Smart Bubble Society

Simply put, Joelle Woodruff is a long-time super nerd. You know the type, one of those kids that actually prefers doing a few math problems over watching TV. Fortunately (for her and all of us that know her) this “lust-for-knowledge”, as some may call it, never compromised her social abilities, as she is also an incredibly loving and compassionate super-nerd. It is these aspects of her personality that would eventually come together and drive her to use her nerdy-ness in order to try and make the world a happier place for all of us to live.

Growing up, Joelle was always involved in something cerebral or charitable, from founding her high school’s physics club, to volunteering at the local food bank. In University, after bouncing between six different majors, Joelle began to find a way to satisfy her thirst for unique knowledge and compassionate living, and wound up studying History and Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. It didn’t take long before the essays on Che Guevara or readings on worker uprisings in Argentina had Joelle abandoning her childhood dream of going on to become a Lawyer, and settling for something a little more…grassroots. Joelle began studying to become a teacher, strongly believing that social transformation and the development of a truly compassionate society begins with critical pedagogy. In teacher’s college Joelle quickly developed an avid interest in Urban Education and working with at-risk-youth. It was in taking the opportunity to work both at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society and in at-risk urban schools that Joelle found her calling, and again made yet another big change in her life. She left teaching to pursue a career in the non-profit sector, realizing that community, and particularly youth engagement was where she belonged. Interestingly, it was also during this time that Joelle began to experiment with social media marketing, digital communications, and e-learning. The loving-super-nerd continued to thrive.

In November 2008 Joelle began working for UNICEF Canada. Here all of Joelle’s worlds quickly started to come together. Working as the Regional Coordinator for Ontario, Joelle was not only able to fundraise and organize for a good cause, and engage some incredible youth and adults as volunteers, but she also had enough flexibility in her role to experiment with applying her second love, digital communication and social media marketing.She soon came to realize how incredibly important these marketing platforms could be in the non-profit world and has been a strong advocate for their value ever since, writing strategy guidelines for non-profits and applying various strategies where possible at UNICEF.

It is through this work that Joelle has become the ultimate loving super-nerd, and as a result she was a natural choice to help manage Smart Bubble Society’s communications and marketing strategy. Today Joelle also works in Account Services at the Toronto agency John St.