CEO, Debow Musical Instruments ❤️🇨🇦 4x co-founder. Company producer. @Build_Canada
Toronto, Ontario
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Your odds of being great at anything are directly proportional to your willingness to suck at it for a long time.
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leave, complain... or do something.
try doing something. be part of the change.
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) and internetVin (@internetvin) riff on the options you have as a frustrated Canadian.
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daniel debow retweeted
crazy that fewer than one-third of eligible Torontonians voted in the 2022 municipal election
we can do better than that this time around
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daniel debow retweeted
reflecting on this conversation with @ddebow:
I'd say the core claim or thesis of the conversation is that human capability is often more abundant than observed behaviour makes it appear. Whether that capability becomes action depends heavily on the environment around it: the friction people face, whether they experience early efficacy, whether the activity feels culturally legitimate, who they are surrounded by, what behaviour they see modelled, and what the system permits.
If you change those conditions then previously latent behaviour can emerge. Once enough people act, their behaviour begins changing the environment for everyone else.
I think this conversation captures that well but where it could be developed further is through a deeper investigation into causalities, what I mean is, it might be useful for me to more deeply study the conditions under which different behaviour emerges and why.
Canada is a complex adaptive system containing many local environments producing all kinds of different behaviours. Canadian culture is not a single immutable thing. I have a strong intuitive model of the cause and effect relationship of talent development in the Greater Toronto Area, and I'd bet similar patterns probably extend out to other areas.
I use the Plaza as my metaphor to express what I'm feeling or noticing because that's where I experience the energy of those cause and effect relationships the most clearly, but it's probably worth putting all of these observations into some kind of project.
Perhaps the next core inquiry is:
What conditions cause a local environment to turn latent human capability into sustained, self-reinforcing action? why?
Daniel Debow (@ddebow), an entrepreneur and musician, shows his new instrument in public for the first time in this episode. It’s a campfire instrument designed so that anyone can learn to play songs in under an hour. His argument is that most people who try to learn music don’t quit because they lack talent. They quit because instruments like the guitar and piano make beginners practice for a long time before they can play a single song. He explains how his team built an alternative. Four finger shapes cover most pop songs, magnets vibrate a piece of tonewood instead of a speaker, and a metronome pulses on your lap so you can feel the beat.
The second half is about Canada. @internetvin says he has felt out of place in Canada since he was a kid, and that he measures progress against Shenzhen, which went from a fishing village to one of the most advanced cities in the world in about 50 years. He argues that the current changes, like trading with more countries than the US, are basic systems design and not enough. Daniel says Canadians who feel this way can leave, as many have, complain, or build something, and he makes the case for building. Along the way they talk about how Geary Avenue in Toronto grew into a music scene out of cheap rent and a zoning loophole, how Daniel started Build Canada by publishing dozens of policy papers the way you’d publish content online, and how the Overton window shifts.
The Other Stuff is hosted by @internetvin, filmmaker and entrepreneur and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New.
Timestamps
00:00:00 Creating a New Musical Instrument
00:09:59 Four Shapes, Any Song
00:23:52 Whales, Lutes, and Leo Fender
00:33:16 Making Wood Sing with Magnets
00:41:26 Geary Avenue
00:54:22 Out of Place in Canada
01:02:18 The Ceiling You Can Feel
01:07:01 Build Canada
01:25:54 The Overton Window
01:33:54 How the Super Deduction Works
01:41:00 Shenzhen vs Toronto
01:56:05 Say the Thing
01:58:04 A Country of Adventurers
02:03:56 Let the Weirdos Be Weird
02:12:08 Canada Is a Project
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daniel debow retweeted
In 1800s Toronto, nearly 50% of recorded deaths were children under 10.
A women's Bible study group led by Elizabeth McMaster sought to change that.
In a rented house with 6 iron cots & no running water, 🇨🇦's first children's hospital was born.
This is the story of @sickkids.
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daniel debow retweeted
Canada, let's learn from this. We can bring the same ease to Canada.ca. CC: @MarkJCarney
Chief Design Officer @jgebbia officially unveils America.gov, the new online home for the United States of America
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i am pro-weirdo
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) says that we need to reverse our culture when it comes to weirdos.
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daniel debow retweeted
internetVin (@internetvin) voices his frustrations with Canada and its systems design and asks one simple question.
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daniel debow retweeted
The under-45 vote is primed to reject the status quo.
This age gradient / vote intention data maps closely to what we see at Build Canada. The vast majority of our followers across platforms are 18-44 year olds, with a heavy skew to the younger end of that bracket.
The people with the least equity in how things are, no house, no pension, a decade of flat wages, are the ones who want change. The people the current system has served well want to keep it that way.
That's actually rational on both sides. Canada's income per person has dropped from 83% of the US level in 2014 to about 71%. So, if you're 25, that gap is your whole working life.
The under-45 vote is available to whoever can deliver the most compelling plan for growth, affordability, and a system that doesn't just work for older Canadians.
