We asked High Road’s Kent Carter to describe his CN Tower EdgeWalk experience. Kent is afraid of heights. His girlfriend Lindsay doesn’t date wimps.

The following conversation occurred at 7:35 a.m. on May 23rd, 2012, mere hours before the EdgeWalk took place.

Lindsay: “You didn’t sleep at all last night, eh?”

Kent:  “Nope – I’m EdgeWalking today. I’d rather make out with a running John Deere tractor.”

Lindsay:  “You’ll be fine. The platform is like five feet wide. You don’t fall off the sidewalk and onto the road when you’re walking on it, do you?”

Kent:  “Remember that time we were coming home from Paul’s keg party?  Well, I don’t, but I remember you telling me that I face planted into a Honda Civic that was parked on the other side of the road.”

Lindsay:  “Yeah, you better make sure that cord is strapped onto you good.”

And so it was with great trepidation that I made my to High Road’s offices and counted down the minutes to my impending doom.  A few months before, one our fearless/crazy leaders, Hugh Scholey, had mentioned to a few of our friends at TELUS that it would be a heck of a lot of fun to strap onto the highest building in Canada and dangle over sheer death for a half an hour.   Naturally, everyone agreed with him.

And I was going along for the ride.

I spent the morning appearing to be hard at work; people get busy and don’t realize the paperwork you’re scrambling to get done isn’t a series of invoice letters, but a last will and testament.  Nonetheless, the time came for us to make our ascent up the CN Tower, get strapped into our harnesses and take a walk outside Toronto’s most famous landmark, 365 meters above the splatter zone.

And I couldn’t have done it with a better group of people:  Anne-Marie Laberge, Denise Bombier, Paula Switzer and Emma Miller from TELUS, as well as HRC’s own Hugh Scholey, were there to support me every step of the way (editor’s note: “every step of the way,” should be read as “every terrified stutter step”). They didn’t even make fun of me – well, too much, at least – when I cried out several times for my mother.

The crazy thing is, I actually started enjoyed myself.  It truly was a great experience, shared with great people.  The sight of Toronto from such a different vantage point is really something behold.

We’re already talking about our next TELUS/High Road adventure.  The front runner right now is swimming with sharks.

But would I do The EdgeWalk again?

#notachanceinhell

We don’t think there is a better way to wrap up a five-month long project with TELUS Enterprise than to have the honour of being named Best Telecommunications Website in the 15th annual 2011 WebAwards. The competition was stiff with over 2,000 entries from 96 industries and 45 countries participating in this year’s competition, but TELUS Enterprize. Power to Solve. stood out amongst the competition!

High Road worked around the clock with TELUS Enterprise to develop a five-month e-learning internal awareness program that we only had a month and a half to create and develop. High Road and TELUS Enterprise were up for the challenge, creating the strategy, information architecture, content, measurement plan and technical development in record-breaking time.

The game itself was a mix of Wheel of Fortune and Trivial Pursuit and sought to not only educate its 2,500 Enterprise Solutions team members about its business priorities, solutions, brand and key initiatives but also to create enthusiasm, engagement and a little healthy competition.

In addition to answering monthly questions from May to September, employees were able to earn bonus points for submitting “Power to Solve” Moments – mini-blogs citing how they have used their problem-solving skills and leadership to improve the customer experience at all levels. We then incentivized users to “like” and “vote” on stories to earn further points. It was amazing to see how much support and excitement employees had surrounding the Power to Solve Moments – with close to 300 Power to Solve stories collected!

The program has been so successful that the team has had to move their goal posts for success three times already and had a 42% engagement rate amongst the target audience!

Congratulations to everyone at TELUS and at High Road who worked on this award-winning program!

Just in time for the school bell chime, High Road worked with TELUS to invite media to a Back to School preview event showcasing the company’s exciting line-up of devices and services. From Facebook-centric phones like the HTC Status, to social-networking based music service Rdio, media were invited to see the many ways TELUS is curating the Internet to offer customers the services they know and love on smartphones built around social trends.

To kick-off the Back to School theme, media were sent invites in the form of college admission letters, encouraging one and all to take part in a freshman orientation at TELUS. 19 media spanning technology, lifestyle and online publications attended the Back to School preview event held at the TELUS tower in Toronto.

Technology reporters and bloggers were invited to an afternoon briefing at the TELUS Innovation Centre with VP of Mobility Solutions, Brent Johnston, who discussed TELUS’ smartphone and services strategy. A few hours later, a slew of lifestyle reporters and bloggers joined for the second half of the event, complete with fun and interactive demos from TELUS spokespeople. Media enjoyed a live DJ, bar service, appetizers and a “Glee”ful performance from the Etobicoke School of Arts club, SPLASH, who charmed the audience with foot-stompin’ renditions of classics like “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Lean on Me.”

Jen McNeeley, editor of SheDoestheCity, echoed everyone’s feelings about the Glee club performance, going so far as to tweet that the TELUS event was the highlight of her life: And the glee club did Journey. Who knew the @telus event would be the highlight of my life? Several others commented that the event’s look and feel creatively captured the “Back to School” theme.

Class may be dismissed, but one thing’s for sure: media are hard at work because the coverage is rolling in at record speed. From blog posts to tweets, this class is on their A game!