This is one of my favorite blogs, it happens to originate in my area so its super relevant to me. However it is a great blog on art, culture and technology. If you haven’t checked it out – give it a read. I love this entry from yesterday.
http://laughingsquid.com/from-burning-man-artwork-to-real-world-architecture/
Happy Friday!!! Details to come this weekend from my Point Reyes Day Trip this week.
Cheers!
I’ve given two lectures in the last couple of months – one was for the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco in May and last Sat at Summer Repertory Theater’s workshop day. It seems that after doing what I do for close to a decade I have a few opinions about it.
Adapting a Novella into a Play – The Yellow Wallpaper
The ALA lecture/panel was about the adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper that I wrote in 2003 and a production of it produced by Dr. Judith Gallagher and directed by Melinda Benton. I’m very proud of the adaptation and it was thrilling and equally intimidating to sit in a room with Gilman scholars who know so much more than I do about the original novella and Ms. Gilman. I held up just fine and it was fantastic for me to revisit and reengage about the writing process, the production that I directed in Seattle at Theater Schmeater and the production that was produced at Tarrant County Junior College in Ft. Worth, TX. I’ve been asked to speak on another panel in Houston in October on the subject for the Community Colleges Humanities Association and I hope to attend. I am planning a mailing of the adaptation this Summer, as I’d love to see it produced as part of Women’s History months in theater departments across the country next year.
Bringing Theatrical Skills to Corporate Events
During the last few weeks of the season at Summer Repertory Theater (my husband is the Artistic Director of the wonderful 39 year old theater training program), they hold workshop classes for the students. This year he asked me to come in and talk to his students about translating theatrical skills into the corporate event world. As theater students, the correlation that there are options outside the Arts where technicians, designers, and actors can find contracting gigs is often lost. I put together a presentation showing them pictures of an empty convention center and asked them to envision who plans and sets-up TechEd or MacWorld? I also showed them the staging and equipment that I helped set up for a Bill Gates keynote in both 2005 and 2006. Designing, building, planning, purchasing are all skills that translate to a very big business – Corporate Events. We spent the hour talking about what kinds of companies are out there for the technical side and then how actors can emcee, demo, and be a spokesperson at an event. The students were lovely and asked great questions. I hope they enjoyed our chat and got some practical knowledge for finding that great “day job”. For me my “day job” turned into a career and small business that I love running.
Do what you love and love what you do, to thine own self be true…
P.S: Some interesting facts about social networking and my SRT Student audience: ~60 attendees in total, ages 19-26, all but one person had a Facebook account, all had MySpace accounts, only a handful of them had accounts or had heard of LinkedIn and only one person used and/understood what Twitter is. I found this fascinating….what social networking tools do you use?
Cheers!
Heather
I went to see my sweet friends Franny & Priscilla funk it up last Sat at the Action Jackson Funk N’ MEGAfrolic - A Fundraiser for Megatropolis – a very cool art project that will be going out to Burning Man this year. The band was of course great and we had a terrific time, nothing like getting off a plan from a week in DC and going straight to a party… wouldn’t be the first time.
What impressed me the
most was the space – I don’t like most large spaces/venues in San Francisco (sorry Mission Rock) and this one is awesome. Big, safe, fine parking, the sound was good and it had clean, decent bathrooms. Cellspace has all kinds of cool programming, art, performance in there all the time – check out what they are doing – http://www.cellspace.org/new/ I dig it.
Capitol at Night
I just got back from a fabulous week in Washington D.C. The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) http://digitalwpc.com/ is my favorite event of the year for a few reasons: it lays the groundwork for the next fiscal year for Microsoft’s partner initiatives (which are near and dear to my heart as I love partners), I get to see so many colleagues/friends that I don’t see very often and its always been on or around my birthday week.
On the WPC site visit this February, Pam Salzer (fabulous long time Microsoft business owner of the whole event) asked us “when was your first WPC?” I realized that I’ve been working on this event since it changed from Fusion to WPC, nine years ago. How time flies….
