As an eighteen year old, fresh out of first year of university, the idea of a job is typically one that involves bringing someone coffee, a lot of filing, or kids bouncing around. Although many young people can find a decent, and sometimes fun job, we are very rarely offered the opportunity to work closely with an idea or concept that we strongly believe in and that doesn’t ask us to compromise our values.

Two weeks ago, after a two-month trip to visit my family in Paris, I rode the subway downtown in hopes of meeting the people of Smart Bubble Society and getting a job as an intern. I had no idea what to expect; even less did I anticipate a friendly dog jumping up to greet me.

The journey that led me to this point was fortuitous. As a reader of Adbusters magazine and their blog, I came across a video they put up called Micah White’s Thought Bubble: Junk Thought. After viewing it, I clicked to find out who the creators behind it were. This event came at a time in my life when I was looking for direction. After having spent a year studying political science and history at the University of Ottawa and deciding it wasn’t for me, as well as having discovered a new fascination for the world of communications, I was looking to delve into an experience that would marry my newfound interest as well as my penchant for activism and social justice. Smart Bubble Society did just that. To add to my delight upon finding them, the Smart Bubble studio was located in my favourite area of Toronto, the Trinity Bellwoods neighborhood.

When I knocked on the door and met Jonathon and Suzanna (and Fable, of course), I was excited to find out how much we had in common and how enthusiastic they were that I had found them. After an interview the next day, I was officially a part of the team as an intern.

I am more than excited to have the chance to cultivate my own knowledge of the current issues our planet and population are facing, and to learn about the world of graphic design and animation, but also to do my part to get the word out about Thought Bubbles. I will be reaching out through Twitter and Facebook and frequent blog posts. If you want to say hi, I can be reached at julia@thoughtbubble.org.

I think we would have put it all off another several months if it wasn’t for the book that slapped me in the face like a good friend, Rework. If you don’t know it, get to! It was an awesome read that made us realize we didn’t need to plan out every last detail before unleashing this important new step onto the virtual world. Pacwebco further instilled that philosophy when they thoroughly embraced what we did have, and wonderfully guided what we were still missing (and scared of). We wouldn’t have even figured out those last few pages if it wasn’t for their helpful expertise.

So, I present to you the first iteration of Thought Bubble (or shall I say Smart Bubble Society) 2.0. Think of Smart Bubble Society as our corporate (but non-profit) umbrella, and Thought Bubble as our service. One day we hope to see a community grow, in which infographics that educate or inspire an audience are casually referred to as Thought Bubbles. And yes, you can start that wave for us now! Step 2.0 – way back when our blog was born – referred to the step in our world-domination plan where we would begin to foster a community around our work. It’s not about it being a social network in today’s terms of Facebook (which I personally just deleted, eep! Our Facebook Page still lives, however) but in terms of a community of people that embrace what we do, because they believe in our message. We’re already seeing that starting to happen, and it makes us even more determined.

Now stop reading, explore! We’ve got this blog, which shall continue to live on the homepage, some pretty pictures and new members to boast on the about us page, all of our existing Thought Bubbles organized by topic within our our work page, all about Thought Bubbles, including our different service models on the Thought Bubble page, ways to show us your love and support on the donate page, our evolving shop page (which will soon kick start with Thought Bubble mugs!), and last but not least, different ways to get in touch with us in our new location in Toronto.

We hope you love it as much as we do.

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.