Inspired by Derek Sivers, this is a now page. Updated September 29, 2024.

Settling into the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre

After five years at the Vancouver Economic Commission, I've moved to ZEIC to become its head of economic development. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to define an organization's economic development approach, building on what I have learned over the years, and align it across an organization with a major endowment and existing, cutting-edge programs like the Zero Emissions Building Exchange and Carbon Leadership Forum. In that work, I am aiming to:

  • Integrate climate action-oriented capacity building with broader economic needs around wage-growth, affordability, productivity, and competitiveness.
  • Develop industrial policy thinking, in collaboration with others, to better weave together Vancouver and BC's strengths in ways that build long-lasting prosperity within planetary boundaries.
  • Engage with the public in broad and diverse ways about what prosperity, and the economy more generally, really mean.

Building a Second Brain

I recently read Tiago Forte's book, Building a Second Brain. It had come up through a Thomas Frank video on Nebula, and I became fascinated with the way the PARA method that Forte develops within the book and its relationship to systems David Allen's "getting things done" methodology.

I've currently developed a Notion system under this method that's integrating with my existing Google Drive and note-taking systems.

Deepening my drawing practice and connections to the arts and culture community

Almost three years ago I took a fundamentals of drawing lesson at the Vancouver atelier, Canvas Method. Through amazing classes with Col Urrutia, Joseph Leivdal, and Henry Chan, I learned fundamentals, elements of portraiture, and figure drawing. As a lifelong street-sketcher, the more rigorous academic style of some of these folks has given me a new lens through which to see the world.

As a result of re-engaging with my artistic side, I'm also working on cataloguing all of the local arts and culture institutions around me and I'm publishing them in searchable Notion database online.

Redesigning my apartment

I moved into a new apartment a couple of years ago and I've slowly but surely been building out the space in a way that feels more comfortable and allows me to host community more easily.