CreativeMornings Video: Sharon Ann Lee

Our CreativeMorning speaker at the September 2011 Los Angeles event was trend analyst/author Sharon Ann Lee.

One of her slides in her deck really made me think. On it she asks: What quadrant are you in on this work/happiness map?

Her talk is on the topic of the growing trend called (DYO) Design Your Own Success. She wonderfully explains how important it is to say no and to smartly allocate our time and energy.

Watch it here:

Many thanks to Chris Ganser for shooting and editing this video.

CreativeMornings Video: Jason Fried

Our speaker at the July CreativeMornings/Chicago was Jason Fried of 37Signals. A big thank you to our Chicago host Mig Reyes for making this happen.

And thanks to Charlie Curran and James Schonzeit for taping and editing the video.

CreativeMornings = 3

What started as a humble 50-person event at Studiomates in 2009 has grown into a 17-chapter global adventure. When I first launched CreativeMornings people laughed and said no one will show up. Too early for New Yorkers. Well, I proved you wrong! We now average 250 creative folks that attend CreativeMornings/NewYork at 8.30am, one friday a month.

A big thank you goes out to my *amazing*, hardworking hosts and their team. You have to understand, everyone is working on volunteer basis. Impressive and humbling to say the least. CreativeMornings started as a reaction to the expensive and time-demanding conference world. I knew there had to be something more accessible and nimble. An event you could simply go to before heading to work. An event, that let’s you connect with people in your community. That’s what CreativeMornings stands for.

Would you like to watch a selection of our talks? Head over to Vimeo where we created a ‘best of’ channel.

But for now, for the month of October, party along with us and tell us what we should do next! Do you have ideas for a speaker, host, venue or just simply a suggestion on how we should celebrate? Let us know! happybirthday.creativemornings.com

A big giant thank you to my team Yoko and Kevin for building the birthday site!

CreativeMornings Video: Chris Bangle

The speaker at the second CreativeMornings/London was Chris Bangle, formerly design director at BMW Group and now running Chris Bangle Associates. Talk about the London chapter starting off with a bang. Hat tip to the host, Drew Smith and his team!

The event was generously hosted by Buro Happold and Sense Worldwide. A big thank you to Nick Culley for filming and editing the talk.

CreativeMornings Video: Stewart Butterfield

Last month we launched our first Canadian CreativeMornings chapter! Hooray! Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr kicked off the series in Vancouver.

The Vancouver team, led by Mark Busse, is doing a phenomenal job! A big giant thanks goes to Ryan Mah, Mahyar Saeedi and Jake Hermiston for filming and editing the talk. Here’s the video:

Check out the photos of this event over on Flickr. To see if there’s a CreativeMornings happening near you, go to creativemornings.com

Change Your Mind

(via creativemornings blog)

CreativeMornings Video: Nicke Bergström

Last week we kicked off the Sweden chapter of CreativeMornings. Richard Feigin and his team organized the first CreativeMornings/Stockholm at the supercool looking Bianchi Cafe & Cycles with Nicke Bergström, Creative Director of VICE, as the speaker. Richard and his team are breaking all video speed limits as they already uploaded the talk on vimeo, English subtitles included. A big thank you to Nisse Emil Forest Axman and Oskar Törnros for the fantastic work on documenting this event! Hat tip off to Team Stockholm!

Rise And Shine

CreativeMornings is featured with Podcast on swissinfo.ch!

You can listen to it here. A big thank you to Karin Kamp for the wonderful feature. Team CreativeMornings is thrilled!

Question for my readers: Morning Songs

Kevin and I are researching songs with catchy lyrics entailing the word “Morning”. Any songs that come to mind and we should add to our list? Would you mind to share them in a comment below? Thank you so much!

CreativeMornings now on Tumblr

Thanks to Kevin, our fantastic BLSS (Breakfast Lecture Series Specialist), CreativeMornings now has a blog.

