YESS celebrated their 30th anniversary last week. A big deal! But the even bigger deal was their decision to change their name. After three decades, the former Youth Emergency Shelter Society was transformed, on Edmonton’s very first wow-I-don’t-need-a-jacket evening of 2012, to YESS.

Youth Empowerment and Support Services.  

That’s right, it’s the same acronym, but now it better describes what the organization has been doing for years.

We wanted to do something special to celebrate YESS’s evolution.  We wanted to shout from the rooftops that they are much more than an emergency shelter.  We dreamt big, bigger than we thought we could get away with. We researched the possibility of executing our idea and quickly realized that if there was any hope of pulling it off we’d need a lot of help.

One phone call turned into two, which grew into meetings, evolved into plots, and culminated into this:

YESS Relaunch and 30th Anniversary 

Incite, Studio Post, and Allstar Show Industries each held a piece of that final production. What started as an enthusiastic idea evolved into an incredible execution.  As a result, the final product far exceeded our initial concept.

Youth Empowerment and Support Services, we wish you an abundance of community ownership and success in the next 30 years!  

Ah, the holidays. It's the time of year we celebrate everything, and in particular the relationships in our lives: friends, family, coworkers, clients, our paper boy, and the non-profits that are closest to our hearts. The list is endless.

I wanted to take a moment to celebrate a recently formed relationship between Incite and a dynamic new organization called Startup Edmonton. Incite's core purpose is "To Help Leaders Thrive" – a spirit shared by the team at Startup Edmonton. As a Founding Partner, we are looking forward to some of the amazing projects Startup has in store for 2012 and how we can help them to succeed.

Who is Startup Edmonton, you ask?

• Their vision is: "To make Edmonton a hotbed for creativity and entrepreneurship."
• Their mission is "To amplify creative innovation and activate startups."
• Their goal is "To invest in 500 creative entrepreneurs over the next five years."

"By cultivating a community from which startups can emerge, Startup Edmonton is connecting creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs through events, mentorship, workspace, and accelerators."

These are powerful statements, and a reminder of one of the most important rules for any business: Be clear about your purpose.

Whether you represent a new social enterprise or a business whose doors have been open for 50 years, never lose sight of your message. Take the time to revisit it, craft it, or as Jeremy Gutsche of Trendhunter says: Relentlessly obsess about your story. It is the building block upon which you communicate value to your audience.

As you start to think about 2012 and all of its possibilities, here is a list of some of the initiatives Startup Edmonton has in store for you, including a great line up of TEDx Edmonton events.

Enjoy!