Strategy + Creativity + Design + Conversation = Ideas & Engagement & Community & Impact.
Organizational Leader Creative Strategist Engagement Specialist Process Designer Host & Facilitator Community Builder Results Coach Foodist Deipnosophist Ordained Priest (ask me about this)
Creative Strategy, Process Design, Community Engagement, Planning & Hosting Events, Facilitating Workshops & Gatherings, Results Coaching
⇨ I am an ICF-trained results coach with a passion for support creative leaders
⇨ I have been a director at an interdisciplinary design and architecture firm with three offices and over 100 employees.
⇨ I founded and managed a successful brand strategy and communication design consultancy for 20 years.
⇨ I founded, produce, and host the Vancouver chapter of CreativeMornings, a popular monthly free breakfast lecture series on creativity.
⇨ I have process designed and facilitated numerous workshops and retreats for leaders, companies, and organizations of various kinds.
⇨ I have been a design and communications instructor and mentor for many years.
⇨ I am obsessed with the intersection of culture and cuisine, and the only thing I enjoy more than eating is cooking for others.
💻 Virtual | 🤙 In person | ⚡ One time payment
Strategy + Creativity + Design + Conversation = Ideas & Engagement & Community & Impact.
Organizational Leader Creative Strategist Engagement Specialist Process Designer Host & Facilitator Community Builder Results Coach Foodist Deipnosophist Ordained Priest (ask me about this)
Creative Strategy, Process Design, Community Engagement, Planning & Hosting Events, Facilitating Workshops & Gatherings, Results Coaching
⇨ I am an ICF-trained results coach with a passion for support creative leaders
⇨ I have been a director at an interdisciplinary design and architecture firm with three offices and over 100 employees.
⇨ I founded and managed a successful brand strategy and communication design consultancy for 20 years.
⇨ I founded, produce, and host the Vancouver chapter of CreativeMornings, a popular monthly free breakfast lecture series on creativity.
⇨ I have process designed and facilitated numerous workshops and retreats for leaders, companies, and organizations of various kinds.
⇨ I have been a design and communications instructor and mentor for many years.
⇨ I am obsessed with the intersection of culture and cuisine, and the only thing I enjoy more than eating is cooking for others.
💻 Virtual | 🤙 In person | ⚡ One time payment
I have been in business leadership in a variety of roles for three decades, with much of that time spent as a creative strategist and brand consultant. I enjoy helping leaders and organizations thrive, but I LOVE supporting individuals and groups by making connections, exploring creative process, hosting gatherings, and facilitating meaningful conversations.
After running a successful brand design consulting firm for nearly 20 years, my career has put me on the frontier of applying creative, design, and participatory methods to social and strategic questions in business, community, and the arts. I am a community leader with a passion to tackle social, economic, and environmental issues, contributing thousands of hours as a volunteer and serving on boards of several non-profit organizations.
I have recently leaned into my results coaching practice with advanced ICF training. I find great joy in sitting with others as their thought partner, not telling them my thoughts, opinions, and suggestions, but rather helping them explore what lies beneath the challenges before them and discover their own creative brilliance.
I have a strong belief in the power of creativity and human connection as catalysts for positive change. This belief has enabled me to create communities and host meaningful conversations and events in a variety of forms exploring new ideas, approaches, and opportunities to create impact. This is my mission.
Perhaps the most valuable information about myself I could so people can assess whether we'll work well together are my core values. After all, these strong beliefs are what form my unique identity and guide my decisions and behaviour. After much reflection and personal work, I have distilled my core values down to four words that spell the acronym RISK: RELATIONSHIPS, INTEGRITY, SERVICE, and KNOWLEDGE.
⇨ I chose the word RELATIONSHIPS to represent the value of being connected to others, of belonging to a community where I feel seen and accepted, flaws and all. The value of relationships motivated me to surround myself with those I know I can trust and count on to be there for me. I suppose another word for this might be loyalty.
⇨ The value INTEGRITY is based on my belief that a life well lived is guided by truth, honesty, and honour. For me that often involves demonstrating a strength of character to do the right thing, even—or especially—when it comes at a cost. As a result, I can be a fairly forthright, even blunt, person at times.
⇨ I adore being in SERVICE and actively seek out opportunities to share my talents, creativity, resources, and energy with people and organizations in ways that benefit others, causes, or society without asking for or expecting anything in return. I'm kind of a keener that way.
⇨ For me KNOWLEDGE is the intersection of curiosity and intelligence. I am in awe of the world and as a result feel compelled to constantly pursue new experiences, new approaches, and new learnings that allow me to be more aware, more empathetic, and more effective. Being a lifelong learning has served me well as a creative professional.
The acronym RISK works to express something about who I am too as I don't tend to avoid risk and often invite others to lean into the discomfort and seeking new perspectives, trying new approaches, and taking personal and professional risks. Kinda works, hey?
