I wouldn’t have expected a hotel along the Embarcadero to be a decent place for a yoga conference (even though they can’t all be Squaw Valley-hosted, a la Wanderlust), but Yoga Journal’s annual class-lecture-retail festival has managed to be very enjoyable even in stuffy ballrooms. The classes (including Vinyasa with Off the Mat co-founder Seane Corn and “gravity surfing” with Ana Forrest) are great, and the business track (with lectures on creating a viable studio and building local community support) differentiates the Thursday-through-Monday conference from others in its category.
And though “Yoga Day USA” passed last week, additional events on the publication’s calendar for this year include the Midwest Yoga Conference in June, a summer day of free classes in Times Square, the Telluride Yoga Festival in July, and Bhakti Fest at Joshua Tree come autumn. Closer to home, I’m excited that Rusty Wells’ Urban Flow is starting more early morning and Spanish classes (for the embarrased San Franciscans among us).
One week to the day after Alt Design Summit in Salt Lake City, I’ve devoured gardener/blogger Gayla Trail’s upcoming “Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces.” Her sophomore book explores ways to grow and prepare fruits and vegetables in places where space is limited, and the result is a beautiful set of images and solutions to gardening challenges (should you find yourself with “legions of hot peppers” with no home or slightly shady windows to plant near, for example).
It was interesting to hear Trail talk about making time for writing as YouGrowGirl and her own outdoor projects during our “Growing Your Small Business” panel last week (pun unintended). Reading her statistic that up to 80 percent of Havana’s fresh produce is grown in urban gardens gives hope to we San Franciscans, of whom she says “know all too well that edibles like nasturtiums, blackberries, and fennel will thrive in fallow lots and fields in their city without a scrap of human intervention.” If only the same could be said of Jerusalem artichokes.
I feel fortunate to have two large-scale gatherings for activities I’m passionate about this weekend with She’s Geeky taking place in Mountain View and the Yoga Journal Conference but a mile from my house. (These are in addition to the Design Revolution Road Show sendoff at Stable Cafe on Saturday–or maybe it will be more of a soiree to welcome founder Emily Pilloton back from a great appearance with Stephen Colbert.)
The women’s tech conference will include attendee presentations on everything from “aspirations in radical tech development” and Drupal design to e-mentoring for diversity in math and engineering. I was glad to see the organization–which is headed by Ignite Bay Area presenter Kaliya Hamlin–featured in the ReadWriteStart story “Why We Need Tech Events for Women” today. She cited: more
The second Ignite Bay Area program on March 2 at Automattic will be a co-ed event to celebrate Global Ignite Week, and partner Carmel Hagen and I are sharing a final call for technical, artistic and otherwise entertaining presentation ideas. Do join (and be quick with your creativity–the program will be announced next week once final submissions are considered).
What it is: If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world individuals have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers since 2006 with Ignite Bay Area now hosting a regular local series.
How to take part: Send a brief paragraph description of your idea to ignitesf@gmail.com by January 31. We’ll share the lineup in early February and speakers will have until February 22 to create their slides to be presented to technologists, entrepreneurs, sponsors, and pals.
We’re excited to hear your ideas and see your name among those people are sharing support for in advance of the next @IgniteBayArea event.
The grantmaking organization and investor network Spark is hosting a cause-based cocktails event on Wednesday at Cantina, and I’m hard pressed to think of a combination that’s better than raising money for the organization’s Haiti Response Fund and spending time with the smart locals who comprise their member base. While many volunteer-powered organizations under-utilize or don’t seek the contributions of post-college, pre-donor individuals, Spark under the leadership of director Shannon Farley solicits those talents in deciding which programs to fund and assist along with field partners (CAMFED and The Global Fund for Women among them). It’s a refreshing example of the contributions of young locals–often seen as consumers first–who have chosen to support projects including a Jordan-based NGO that works to elect women to village councils and the local Center for Young Women’s Development, for which Spark volunteers provided planning and PR help for their fundraiser to support women living on San Francisco streets.
Megan McCarthy of Techmeme turned me onto an SF performance by Eric Lewis at the Renaissance Hotel tonight, and I’m bummed to miss the combination of jazz, rock and pop piano while waiting to be Bay Area-bound from the Salt Lake Airport. The performer’s performance at TED last year is well worth a look if you can’t be in attendance either, and it’s easy to see how he won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition after performing with the likes of Wynton Marsalis and Cassandra Wilson.
This week’s Sundance Film Festival premiere of the documentary To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America about the first women recipients of Grameen America bank’s microloans is important not just for its stories about low-income Queens residents but for the themes it discusses in advance of the opening of the San Francisco branch.
Blame it on the Bay Area downpours or being inside for two days (though Alt Summit is a wonderfully design-filled place to be indoors), but when Ignite Bay Area co-founder Carmel Hagen turned me onto Shwood Eyewear I couldn’t even wait to interview the creators before posting. I do love a good pair of wooden sunglasses–Kayu designs especially–and have had fun browsing Shwood’s East Indian rosewood, maple and zebrawood frames. The Rose City company describes itself as having been “born from the limb of a Mandrone tree, a rusty pair of cabinet hinges, and lenses from the corner store.” It’s polarized perfection.
The Alt Summit Friday lunch session was one of the better mealtime presentations I’ve seen with its combination of interactive discussions by artist and programmer Erik Natzke (on the weeks that go into coding projects for Nokia and Wired’s NextFest) and mashup creator DJ Earworm (whose “United State of Pop,” below, makes for an addictive ballad). I’ll let the work speak for itself–the quality is a testament to Kirtsy co-founder Gabrielle Blair’s great programming.
I’m glad to be in Salt Lake City with a Federated Media colleague and some of the smartest design bloggers I’ve read. In advance of tomorrow’s panel on growing design businesses (and because this is a running late, hair still wet type of post), I wanted to quickly share a few of the gems shared in this afternoon’s panel on identifying great design sites, including but not limited to Daily Poetics | Mrs. Lilien’s Styling House (responsible for the collection above) | the MoCo Loco horizontal refresh | space and idea site Designklub | the minimalist (and ad free) today and tomorrow | Dezeen architecture and design magazine | and, my new favorite (and not just because it caters to attention deficit tendencies) the creative collection Booooooom. More to follow on mtn. time.
