In my opinion, the mittens were totally my idea!
Here is a picture of what my now 2+ year old prototype mittens look like. I sent a picture along with a business proposal to the the Vancouver 2010 Commerce committee that coordinates business opportunities for the 2010 Winter Olympics! The original email I sent to them is dated 11/30/2007!
Update 10/26/2013- Bob Mackin interviewed me and documented my claim to designing the 2010 Winter Olympics' Red Mittens in his book Red Mittens & Red Ink
Update 10/26/2013- Bob Mackin interviewed me and documented my claim to designing the 2010 Winter Olympics' Red Mittens in his book Red Mittens & Red Ink
2 comments:
HI Marcus I've been trying to find out who designed the Canada red mittens from HBC or VANOC, but the usual no answer. I have written about you and your red mitten design and I have posted your prototype photo linking back to this page on my Canada red mitten shop website at
www.buyredmittenscanada.ca
Check out your link here
http://www.buyredmittenscanada.ca/who-designed-canada-red-mittens
Cool!
After reading your kind comments on your website I feel obligated to further clarify that VANOC did respond back to me. Didn't really understand their responses at the time but rereading them I think I do now.
I sent you the whole VANOC email thread. If you really want to read the whole thing you have to start reading from the bottom of this email and read up.
From what I have read on the internet, revenue generated from these red mittens has exceeded $30 million dollars ($10 x 3+ million mittens). I'm a little sad that I didn't get a single penny of that $30 million dollars!
My current interpretation of VANOC's responses to my emails amounts to standard requirements for government contract work.
What is a little weird is the original email address I sent my proposal to is 'sponsorship@vancouver2010.com'. If they can't sponsor companies why would they advertise a 'sponsorship' email name like that?
VANOC said they can put my idea in their business opportunities database so companies that want to make such products can express their interest to VANOC on making the mittens. VANOC may have placed my idea in their business opportunities database but totally left it up to me to find it! I didn't really understand what their email responses meant at the time. Here is what I now think they were saying...
"We (VANOC) cannot sponsor unsolicited proposals from private parties because that is not how government contracts are awarded. All we can do is place your idea in our business opportunities database if you fill out the correct paperwork and send it to us. Companies that want to make the mittens can then send us back a request that states they are interested in making the mittens."
In other words, VANOC advertises ideas for products they want to have made for the Olympics, companies reply saying they would like to be considered for making them and VANOC then chooses a few companies they think should make the mittens. VANOC then asks those chosen, few companies to submit a cost proposal to make the mittens. VANOC finally awards a winner to make the mittens based on the proposals submitted by the chosen few that made it through their bid process.
VANOC also sent several emails stating I really need to come up to Vancouver and schmooze with the other companies on their list in the many business conferences they had. I couldn't realistically do that.
Since I designed the mittens, there may be some international copyright issues they are ignoring. I can't afford a lawyer to find that out.
I am still very excited my idea became a reality! It is fun to see how far one fun idea can go. With 'Tickles the Bear' books I've seen my idea go all the way around the world by simply writing and publishing eBooks online- again for very little gain in dollars for the effort required.
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