#31
We’ve sold 84 tickets so far for the 2025 Missing Middle Summit, compared to 41 tickets sold for the 2024 Missing Middle Summit at this time last year. And that’s with less marketing.
I’ve hosted many events over the past twenty years, but this is the first I’ve hosted as a recurring annual event. It reminds me that we should always gravitate toward things that compound. That’s where the magic is, where things get better as they get easier. That’s as true in event planning as it is in business and relationships. It took me way too long to learn that lesson.
I think we’re going to sell out a couple of weeks or more ahead of the event.Given this growth in interest from a broader audience, I’ve been debating the idea of making it a two-day event. The first day would be targeted to developers and aspiring developers of 3-4 storey multiunit housing, the second to developers and aspiring developers of 5-10 storey multiunit housing. These are generally different people, though there is some overlap. That might not be the exact right demarcation, but it’d be something like that.
The Missing Middle and Midrise Summit. What do you think?I read this amazing story about a Brown University sophomore student who created a public database tracking what the 3,805 non-faculty employees at his school did. He wanted to know why the school was running a $46-million deficit despite seeing his tuition rise steadily to over $90,000 per year. While not exactly forensic, his discovery helped paint a very unflattering picture.
The City of Toronto employs over 41,000 people within the Toronto Public Service. I wonder what they all do, and I wonder if anybody knows. I’m sure that at least half of them are critical to the city's operations.
Any U of T computer science students looking for a fun project?Last week, the Toronto Standard team (and my friend Jeff) worked from a Chinese spa in Markham called GoPlace. It’s got three saunas, ranging in heat from 59 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, a cold room, a steam room, hot tubs, cold showers, massage services, and a restaurant. You spend the whole day in little Chinese pyjamas, paying for drinks and food and services with an NFC tag on a bracelet. It was a good opportunity to take the team out to a setting where we could still get some work done.
In the remote vs. office work debate, I’ve been squarely on the office side of things since the early COVID days. That said, working remotely together as a team from a Chinese spa might actually be the best option.
(Not pictured are Hardik Shah, our accounting manager, who took the picture, and Jeff Ballingall, who was getting a facial at the time.)
