BREAKOUT! (beta) bag of tricks

Anthony Townsend, the visionary for the BREAKOUT! festival, is showing the tools needed for a successful BREAKOUT! session with the help of his intern, Elysse. The kit is a art bag which stores a dry-erase board, markers, post its, a cable turtle to organize wires, and clip-on umbrellas (not shown) for shade.The BREAKOUT! festival is happening this September and hopes to take people outside of their offices and into public spaces for heightened creative experiences.

This was my first attempt at producing an iMovie, and for the most part it was pretty simple and straightforward. I look forward to making more.

men and women

Check out all the collaboration going on in the back! Tony Bacigalupo, founder of New Work City (a coworking site in Greenwich Village) is in the forefront of more than just this picture. He is considered one of the founders of this movement and I've heard of him for so long that it was finally great to meet. "So what does coworking need?" I ask him. "A guide for people who want to open up a space," he replies. Sure enough, I go to the wiki and see that there is no guide (a broken link), but more importantly, there is no coherent, organized web presence for coworking.

(a wide shot of the space) It's a guy's workplace with those big, comfy. dark, leather office chairs paired with a jeans and sneaker dress code. Relaxed.

Later that day, I ventured further uptown to In Good Company, run by Amy Abrams and Adelaide Lancaster. Amy doesn't really consider the space a coworking site. She says that it's a for-profit company, and when I checked, it is listed under alternative venue in the coworking wiki. It also targets a female population (although there are screened male members) and it is very apparent when you walk in. The white desked, flower filled venue is immaculate. Women in dresses and high heels with that chill of overly conditioned air that I often associate with corporate environments. Here there are cake designers, flower arrangers, life coaches, and interior designers unlike the tech businesses in New Work City.

I'm really glad that "In Good Company" does not claim to be a coworking place. From talking with Tony and seeing and feeling several coworking environments, there is something organic, laid-back, and personal about authentic coworking, which I did not realize before. It's a place where you can come and leave a mark, an impression that stays because you connected with people who embrace community and conversation. Both are fabulous places for those who feel productive in them. Again, it's about deciding what flavor you like, especially when you pay for it.

team work

This week we designed tags for the amend bags which are going into production this weekend! I did some line drawings for the informational side of the tag (shown above). I sent it to Rikki, who sent me an illustrator file (shown directly below) with what she was working on with a willingness to collaborate on the design:
Hmmm... white on yellow? Very tricky. How about eliminating the yellow stripe but still keeping the Ghanian flag colors, and making it square as discussed in our meeting? So I sent her this:
The next day, she sends these out as final designs for print:

Isn't collaboration sweet?

plastic planter

A while back, I replanted this succulent into a cottage cheese container that was laying around after lasagna night. It desperately needed fresh soil and I didn't feel like going out to buy a planter, especially since our recycling bins hold so much up-cycling potential every week. Secretly, I had the idea that one day I would wrap the shell with one of the thousands of wires we had in a box under our bed, courtesy of my gadget-loving husband. So today, I decided to put that idea to the test and took some unused, almost trashed telephone wire (who uses landlines anymore?) and hot-glued it down for a clean, modern finish and a whole lot of eco.