Attendees

  • Kris - open resume format online (LinkedIn killer)
  • Reese - good at helping people with ideas!
  • G-Anne - term to replace college dropout
  • Rizwan - no ideas
  • Alanna - no ideas
  • Kamen - IT dude looking for online business ideas
  • David - pros/cons magazine that exists!
  • Tamsin - no idea
  • Dee - afterlife services
  • Alberto
  • Andrew

Kris - LinkedIn Killer

  • No one is happy with LinkedIn right now, but the people exist there
  • There exists alternatives to social media platforms, but better options just don’t have the billion people
  • Open resume format: everything that are included in resumes
  • Skills: sliding scale - reviews on this scale based on people who have worked with you
  • @ LinkedIn: clean up skills that other people assigned you at 50 cap
  • Valid only if you’re shown as a colleague
  • Alanna: A lot of people on LinkedIn that I don’t like who I haven’t worked with
  • People on the site + people you worked with!
  • Problem: during hiring, can’t trust any of the skills on your profile
  • Dee: thesis on social networking
  • 8 close ties at any one time that you would recommend per person
  • Referral platform
  • Reputation element based on recommendation
  • Rating on how much you vouch for that particular skill
  • Business contacts
  • Kris: validating people who have worked with you, not necessarily friends
  • Validation: average of 3 people have picked you for that skill for it to come up
  • Alanna: What would the appeal be?
  • Kris: employers get to dictate, employers validate employees
  • Alanna: Glass door - employers are posting
  • Kris: pay for employer account on LinkedIn, can look for keywords as a skill
  • Get thousands of results → not useful
  • Rizwan: core is the validation of the skill
  • Current employer is interested in this, rating you right now
  • In the future, could take it out
  • Need employers use it for the performance review
  • Alanna: people don’t want to give references anymore
  • Kris: people can’t due to legal risk, employers only validate the time of your employment
  • Kris: Find employers who have the employee searching problem, anyone who hires regularly
  • Especially tech people
  • Introduce me to them!
  • Andrew: HR departments are a cost centre, not a profit centre
  • Dee: values matrix as well as a skills matrix?
  • Kris: a lot of tools for specific niches exist right now
  • E.g. Duolingo score
  • Plugins show up on the website
  • Kris: LinkedIn has the ability to say we’re colleagues and give them a skill
  • Tamsin: this is more for hard skills, harder to validate soft, subjective skills
  • Problem: how to judge skills?
  • Kris: not trying to create a social network other than the people you’ve worked with before
  • An extra filter
  • Just tech, just Vancouver for frequent hiring
  • Dee: getting some positive thing for good recommendation or a stick for recommending people who don’t show that skillset → personal stake
  • Andrew: similar company for students called Ripen
  • University professors linked up companies that have small assignments and make it class assignments
  • Dee: how North American way of testing

