Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1465

I must have been living under a rock because I just discovered this weekend that Toronto is in the midst of hosting WorldPride . I obviously knew that it was Pride Week , but I didn’t realize that we had outbid Stockholm in 2009 in order to be awarded the event. 

I also didn’t realize that Cawthra Park near Church Street & Wellesley Street was being revitalized in preparation for both WorldPride 2014 and for the Pan Am & Parapan American Games in 2015 – which Toronto will also be hosting.

Here’s a site plan of the final design:

And here’s what the completed design looks like:

I like the pavers and I like the overhead LED lights. Those may not seem like big additions, but it’s amazing how those small little details can impact the way a space feels. I think it creates an intimate and inviting space. What do you think?

Images: thinc design

If you’re a regular reader of ATC, you might remember that last month the team at TAS planted 100 EarthBoxes on the roof of our office building to grow everything from beets to hot peppers. Well it has now been over a month, so I thought it would be interesting to show you the progress that has been made.

May 16, 2014

June 27, 2014

The area we’re occupying on the roof is probably around 400 square feet and many of the EarthBoxes have already been harvested a few times. So it just goes to show you how little you need to grow quite a bit of food. Now imagine what we could do if we transformed all of our urban rooftops.

I was reading Fred Wilson’s AVC.com blog this morning (as I do every morning), and I thought his post on trust was a really important one. He was talking about it in the context of building successful web applications, but I don’t think it’s only applicable to internet businesses.

As marketer Seth Godin wrote on his blog earlier this year , the most important questions are not:

Is my price low enough?

Is it reliable enough?

Do I offer enough features?

Am I on the right social media channels?

Is the website cool enough?

Am I promising enough?

No, the most important question in marketing something to someone who hasn’t purchased it before is,

“Do they trust me enough to believe my promises?”

Without that, you have nothing.

I thought this was such an awesome, yet simple, post that I actually circulated it to a bunch of people in the office after I read it. Because whether you’re marketing widgets, marketing private cloud storage, marketing to investors, or marketing new condominiums, that question of trust is paramount.

And it’s for that reason that I think social media and mediums such as blogging have become so important. Customers want to feel like they trust you before they buy your product. The best brands know this and forge “relationships” with their customers. And with the tools at our disposal today, it’s become a lot easier for companies to do that.