpetuated for too long. Time and time again, companies who do the right thing benefit from increased efficiencies, which lead to reduced costs or create new markets or demand. What is required are companies that are willing to take risks and step out of the status quo. I’m not saying being green is a business slam dunk, but there are so many examples of success that it’s time we put this question to bed for good.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Justin

Leanne Allison + Karsten Heuer
filmmaker + author

We undertake grand-scale expeditions into critical landscapes and tell stories about our experiences through films, lectures and books. The first project was the Yellowstone to Yukon hike (1998/99), which highlighted the need for wildlife corridors. In 2003 we followed an Arctic caribou herd for five months to their endangered calving grounds and back again (Being Caribou). Last summer, we canoed and sailed across Canada with our two-year-old son to meet author and environmental crusader Farley Mowat, winding through the settings of his stories along the way (Finding Farley).

Somewhere in our early 20s, we began to realize the places where we canoed, skied, mountain biked and climbed had value beyond outdoor gymnasiums. A series of wildlife encounters, some university courses in biology, and a couple of summer jobs with wildlife ecologists deepened our appreciation for our surroundings and shifted the emphasis from the activity to the place. For lack of a better term, we are in the business of environmental education. Our impact is pretty hard to measure. We could talk about book sales (tens of thousands), viewers of our films (in the millions), and lecture attendees (tens of thousands). But it’s all meaningless unless it translates into action. On that front, it’s the notes we get from individuals that make our work rewarding – notes that describe real changes people have made in their lives and what they devote themselves to because of our projects.

The next big breakthrough? Wow, we wish we knew. We’ve stopped trying to predict how change will happen. We only believe it will.

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Leanne & Karsten

Marlo Raynolds
executive director
pembina institute

Global warming, hands down, is is the biggest environmental challenge facing the planet. Never before have we had so much scientific brain power conclude that we need to make very significant changes in our energy system and our levels of pollution. If we don’t get on a track of deep reductions by 2020, we’re going to see significant changes that are not favourable.

The most important solution is having a very clear and adequate price signal on carbon dioxide pollution. Coupled with that, we need very strong regulations in the areas of energy efficiency, industrial emissions of CO2 and vehicles. Those two market-based mechanisms of price and regulation will drive a lot of change in behaviour. Boardrooms need to be given and shown incentives and reasons to build things differently.

There is no silver bullet for this one. Unlike the ozone challenge we had, with CO2 it is a much more distributed problem; it really requires a portfolio approach. We have to get a lot more out of our current consumption of energy: we need to be able to drive further on a litre of gasoline and we need to be able to heat our homes with less energy. We need to be more accessible to our workplaces, to our friends and relationships, and to the services we need. We also need different ways of producing electricity. Renewable energy is a huge opportunity, from wind power to solar energy and deep geothermal.

Ultimately, these changes have to be possible. The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. Environmental protection needs to be a design criteria in our economy, and in how we conduct business. And I think we’re starting to see certain companies really taking this seriously. U

top |  Click here to read the full Q&A with Marlo

By Jeremy Derksen

The radio crackles through a swirling white deluge: “Thirty seconds.” Those are two words warning avalanche techs that a charge is about to be detonated. It’s routine procedure for ski resort avalanche control, but the risks would make most of us nervous.

“We’ve got unstable weather, remote locations…the destructive forces of nature. And on top of that, we’re handling explosives,” says Troy Leahey, an avalanche forecaster at Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia. “Risk is a combination of probability, consequence and timing. We mitigate that as much as we can, but working in the industry for a while we become comfortable with the risks.” An element of personal, along with professional, risk not only comes with Leahey’s job – recognizing how to work with it makes him good at what he does.

Most of us won’t face the physical challenges or life-threatening conditions Leahey faces, but taking professional risks can be a good thing. Our instinct is to avoid risk. After all, too much risk could jeopardize your job, pension and house. Widespread corporate risk has undone financial institutions and rocked the global economy

But avoiding risk is impossible and, it turns out, unwise. Without it, business stagnates, careers stall. “Risk aversion can prevent us from looking at opportunities as they arise,” says Michael Ungar, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax. “As a result, we may jump too late rather than anticipate change.”

