Rethink Toronto wall mural
I know - I'm a bad blogger. Possibly even a bad person... I haven't posted here yet about my new adventure helping to start Rethink's Toronto office. Needless to say it has been a ton of fun.
One of the fun parts has been helping to design the kind of office space we want to work in. And a week ago we made the office come alive with a giant wall mural by the insanely talented artist (and Rethink art director), Carson Ting. Here is a great little 'making of' film Carson put together. Thanks Carson!
RethinkTO wall mural art by Chairman Ting from Chairman Ting on Vimeo.
Great news: GigPark acquired by Canpages
I'm *extremely* happy to say that our company, GigPark, has been purchased by one of the fastest growing businesses in Canada, Canpages.
For all of the details you can check out:
- Press release
- GigPark blog
- A great story on StartupNorth
- Globe and Mail story
- TechCruch post
- National Post story
- ... and lots of comments on twitter
I'm planning on spending the next few weeks saying thank you to all of the incredible people who helped build and grow GigPark - as a product, a buinsess and a community. These fine folks deserve extra special mention:
- Noah Godfrey - the best business partner I could possibly wish for
- Paul Dowman - our Director of Technology and, for all intents and purposes, the 3rd founder of GigPark
- Tony Targonski and Gianni Chiappetta - our massively talented and absolutely hilarious developers. These guys are the future of the tech scene on Canada
- Our 25 first beta members who were kind enough to meet with us and provide invaluable feedback for many months - you are the heart and soul of the GigPark community!
- Our first few business members including Rannie and Alistair who helped us build our businesses product
- Jaspal Riyait - one of Canada's best designers and the talent who (together with Gianni) created the look and feel of the site
- Erica Godfrey - another incredibly talented designer and the creator of the beautiful GigPark logo
- Clayton Hanmer - long time GigPark user and the person responsible for the fantastic illustrations on GigPark
- Rob Hyndman - our fearless lawyer. If you are running a tech company in Canada please hire this man. He is simply incredible to work with
- Stephen Shulman - one heck of an accountant! Which, as it turns out, is a pretty important thing to have :)
- All of the people that gave us invaluable advice over the last 3 years including: Mike McDerment, Mike Masnick, Mark Fletcher, Mark Shedletsky, Dre Labre, Dan Debow, Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Stuart MacDonald, Jevon MacDonald, Jonas Brandon, John Phillips Green, Malgosia Green, Jay Goldman, Leila Boujnane, Paul Bloore, David Crow, Albert Lai, Anand Agarawala, Rick Segal, Michael Holland, Erick Schonfeld, Mark Dowds, Greg Wilson, Jodi Brown, Paul Godfrey, Mike Cassidy, Chris Sukornyk, George Telidis, Hector Catre, Kirk Lapointe, Pat Lor, Sonya Meloff, David Stein, Danny Khatib, Tony Mamone, Dave Kashen, Michael Williams, Reuven Cohen, Shawn Konopinsky, Candice Faktor, Darren Morgenstern, Max Ventilla, Rick Camilleri and all of the other fantastic people I've forgotten to mention (sorry!).
Cheers! :)
Getting to know the Don Valley
Ros and I take possession of our new house at Queen East and Larchmount Ave in a few days (more on that later).
The move will mean we will be a lot closer to the beaches and the incredible Don Valley. I'd almost forgotten how great the mountain biking is in the Don. Aside from the North Shore in Vancouver, the Don is probably one of the best trail networks in a major city.
Here is a map of a ride I did with my friend Mark in the weekend. Apparently we didn't even get to the upper sections. Have fun in the trails!
Renting our loft in the Candy Factory
We're renting our loft in the Candy Factory this spring. $1,800 per month for a great 900 sq/ft open plan loft right on Queen Street West. For all of the details plus lots of photos, check out CandyFactoryLoft.com
We love our loft and would really like a nice tenant who will enjoy and look after the place. If you know someone looking to make a move then please do us a huge favor and pass along this info. Friends helping friends is a beautiful thing. Thanks so much!