G-Anne

  • Dropped out of UBC cause of mental health issues
  • Made a blog
  • Went viral
  • NA universities putting money in to mental health
  • But not solving the root of the problem which is the way the sysytem is set up
  • Advocating a systems change
  • 25 people from UBC followed up with me
  • Tryin to make it into a project with a key group of people
  • What were the gaps and flaws?
  • At ubc, there’s a super competitive culture. 50k undergrad students, accepting more and more international students every year. Very competitive academically plus a lot of extra-curricular activities as a culture at UBC
  • Glorification of overworking
  • There needs to be alternative way to get grades, e.g, being able to give submissions for assignments/exams in alternative ways
  • I want to create academic flexibility
  • I want to educate people on academic policy. There’s a lot of research, but it’s not communicated.
  • People like me aren’t alone. I want to bring a community. I want to connect these driven individuals and connect them to mentors and entrepreneurs to students who have not been brainwashed by the system
  • I need a name instead of dropout
  • The current course load is 4-6 courses which is insane. On top of it, students have to work on top + have to extracurriculars.
  • I want people to realise that people have different styles of learning.
  • A lot of people are researching this, but no implementation of these new ideas
  • Kris: After we spoke last week about Self-Design. A self designed education system for yourself. I spoke to the executive director today. They are HUGE. Comply with the ministry of education requirements but let you design your own education. Its K-12. In Washington state they’re doing post-secondary. Made a virtual introduction
  • David: Do you have any sense what UBC or others will say to what you’re trying to do?
  • Hoping UBC hires me to change policy. I want to use my viralness to do this.
  • Dee - Try something that has both a negative + positive connotation like Lemon. Make Lemon an acronym
  • Andrew: Is there a measurement of ROI on academia? Is it beneficial to do academia?
  • Dee - Another word is “Driven” like driven out but also driven.
  • Dee - Lemon for a Sweet and Sour approach
  • Rizwan: Leverage Points in Systems: http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
  • G-Anne: Problem is that Post-secondary education is for Academia but people thinks they need it for a job. But you have to go through this mentally challenging environment just to do academics to get a job.
  • G-Anne: People feel like they HAVE to do this
  • Rizwan: The university is setup for research but for people go to it for Jobs
  • Andrew: University is a business
  • Kris: What industries that exist where you don’t need specific university education to succeed
  • Rizwan: I got all my jobs from projects - not just from my degree
  • David: To get UBC to change itself, it’s gonna take the rest of your life. What you can do is get media to look at it.
  • Rizwan: Look into Ashoka Changemaker Campus designation that focuses on changing systems
  • Kris: Right now you don’t have credibility. You’re a thorn in UBC’s side right now. Set up a board where you could have an objective measure before you talk to anyone at UBC
  • Kris: Right now it’s volatile for me to make an intro to someone higher up?
  • Dee: Focus on how Universities can succeed. I want to collaborate with people who want to make a change.
  • Dee: Thesis in Europe: Precarious Intellectual - people without any skills beyond the university degree.
  • Kris: Show that you’ve put the time in to make yourself credible and positive.
  • G-Anne: I’ve met with everyone right up to the VP of Students.
  • Dee: It’s not fair for the university to just say “bye!”. There should be a continuing responsibility.
  • G-Anne: The university knows that they have a responsibility.
  • Dee: Would be interesting to talk to people on DTES to see if they ever went to university, at any given time.
  • Dee: “Transient Academic”
  • Kris: Ask the people who aren’t there “What would take for them to come back”? Then it’s a financial decision.
  • G-Anne: My biggest asset is the access to knowledge.
  • Andrew: The biggest consulting problem - to make people trust that you can do the work.
  • Kris: I know a non-profit that’s looking to hire someone right now. It’s in policy-work.
  • G-Anne: I know all the Lemons want to go to school! I want to be back. I really want to be back. But the system is just not setup for us. They want to go back to school - how do we make it that they can. And that people don’t get forced out as well.
  • David: Monetization way: get grant funding for Beneath One Sky and become the resource at UBC for students who are facing all these difficulties.
  • G-Anne: The easiest way is to work with UBC. Will they pay me?
  • Kris: I’ll introduce you to my friend Rana who’s doing a couple of courses. Just have a coffee with her. She’s a professional researcher.