That first year (2003), I was working for SharePoint team partner product manager Zoltan Deak and we introduced the concept of a “partner theater” to what was then being called the “Microsoft Office System” for both Microsoft TechEd & WPC that year. It was the first time Microsoft gave partners a forum to speak on the expo hall show floor. Having a degree in Theatre, I can’t help but bring a kiss of the theatrical to everything I touch. The concept of a “theater” for partners remains strong today and has been adopted by many others. We innovate this concept every year and a huge Partner Theater was added by the WPC event itself on the Expo hall floor.
Every conference/tradeshow we plan always comes with a myriad of parties and dinners that we pla
n in parallel. D.C. holds its own with celebrity chef choices, including Charlie Palmer, Richard Blais, Eric Ziebold, Michel Richard and many more…. Eclectic eats in Adams Morgan, Utopia (artsy and great pasta), and one of the best hole-in-the-wall live music venues – Madam’s Organ touts “Sorry, Were Open” in red neon, bringing in a crowd you are forced to dance with cheek to cheek and give late night confessions. My favorite place to have a nice dinner – Mie n Yu is in vibrant and collegiate Georgetown. Our last night, we happened upon Kinkead’s in Foggy Bottom and the service was stellar and my scallop dish was crazy good. For my birthday dinner we went to Napoleon, a lovely french bistro, where the moules and frites were fantastic and champagne cocktails divine.
For the official partner dinner planned by my team, we chose Art & Soul, celebrated two-time James Beard-Award winning Chef Art Smith’s modern/Southern locavore restaurant located in the Liaison Hotel on Capitol Hill. Art & Soul has a lovely patio and a chic modern private room that can hold up to 60 comfortably. The ambience and the staff were superb – the food, well, some might say — was soulful.
The “arugula” ended up being spinach – regardless the salad with watermelon pickles, goat cheese, almonds and a blackberry ale vinaigrette was outstanding. Other than the lettuce deviation, the food was “tablesmacking” good. The ribeye and creamed spinach were cooked to perfection. The meal was brought to a sweet end with a board of mini-cupcakes – the perfect small bite accompanied by espresso drinks to give guests the strength to go onto all the rest of the events of the evening.
Other venues that I liked we’re P.O.V. @ the W Hotel – you can’t beat the view, Microsoft global partner Neudesic threw a classy cocktail party up there. The IW team & U.S. Partner team had a receptions at the Newseum which was quite lovely and had amazing passed hors d’oeuvres (lobster rolls & steamed veggie potstickers). KnowledgeLake, Fujitsu and Global 360 hosted a fun happy hour at Buddha Bar DC - this just opened in May venue stood up to its Parisian & NYC MePa flagship spaces.
People ask me all the time – how do you find your party venues and restaurants… **I recommend…
**Hire us to help you – we know what to look for and how to turn what you envision into a reality
Let my team help you bring your brand to life!
Happy Summer & Cheers!
Heather
Owner & Head Maven
Creative Maven
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference City History and Future
2011 – Los Angeles, CA
2010 – Washington D.C.
2009 – New Orleans, LA
2008 – Houston, TX
2007 – Denver, CO
2006 – Boston, MA
2005 – Minneapolis, MN
2004 – Toronto, Ontario
2003 – New Orleans, LA
1996 – 2002 – Fusion
Been home now for a night – no matter how much we travel recharging is so essential for any road warrior. Simply sleeping in one’s bed does wonders for the soul. Taking the new puppy Pierre to the dog park is pretty good too.
The last two months have been so fun and full we’ve planned 2 site visits, 1 party, 4 conferences, 6 dinners with another event coming and a huge event strategy and SharePoint event portal build. Whew! we are busy as we’ve ever been and our clients are happy and telling us so. All is great!!
I’ve got lots to post about all the travels but I thought I’d put a link up to a blog that I really like – tis another Event/Marketing/Maven-type like us.
Paige is one of the sponsor managers for the E2.0 Conference series and is a super cool gal. I really like her blog and I loved this last entry about being a Conference Warrior Princess. I agree girl, tis hard to wear this crown everyday…. you just have to make sure you have your ducks in a row.
