Read what Matthijs is up to and the exciting plans for Attached’s expansion.
Although this is titled ‘Letter from Toronto’, it isn’t from Toronto. Yet.
I write this while staying at a very nice location in the hamlet of Saint Agatha where I’m quarantining for 14 days to be able to travel on to Toronto. It’s important to me to strictly adhere to the rules and conduct all my business activities in a covid-proof manner.
Recently the Ontario government proclaimed new restrictions to try to keep COVID-19 from spreading further. This probably won’t affect me personally, but the business activity in downtown Toronto will surely slow down further.
Of course we have thought long and hard before we finally decided I would travel here. Especially with all the ever‑changing guidelines and possibilities, this wasn’t always an easy process. Yet now, it feels so good to be here!
I prefer experiencing with my own senses what’s happening in Canada instead of relying on second-hand input from people who relay the information through their own mental filters and assessments. Since we can now conceive strategies based on our own information, our planning becomes much easier, and we can make better-informed decisions about our investments and responsibilities here.
Being here physically also gives me some time to finally set up our office and arrange some practicalities, so we can hit the ground running when the travel restrictions are lifted.
Opening our Attached office in Toronto extends our working times by 6 hours per day. That’s a lot of added flexibility, and we want to ensure it’s as seamless as possible for the team and our clients. In this aspect, being here is very useful to give us an idea what it will be like when we officially start operating in two different time zones and incorporating this into our daily workflow.
Reactions to my being here vary across the board from ‘So cool that you’re doing this’ and ‘I’m so jealous you are actually travelling’ to ‘That makes no sense. You know everything is closed?’
I appreciate all these reactions, because they confirm one other goal: create food for discussion, for opinions, for ideas. Give serendipity a little nudge. For me, doing nothing is not an option. You can guarantee that nothing will happen then. And for us as a company, that is not an option either. After all, even if the road we take is different from what we originally planned, we always need to keep moving forward.
Which is what I did by coming here.