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Refresh Events encourages collaborative partnerships, fosters education at all skill levels and creates networking opportunities within Toronto's digital media industry.

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Archive for the “Opinion” Category

Lessons Learned from Sci-Fi Writers

Monday, September 28th, 2009 | By: Elaine Chen

In my wayward youth I spent a lot of time with sci-fi and fantasy writers. Like most communities, the sci-fi writing community is very supportive of newcomers. But there is a certain type of newbie for which writers have no patience: those paranoid about having their ideas stolen.

Never mind that ideas are a dime a dozen, and that if you give a hundred people the same idea, each one will execute it differently. The fact is that there is no competition. A reader who buys Writer A’s epic fantasy novel with the dragon on the cover will also buy Writer B’s epic fantasy novel with the dragon on the cover. They don’t have to choose. Fans of a certain genre will happily consume anything that comes their way.

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Building Amazing Experiences, Part 2

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | By: Justin Kozuch

First impressions are everything. I learned this from a very early age, and this lesson has stuck with me since my childhood.

The other day, I decided to take a break from Refresh for a few minutes and went for a walk along Bloor Street. During my walk, I came across a well-dressed gentleman by the name of Phillip. Phillip works at the Holt and Renfrew store at Bay & Bloor. His job (which he’s been doing for 11 years) is to greet pedestrians walking along the sidewalk and welcome them into the store.

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Twitter as an Emergency Broadcast System

Friday, August 21st, 2009 | By: Justin Kozuch

If you live in Toronto, then surely you know that a massive storm swept through yesterday evening, dumping rain and debris onto city streets. At one point, funnel clouds touched down at the foot of Jarvis Street (only 2 streets away from where I’m sitting).

Dave Fleet wrote an excellent post this morning, “A Quick Social Media Analysis Of The Toronto Storm“, and it got me thinking. Given the number of Twitter users in Toronto, and that Twitter supports SMS notifications, can Twitter be used as an Emergency Broadcast System?

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How Toronto Organizations Are Getting The Shaft

Monday, August 17th, 2009 | By: Justin Kozuch

The Introduction

I have lived in this wonderful city on and off for about 6 years now. I love that my current neighborhood is situated near a few major lines of transit, numerous shops and within walking distance of some of Toronto’s most beautiful greenspace.

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Building Amazing Experiences

Monday, August 10th, 2009 | By: Justin Kozuch

On Friday evening, Elaine and I went out to meet some of the staff at London Taphouse (the venue for the Refresh Summer Social). When we arrived, we were greeted by professional door staff and served relatively quickly (OK, it was somewhat empty at 5:30pm) by a cheerful bartender.

As we waited for our meeting to kick off, I started to think a bit about how running an establishment is not unlike running any other kind of business: there are budgets to work with, laws to be obeyed, expectations to be met (especially if you have investors), and so on and so forth. Another commonality that came to mind was that, at all times, we should be working hard to build amazing experiences.

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