1. What do you want out of life?

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Aside from such luxury staples as reliable houseboys, elaborate cheese plates on Sunday afternoons, fast wifi, naps in blanket forts, a new iPhone, a private swimming pool, fresh fruits and veggies daily, good coffee, and roads with bike lanes and minimal potholes? Good health, satisfying work with financial stability, a sense of purpose, continuous learning and self-improvement, road trips (maybe in my own car one day), the desire and ability to help others with my labour, art, writing, and cooking, and to be surrounded by amazing, kind, funny, radical, and weird people. Bonus: getting my book published and seeing my art on billboards.

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2. Review HERB’s social channels, what would you do to improve them?

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All channels**

- Use proper dimensions for post images

- Reformat memes to be more visually appealing

- Tighten up brand elements on content

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Instagram**

See Above. 

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Facebook**

- Decrease posts to 3-5 per day.

- Focus on driving traffic to the website. 

- Less recycled content. Herb constantly has new content.

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Twitter**

- More retweets. Making original content is time consuming. It's OK to piggy-back sometimes.

- Move some of the dropped content from Facebook there. 

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Youtube**

- More experiential "Cops Smoke Bud for the First Time", "Grandmas Smoke Weed and Talk Sex", and "Old School Toker Tries Dabbing" type videos. Similar to what The Cut is doing. Basically more real people, smoking on camera, with various topics and/or activities. 

- Fewer "acted" videos, unless the authenticity factor can be raised, like here. 

- The cooking videos don't seem to do as well, and I would reduce them, opting for shorter videos on Instagram with a youtube link in the bio.

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3. Tell us about an initiative you undertook because you saw that it could benefit the whole company or your customers, but wasn’t within any group’s individual responsibility so nothing was being done.

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While volunteering at Metro Hall, I noticed that a huge number of clients were coming into the Employment Centre, asking the same questions and needing the same kind of help from the staff. It was within my skill set to help them, but due to union regulations and the description of my role, I wasn't allowed to. Since they all needed the same resources, I took it upon myself to create a handout for them, which management vetted and approved for distribution to those who need it. It was a way for them to access basic help with tasks like making resumes, accessing government programs, finding classes, and more. It freed up a lot of time for the staff, and has been super useful to me even after my role ended at Metro Hall. Check it out here. 

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I also wrote this DYI manual for cash-strapped non-profits and grassroots groups wanting to elevate their online presence. 

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4. Give an example of a radical approach to a problem you proposed. What was the problem and why did you feel it required a completely different way of thinking about it? Was your approach successful?

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True Story. While on a trail cycling with some friends, quite far from our vehicle, phones, or streets, one person's pedal broke. None of us had tools, and walking back was impossible. Using a tampon, a very solid stick, and some dental floss, I was able to wedge these items into the pedal crank, secure them with floss, and he was able to - with some special effort - make it back about half way, which brought him within walking distance of a street. From there the rest of us were able to go ahead, get the car, and come back for him. It wasn't pretty, or perfect, but it was the best I could muster with what we had at the time. (I never leave home without my toolkit now).

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