MaRS, the piazza experience and the unexpected opportunity

I’m just back from Italy but not all the way back.

I love walking into MaRS every morning. It’s the light. It’s the sense of space. It’s the living picture, hung on the south wall, of people working in their offices on business development, on conference planning, on making ideas work.

It’s like walking into a piazza in an Italian hill town: the traditional and the modern; storefront and houses clustered around a public space; people working and people relaxing and, more than anything else, people mingling.

In the last few months at MaRS, I’ve been able to drop in on lectures and seminars. I’ve stood on the upper floors and enjoyed singing and music. I’ve watched the interplay between media, ministers and the audience at press conferences. I’ve browsed by technology showcases. I’ve attended receptions. It’s good for the mind and it has sometimes, at moments, been very good for the soul. I’ve been a watcher and participant and I, too, like many who work in this building, have sipped my fair share of wine at the receptions.

But life in MaRS is not all about this planned stuff. It’s not even mostly about the planned stuff. It’s about the accidental meeting in the coffee line up downstairs. Out of these encounters I’ve had follow-up meetings about projects, been involved in input on public policy, learned about business connections that need to be developed.

Does it mean anything in terms of advancing our core business? I don’t know. Does it influence the way I think about our core business? Yes. Do I see value in these unexpected conversations? Yes. Most of the truly worthwhile projects I have been involved in over the years grew out of chance conversations. Vino rosso per favore. Grazie.

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