Check it out – http://tornpaige.com/2010/05/02/conference-warrior-princess/
I’d only add
6. A roll of packing tape and a sharpie will make you life long friends…..put them in your luggage.
cheers,
hedda
Digital Media Professional – Check out Pixel Corps, I had the pleasure of sitting next to founder Alex Lindsay on a plane back from Chicago last year. He is super cool and so is Pixel Corps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Corps @alexlindsay
Just got back from about 3 weeks on the road. My husband went over to hold auditions at Guildford School of Acting (GSA), Surrey, then Boston Conservatory and NYU for his theater training program Summer Repertory Theatre – www.summerrep.com and I tagged along for a bit of vacation, research and client visits.
First stop was London, UK. My first trip to London was 15 years ago the Summer we got married. I was in route to Dublin, Ireland for a 8 week Graduate School semester abroad at Trinity College prior to taking the plunge. It was my first trip anywhere outside North America in fact. I arrived mid-June and it was the Queen’s 75th birthday – I got to see her in her carriage the day I arrived which blew me away. I immediately fell in love with the city and have been lucky to travel back there for work and play about 15 times.
London is a city that I adore (being a theater geek) and feel terribly comfortable there (I love the dialects, the pubs and the clubs). I’ve actually seen more shows in London than on Broadway. Funny. Not seen the Queen since my first trip but did meet Dame Judy Dench after a play once which was amazing.
We had great weather and spent one afternoon at one of our favorite pubs – the Bear & the Staff. Best thing we saw was the “headband” revolution – headbands were everywhere on women 30 and under. Think Minnie Mouse. AWESOME!
This trip was mostly pleasure for me although I’m always scoping venues, restaurants, hotels etc… along the way.
Here are some notables from this trip:
Hotel:
We stayed at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel – Leicester Square – http://www.radissonedwardian.co.uk/leicestersq.html
First time in the thick of everything and I loved being able to walk everywhere. Rooms were decent sized, nice breakfast and its sister hotel the Hampshire next door has a great bar that is open late.
Restaurants:
London for me is a great mix of comfort food, ethnic dishes and savory delights. I finally had some of the traditional English dishes that I’ve always wanted to try. We were taken to Sunday Roast which was terrific complete with Yorkshire Pudding. We also tried a couple desserts: banoffi pie – a pastry based dessert made from bananas, cream, toffee and boiled condensed milk (or dulce de leche), either on a pastry base or one made from crumbled biscuits and butter and Sticky toffee pudding - moist sponge cake, sometimes made with finely chopped dates or prunes, covered in a toffee sauce. Both were crazy good, I think the toffee pudding may be the best dessert I’ve ever had.
Albannach Bar and Restaurant – http://www.albannach.co.uk/
66 Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DS
Scottish, fun, trendy with a nice bar crowd and great little plates. We had haggis for the first time and I liked it. Thanks to David for the great evening!
Fifteen – Jamie Oliver’s restaurant – http://www.fifteen.net/Pages/default.aspx
We had a lovely, lovely dinner here. The ambience is terrific here and what Jamie has done for promoting following your dreams, healthy/easy cooking – everyone should patronize his place, buy his cookbooks and support him. 15 Westland Place, London N1 7LP, Telephone: 0203 375 1515, International: +44 (0) 203 375 1515
Reservation lines are open from: Monday to Sunday from 9:30am – 9:00pm
Imperial War Museum - http://www.iwm.org.uk/
Fantastic for war buffs and if you are in London till next January there is the coolest exhibit about the Ministry of Food. Go go see it!! It marks the seventieth anniversary of the introduction of food rationing in Britain, the exhibition shows that growing your own food, eating seasonal fruit and vegetables, reducing imports, recycling, and healthy nutrition were just as important in 1940 as they are today.
Being a marketing maven this exhibition is a pure spin doctors delight. The posters, radio, film shorts from the “Ministry” are a combination of one of the best marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen. And they are unbelievably relevant. I grew up in the Midwest and we had huge gardens when I grew up – James Crockett’s Victory Gardens Book is still on my Dad’s bookshelf – I have snapped more green beans, shucked more corn and canned more tomatos when I was a kid – than one can shake a stick at. 
