(Originally published in the November 2014 issue of the Business Voice)
Recently, I met with a Halifax leader who was facing a challenge in her company. I asked her: “What would be a game changer for your business?” She paused for a moment and then responded with a Big Idea. We proceeded to have a rich and exciting conversation about how we could make this idea happen.
I find myself having more and more conversations with people about Big Ideas.
Why? Because achieving aggressive goals and transformational change in our businesses, our communities and our city requires us to think big and take action.
In Halifax, we know what our challenges are. We’ve spent years researching and talking about them. We know we have to grow our population, change attitudes, export more, support entrepreneurship, and revitalize our downtown.
But what are the Big Ideas that will drive significant growth and development in Halifax over the next 10 or 20 years?
This is where you come in
- Do you have a BIG IDEA for Halifax?
- Are you ready to do something about it?
- Do you want to work with
If you answered yes to these questions, you are part of a growing movement of people, businesses, and organizations who believe in Halifax’s amazing potential and are ready to collaborate on big ideas.
This is what the Halifax Ecosystem is all about. It’s about creating the right attitude and entrepreneurial and innovative culture and significantly increasing our individual and collective impact. It taps into the powerful tools of passion, connections, and collaboration and organizes and harnesses the energy, talents and resources in our community to get to action quicker on key economic and social issues. The focus is on dreaming big and taking bold measures to create a more confident and innovative Halifax.
Since the Ecosystem’s launch, working groups and project teams have formed around a number of opportunities and hundreds of residents have signed-on to champion Halifax and work together in the Ecosystem. The Ecosystem is open to everyone. It’s you. It’s me. It’s everyone doing their part to make positive changes in our community. We are all authors of Halifax’s story and The Ecosystem is the way we are writing it together.
So I ask you: What’s your Big Idea and how can we work together to make it happen? Contact me at pkent@greaterhalifax.com. I look forward to the exciting conversations we’ll have.
Take the Bold Promise and showcase your big ideas at www.boldhalifax.ca
Author:
Paul Kent is the President and CEO of the Greater Halifax Partnership. Paul has over 30 years of experience at executive and senior management levels, in both the public and private sectors.