Why is shopping for shoes more fun for some people than shopping for groceries? Pscyhologists and economists have found that some purchasing decisions can buy a little slice of happiness. As Elizabeth Dunn, a University of British Columbia psychology professor told the Boston Globe, “Just because money doesn’t buy happiness doesn’t mean money cannot buy happiness. People just might be using it wrong.” The money that is.

In “Happiness: A Buyer’s Guide,” the Globe made the analogy that treating a friend (or colleague) to lunch will make you happier than buying a new outfit. “Splurging on a vacation,” the story continued, “makes us happy in a way that splurging on a car may not.”

A friend of mine once described a similar sentiment. “I prefer to buy experiences, not products.” (She’s a salesperson with a background in marketing, by the way.) Marketers have long picked up on this, selling the more complex, shiftier commodity of an experience for a premium. If you can make someone feel like they’re doing something good by upgrading the experience, all the better. And if you can hook they by giving them a taste of the experience – hence the neologism “trysuming” – your product, er, experience, is golden.

Happiness is everywhere these days. On mugs from Dollarama, in books (such as the new Happiness Project) and on the web (e.g. We Feel Fine). There are happy companies, happy cities and even a Happy Job Search. Tara Hunt, a Canadian social media expert working in San Francisco is even working on a book about happiness as a business model. And that’s not even getting into the niceness movement. As Slate blogger and Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin puts it, “Making people happy make people happy.” Now if only happiness grew on trees. U

What was she thinking? In January 2009, as the economy started to fail, Eve Lessard traded her steady job in a human resources department for self employment. She took a few months off and then in April started bHired.ca, a freelance HR firm, on a shoestring budget from her Montreal studio apartment. “I started from scratch. I didn’t plan a lot,” she says. “I’d saved a little money but not a big investment for starting a company. I didn’t even have a laptop.” In a work ethic that speaks of her self-employment acumen, Lessard has found a path to early success – from her kitchen table.

How did you decide to become a free agent?

My parents were both entrepreneurs. It sounds cheesy, but maybe I have it in my blood. In 2006 I wanted to do it. I lived in Calgary and I had an idea to recruit eastern Canadians to work for western companies. The timing wasn’t right. It never happened. I returned to Montreal and then last summer it came back into my mind. I gave my boss four months notice. I knew all my life I was going to work for myself when the timing was right, and the timing was good for me but not with the economy. [She laughs.] I didn’t know in 2008 that we would be in a recession. When it was time to leave my job [in January 2009] I thought ‘What did I do?’

Are you recruiting for western companies?

No, the economy isn’t good for it right now. I’m doing recruitment working with small- or medium-sized companies that don’t have HR departments or big companies that need help. I don’t want to be a placement agency. I want to do things with integrity, quality versus quantity. I want exclusive contracts with companies, but right now I take what people offer me.

What were your fears when you started?

I didn’t have one that kept me up worrying. I can – and have – changed my life in 30 minutes. I like adventure. I decided I’m going to do it and see what happens. It was a good time for me to try because I don’t have kids and I’m young.

What skills do you need to be self employed?

You need a thick skin. You face rejection all the time. I thought I had thick skin – when I worked for someone else I had no problem picking up the phone and asking for things – but now I find myself hyperventilating before making a call. You have to be okay with not being perfect. You have to stay yourself. I know I can succeed if I be myself. You have to be organized and manage your time. It’s easy when you work at home to start to do the laundry and a thousand other things instead of what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s hard to keep a schedule. I get up at 7 a.m. and go for a walk to get a coffee so that I feel like I’m going somewhere.

Do you have any home office guilty pleasures?

I love 3 p.m. during the summer. I can get up and take a one hour walk. That’s awesome. When I’m sick or hung-over I can stay in bed. I love that. I can go on a trip anytime; I don’t have to ask someone. I always felt like I was in a cage when I worked for someone else.

What’s the downside to self employment? Anything you miss from your 9 to 5 past?