VIsit it to watch talks, find inspiring quotes and see photos from the 12 CreativeMornings chapters all around the globe!

creativemornings.tumblr.com

Goals

“The reason that most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals—not for the person we’re going to be when we reach them—we set our goals for the person we are when we set them.” – Dan Gilbert

Jim Coudal quoting Dan Gilbert during a CreativeMornings/Chicago talk.

CreativeMornings Video: Yancey Strickler

Our speaker at the June 2011 CreativeMornings/NewYork was Yancey Strickler co-founder of Kickstarter. A big thank you to Sy J. Abudu for filming and editing the talk:

CreativeMornings is a monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types. Each event is free of charge, and includes a 20 minute talk, plus coffee!

You can see photos of the Yancey Strickler CreativeMornings over on Flickr. And you can now follow us on Tumblr!

CreativeMornings Video: Maria Popova

Our speaker at the May 2011 CreativeMornings/NewYork was Maria Popova of Brain Pickings. The event was generously hosted by General Assembly. A big thank you to Sy J. Abudu (/) for filming and editing the talk.

UPDATE: Maria wrote a fantastic post about her talk over on BrainPickings.

CreativeMornings Video: Ji Lee

Our speaker at the March 2011 CreativeMornings/NewYork was Ji Lee, at the time Creative Director Google Labs, now Creative Director at Facebook. The event was generously hosted by Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

A big thank you to Sy J. Abudu for filming and editing the talk.

CreativeMornings Video: Jim Coudal

Last month we kicked off our first Chicago/CreativeMornings with a fantastic talk by Jim Coudal. GravityTank was generously hosting the event and Mig Reyes did an absolutely fantastic job as the host. Thanks to everyone in involved. I am thrilled to have Chicago on the map!

And a big thank you to the team over at Coudal, Steve Delahoyde in particular for taping and editing the event!

Collaborative Fund + Creative Mornings

 

I started CreativeMornings in september of 2009 wanting to create an accessible, inspring morning talk series. Little did I know that it would grow into a global series. With an evergrowing number of chapters, CreativeMornings currently take place in NYC, Zurich, LosAngeles, and SanFrancisco with Chicago kicking off this friday. A London chapter is starting in July and Berlin and Vancouver are going to be kicking off shortly after. All of this has came from the help of my fantastic hosts and their volunteers in every city. It’s impressive that my idea has been received such generous support. Every event fills up within minutes. (Take this week’s first ever Chicago CreativeMornings with Jim Coudal. It was full in a mere 3 minutes.)

And things are only going to get better. Why?

In the winter of 2010 I had the pleasure to meet Craig Shapiro, former president of GOOD Magazine and now force behind Collaborative Fund. Craig took me out to lunch and I could tell he was interested in CreativeMornings. To my surprise, he was so interested, he asked if he could become a partner. I was stunned to say the least. We are talking about a man that has invested in companies like KickstarterSkillshare and BankSimple. I was speechless.

Curious as to why he wanted to become a partner,  I continued to listed. He explained that he is drawn to CreativeMornings because of two important things:

a) There is a new breed of entrepreneurship and it is based on using creative facilities to solve big and small problems.

b) When you Bring like-minded (creative) people together, magic happens. New projects, job and business opportunities, friends and much more can all come from thee meaningful gatherings.

After my initial shock, I realized what an incredible gift it was to have met Craig. I can tell that he understands my vision for CreativeMornings and seems as excited as I am to make it happen. Craig obviously is a very smart business man and I am excited to know that I have a skilled partner to help me navigate the CreativeMornings ship. His support is allowing me to spend more time on CreativeMornings and focus on growing the series.

Beyond that, we here at Studiomates love when Craig comes and hangs out at our space. He is fueling our entrepreneurial spirts and is just an overall wonderful person to have around.

I am excited and incredibly humbled to be part of Collaborative Fund. This year cannot get any better, I think.

(raising my glass of bubbly stuff in excitement)

CreativeMornings Video: Craig Mod

Our speaker at the April 2011 San Francisco/CreativeMornings was Craig Mod, a writer, designer, publisher and developer concerned with the future of publishing and storytelling in the iPad and Kindle era.

A big giant thank you to Chris Whitmore for offering to shoot and edit the video. Photos were graciously provided by Richard Something.

