Today marked the beginning of my "East Village Education" ... thanks to Sandra Peters (the Sales Manager currently showing the Verve Condominiums ).

After registering online when I got back from my jaunt into the East Village I had exchanged a few emails with Sandra before scheduling a meeting with her on a Wednesday afternoon. The next 60 minutes essentially changed my life ... and the start of a complete social media campaign (including this website)!

First of all, the East Village was a very DIFFERENT place during a weekday versus the "ghost town" that I experienced on the weekend. Not only was there construction going on in every direction, there were also people coming in and out of the surrounding building and cars were parked everywhere!

When I drove up to the East Village Experience Centre I was baffled that I TOTALLY missed it the first time I drove around the area! It's an impressive building with an unobstructed view of the Bow River. It is the community "meeting place" where people can learn about the East Village, the planned developments and participate in fun activities for the whole family! When I walked in the front doors I was immediately blown away and impressed with the friendly welcome from the CMLC staff and the model layout of the East Village Area Redevelopment.

Having experience living in the downtown core of any major metropolitan city, I was prepared to be disappointed with a show suite that felt cramped and was poorly designed (i.e., poor use of space, dark colours, small windows and sub par finishes). HOLY MOLY! I was completely thrown back when I saw the show suite and was immediately in love with it from the first walk through. But ... I had to keep my cool knowing that buying was NOT something I even had in mind at this point. I was just researching and looking at my options.

By the end of the tour I then asked Sandra about something that piqued my interest when I first visited the EV Experience Centre website ... the East Village Resident Ambassador contest (Calgary's Best Job). This contest was awarding the winner a full year's rent in a East Village condo, a Car2Go and several other perks in exchange for 6 hours or work doing the social media and blogging for the East Village Community website. Considering my background working for Today's Growth Consultant and my experience as a published author, blogger and podcaster ... THIS WAS A NO BRAINER ! In fact, I immediately started thinking this would be the best and fastest way to get into the East Village without a six figure price tag!

Sandra IMMEDIATELY told me I should submit an application ... and shoot my 30 second submission video right away. "Don't think about it and ... JUST DO IT!", she said. So, I shook her hand and sat outside on the wooden chair and recorded the video. Four takes later (because I can't keep any conversation to less than 30 seconds) I headed home and uploaded to YouTube.

The rest is history ...

(This post was originally published on www.sixfootcanasian.com on June 16, 2016)