Kamen - IT dude online business ideas

  • Brief resume: 96-2005 residential small businesses, retrained to go financial services, hated it, starting focusing on linux based systems since 2007/8
  • Don’t think i want to go back to IT
  • Trying to find businesses i can use IT
  • Kris: you’re going to use a lot of people to do your work for you, there’s gotta be 1000 people to do your work
  • Kamen: people want it but don’t have the willpower to make it through
  • Currently can only think of traditional business ideas
  • Kris: generational change about all passion or nothing
  • Kamen: I like solving problems
  • Dee: I think the opportunity is to work when/where you want to work, not to reject your 9-5 employment. Working remotely isn’t just working at home.
  • Kris: huge challenge in hiring freelancers
  • In tech, hire usually on project based, not time
  • Hard to hire a freelancer → signal that they’re not going to do the work
  • Just want grinders, i don’t care when
  • Results not time/destination
  • Dee: objective isn’t scaling back time, most of the time doesn’t feel like grinding
  • Kris: it’s about people management
  • Entrepreneurs are terrible and don’t like managing people
  • Great soft skills, HR rockstar!
  • Rizwan: getting hired based on flexibility
  • Kamen: in-person interview, will emphasize my skills & ability to learn, also open to part-time contract work
  • Dee: need to also decide on what to do with the other 36 hours
  • Andrew: it doesn’t feel like I’m working for so long
  • Dee: avoiding the compulsion of work
  • Working from home vs. in a different space
  • Localsolo.com - more curated
  • Most jobs say “remote okay”
  • Upwork is shitty
  • Canada: leverage on employment because not enough tech employees
  • Kris: EA applied pressure to the BC government who passed the labour amendment that IT are exempt from overtime
  • Kamen: bring in something minimal doing IT, so that I can work on my side-projects
  • First time having 4 months off and not having to worry about the money
  • Starting to find my creativity again
  • Kris: need to differentiate yourself from all of the other people looking for jobs
  • Kamen: has been around for a long time, had to solve the problems without the resources to fall back on like Google
  • Dee: values matrix could be a differentiator, being a grinder
  • Kamen: been looking at some different online businesses
  • Seminar on business ideas
  • Kris: Millionaire fastlane: made more money writing the book than they were in the past
  • Possible business ideas: hiking
  • Problem: 10 or 20 day hikes, need to resupply
  • Right now: people pack everything and then have a friend ship it out later in time
  • A lot of people quit the trails because of the food
  • Automated delivery of this trail food
  • Kris: people do these deliveries in South America
  • Can do a locker system
  • Kamen: people are mailing the food to locations
  • Kamen: current competition
  • One-off businesses: want to sell their specific version of trail food
  • Hard to plan
  • Problem: don’t have enough calories
  • Kamen: system that customizes based on the hike & individual
  • No site that combines the one-offs into an online warehouse option
  • Based on macros
  • Build the meals for the hikers
  • Labour intensive
  • Dee: model is weight watchers
  • Andrew: partner with MEC and Kapow Now
  • David: is there a way to avoid walking into town
  • Kris: calories per day - brand one, brand two, brand three
  • Kapow Now could sell to you in bulk for the vendors
  • Kris: geocaching - get paid doing the trail Lockable
  • Kamen: Trail angels who like to help hikers
  • Get them to pick up the foods - nutrition mule
  • Rizwan: need user-centive approach
  • Interview people on what they want
  • Challenge: what is the experience for the hiker? What are they frustrated with?
  • Kamen: wrong time of year for this
  • Tamsin: back-country trails?
  • Dee: try a small, closed community first
  • Kamen: safety of food is an issue
  • Kamen: 3 different varieties of care packages
  • Vegetarian, meat-lovers
  • Alanna: i don’t care about calories, i want a hot meal
  • Rizwan: Just talk to the community of hikes
  • Kris: can i prepack your meals from you? And what would you pay for it?
  • Claitons wants someone to pack meals for IT guys instead of a hiking context
  • Kamen: prepackaged meals exist in Richmond
  • Kamen: subscription packs cratejoy.com
  • Unique snacks around the world
  • Kris: local First Nation meals
  • Graze snacks, naked snacks

David

  • http://www.rivendellretreat.org/
  • [Seeking Silence] (http://www.theguidebook.ca/seeking-silence/)

Dee - End of Life Care

  • Death is a huge industry
  • All of us got marketed to shitty graphic design
  • End-of life care industries are environmentally disastrous, don’t have great options
  • bereavement checklist: helpful but very soulless
  • Record me now
  • Avatar related post-death executable for social media archives
  • TED playlist on death: a different way at looking at death
  • Obituaries cost so much money
  • Funeral homes publishing to 3 newspapers: extra hundreds of bucks
  • Funeral graphic design business
  • Market up compared to funeral homes since it’s a service
  • → undercutting the status quo
  • $7000 for a cremation, $320/hour
  • Kris: tree urns
  • Kris: flower halo on gravestone
  • Andrew: Penn and Teller’s Bullshit has an episode on this
  • Dee: $450 for a pine box for the cremation
  • Dee: or a consultancy to go through the list
  • Kris: Tom is the director of Kearney Funeral Home
  • Last funeral home that isn’t under the one parent company in North America
  • Dee: are people going to do a google search for graphic design for funerals or partner with funeral homes?
  • Andrew: people don’t know and they just want to get it over with
  • Kamen: Hospice in people who are about to die
  • Kris: yellow pages website - range of options
  • Dee: a directory website for funeral homes
  • Dee: bookmarks to Scotland as a memento from here were pretty great
  • Alberto: so you’re trying to add value to the deceased?
  • Dee: how do you beta test a service like this?
  • Kris: 5 or 10 points on how important are these on a scale to you? Sliding column
  • Kamen: give it away in the beginning, approach hospices or something
  • Offer the service for free
  • Dee: how do you drive traffic?
  • Dee: no funeral graphic designers in BC, a few in the states

EXTRA

  • Dean is starting a podcast on interesting people
  • YVR Podcasters, Vancouver futurists podcast
  • Workshop series starting October 26th on how to podcast, generate podcast etc. At Creative Coworkers
  • Next Wednesday Heart of the City festival in Oppenheimer park

Next meeting:

  • Alberto - chair
  • Kris - minutes