I’ll let the creators of this previously stealthed idea speak for themselves:

Recently out of a passion to have a shared workspace for entrepreneurs, innovators, and geeks in Toronto we ventured out and leased a great space at Richmond and Peter… It is basically about 2000 sq ft plus an additional mezzanine floor (the gallery). It is on the 5th floor (top floor) of an old brick and beam loft. The view of the city is outstanding and thankfully there is enough light to avoid florescent bulbs…

[from Creationstep, who are making this happen]

Indoor Playground is a next generation workspace based in the downtown core of Toronto. It is a home away from home for the entrepreneur who needs an office space on occasion. It helps to solve the problem of having a place to work when you are on the road or when you just want out of the house. Indoor Playground provides a good-looking and creative space populated by other great people worth meeting. It is the perfect solution for new start-ups and independent innovators who are looking for a professional yet affordable way to scale their business.

[from the official Indoor Playground site]

I’m going to be watching closely to see how this unfolds. To me the option of a cool space to work in around interesting people doing interesting things sounds pretty great.

We can only hope, after all the Grand-old-Torture Party just got thrown out in that country to the South, to be replaced by Torture-Party Lite admittedly, but it’s a start.

Actually, the Worldchanging to which I refer is the blog, book and book tour of the same name.

Worldchanging’s philosophy is probably well summed up by Alex Steffen, one of the blog’s co-founders, who says:

We find ourselves facing two futures, one unthinkable and the other currently unimaginable. My beat is looking for ways to create a future which is sustainable, dynamic, prosperous and fair — a future which is both bright and green.

Now that I can get behind. Tonight I saw Alex speak at the Toronto leg of the tour to launch the new Worldchanging book, and I was impressed. Inspired you might even say. Ed Burtynsky made a great co-presenter of the show, with a giant screen showing his genuinely awe inspiring photos of Chinese industry (and how often do we genuinely get our awe inspired?).

I have to admin I haven’t read the book yet, I would be halfway through already if I didn’t select the free-but-slow cheapskate deliver option on my order. If the book’s half as good as I hope though, everyone I know is getting a 600-page book shaped parcel this Christmas.

Here’s what the book says about itself:

From consumer consciousness to a new vision for industry; non-toxic homes to refugee shelters; microfinance to effective philanthropy; socially responsible investing to starting a green business; citizen media to human rights; ecological economics to climate change, this is the most comprehensive, cutting-edge overview to date of what’s possible in the near future — if we decide to make it so.

I expect to be thinking, and rambling in blog form, about this stuff more in the future. I can’t claim a great grasp on the environment or social justice or any related topic, but it seems to important not to try. I’m not alone in this thought either, here are a couple of locals that spring to mind BeSustainable and FreshBooks.

Alternate title: In which our protagonist takes a further swerve away from the original intent of his blog, realising that the miscellaneous category is full to brimming while the other categories he always meant to write something in are looking rather sad and empty.

So, applying a little after the fact strategising, I’ll say that the Hogtown blog will get even more about whatever the hell I’m thinking and less focused on specifically web/business-y stuff. Another way, this will become an excellent place to find out if I’m the sort of person you want to have anything to do with, and won’t even pretend to be a place to read well thought out articles on web development and related issues (which A List Apart, and a million others, do better than I ever will anyway).

So, here’s to an ever fuller miscellaneous category.