Mark Dowds

Indoor Playground Has Moved

But where we do not know...

18 months after leasing the 5th floor at 364 Richmond St W we have decided to close this Indoor Playground location and work on establishing it somewhere else. The reason for the move is reasonably simple. Our landlords (Allied Properties) hit us with a 40% increase in rent and refused to acknowledge our request to move some cabinets to make the place wheelchair accessible. We felt held over a barrel but I was trained to never negotiate with terrorists...

Now that I have vented a little...the good news is that the hard work and financial investment on renovations will benefit a friend in the community. Sonya Meloff from Sales Talent Agency will be taking over the lease and setting up shop. She would be interested in some folks co-working so if you are interested please contact her directly (read more on STA below).

We have learned a lot in the last 18 months about co-working and managing a shared workspace. We have set up some great structures behind the scenes that will make us stronger when we re-emerge. It is our hope that someone in the community comes forward with a passion to lead this into the future that we can get behind and share what we have developed so far...

Today was a sad day but one that has set me free to focus 100% on leading Brainpark, Inc. a new software venture targeting the small to midsize company with a suite of networked collective intelligence solutions. More to be revealed soon...

Sales Talent Agency is a sales recruitment company.  We are sales experts who associate with rain-makers, not warm bodies. We know a quota crusher from a revenue sponge. We have credibility with quality sales professionals because we have been in their shoes: we have “carried a bag”, we have led sales teams, we have developed sales strategies. We are respected as sales experts by the people we place, by the companies we help, and by the sales community as a whole.

Our candidates will be difference makers for our clients. Our clients will respect our candidate’s contributions and pay them well for results.

 

Launched in September of 2007 by Sonya Meloff (former Director of Sales – Monster.ca) and Jamie Scarborough (former Managing Director of Sales – Monster.ca & Vice President of Sales – Hcareers.com), our roster of clients includes start-ups as well as many of the largest brands across various industries; including media, job boards, and online companies. For some, we have exclusive outsourced contracts.

 

We are currently looking to hire talent agents to join our company and would love to hear from anyone who loves sales and loves people more.  And we’re always excited to meet solid sales stars!

 

Feel free to contact either Sonya  (sonya@salestalentagency.com) or Jamie (jamie@salestalentagency.com).

 

Vote for Indoor Playground Today

I just posted on the Creationstep site about voting for Indoor Playground at Givemeaning. Please take a moment to vote and also to spread the word please. I would really like to rally the community around Renee and the gang there to take things to the next level...

For those who need a tax receipt to help them this year or next year please don't be afraid to drop me a line...we have a beneficial cause that can help you out.

Thank you

New Communities

It is an interesting journey for me at the moment. I dropped out of highschool and to work in the family business in 1986. I loved every moment of it but had a crisis in 1991 when I started to reap the financial benefits (see picture). I left the family business in 1992 to pursue the lifestyle of a missionary and did a couple of theology/divinity degrees. I was never much of a man of the cloth but I do have the heart for social change.

Throughout the 10 years of youth/missionary work I learned to focus on helping people form communities that could be a support for change in their lives and the world around them. The first technology venture I got my hands into was a platform for community communication (which cost me everything at the time...and tanked).

When I connected with my business partner Bobby John and we launched Creationstep, Inc a few years back one of our main areas of focus was to recreate the workplace that can enhance the dignity of each person and their ability to contribute to society in a meaningful way. We vowed this to be our primary focus no matter what new opportunity came our way. It has been a tough road and some have misunderstood us however there seems to be a bit more of an understanding and desire today for something new.

Webworker just posted an article I wrote recently which encaptulates some of the thinking Bobby and I share. I have also attached a more indepth paper I wrote a while back that expresses some more of how we think.

I am finding myself coming alive more every day at the moment as  the space to contribute and share my passion through building new communities is back in focus. One of the things we have been doing in Creationstep is launching branded communities of independent workers. This allows each person to have the freedom they desire, great billing rates, while also being part of a community. This alongside Indoor Playground is turning out to be a lot of fun. Below are a list of the communities we have helped get off the ground so far (with a few more coming soon):

QA Room
Empty Tray
Service Cloud
Band of Coders
Glassrocket
Brainpark

Download selfmanagement.pdf

Workplace Democracy and Coworking

Today I am north of Toronto in Pie in the Sky Studio working with Tad and the crew filming an eLearning product. It is always amazing to see how brilliant this gang are although you need a significant amount of patience to handle the changes, alterations, and re-takes...hence my midday blogging...

There is an article I wrote on coworking up on the NvestNtech site today. This one captures some of the heart and passion we have behind Indoor Playground. It is more than a business solution but rather on piece of a new way of living and working. It is a rant but I hope it is a little bit of inspiration and hope.

Bedouin Workers and Their Laptops

SFGate have a fantastic article about coworking that captures some of the mission and smart behavior of many webworkers today. Here is an excerpt:

A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of modern technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. Roaming from cafe to cafe and borrowing a name from the nomadic Arabs who wandered freely in the desert, they've come to be known as "bedouins."

PS. Happy St Patrick's day

National Post

Today the national post did an article on some of the things I am getting up to within Creationstep. The main article is about Indoor Playground and coworking but it also gives a little bit of coverage for Empty Tray and Service Cloud.  I have already got several calls today about indoor playground ranging from 10 people wanting to use the space to anothe real estate company wanting to investigate possibilities. Who knows where all of this is leading...

Indoor Playground | Centre for Innovation

Thanks to the help of David Crow (who offered some leadership and labor) this week we are ready to open the doors at Indoor Playground

It has been an arduous but exciting journey to get the centre ready. We are still looking for some sponsors that believe in what we are doing so if you happen to know anyone out there that would be interested in helping some entrepreneurs and upstarts in the tech community please bend their arm to participate.

I just posted more details on the creationstep site about pricing plans and an open evening on January 12th. Spread the word and come out to see the space for yourself.

Thanks again to Rob Hyndman, Stuart MacDonald, David Crow and many of others in the blogosphere for supporting us and being an encouraging voice.