Before the sun had even begun to rise, our class packed our bags into the Seycove van and set off for Seattle. The ride was pretty nice, except for the fact we didn’t have an aux cord and had to listen to Christmas songs the entire way. Around 10:00 am, we reached out first destination, the Microsoft Visitor Centre. This facility is located just outside of Seattle in the town of Redmond, and is part of the massive 80 building Microsoft campus. Inside is what you’d except in a public centre; highlights from Microsoft’s technological journey and lots of modern products on display. It was cool, but what was even cooler was the place we went afterwards.

Our second destination on the Microsoft Campus was known as The Garage. Unlike the Visitor Centre, The Garage is a private access facility only, and this is because it’s an actual workspace for Microsoft employees. It’s something of a dream factory for Microsoft, where people with good ideas can come and take the first steps to making them a reality. It gives the everyday person the tools to create whatever they’d like, sometimes marking the beginning of a hit product. It was really quite a unique experience to be in an active working space like this and see real people developing potential new technologies. It was also interesting to see how similar it felt to our Maker spaces at Seycove, and reminded me of the importance of going through the creative process. It is something we do a lot in class, and it can feel tedious at times, but seeing a company like Microsoft utilizing tools such as idea generation sessions and goal setting charts showed me just how effective this process can be.

It’s interesting though to think of the purpose of the Microsoft Garage. It’s a multimillion dollar facility home to some of the most advanced technology of our time, but doesn’t generate any direct revenue. Yes it helps with general product development, but investing this much time, space, and manpower into something that isn’t bringing in measurable profit seems unrealistic. However, this is a perfect example of a level of craziness that leads to success, as it’s Microsoft’s dedication to their ideas and progress focused mindset that has pushed them to the top. After our exploration of Microsoft, our class (mainly Mr. Hughes) was getting hungry, so we went to the restaurant Din Tai Fung. Famous for their incredible soup dumplings, this was the perfect place to recharge before hitting the road again. Our next stop was University Village, a strip mall styled pavilion of progressive stores ranging from one of Amazon’s first brick and mortar shops to the tech showcase store B&TA. This was a great place to capture footage, but it posed a challenge. This place was huge, and our group would have to have to communicate well if we were going to get all the shots we needed. So, instead of doing our usual run off and see what happens, I prepared a sheet of shots we should get in this location and made sure my group understood it. This lead to a much more efficient use of time, along with better quality and more specific shots.

That night, we checked into our hotel and took a brief look around the Amazon BioSpheres (more on that later), and then headed out for dinner. We went the burger chain Shake Shack, which is another culinary highlight of the city. They specialize in gourmet burgers and shakes, great customer service, and still manage to be a wide spread successful fast food chain on top of it. The idea for this restaurant originated from the mind of restauranteur Danny Meyer, who wanted to open up a convenient restaurant that still kept the values of helping people and quality. He placed this balance above all else, once even keeping a restaurant that wasn’t making profit open just to keep his employees jobs. Some might consider this unique style of business foolish as it doesn’t put a big focus on profit, but it’s this quality about Shake Shack that has lead to it becoming such a success.

After a night at our hotel, we were ready to rise bright and early to explore all of what the inner city of Seattle had to offer. Due to an error on our hotel’s behalf we didn’t get breakfast that morning, but it didn’t matter too much as our first stop was the Starbucks SoDo Reserve. Located in the southern half of Seattle, the SoDo Reserve has quite the incredible architecture. The outside resembles something of a government building with large brick walls and towers rising from the top, but the inside feels more like an upscale New York Roastery. Everything is built to cater to Starbuck’s unique customer focused atmosphere, which makes the building function well as both a workspace and a eatery.

It’s also Starbuck’s Headquarters, and takes a lot of man power and money to run. In my opinion, this is another example of the craziness found in successful businesses because although any company headquarters takes a lot of resources to run, no one puts as much detail into their atmosphere as Starbucks. From the moment you walk through the door to when you leave, you feel like you have entered a completely new world. Starbucks invests millions into this atmosphere, and there is really no reason for them to do this because there is no way to measure the profitability of atmosphere. Starbucks however, is willing to invest this money and time into it anyways, and this is part of the reason why they are a world renowned company.

I wasn’t expected this stadium to be a place where we would find anything relating to craziness, but I turned out to be wrong. We were given a tour of the place by a retired Seahawks staff member named Dale, who brought up a key factor in the Seahawks success being their head coach, Pete Carroll. Despite being the oldest coach in the entire league, Carroll is full of energy and hope, sometimes getting more excited then the fans. He is constantly encouraging his players to have fun and be themselves which is a practice that isn’t common with major league coaches. He was thought of as weird for many years, even being fired from two separate NFL teams because of his unique approach. If this happened to the average person, they would probably give up coaching and find a new career, but not Carroll. He stuck with it, despite people thinking he was crazy, and eventually it landed him his current spot with the Seahawks, a position that has lead them to victory in multiple occasions.