June 2011 CreativeMornings



Here’s an overview of the upcoming June CreativeMornings in New York, Zurich, Los Angeles, San Francisco and now Chicago.


N E W Y O R K
Date: June 24th, 2011
Speaker: Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter Co-Founder
Host: Galapagos Art Space
Sponsors: Mailchimp and Freshbooks
Organizer: swissmiss

More info and rsvp at creativemornings.eventbrite.com


Z U R I C H
Date: June 24, 2011
Speaker: Markus Mettler
Host: Cafe Casablanca
Sponsor: Cafe Casablanca
Organizer: Daniel Frei

More info and rsvp at zurichcreativemornings.eventbrite.com


L O S A N G E L E S
Date: June 10, 2011
Speaker: Josh Nimoy
Host: mediatemple
Sponsor: Blik
Organizer: Jon Setzen

More info and rsvp at losangelescreativemornings.eventbrite.com


S A N F R A N C I S C O
Date: June 24, 2011
Speaker: Adam Tobin
Host: The glorious Typekit headquarters
Sponsors: Happy Cog and Typekit
Organizer: Erika Hall

More info and rsvp at sfcreativemornings.eventbrite.com


C H I C A G O (first one, hoooray!)
Date: June 24, 2011
Speaker: Jim Coudal
Host: Gravity Tank
Sponsor: Neenah Paper
Organizer: Mig Reyes

More info and rsvp at chicagocreativemornings.eventbrite.com


In July we will be kicking off CreativeMornings/London with Michael Johnson as our speaker and Drew Smith as our Host!

Check out our site creativemornings.com for more info and for links taped talks.

CreativeMornings Video: Christoph Niemann

Our speaker at the April 2011 CreativeMornings/NewYork was Berlin based Illustrator and Designer Christoph Niemann. I think it’s safe to say that Christoph’s talk was one of the funniest we’ve ever had. See for yourself, watch the video below and share a giggle.

A big giant thank you to Sy Abudu for so generously filming and editing our talks. (We realize the sound quality is a little off in the beginning but gets better mid-way through the talk. Our apologies!)

The event was generously hosted by Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

CreativeMornings is a monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types. Each event is free of charge, and includes a 20 minute talk, plus coffee!

CreativeMornings Video: Debbie Millman

Our speaker at the february 2011 CreativeMornings was wonderful Debbie Millman. Debbie’s talk is a must see for any student about to enter the world of design. Her talk is titled: The Top 10 Things I wish I Knew When I Graduated College.

A big giant thank you to Sy Abudu for filming and editing the talk.

In case you’re wondering about Debbie’s comment about going by Denim Millbabe in the very beginning, here’s why.

About Debbie Millman:
Debbie Millman is a partner and president of the design division at Sterling Brands, one of the leading brand identity firms in the country. Millman is president of AIGA, and chair of the School of Visual Arts’ master’s program in Branding. She is a contributing editor to Print magazine and host of the podcast “Design Matters.” She is the author of How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer (Allworth Press, 2007), The Essential Principles Of Graphic Design (Rotovision, 2008) and Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design (How Books, 2009).

Event Sponsorship Done Differently

At every CreativeMornings I thank our sponsors while showing a slide. Mailchimp has been our NYC main sponsor for over a year now and it became a struggle to keep it fresh.

When I had Milton Glaser lined up to speak in january, I reached out to the fantastic folks at Mailchimp and asked them if they would be up for doing a custom slide dedicated to Milton, given his massive-crazy-rockstar status in the design world. Within minutes I saw a “YES! YES! YES!” in my inbox. Here’s what they sent:

Needless to say it got a big laugh. What I thought would just be a one-time-deal has now turned into one of my biggest highlights of every CreativeMornings. Four slides in, I can safely say Mailchimp has created a new way of doing event sponsorships. I have gotten comments this morning of attendees that they can’t wait to see what Mailchimp came up this time. Hat tip goes off to Aaron Robbs and his team for putting so much love into these and showing so much excitement for the idea. For those of you that read my blog it’s quite obvious that I am a big fan of Mailchimp. I find it wonderful that the founder, Ben Chestnut, let’s his designers experiment and spend a significant amount of time on these custom slides. Some people might argue it’s a waste of money and that there’s no real ROI… (yawn).

