Two very exciting news items to share today.

Earlier today, we publicly launched seekyourownproof.com, bearing our new identity and that of our new partners at Discovery Kids (US).

We’re also proud to announce that we’ve closed a $1M round of financing with Foundation Equity II LP, a venture capital firm headquartered in our hometown of Edmonton.

A few years ago, we set out to create a new kind of brand experience for connected young minds. One that would blur the lines between entertainment and education, nonfiction and fiction, and the online world with the real world. To add to the mix, we wanted to share our curiosity and a love of storytelling, mystery, science, history and the unknown. We might also add that our background working in the educational, museum and cultural heritage space was another contributor. And thanks to seed investments from Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Film Centre, Seek Your Own Proof was born.

During the development of Seek Your Own Proof, we’ve been lucky to earn industry recognition, including ”Most Promising New Company” at the Canadian New Media Awards; “Best Pitch” at the international Pitch It! competition at the KidScreen Summit in New York, the largest kids’ entertainment industry event in North America; “Best of Show” at the Fusion Digital Media Venture Forum in Vancouver; and, most recently, Grand Prize Winner at the TEC VenturePrize competition in Alberta. All of this provided valuable feedback that helped shape our product and company into what we’ve launched today.

It was shortly after VenturePrize that we first connected with the team at Discovery Kids. Over the next few months, we worked to finalize an exclusive, long term deal that will see Seek Your Own Proof become a featured creative property and brand within the Discovery Kids family. It’s the perfect brand fit that will expose Seek Your Own Proof to the millions of kids and families across North America and worldwide who know and love the Discovery Kids brand. Discovery Kids is also part of Discovery Communications LLC, the world’s number one nonfiction media company. Discovery reaches more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries through 100-plus worldwide networks and brands, including Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Planet Green, HowStuffWorks.com and TreeHugger.com.

We’ll have more official details and releases to share in the coming weeks. In the meantime, do check out the site and sign up for an agent account today!

Check out our launch trailer on YouTube:

Great post this morning on Techvibes asking “Does your city have the 5 things necessary for a Local Startup Ecosystem?” The five necessities were social density, great workspaces, events, proximity to money, and creative diversity. I think this was bang on and is definitely something many passionate people (myself included) here in Edmonton are working on through initiatives like Startup Edmonton, artsScene Edmonton, ENTS, Democamp and more. We’ve still got a way to go, but if we can get everyone working towards a common vision for a great startup ecosystem in Edmonton, we’re on our way.

Social Density – The success we’ve had with our startup has been the result of having a solid supporting network of peers and mentors that have provided us with the guidance, experience, and honest feedback that every entrepreneur needs to have around them. But for us, that network has composed primary of people outside of Edmonton – people I’ve met in other cities and through conferences. I’m starting to meet more entrepreneurs in town (which is awesome), but I think what we still need are more local mentors who have the (relevant) experience we can all draw from. Note: we’re working to get more of these kinds of mentors up to Edmonton through events like Startup Weekend and Startup School.

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Hey look at that! I made the 2010 edition of “Digital Media People to Watch in Alberta” on Techvibes.com. Thanks @superblue for the write up – you did get the “never sleeps” part right. I say sleep is a burden. As for being unstoppable, let’s hope I can live up to that description! Be sure to check out everyone else on the list – it’s awesome to have entrepreneurs like them driving our emerging startup and tech community in Alberta and beyond!

Digital Media People to Watch in Alberta in 2010

Digital Media People to Watch in BC in 2010

Digital Media People to Watch in Ontario in 2010

The holidays are over. Sniff.

It’s been an enjoyable couple of weeks operating in holiday mode. Lots of parties, food, gorging myself on boxes of chocolate, devouring sugar and shortbread cookies, assaulting my eyes with video games and movies, enjoying time with family and friends, and a whole lot of chilling out mentally. Definitely needed the break after the exciting year that was 2009. Being part of the team at RED, learning all about the agency world and showing them the world of interactive. Working hard on our new venture Seek Your Own Proof, winning VenturePrize and closing a couple of big deals on the financing and distribution side (which we’ll be able to announce details around our launch next month).

I also took on a few more things in 2009, getting actively involved in starting up new community initiatives like artsScene Edmonton, Startup Edmonton and TEDx Edmonton. My intent? I’ve been lucky to have had many opportunities to travel during my career, meeting many other young entrepreneurs and creatives in urban centers like New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle. In these places, there’s the perfect mix of creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. The challenge has been finding more of this mix and these people in my own backyard. These initiatives are giving me that opportunity. Over the past year, I’ve gotten to know and work with many more passionate, ambitious, creative and smart young people who long for the same vision for this city. So my hope is that the events and initiatives we’re planning for 2010 will help to mobilize our generation towards transforming Edmonton into the creative, world-class urban community we believe it can become. (Side note: Interesting enough, an article in today’s Journal addresses this exact issue).

So as I get fired up for my third act in 2010, I thought it was also time to update my site/blog in preparation. Big things are coming this year, so I’ll hope to share the experiences, the stories, and the journey along the way with you all.

This weekend, I was invited to give the keynote presentation at the SaskFilm (SMPIA Showcase 2009) Interactive Luncheon, talking about transmedia, cross-platform storytelling and Seek Your Own Proof. I also participated on a panel presentation with Andrew Lane (nitch) and Caitlin O’Donovan (Corus Entertainment) as we live-juried their “Future is Multi Platform” competition. We were asked to provide our input and advice to the producers who were selected to present at the luncheon. It was a fun time and best of all it was great hanging out with my Toronto peeps Andrew and Caitlin (since I’m so detached from the Toronto digital media scene). Anyway, I posted my keynote presentation deck online to share.