I could add so much here, but for now I will just recommend two things for your consideration:
⇨ Canadian designer Bruce Mau's “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" https://brucemaustudio.com/projects/an-incomplete-manifesto-for-growth
⇨ Design Justice Network Principles https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles
⇨ My favourite quote is “There is no truth. There is only perception.” (Gustave Flaubert)
⇨ I love being wrong (when it leads to learning and correction)
⇨ I collect probing, often uncomfortable questions (can you handle being vulnerable?)
⇨ I have been called a “limbic energy machine” (i.e. I give and feed on energy)
⇨ I have studied the culinary arts and love cooking for others (more than eating even)
⇨ I have a coulrophobia-level dislike of clowns (I don’t that’s useful info, but anyway)
⇨ I am an ordained Dudeist Priest and can perform marriage ceremonies (Seriously, Google it)
I adore hosting conversation, whether in circle, around a meal, or online. In fact, my goal is for someone to one day call me a skilled deipnosophist (Google it).
I believe the world does not need more events, it needs BETTER events, rooted in meaning, purpose, and impact. I've been producing engaging community events that are designed to create connections, conversations, and capacity for decades. Join me!
If you haven't experienced CreativeMornings/Vancouver yet, you are missing a magical community experience. Let me know and I can make sure you get a ticket as my guest. http://www.creativemornings.com/cities/van
Over the past decade I have planned, produced, and hosted hundreds of successful events, most in person but many virtual on a variety of platforms. These have been insightful speakers, presentations, workshops, screenings, performances, workshops, festivals, fundraisers—even weddings and funerals.
One of my favourite things is to design engaging and effective gatherings, whether they are meetings, workshops, retreats, or whatever. I am really good at this, but I bet if you and I collaborated we could create something special.
I've been figuring out ways to find order in the complexity of the creative process for over 30 years, so it's likely the challenge you are facing is something I've worked through years ago. Let's chat.
Maybe you're struggling with a pitch or a talk you have to give in front of an audience. Storytelling is a sort of passion hobby of mine and I bet I can help you understand how to construct an effective narrative that captures your audience's attention and delivers your message! Let's scheme together1
I have spent more than two decades helping organizations and their leadership identify the power of identity design, storytelling, and messaging. There are lots of examples of projects I helped lead on my design consultancy's website, and you can hire me and my team to help you with your brand and identity design. See my brand audit offer.
As part of HCMA's TILT Curiosity Labs, I managed an artist in residence program which was an amazing way to connect various perspectives and forms of craft and making with a team of designers yearning for new ways to create. Plus we helped support the arts and culture sector which was terrific.
Over the years I've written numerous opinion pieces for various publications, but many of the design, marketing, and strategy related ones can be found on Industrial Brand's website: https://www.industrialbrand.com/author/mark-busse
I sometimes get asked to go on podcasts and such and talk about the various things that I'm passionate about. Here is an example of a conversation about designing for community you might enjoy (or maybe not). ;-) https://pricetags.ca/podcast/mark-busse-on-the-underlying-confidence-that-we-can-design-for-community/
I love studying the culinary arts and love cooking for others even more than eating, but I hate being called a "foodie". If you were a serious piano player, would you want to be called a "pianoee"? Of course not. This is why the food and media collective I co-founded is called www.foodists.ca. Check it out.
It was a delight to chat with Mark we discussed his experience as a process designer and facilitator as well as how we both are seeking daily to make impact locally and globally.
The notes, insights, and ideas I get from calls with Mark can be best described as abundant.
Here are just a few things we chatted about during our conversation:
> good books - bury my heart
> good leadership qual...
My meeting with Mark was amazing - more than I'd hoped for. He's a fun, happy person, with a tremendous amount of experience and insight.
I found Mark to be very genuine and open - super easy to talk to and connect wi...
Walk and talks with Mark are full of all kinds of surprises:
History, stories, case studies, anecdotes, introductions, coffees, flowing conversations, action, connection, and more.
I booked Mark for this walk and t...
Holy cow guys. From beginning to end this has been not only a delight but so deeply useful to both me and my business's internal compass.
Long story short. Mark is helping me and my team come up with the foundation of ...
Mark was energetic and super open to my ideas for a Diversity Festival I am producing. He was encouraging and offered great advice. I was invited to pitch my event at a future Creative Mornings event to gain more exposure....
Mark is a wealth of knowledge and connections. If he can't help you with something, he knows the person that can. He is well connected in this city and very generous with his time and insights.
A spirited conversationalist with a pension for enthused appreciation and sharing. A joy to be in the company of this man.
Mark is helping me place a monetary value on myself and my experiences that have led to the growth and valuation of my consulting career. Thank you Mark.