I like to work in quiet, so I used to get really angry with my colleagues who were loud. But I miss taking coffee with colleagues and happy hour. I miss having a team. And I really miss having a boss who can answer my questions. I have lots of questions, but no one to ask.

How did you feel when you were suddenly working for yourself?

There’s nothing like that feeling when you get that first cheque. It’s awesome. I did something all by myself and really earned it. That’s the feeling I was looking for.

How will you know you’re a success?

By next year I’d like to hire someone to help me part time. The day I do that, when I have lots of clients, things are going well. U

Free Agent, Pt. 1: How Vancouver’s Jeff Hamada grew a small online community into a global phenomenon – and made some money in the process

Jeff Hamada has succeeded where so many web-savvy people have not. And he did it all by accident. Hamada took a blog, created a loyal, interactive online community and then monetized the whole deal. The result was Booooooom! – that’s seven Os – which gets 1.7 million visitors every month. A sign of how successful it is: GM advertises on the site.

Hamada trolls the net for work by virtually unknown artists and posts it under the sections Art! Design! Film! Music! Photo! Junk! and Projects! (exclamation marks are his). Unlimited talked with Hamada, a former Electronic Arts staffer who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, about his unexpected international following.

How was Booooooom! born?
I took a year off school and worked at Electronic Arts. EA paid for my final year, but when I graduated, the company didn’t have a job open for me. I was sad about that. I started freelancing as a graphic designer about four years ago. I started Booooooom! about a 18 months ago as a personal blog to show all the art I made and the trips I took.

It’s changed a lot, though.
It changed early on. I didn’t think it was interesting for people to hear what I was doing, so I started posting art I liked, mostly work by lesser-known people on Flickr. I’d post something, email the artist to say I like his work and that I’d posted it on my site. The artist would get excited about it and mention it on his website. It became a conversation for art admirers. The site grew mostly by word of mouth. About six months in, everything went crazy, and now I get 1.9 million page hits a month. I wasn’t trying to make it grow. I just lost control.

Describe Booooooom!
It’s a daily inspiration site about photography and drawing. It’s different than a lot of other sites out there. I find artwork that I like by artists all over the world and I post it on the site, like an online art gallery. I really want to create a collaborative community.

I have another side to the site where we do group collaboration projects. I come up with an idea for a project and ask people to contribute. It’s an avenue for people to get inspired and make stuff that inspires others. I hope it becomes more of a focus of the site.

Could you describe a few group projects?
The last group project was a music video. Everyone downloaded the same music, filmed their own footage and submitted it. I stitched all the footage together. (See the footage here).

How much time does it take to maintain the site?
Now it’s a full-time job. I spend eight to 10 hours a day working on it. When I had freelance clients, I’d work on the site all night. I set it up to have three posts a day, so no matter where someone lives, when they go to the site there’s something new for them to see.

Jeff Hamada’s own art work. Hamada has worked for clients such as Converse.

How does the site generate revenue?
This is something I’m still learning about. There are three ways to make money: You get paid to write about a product. I’ve never done that and I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities. Or you can run advertisements from networks. I work with three or four networks that represent a bunch of companies. They pitch campaigns to me and I pick ones that work for the site. The third way is by having local companies in Vancouver sponsor the site. This is a one-to-one relationship.

The trickiest partnerships are with networks, because the products a network wants to advertise on your site are not always a good fit. They also want to sign long-term contracts, meaning that you lose control of what ads appears. But I can be pickier the more popular the site becomes.

Why do you think the site is so popular and continues to grow?
I am obsessed with analyzing the site and improving things that aren’t getting lots of hits. I paid a friend to make it more searchable and the topic I chose helped. No big sites are collecting the work that I’m collecting and there’s nothing going on for the community side of a lot of blogs. I put a lot of time into the site to make it feel alive.

There’s a stigma about art that only experts can talk about it. I try and make art inclusive. No matter what your expertise, you’re allowed to comment about the stuff you see. You don’t need credentials. I think the overall feeling is open and accepting.

Content-wise, I was uncovering a lot of unknown people, like people with only 30 followers. But when I mention one artist, he tells all his followers and then 30 people are checking out the site.

