My Most Interesting Dinner Ever
I’m not sure if it’s sheer luck or something more strategic at play, but I’ve been lucky to be a part of amazing communities all my life. For nearly 10 years, I volunteered, traveled, and and was ultimately employed by Engineers Without Borders Canada, a community I am still close with, still actively support, and am still strongly bonded to.
CreativeMornings is a more recent community — which I invested three years volunteering and organizing the Toronto chapter — that has had a profound impact on me, particularly after the CreativeMornings Summit in late 2014 that brought together 175 organizers from over 30 countries. The investment of this community in my own creative growth was further solidified after I made the decision to leave in December, and former colleague and forever friend Sally Rumble flew from CreativeMornings Headquarters to surprise me at my last event.
This sense of community made for a relatively easy decision to make the trip to NYC to see off Kevin Huyn, CreativeMornings’ founding COO. Kevin built up the processes and procedures to allow CreativeMornings to grow from 4 to 100+ chapters (Toronto was #16 on that list, and our humble start and dramatic growth can be well attributed to Kevin’s helpful hand and guidance). I expected something special when Tina Roth Eisenberg invited me to this small dinner of people to celebrate Kevin, but I didn’t quite expect one of the most interesting dinners of my life.
The table, set 25 chairs deep, accommodated some of the most interesting creatives I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. People whose work I follow, admire and emulate. People whose projects I’ve never heard of but I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in. Here are a few of the people I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know better.
Tina Roth Eisenberg
While Tina and I know each other, we’ve never had a lot of time to talk at length and get to know each other. Tina’s work growing simple ideas into successful businesses and movements is resolute (See CreativeMornings, Tattly, TeuxDeux), and she’s been an inspiration to me for years for growing ideas, projects and concepts into something worthy of other people’s investment of time and energy. I was lucky enough to get a tour of Tina’s new Tattly space, as well as a sneak peek at Friends Work Here, her new co-working space Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. I can’t wait to see what will come of this new community.
Bas Berkhout
Bas Berkhout is one of my favourite filmmakers. Not only does his Like Knows Like series make admired creatives accessible, but his work in general is simply stunning. I’ve watched his profile of Mac Premo a few dozen times, and it has fed strongly into my recent reflections on sense of purpose and understanding of the world. Heavy stuff, I know, but Bas can take you to these places. Bas and I hit it off when he interviewed me for the CreativeMornings Summit recap, which he filmed and edited in 24 hours. This man has serious talent.
Steve Bissonnette
Steve has been someone I admire for quite some time, and likewise with Tina, was someone I was excited to spend more time with and get to know better. Steve is the General Manager of Plank, a web studio based in Montreal. Steve’s role in CreativeMornings and involvement mimic my own, but he’s done it while raising two kids and managing a studio. On top of that he’s a wicked skateboarder.
The Oak Studio Team
I was so excited to meet the people behind CreativeMornings.com, the perfect accompaniment to this growing global lecture series. Skylar & Sawyer expertly captured the culture, energy and enthusiasm behind these events, and created a smooth and immersive experience to explore global creativity. They’ve got some impressive other products too. Check out Siteleaf & Dropmark.
Kevin Huyn
Kevin is an engineer turned creative, so is a role model for several reasons. His role as COO of CreativeMornings transformed a handful of scattered creatives who organized autonomous and disparate creative events and turned it into a cohesive global community. The processes and systems he produced will ensure it’s strong foundation as the number of chapters continues to grow.
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This dinner inspired a few new side projects for me. One is the morning sessions with friend Behrouz Hariri, Wednesday Writeshops, which is where I wrote this very post. The second is an expanded rooftop lunch series with other creatives in Toronto’s creative hub at Queen/Spadina. More on those projects soon. I can only hope to be the host of someone elses’s most interesting meal.