After lunch at a teriyaki restaurant, we set out to visit the Museum of Living Computers. Home to some of the most advanced technology of our day, along with some of the first computers to ever be built, this was truly a great place for our class to explore. Using some of my coding knowledge from the SBC Challange and Grade 8, I opportunity to program a robot and even build a small moving machine. I also got the opportunity to get a great interview for our video, in which the unedited version of can be seen below:

It was starting to get dark when we left the museum, but this wasn’t a problem as our next location was better to visit at night. Being one of the pinnacles of oddities in Seattle, it made perfect sense that we would be taking a trip down to the Chihuly Garden and Glass. Founded by glass blower and designer Dale Chihuly, this half indoor, half outdoor facility holds over 100 of his most incredible and exotic exhibits. Chihuly’s glass art is known for being one of a kind, and I could really see why when looking at it in person. It looks surreal, like an alien liquid somehow suspended in mid air, but also finds a way to blend perfectly with it’s environment. Before he began working with this medium, the world of glass blowing and sculpting was mainly a work of function, with any artists in the field typically creating small, practical objects such as bowls, bottles, and tables. Chihuly however, out of nothing more than a vision, decided that he was going to show the world a new perspective on the functions of glass, and began working with the crazy idea of making a career out of his strange art. It may have seemed like an odd choice at the beginning, but there is no doubt now that following through was a good choice as it allowed him to make a truly unique contribution to the world of art.

Now settled into our hotels, we rose on the third day to a spectacular buffet breakfast overlooking the inner streets of Seattle. After this, we head off to our first activity of the day, the Amazon Walking Tour. Using Amazon’s audio tour app of Audible, our class was able to work our way through their city headquarters and explore some of the things that have allowed them to become today’s #1 most valuable business. Part of this I could tell, similar to Starbucks, is their incredible attention to detail along with their focus on helping the people. Instead of buying cheaper land out in the suburbs to build their facilities, Amazon keeps all their buildings in the heart of Seattle so they can live and grow with the city. They also give back to the community through initiatives such as their banana cart program (read more about that here) and by donating some of their buildings to local charities.

After Amazon, we walked to a quieter area of the city where our next location was. This place could arguably be the epitome of our unit focus of crazy people changing the world, as the reason it was created is something truly one of a kind. I am talking about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundatio. Created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, this organization has goals that many would consider out of this world, such as eradicating malaria and leading the world to a path out of poverty. What is even crazier though, is the way that they to achieve them. In the words of Bill Gates himself: “Once you’ve taken care of yourself and your children, the best use of extra wealth is to give it back to soceity". By time they’ve retired, the couple aims to have given away every cent of their multi-billion dollar fortune, all in the name of making our world a better place. No matter how noble this goal is, it’s still an insane thing to do. These efforts will not only take all of their money, but most of their time too. There will need to be extensive research, experimentation, and perseverance in the face of failure, but Bill and Melinda Gates are willing to go all of these insane lengths to reach their goals. It shows just how powerful the combination of passion, resources, and dreaming big can be.

The foundation was a great place to see how a philanthropic effort can have a big impact, but it doesn’t always take something as direct as charity to make change. This was something that we got to see for ourselves at our next destination, the Museum of Pop Culture. After a great lunch at Grecian Corner, a restaurant that is now probably tied with my liking of Din Tai Fung, we walked northwards of Chihuly Gardens to find the giant metal sculpture that is the MoPop. Inspired by rock legend Jimi Hendrix and filled from the collections of Paul Allen (Microsoft Co-Founder), The MoPop acts as a hub for all things innovation that are part of our modern culture. Ranging from props of famous movies:

It was surprising to wake up on day four and realize that the trip was coming to a close, as it had gone by so quickly. There was not a single moment were I felt it was dragging on, and I had had so much fun. Luckily, some of the best experiences of the trip happened on this last day so we ended on a high note. After breakfast once again at the hotel, we said good bye to Seattle and drove off down the highway. At this point, our teacher’s figured we knew how important being crazy was to success, so they decided to let us get a little crazy ourselves. Before we left the area, we pulled into a small strip mall that had a large red building near the entrance. You wouldn’t know what it was from the outside, but the inside contains something that will blow you away. Literally. This facility, known as iFly, is one of the most advanced indoor skydiving locations in America, and we got to try it out. When I first heard we were going to be free falling in a tube as tall as a house, I was a little anxious. However, once we got some instruction from a flight guide, I decided I was willing to give it a go. Let me tell you, this was a good decision. Click here to watch the video of my flight.