What would you like to see Booooooom! become?
I want to take it offline. I want to see some of the art on the site be shown in a [bricks-and-mortar] art gallery. I want the site to generate interest in the artists I feature. Beyond that I want to travel and meet the artists I cover and write about it. I want to publish a book of art. I don’t want to get rich. I’m not a business person that started this site thinking I could make money from it. The site is a lot bigger than the site I originally imagined. I’m definitely missing an opportunity to monetize completely, but I don’t want to be the mega-corporation of art sites.

Why?
My audience is a tricky demographic. It can get turned off by advertising if it isn’t done right. I could lose credibility really easily, especially if I include some covert ads. U

Stuart Bailey is a private person – at least when it comes to work. In agreeing to speak with Unlimited about his job, for instance, he cheerfully and apologetically said, “I can only speak for myself, not for the government.” That’s because Bailey is an information management and privacy strategist for the Ontario Ministry of Finance, where he navigates the complex, sometimes intangible and often confidential world of data. Not that he’s necessarily trading in top-secret information – “I don’t have a lot of sensitive material,” he admits – but for someone whose work is all about managing, sharing (and sometimes not sharing) information, Bailey is sensitive to the challenges of describing what he does without saying too much. He gives it a try.

The Man Who Wasn’t There: Stuart Bailey’s official office at the Ministry of Finance

“My job is to help regular people in different program areas integrate practice and information into their daily work.” Huh? “Really, it’s helping people deal with information overload,” Bailey adds. Oh, right.

That could range from helping staffers manage email to helping colleagues understand the logistics and legalities around sharing information. “Storage is cheap, but finding it is very expensive,” Bailey says. A gigabyte of storage might cost only 20 cents, but a company will have to shell out another $1,300 or so to manage, share and protect that information. “It’s not just about an object sitting in a space.”

“The type of work I do is about understanding broad abstractions. Information,” he points out, “is always part of something else that you do.” In that sense, we are each de facto information managers, even though we might not consider this part of our real jobs. It is always, Bailey explains, wrapped up in our other tasks.

After earning a BA in cultural studies and philosophy from Trent University, Bailey went on to complete a master’s in information studies at the University of Toronto. Warm and engaging, his philosophy background quickly surfaces. “A large part of the work I do is – pardon me for lapsing into code – to understand basic metaphysics, entities, attributes and relationships. I have to operate in abstract areas. Privacy is not a monolithic object. It’s not a like a shoe,” he says. “A shoe will have certain dimensions, it goes on your foot, you can wear it in certain weather. But privacy could be a whole range of things.”

Bailey’s Virtual Office

Bailey, whose official mailing address is for the Central Agencies Cluster at the Ministry of Finance in Toronto, in actuality divides his time between three offices.

Bailey telecommutes from his couch-office

+ This office in the picture is where I’m stationed, but sometimes I work with the rest of the team in Oshawa. I also work at home. My employer has a great teleworking project and a lot of flexibility. I spend more time focusing on work and less on additional stressors like whether I’ll make it home in time to pick up my daughter before her daycare closes.

+ I have one computer and BlackBerry. It’s not like I produce a certain number of widgets a day. Where I’m located is sometimes not as important. I don’t always have to be tied to a desk, but I do have to ingest, analyze and provide comment on information for colleagues.

+ Yeah, sometimes I can’t find things. It’s like asking a ditch-digger where you put the shovel. Well, you can just find another shovel.

+ That’s a tennis ball on my desk. I bounce it around to relieve stress or think about things in a different way. Sometimes the best way to focus on an abstract problem is not to focus on it. You have to let the brain refresh and let your mind wander.

+ Those boxes are filled with paperwork. Although I work a lot with electronic media, I like the tactile quality of reaching for an article. I have to stay on top of new developments such as the use of wikis or policy development or a recent court decision. I make sure I don’t keep more around than I need. U

Jeff Hamada has succeeded where so many web-savvy people have not. And he did it all by accident. Hamada took a blog, created a loyal, interactive online community and then monetized the whole deal. The result was Booooooom! – that’s seven Os – which gets 1.7 million visitors every month. A sign of how successful it is: GM advertises on the site.