A few days ago, Avenue Magazine unveiled the inaugural list of Edmonton’s 40 Under 40 and I was proud and honoured to be among the selected group.

From Avenue Magazine: “When trying to imagine the future of Edmonton, one has to picture the future faces that will shape it. These faces are of urban planners mapping the new city, community workers enhancing our quality of life, entrepreneurs enriching the local economy and artists sending our brand out to the world. In Avenue’s inaugural Top 40 Under 40, we seek to honour the brightest and most talented individuals under the age of 40 who are excelling in their careers, giving back to the community and raising the city’s profile. They are the generation of today making a better future for the people of tomorrow.”

I was recognized for my professional and community accomplishments, which included getting artsScene Edmonton off the ground in 2009. I’m really excited to have artsScene and our mandate of growing Edmonton’s creative community profiled in the issue and hopefully that adds to the momentum we’re building into next year.

Be sure to check out the full list here – it’s a fantastic group of young people who are already playing a role in shaping the future of our city!

Photo: 40 Under 40 winners (cover boy, fellow artsScene Edmonton committee member and Next Gen Chair) Cary Williams, Ken Bautista and (Edmonton blogger extraordinare) Mack Male. Thanks for the photo Mack!

Like many of you out there, I’ve spent a lot of time being inspired by TEDTalks from TED.com. J.J. Abrams’ mystery box presentation from TED is still one of my all time favorites:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx, where x=independently organized event. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

I’ve been working with my fellow artsScene chairs in Edmonton (Michael Brechtel) and Calgary (Sarah Blue, Alex Middleton), along with other passionate young professionals like Cam Linke, Stephani Carter and Jasmine Antonick to bring TEDx to Edmonton, Calgary and Banff. A few weeks ago, we received an official license from TED green lighting events for the coming year!

TEDxEdmonton will be an incredible opportunity to be inspired by leading creative professionals, technology experts, entrepreneurs and business and cultural leaders from across the city and around the globe, and learn how they are driving the creative economy. Built around the unique TED Talks format, themes will include creative entrepreneurship, creative sustainability and creative technologies.

More information will be released over the coming months at tedxedmonton.com and tedxyyc.com, so be sure to sign up for our mailing lists and follow us on twitter at @TEDxEdmonton and @TEDxYYC.

Finally got a chance to see the recent Next Up feature interview I did for the July 2009 issue of Alberta Venture magazine (the one that features Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People). Next Up is a regular feature in Alberta Venture that profiles emerging leaders in Alberta’s business community and public life. I was excited and honored when they called a few months back to do the feature. I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to talk about CIE, RED and to reflect on how far we’ve come since the start-up days of Hotrocket. It was also a great chance to talk about growing Alberta’s creative community through initiatives like artsScene and Digital Alberta. Most importantly, it was a chance to share many of the things I’ve experienced in the ten or so years being at this. Hopefully, another entrepreneur or two out there can take that and shave a couple years off their start-up life.

I thought Michael Hingston did a great job considering all things we talked about during our interview (and we talked about a lot!). The photo shoot in the Aboriginal Gallery at the Royal Alberta Museum was fun too, as it’s where I worked in university in the education and public programs department.

In June I was asked again to moderate a panel at the recent Banff World Television Festival. This year, our panel theme was ”The Art of Immersive Entertainment”. I had an awesome panel made up of David Gale, Executive Vice President of New Media at MTV, Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, and Dante Anderson, VP of Product Development for Kuma Reality Games. Our discussion focused around the concept of “transmedia”, essentially the art of storytelling across multiple platforms – whether it’s broadcast, online, and in the real world. Check out the Techvibes recap of the panel here.

Photo: Jeff Gomez (Starlight Runner Entertainment), David Gale (MTV), Dante Anderson (Kuma Reality Games), and me (looking a little serious)

A few weeks ago, we finally launched artsScene Edmonton and artsScene Calgary! We were fortunate to be joined by the Honourable Lindsay Blackett, Minister of Culture and Community Spirit, along with Nichole Anderson, President/CEO of Business for the Arts (and of course, my Edmonton co-chair, Michael Brechtel!).

Here’s some photos along with my introductory speech at the media launch that took place at the Citadel. It provides a good overview of what we have planned for artsScene Edmonton and artsScene Calgary. (Pics by 3TEN)

“I’m an entrepreneur, creative director, and member of a growing community of connected Albertans under 40 who call Edmonton and Calgary home. I’m part of a grassroots committee of young professionals across the arts and business community, all with a passion to transform Alberta into a world class center for artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators.

Last year, I was invited to speak on a panel of next geners at the Canadian Arts Summit, which brings together board chairs and senior executives from the largest arts and cultural organizations across Canada. Moderated by Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, we discussed how the “net generation” of young people under 40 are shifting the role of audience, patron, and supporter of the arts and creative industries.

It was at the Summit that I was fortunate to meet Nichole Anderson, the President and CEO of Business for the Arts, from who I learned about the national initiative called artsScene that we would eventually bring to Alberta.

At its core, artsScene is about engaging young people to grow the arts through volunteerism, patronage and support, while fueling a new generation of arts leaders in Canada. With artsScene, we see an opportunity to not only expose young Albertans to the arts, but also to activate and connect a community of young people through great events in both cities.

Over the past ten months we’ve been assembling organizing committees in both Calgary and Edmonton, mapping out events, engaging partners, and most importantly, establishing a manifesto for artsScene in Alberta. It’s our call to action for young people in our community, and it has three main points.

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