A 'Brand' New Edmonton

Artist's rendition of the Expo that could have been.

Ever have your mom tell you that you could go to a movie, then change her mind and say you can't? How about a boss that approves an expenditure for upgrading your office, who retracts the offer before you can cash in on it? Ever have a federal government encourage and support you in bidding to hold a world exposition in your city, only to change their mind at the last minute with tenuous reasoning?

It's a lousy feeling. It's grossly unfair. It's a tremendous amount of money wasted pursuing a special event that's not going to happen.

But is the money actually wasted?

How your brand affected your chances of meeting Stephen Mandel

I had a fantastic opportunity to share. I'm allowed to invite a select group of individuals to a coffee event with the incumbent mayor, Stephen Mandel. In order to make sure it's a conversation instead of a rally, we need to keep the numbers low. So I needed to be very selective in my invites. A diverse group was necessary, not too many people who would discuss the same issues. Only so many arts types, just a few film-people, only a couple small-business people. One digital media producer. No media-types. I would have invited many more but I had to keep the numbers down while being representational. It's a Facebook event and I had to pour through my entire list. How did I select who's getting invited and who isn't?

Very lazily...