Hamada trolls the net for work by virtually unknown artists and posts it under the sections Art! Design! Film! Music! Photo! Junk! and Projects! (exclamation marks are his). Unlimited talked with Hamada, a former Electronic Arts staffer who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, about his unexpected international following.

How was Booooooom! born?
I took a year off school and worked at Electronic Arts. EA paid for my final year, but when I graduated, the company didn’t have a job open for me. I was sad about that. I started freelancing as a graphic designer about four years ago. I started Booooooom! about a 18 months ago as a personal blog to show all the art I made and the trips I took.

It’s changed a lot, though.
It changed early on. I didn’t think it was interesting for people to hear what I was doing, so I started posting art I liked, mostly work by lesser-known people on Flickr. I’d post something, email the artist to say I like his work and that I’d posted it on my site. The artist would get excited about it and mention it on his website. It became a conversation for art admirers. The site grew mostly by word of mouth. About six months in, everything went crazy, and now I get 1.9 million page hits a month. I wasn’t trying to make it grow. I just lost control.

Describe Booooooom!
It’s a daily inspiration site about photography and drawing. It’s different than a lot of other sites out there. I find artwork that I like by artists all over the world and I post it on the site, like an online art gallery. I really want to create a collaborative community.

I have another side to the site where we do group collaboration projects. I come up with an idea for a project and ask people to contribute. It’s an avenue for people to get inspired and make stuff that inspires others. I hope it becomes more of a focus of the site.

Could you describe a few group projects?
The last group project was a music video. Everyone downloaded the same music, filmed their own footage and submitted it. I stitched all the footage together. (See the footage here).

How much time does it take to maintain the site?
Now it’s a full-time job. I spend eight to 10 hours a day working on it. When I had freelance clients, I’d work on the site all night. I set it up to have three posts a day, so no matter where someone lives, when they go to the site there’s something new for them to see.

Jeff Hamada’s own art work. Hamada has worked for clients such as Converse.

How does the site generate revenue?
This is something I’m still learning about. There are three ways to make money: You get paid to write about a product. I’ve never done that and I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities. Or you can run advertisements from networks. I work with three or four networks that represent a bunch of companies. They pitch campaigns to me and I pick ones that work for the site. The third way is by having local companies in Vancouver sponsor the site. This is a one-to-one relationship.

The trickiest partnerships are with networks, because the products a network wants to advertise on your site are not always a good fit. They also want to sign long-term contracts, meaning that you lose control of what ads appears. But I can be pickier the more popular the site becomes.

Why do you think the site is so popular and continues to grow?
I am obsessed with analyzing the site and improving things that aren’t getting lots of hits. I paid a friend to make it more searchable and the topic I chose helped. No big sites are collecting the work that I’m collecting and there’s nothing going on for the community side of a lot of blogs. I put a lot of time into the site to make it feel alive.

There’s a stigma about art that only experts can talk about it. I try and make art inclusive. No matter what your expertise, you’re allowed to comment about the stuff you see. You don’t need credentials. I think the overall feeling is open and accepting.

Content-wise, I was uncovering a lot of unknown people, like people with only 30 followers. But when I mention one artist, he tells all his followers and then 30 people are checking out the site.

What would you like to see Booooooom! become?
I want to take it offline. I want to see some of the art on the site be shown in a [bricks-and-mortar] art gallery. I want the site to generate interest in the artists I feature. Beyond that I want to travel and meet the artists I cover and write about it. I want to publish a book of art. I don’t want to get rich. I’m not a business person that started this site thinking I could make money from it. The site is a lot bigger than the site I originally imagined. I’m definitely missing an opportunity to monetize completely, but I don’t want to be the mega-corporation of art sites.

Why?
My audience is a tricky demographic. It can get turned off by advertising if it isn’t done right. I could lose credibility really easily, especially if I include some covert ads. U

This is the age of endless internships, job offers that evaporate just as you get ready to sign the contract, and constantly shifting networks. Finding a new opportunity is no longer about simply applying to a posting or only about meeting one key person (though it doesn’t hurt). Which means that job seekers need to bone up on their math skills and combine two or more strategies to make a move.