I strongly believe that by turning event sponsorship into something people look forward to see, injecting it with humor and good design, while not actually talking about your services and offerings, is the new way to go. Get people excited about your company and overall philosophy and the rest will follow. After all they managed to turn sending newsletters into something I truly enjoy. Just take their site: It’s beautifully designed and greets you with humor every time you log in. My favorite part is where the chimp talks to you and say’s things like: “Tina, aren’t you a breath of fresh air?”

Here’s what Aaron Robbs said on the process of coming up with these slides:

Playing on work these speakers have already done would be an easy route–but I look for something less obvious to latch on to. Christoph Niemann had a blog entry illustrating his history with coffee, and I finally thought to myself, “There must be magical juice in his latte.” But I probably wouldn’t have gotten to that moment without pouring over his work, going to craft stores, painting eggs and making fruit out of Play Doh first.

MailChimp really gets behind creative thinking, and they put a lot of trust in the people they hire to do a great job. So it’s really rewarding to be able to fully explore an idea and know that everyone is going to get behind it….even if it’s weird. And since all of my design work is for MailChimp these days, it’s nice to think of these speakers as new design clients. These slides keep me sharp. And they’re super fun.

Here’s the rest of the slides: Debbie Millman:

Ji Lee, of Google Labs spoke in March:

And just this morning, we had Berlin based Christoph Niemann speak. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I saw this slide last night:

I hope that Mailchimp’s unusual approach to event sponsorship will have a ripple effect and that we will see more companies dare to experiment. As Christoph Niemann said in his talk this morning: “In order to have creativity, you have to allow for dead ends to happen.” Mailchimp is leading by example.

(And no, Mailchimp did not pay me for this post!)

What’s your Side Project?

At the last CreativeMorning/NewYork with Ji Lee we asked: If you didn’t have to worry about your job and lack of time, which side project would you start? Here are some of the answers. See the entire set here. What is yours?

(all photos by wonderful Emily Gilbert)

(want to create your own Icebreakertags for your next event? There’s a site for that!)

CreativeMornings Video: Mike Monteiro

Our speaker at the *second* San Francisco CreativeMornings was Mike Monteiro, Design Director, and co-founder of Mule Design Studio. This event took place on March 25, 2011 and was generously sponsored by Happy Cog and Typekit (who also hosted the event at their office in the Mission).

A big giant thank you to Chris Whitmore for offering to shoot and edit the video. Photos were graciously provided by Rawle Anders.

See who’s upcoming and watch recorded talks over on creativemornings.com.

April 2011 CreativeMornings

Here’s an overview of the upcoming April CreativeMornings in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Zurich.


N E W Y O R K
Date: April 15th, 2011
Speaker: Christoph Niemann (flying in from Berlin)
Host: Galapagos Art Space
Sponsors: Mailchimp and Freshbooks
Organizer: swissmiss

More info and rsvp at creativemornings.eventbrite.com


L O S A N G E L E S
Date: April 8, 2011
Speaker: Michelle Mcilroy, Lomography USA
Host: Lomography Gallery Store
Sponsor: The Fox is Black
Organizer: Jon Setzen

More info and rsvp at losangelescreativemornings.eventbrite.com


S A N F R A N C I S C O
Date: April22, 2011
Speaker: Craig Mod
Host: The glorious Typekit headquarters
Sponsors: Happy Cog and Typekit
Organizer: Greg Storey

More info and rsvp at sfcreativemornings.eventbrite.com


Z U R I C H
Date: April 8, 2011
Speaker: Memonic Co-Founder Dr. Dorian Delz
Host: The Hub Zurich
Sponsor: rtp Agency
Organizer: Daniel Frei

More info and rsvp at zurichcreativemornings.eventbrite.com


Check out our site creativemornings.com for more info and for links taped talks.