Traveling as much as I do, attending events, client dinners, etc… It’s so hard to eat well. Yeah, yeah but I DID have to try the Banofi pie. As an adult I did plant my first vegetable garden last summer. Just a few tomato plants, some chard and a pepper plant. I’m excited to go bigger this year. Between seeing this exhibit, Jamie’s inspiration – I’m hoping that 2010 is a revolution in my own household. My husband is a great cook and inspiration comes from many places and I’m lucky to live in California and have access to so much organic and fresh food choices. Viva la Revolution! http://food.iwm.org.uk/?page_id=70
Getting Around:
Oyster Card - http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/oysteronline/2732.aspx
Tube travel is the way to go, I keep mine in my travel drawer and pack it in for a trip. An Oyster card can store up to £90 of credit, which can be used to pay as you go, plus your Travelcard or Bus & Tram Pass. It can be used on bus, Tube, trams, DLR, London Overground and National Rail services in London.
Shopping:
Selfridge’s Department Store – http://www.selfridges.com/
400 Oxford Street – 
London W1A 1AB (GPS – 40 Duke Street) Bond Street Tube Station
Classic London department store – being from the Midwest I love the architecture of this store and it was designed by Chicago’s Daniel Burnham who designed Marshall Field’s. I’ve been to Harrod’s before and their food departments are AMAZING , but the windows and great layout makes me love this store. The windows and store were a buzz with the opening of Alice in Wonderland and they had a really lovely “Wonder Room” with first editions, gifites, and fun accessories as well as hat displays and “tea party” displays in the window. We loved it. There is always something cool going on there.
Next, Beantown…..
Sometimes a little song is necessary….
My Daddy said to me to thine own self be true
Follow that direction and you’ll never have the blues
Now I find that’s the way I live my life
It’s one of the reasons I’m singin here tonight
No, no blues, mama has no time to sing the blues
No, no blues baby I ain’t got time for the blues
Looking for some coffee
And I’ll I find is tea
Getting all pissed off about that
Isn’t the right way to be
No, no blues mama can’t take time for the blues
No, no blues mama’s got no time for the blues
Don’t need to take my troubles to drown in the deep blue see
If you love yourself baby your bound to be free
No matter what I say
No matter what I do
It doesn’t matter if things can’t go my way
Don’t got no blues
No, no blues, mama’s ain’t got time for the blues
Don’t need no blues, mama ain’t got time for the blues
And now before you know it you’re at the end of your life
Got yourself through it all, all the struggles and the strife
Without the blues
Girl you’ve made it to the end without the blues
No, no blues, cause baby I ain’t got time for the blues
No, no blues, we ain’t got time for the blues
There’s too much liven, and loving and fun times, alright?
The only way to go is to enjoy the good life
Do what I say baby and you’ll win the fight
No blues, baby baby
Cause we ain’t got time for the blues
No no blues
Mama ain’t got time for the blues
Copyright 2010 – Creative Maven Inc.
I have been overwhelmed with personal responses to the Integrity blog post, I guess I struck a nerve on a bunch of different issues. Everyone agrees, don’t be a jerk and word of mouth is where it’s at. (two turntables and a microphone). Not a shocker…
Social networking is TIMECONSUMING and nebulous. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that some of the bigger companies that I work with still don’t have clear policies on Facebook, Twitter and the like. And who is in charge of it? Is it the PR person, a product manager, marketing person, events manager (ala me?) which has been the case sometimes…. Honestly we are all making up the policies as we go along, but there are best practices. And you and your companies should be aware of them. And I will admit the best way that I’ve learned especially on Facebook is that I’m essentially the Facebook Admin for both my Mom and my Mother-In-Law, they want to see pictures, etc… but don’t want everyone to know their bizness. Literally playing with settings on their sites early on taught me how to navigate THE BOOK, and keep private things private.
This is not new information but you would surprised at how much information is out there about you. Go ahead, Bing yourself (I know I’m a PC gal), do it right now…. I found my entire family their ages and how they relate to me. Well enough about privacy. Just do it, like Nike says. Businesses out there – if you need help let us know, we do that sort of thing. And there’s a ton of great free guidance out there again, start at Mashable.com – they rock.
Happy Socializing!