Black Bird Tees resume T-shirts, via Cool Blog

Twitter + LinkedIn

HOW IT ADDS UP Establish your personal brand on Twitter, tweeting about the industry you want to enter, then drive people to LinkedIn for the hard facts about your education and work experience. Also seek out the Twitter-based search engines like Twitter Job Search, a beta site that lets you refine your search by such parameters as location, salary, job description and tweet frequency. From our browse it looks good for people working in advertising, sales and management. Sample positions: Sales rep at Molson Canada in Toronto and finance clerk at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Bonus: Looking international? Check out the nifty Google-powered Job Map widget.

+ How to Find a Job on Twitter, Mashable

+ LinkedIn: The secret to the online business network’s success, the Telegraph

Mentorship + Internships

HOW IT ADDS UP Finding a position is about who you know. But it’s also about what who you know knows. Follow? A mentor has made mistakes so you don’t have to. Pair that with an internship (or two) and you can bank work experience and a reference.

+ Deloitte Women’s Initiative for Leadership Learning, Alberta Venture

+ What to Look for in an Internship, Santa Clara University

Education + Volunteering

HOW IT ADDS UP School isn’t just for credit; it’s an opportunity to discover areas you’re interested in (and will likely succeed at) and make connections that take you beyond graduation. Volunteering in your area of education opens up your network, shows commitment to your field and might lead to your next job. One person from Ontario that we spoke with volunteered in a national organization with members across Canada, which put her in touch with her future boss, an entrepreneur in Western Canada looking for a second-in-command. U

+ LifeHappens: School, Unlimited

+ Online Education, Unlimited

On my last stop of the trip, autumn arrives in the form of a cold wind ripping through Saskatoon’s streets. I head to the Mendel Art Gallery, not for the art per se, but for the coffee (I’m told its cafe, Museo, serves the best espresso in town). While the rest of the city is quiet this Sunday afternoon, visitors jam into the gallery to see three new exhibitions. I flag down a curatorial assistant, who introduces me to Troy Gronsdahl, alone in the basement, away from the crowds, where he plans the popular programming of the Saskatoon’s best arts institution.

VITALS: Troy Gronsdahl, public programs assistant, Saskatoon

For those unfamiliar with how museum programming works, could you explain your job?
I handle a range of programs, write interpretative texts, help with the website and develop new media. I manage our drop-in DIY art space called StudioXPRESS. People can work with professional art materials and the activities are designed to dig deeper into the themes of the exhibitions. I also spearheaded and launched a podcast that’s sort of like Mendel Radio. I interview artists or curators and play music by Saskatchewan artists. Museums are constantly going through self-critical analysis: What are we doing? How can we do it better? Are we reaching our audience? Are we responsible to our community?

How did you become a jack-of-all-trades Saskatoon’s art scene?
One of the great, but also most challenging, parts of working in the arts is that is is chronically understaffed. You learn a lot of different jobs and take on many roles.

As an artist and musician, I’ve always worked on DIY projects. I run an indie hip-hop label, Clothes Horse Records and an online record shop which used to have a bricks-and-mortar shop. It was a vanity venture that ended in… [laughs] personal failure. I’ve also had about five years of gallery experience before the Mendel, doing arts communication and a website, installing shows, running an arts placement program, working with artists, organizing talks. I’ve picked up a lot of skills along the way.

You’re definitely immersed.
My pet peeve is when art organizations hire from outside the community. Art jobs are rare and competitive, so it creates a fracture. They’ll parachute someone in from Toronto with a more illustrious professional background and that person doesn’t know anybody here or the needs of the community. They don’t have the sensitivity that comes from being a part of a place. So, yeah, I’m glad they picked me. U

Laura Trethewey is riding the train from Toronto to Vancouver and meeting regular Canadians along the way for our Job Training series. Every city she stops in she’ll ask one regular person about what they do for a living. Unlimited is posting the conversations on our interactive map.