We’ve had some great weather lately and we’re hoping it holds out just a little more in time for an August 19th NBIS Eco-Hour evening. (NBIS is the Network for Business Innovation and Sustainability).
We are happily co-hosting the event with long-time friend, fellow NBIS member and print partner David Hell at Graphics Plus. David and I have been working together for over 14 years. For many of our customers Graphics Plus is the artisan print shop that makes Rhizome look good by delivering great printed works of marketing art.
Hot off the Press, printed in Seattle
But what you might not know is how we work together to make what we deliver a little more eco-friendly. Come on down and understand the print process better, and see how traditional and digital printing is evolving today. David will also be introducing a beautiful new limited edition book his company is publishing called, The Ghosts of Cavalier County, a Barn Story, by Leland Johnson. This coffee table book is a labor of love for David who grew up in North Dakota where many of the barns were photographed.
See some great samples of our work and tour the Graphics Plus shop. Get your creative juices flowing in an art-immersed environment and enjoy delicious hors d’oeuvres, organic beer from Elliott Bay Brewing Co., and sustainably-minded wine from Left Coast Cellars.
NBIS Eco-Hour August 19th
Location: Graphics Plus
Where: 10007 13th Avenue SW
Seattle, WA 98146
(Just around the corner from Greenbridge, one of Seattle’s most progressive, beautiful and sustainable communities).
When: Thursday, August 19th – 5:00 – 7:30 PM
Free for NBIS members, $10 for Non-members
R.S.V.P. today and we’ll see there!
An interview with Valley Cultural Center’s President & CEO, Jim Kinsey
by Jen Pennington
2010 marked a new beginning for long-time Rhizome client, the Valley Cultural Center. A non-profit, founded in 1975 to assist the Los Angeles City Department of Recreation & Parks in bringing arts and culture to the San Fernando Valley. The Valley Cultural Center has been at the forefront of culture, arts, and arts education in the community for more than thirty-five years.
Every year the Valley Cultural Center presents free concerts in Warner Park. Featuring rock, classical, jazz, R&B, Latino pop, country, cowboy, Dixieland, folk, and more, their concerts entertain more than 140,000 Valley residents and visitors each year and are the cornerstone of Sunday afternoons in the San Fernando Valley. More recently this has expanded to Saturday evening movie nights.
Though we have worked together for eight years, this was the first year VCC would bring the production of their concert and movie programs in-house. This meant Rhizome had control over how the content in the program was presented in its entirety, not just a few random pages. We brought in Graphics Plus our print partner to help with all the pre-press and ad placements before the job was electronically delivered and printed in California. It also meant revamping the old www.valleycultural.org website. As President, Jim also wanted to green the events as much as possible and figure out a way to reach out to the community more. Even the concert and movie titles changed from Concerts and Movies in the Park, to Concerts and Movies on the Green. Before we knew it, this ambitious project produced some of the best results we had seen. (more…)
by Jen Pennington
Today I attended a Webinar by Guy Kawasaki on WebEx, entitled, Get “Social” with Guy Kawasaki, his secrets plus live Q&A. Mr Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, a previous Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.
Mr. Kawasaki’s talk today demonstrated how he uses Twitter as a marketing weapon. He wisked back and forth showing examples of how he sets his tweets up to repeat every so often during the day, while searching for new content, garnering new followers, and really how to get the most out of Twitter. He actually offered up some great stuff that got me rethinking Twitter and how I can serve my clients and my own business better.
One of the biggest takeaways both James and I got out of the event was his language around getting people to notice you. He spoke eloquently about how it’s easy to be charming, fascinating and enchanting if you are a big celebrity, but much harder to do when you are not. (more…)
by Jen Pennington and James McGrath
We’ve been quietly experimenting on some really amazing new sites including our own. Our work over the last six months is more focused on creating great custom designs using WordPress blog technology to allow our customers access to their content. It’s not just for blogs. That’s right, we’re teaching our clients how to make updates and we proudly admit it. (more…)
by Jen Pennington
This little guide goes out to all photographers, designers, and clients. It is your chance to stand up and fight against the evil beige background that is often found behind so many uninviting corporate portraits. In the Rhizome world, beige walls are evil. They are subtle purveyors of sadness and a subliminal identification with the DMV (not a good experience normally). Mug shots at the police station at least have context and props! And for Pete’s sake, even the big department stores spice up their backgrounds (ok, the mottled texture is not so great either, but let’s not go there). So I invite all my fellow business people to stand with me and say, “Death to the beige wall!” (more…)
