Our very second board meeting (our first was technically when we incorporated last September), took place yesterday over a snack-filled (healthy, I might add) span of three hours. It was awesome to get together and talk about the direction that Smart Bubble Society is heading in, because talking about it with someone other than that little friend in your own brain, or your co-executive (ahem, Jon), makes it all the more real.

It was also nice too look back on the year and take note of our accomplishments, for example, we planned to have five Thought Bubbles completed by the next year, and we have eight. We wanted the term Thought Bubble to gain acceptance in our community of fans and supporters, and noticed that happening before we even had many done. We were (and continue to be) approached several times via email by the greeting ‘hey Thought Bubblers!’ and asked to create ‘Thought Bubbles’. Maybe we should add it to the Urban Dictionary. In our excitement over the frequent recognition and loving embrace, we even appropriated the Thought Bubbler designation into every account that requires a username, if you noticed, and actively use the verb bubbler/bubbling as often as we can.

We were broadcast on TV, and have reached way over 100,000 YouTube views – making it 240,000 to date (we’re including John Green’s popular post of our healthcare video, because we can). We also got a new website out there into the ether-digital world, and got to do a Thought Bubble for a writer and thinker I greatly admire; Micah White.

As for our future, we’re now rooting for Michael Pollan, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chomsky. We want to see a Thought Bubble broadcast on a network that will reach an even wider audience (or blog of similar caliber). And among other things, throw a T dot-launch party with our studio partner-in-crime, Trouble and Maker.

We plan to bring you some exciting Thought Bubbles this year too, one being the resultant topic from our cross-country ‘What’s in Canada’s Thought Bubble?’ campaign (which will be announced in our next post!) We also got wind of a really interesting online organization called Kickstarter, through which we hope to gain funding for certain donation-based Thought Bubbles that we otherwise wouldn’t afford to do at a given time. We’re engaged in their submission process right now, so wish us luck!

And of all things, the most entertaining accomplishment was our nomination of Fable to Smart Bubble Society mascot. If you don’t know who Fable is, you’ll get to, because she will now begin Tweeting (TBfable). Fable’s approach to life suits the Thought Bubble philosophy, because one, Fable is bubbly. She’s always in the present moment, and ready to shower anyone that comes her way with love and acceptance. If that hasn’t disgusted you, two, she’s got the right formula when it comes to thinking. She doesn’t think about anything useless, fills her ‘Thought Bubble’ with information that is relevant to her and her life, and best of all, she comes to new ideas and experiences with curiosity, and a naive sense of wonder. Qualities that I wish we all had when it comes to our Thought Bubbles. You’ll soon see Fable on our About Us page (you can also catch her in every Thought Bubble), and if you ever have any questions for Fable that surpass 140 characters, you can send her an email at fable@thoughtbubble.org. She’ll answer you in the best digital version of a southern Tennessee accent possible. Why Tennessee you ask? We don’t know, it just evolved that way.

We have a huge push ahead of us that we’re starting to prepare ourselves for. We’re moving to Toronto. We’ve been in Vancouver for about three years now, and though we fell inlove with this place, we never intended to stay. Thought Bubble was born out of ideas that were planted in this city, so we’ll forever be grateful to this mountainous paradise for that. We nurtured the idea, and turned it into something real, and now we’re ready to take that home. Though Vancouver would serve as a perfect launching point for Thought Bubble 3.0 (the final phase that includes our cafe), we’re just as excited to unleash it on Toronto. I personally think that the growing shift towards awareness isn’t specific to any single place, but a trend that’s spreading across the whole world. No matter where we are, we will reach our audience, and that’s largely thanks to our main broadcast mechanism, the internet (which I lovingly call the ethernet, even though I realize that doesn’t make any IT-technical sense).

In Toronto we plan to launch a full studio as downtown as we can get. We also plan to begin building our cafe, one latte at a time. Don’t mourn us Vancouverites, if things go well, we hope to open a second location in Vancouver someday soon. Not that we’d need an excuse to come back here every summer for the beautiful beaches, mountain hikes and west-coast vibe.

We had planned to have five Thought Bubbles completed before our move, and we’re going to have seven. Not only that, but we’ve been fortunate enough to work with some incredible clients that we’d always dreamed of working with. Three of those seven are in the works, and one is due for release in a week.

With our new home in Toronto this April, we’ll also launch a brand, spanking new website. A real one. This blog was always meant to be a temporary home to our progress and growth, but the time has come to build a website that will inspire our visitors to explore our work, carry forth our mission and stay in touch. We also plan to roll out a donation program, which will further help us subsidize Thought Bubbles for the thinkers you care about.

Thanks for all your support thus far, and Vancouver, we’ll always love you.

Thought Bubble.