UPDATE: We've now found a lovely tenant to rent the loft. Thanks to everyone who helped us spread the word!! I'll post again next time the loft is available.
2010 Prius preview at the Canadian AutoShow
Rosalynn and I were lucky enough to attend a preview event for the new 2010 Prius on Saturday.
Toyota Canada invited about 100 of their nearest and dearest along to the Canadian AutoShow at 8am for breakfast and a good look around the new model. There was a display model that we could climb all over and a second Prius that we could turn on to see some of the new instruments.
I'll stop blabbing and get straight to the photos. Scroll to the bottom if you're interested in our thoughts about the car.
Things we loved about the new 2010 Prius:
- 7% more fuel efficient than the previous Prius
- 22% more powerful (the engine is substantially bigger)
- Styling is still quirky and obviously focused on aerodynamics - the Prius has a drag coefficient of 0.25 (very low apparently)
- Solar roof to heat and cool the car
- Most of the plastic in the interior is manafactured from plant matter in an attempt to cut down on CO2 emissions during manufacturing
- The Prius has 3 modes: Power, Eco and Electric (not the actual names). Electric mode lets you drive short distances, a few kilometers, without using the gas engine
Things we didn't love about the Prius:
- The price. Although not announced yet I suspect the Prius will be very close to $30,000 in Canada - a little out of reach for most people.
Overall Ros and I were pretty excited about the new 2010 Prius. Toyota seem to have made a huge number of improvements while still staying true to the original purpose of the car. It still looks quirky and it is still an outrageously fuel efficient ride. Well done Toyota!
While at the AutoShow we also checked out the Prius' main competition, the Honda Insight. Stay tuned for a post about that car soon.
My iPhone ate my guitar tuner!?
My friend Dre posted a great presentation that he gave at the Mobile Marketing Conference a couple of days ago.
Dre is always showing me iPhone applications that he downloads to replace other devices in his life. His guitar tuner app, for example, that means he doesn't need a seperate guitar tuner in each of his 11 guitar cases (he like guitars!). Dre makes a good case in this presentation that a growing number of unsuspecting businesses are going to feel the burn when their products start to get replaced by apps in large numbers.
He makes a bunch of other great points too. Take a read - it's short...
Icebreaker
Dre, David and I ignored the wind chill warning and headed out to the Toronto Islands for a round of disc golf today. It was absolutely beautiful out there. Also, the brilliant Rectory cafe was open so we had somewhere to warm up and drink hot chocolate. Don't let the cold weather put you off - head out there!
Am I Canadian yet?
This year Rosalynn and I will apply for Canadian passports. I figure the pond hockey I played on Sunday can't hurt our case ;). Anyway, here are some pics from my first (and definitely not last) game of pond hockey. So much fun!
My strange obsession with disc golf
I started playing frisbee golf, or disc golf as the purists like to call it, over the summer of '08. It's definiatly a geeky way to spend a day but is also a ton of fun. Plus the people that play it are a friendly and eclectic crew so there are lots of interesting folks to meet.
Anyway, over the holidays I played a few rounds in Perth, Western Australia. They have 3 courses there and I only got to play one but it was great! These photos are from Rob Hancock park.
About Pema Hegan
A Kiwi living in Canada.
I love music, obsess over architecture, ride my bike most days and miss the ocean.
I'm a partner and managing director at Rethink Toronto.
Before that I founded and then sold GigPark, a social web startup. And before that I was the founding editor-in-chief of the Canadian media company, Dose.
Find me here
pema.hegan (at) gmail (dot) com
- RT @k8eeeee: Stylish bird condos in London. http://itybityurl.com/11840 http://twitter.com/pema
- Oh dear. RT @kerizierler: Here we go again. RT @cnnbrk #Oilrig explodes off #Louisiana, 12 people in water. http://on.cnn.com/9zThNM http://twitter.com/pema
- Oh dear. Double Rainbow Guy does an ad for Microsoft: http://youtu.be/8jXz7NrfzsI /via @mikerugnetta, @jamiew, @bud_caddell http://twitter.com/pema
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