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we need to be the country of the future
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) reminds us that Canada’s history is of boldness, greatness, and some crazy mofos.
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daniel debow retweeted
it's insane to me that the City of Toronto hasn't spent more to inform ppl about the upcoming election. voter turnout in 2022 was 29.7% ffs
while conspiracy narratives may help get clicks, the goals we have are simple:
> increase voter turnout
> talk about issues
> get people actually f***ing engaged in democracy
Despite not backing any candidate, this tech CEO-linked policy shop spent far more on Facebook and Instagram ads about Toronto’s municipal elections than every candidate, third-party advertiser and the city itself, combined. zurl.co/69u5R
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great. now figure out how to keep them here.
Ontario is investing record amounts to train more students in Waterloo and across Ontario in high-demand fields like science, technology, engineering, math and health care. We’re connecting students to good-paying jobs and building the workforce of the future.
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just got my most musically challenged friend ever to play “Hallelujah” - his fav song - in about 6 mins. he’s tried for years.
it was magic to watch him get to the joy. ❤️
if we can it for him, we can do it for everyone.
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very happy to see my friend @jaimestein out his hat in the ring!
We’re pleased to announce Jaime Stein in Vancouver - Langara.
We’re unified and ready to bring the change BC deserves.
conservativebc.ca/candidate/…
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daniel debow retweeted
In a world where we have a new AI thing everyday, it's refreshing to see someone building something different.
A brand new instrument that lowers the barrier to create music. Looks and sounds super cool.
@ddebow is a legend in the Canadian tech ecosystem. Excited to try his new instrument out.
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) demos his new musical instrument in public for the first time.
It has no speaker. Magnets vibrate a piece of wood to produce sound.
Instead of making the user think in chords, the instrument makes the user think in finger shapes.
He built it for people who believed they weren’t capable of being musical.
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daniel debow retweeted
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) demos his new musical instrument in public for the first time.
It has no speaker. Magnets vibrate a piece of wood to produce sound.
Instead of making the user think in chords, the instrument makes the user think in finger shapes.
He built it for people who believed they weren’t capable of being musical.
Daniel Debow (@ddebow), an entrepreneur and musician, shows his new instrument in public for the first time in this episode. It’s a campfire instrument designed so that anyone can learn to play songs in under an hour. His argument is that most people who try to learn music don’t quit because they lack talent. They quit because instruments like the guitar and piano make beginners practice for a long time before they can play a single song. He explains how his team built an alternative. Four finger shapes cover most pop songs, magnets vibrate a piece of tonewood instead of a speaker, and a metronome pulses on your lap so you can feel the beat.
The second half is about Canada. @internetvin says he has felt out of place in Canada since he was a kid, and that he measures progress against Shenzhen, which went from a fishing village to one of the most advanced cities in the world in about 50 years. He argues that the current changes, like trading with more countries than the US, are basic systems design and not enough. Daniel says Canadians who feel this way can leave, as many have, complain, or build something, and he makes the case for building. Along the way they talk about how Geary Avenue in Toronto grew into a music scene out of cheap rent and a zoning loophole, how Daniel started Build Canada by publishing dozens of policy papers the way you’d publish content online, and how the Overton window shifts.
The Other Stuff is hosted by @internetvin, filmmaker and entrepreneur and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New.
Timestamps
00:00:00 Creating a New Musical Instrument
00:09:59 Four Shapes, Any Song
00:23:52 Whales, Lutes, and Leo Fender
00:33:16 Making Wood Sing with Magnets
00:41:26 Geary Avenue
00:54:22 Out of Place in Canada
01:02:18 The Ceiling You Can Feel
01:07:01 Build Canada
01:25:54 The Overton Window
01:33:54 How the Super Deduction Works
01:41:00 Shenzhen vs Toronto
01:56:05 Say the Thing
01:58:04 A Country of Adventurers
02:03:56 Let the Weirdos Be Weird
02:12:08 Canada Is a Project
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we are all capable of making music. we have a gift for you.
Daniel Debow (@ddebow) demos his new musical instrument in public for the first time.
It has no speaker. Magnets vibrate a piece of wood to produce sound.
Instead of making the user think in chords, the instrument makes the user think in finger shapes.
He built it for people who believed they weren’t capable of being musical.
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daniel debow retweeted
Super cool Daniel! Love the idea of chord types as shapes. Makes this sound like something good for beginners both young and old. And a good step before learning chords on other instruments.
Much like Suzuki method - learn the sounds first
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first time i've ever been described in tech world as a musician...and first time sharing what i've been working on for past years.
worlds & identities collide!
Latest episode of @OtherStuffShow on YouTube. Thank you for everything so far.
piped.video/watch?v=5Xk-ORNV…
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daniel debow retweeted
A political scientist with 1.4 million followers reposting Qatari state media with the history cropped out. Your own graphic notes that Israel and the Palestinians agreed to this division and left settlements for negotiation. You left that out.
Meanwhile Jews in Canada + US are getting attacked at record rates. This is the fuel. You know exactly what this does, Ian.
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