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February 18, 2007

The Oprah Factor

My running joke of late goes, "My God! What will I do if I get a job in an office? I won't be able to watch Oprah!" My first paycheck will have to go towards a TiVo so I can indulge in Oprah after hours.Over the course of the past year, working from home, I have truly become an...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 09:42 PM | | Comments (0)

February 13, 2007

Frontier College: Tackling Canada's Quiet Crisis

Any parent would be proud to have their child bring home a report card that included an A+ in reading and writing. But what would they think, if after signing off on that stellar mark, they found their child hiding under the bed and struggling to sound out a sentence that kids years younger would have no trouble reading? I'm...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 07:22 PM | | Comments (0)

January 21, 2007

2007: Three Weeks In

New Years bring more of a social purpose than a temporal one. The universe will continue to operate, the planets will continue to orbit the sun, and the tides will continue to wash away the shore whether we humans celebrate the New Year or not. December 31 flows seamlessly into January 1. These are just made-up days of a made-up...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 10:18 PM | | Comments (0)

Stranger than Fiction

When you're an armchair philosopher, it's hard not to like a movie like Stranger than Fiction. Similar to I Heart Huckabee's in its quirky tone, this film, starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson, brings an existential sort of playfulness that we "artsy" movie-goers like. Sartre would probably object to the use of "existential" and "playful" in the same sentence,...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 01:02 AM | | Comments (0)

December 04, 2006

Rendezvous Detroit

Over seven years had passed since I had seen my friend Melanie. The years had taken us along varied paths and to distant corners. My fate sent me to Japan, then Russia. Melanie had blazed a trail to Dubai. Over the years of criss-crossing the globe, our paths never crossed and we never met. E-mail allowed for infrequent correspondence,...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 11:22 AM | | Comments (2)

October 17, 2006

Toronto the...Closed?

Very soon, we will have passed the eight-month mark for our move to Toronto--what amounted to a leap-of-faith in both our relationship and the possibilities available to me in Toronto for my career. Eight months in, I have no doubts about my first leap-of-faith, but I am starting to question the veracity of the second. Toronto goes by several nicknames,...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 12:18 PM | | Comments (1)

October 06, 2006

Innovation? Talent Crunch? Give me a break!

Okay, it's time for me to get something off my chest. What is it with all the talk about innovation and talent? Yesterday, I attended an American Marketing Association seminar on the lack of innovation in marketing, and the magazine BusinessWeek has decided to make 2006 the "Year of Innovation." Today, I see that the cover story of The Economist...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 06:09 PM | | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

On Turning 30, Two Weeks Late

This September, the Hebrew Calendar started the new year of 5767, and I passed the far more humble but perhaps personally more significant 30th Birthday. That it's taken me fifteen days to make mention of this shouldn't be taken as frustration at growing older. Unlike many people, hitting the 30 year-old milestone does not depress me. Of the many things...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 07:53 AM | | Comments (0)

September 07, 2006

Globally Connected

Here I am, on a Thursday morning, sitting in my downtown Toronto apartment. My quixotic job search has been interrupted by several conversations with dear friends. When I begin to wonder whether the meandering path of my past ten years was spent in vain, these friends pop up and remind me of all the wonderful people I've met around the...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 11:49 AM | | Comments (0)

August 11, 2006

God Bless Canadian Immigration!

Oh my. How could I let so much time go by and not let people know what's going on? Six weeks since my last post! Two weeks since I go some very good news: The Canadian Government granted my request for an open work permit. I guess the silence was a reflection of the funk I was settling into, but...

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Posted by Brian Ettkin at 10:36 AM | | Comments (1)