This month, I had the opportunity to attend the Lift & Co. Cannabis Expo in Toronto. The event was much bigger this year and more comprehensive. There were more talks, panels and booths than previous years. It’s clear that the Lift Expo and the entire industry are evolving. We’re entering a new phase in the legalization of cannabis.
It’s not just the new classes of cannabis hitting the market at the end of 2019. The cannabis industry has always been a fast-moving field which requires participants to create innovative solutions by rapid prototyping. One of the euphemisms often used in reference to this work, which was mentioned at the expo by Will Stewart, the Senior Vice President of Harvest One Cannabis, is ‘Building an airplane in the sky.’ Everyone participating in this amazing experiment can relate to the sentiment. It resonates with those of us responsible for producing content in this highly regulated field. We have to be particularly sensitive to the use of content to inform consumers.
On that note, one remarkable feature of the event was the use of unity in design. As an educational designer, I couldn’t help but notice how Lift & Co. staff elegantly aligned the visual elements of the set designs, marketing materials and presentation decks. This was, perhaps, the most immersive iteration of unity in design that I’ve seen in the cannabis industry so far, which to me, seems like a strong indication of evolution of the cannabis industry. This is Legalization 2.0.
The speakers were all well-informed on the issues du jour, providing a holistic perspective of the domestic and global markets, drawing the landscape of the cannabis industry by exploring the mechanisms underlying and ancillary forces impacting progress in the field.
The opening session was delivered by Matei Olaru, CEO of Lift & Co. along with Cy Scott, co-founder of Leafly as well as co-founder and CEO of Headset, Inc. They collaborated on a stimulating discussion which illuminated a variety of relevant and pressing issues for cannabis consumers and the companies trying to sell them products. Together, they constructed the profiles of two cannabis consumers, fleshing out the data-driven insights derived from legal cannabis purchases in Canada and the United States. Their presentation highlighted some of the most germane problems facing everyone in the space, setting the stage for our expectations of the weekend’s events, but perhaps even more so what to expect in the next few years.
75