In looking to highlight the best entrepreneurship stories from around the world, we’d be remiss not to include great anecdotes and tips from our slightly southern neighbors in Palo Alto. We’ll be sharing some of our favorite eCorner videos in our In Conversation video catalogue for aspiring entrepreneurs. Posting the advice of Tina Seelig, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, seemed like a natural place to start; her video chats and written work are intended to accelerate high-tech entrepreneurship education.
Here she shares how to teach creativity–or otherwise convincing smart people to “jump off of perfectly good cliffs” and “take on problems that no one knows the answer to.” (Sounds a bit like the motivation behind Founder Labs, doesn’t it?) And while you may have heard “problems as opportunities” discussed before, it probably didn’t include words of wisdom from a neuroscientist/businesswoman using technology to solve the world’s problems.
Hayes Valley has had an earth tone to it lately between a new set of urban gardens and the Samovar tea lounge (which is trying to coin the neighborhood “Zen Valley”). Enter RoomService, a new furniture and accessories store whose bright colors may change that.
The Southern California design company first sought to expand beyond LA and Newport Beach a few years ago but held off on a northern location until they were able to secure–and quickly fill–a converted hair salon at Hayes and Laguna this spring. The husband and wife team of apparel merchandising alums John and Taryn Bernard have couches and beds made in Gardena, California, and stock the rest of the store with large prints, bright pillows, and home items found at European gift shows. Taryn said she prides the company on its seasonality; while visitors are currently greeted with post-modern pop hues, she promises deeper and “ethnic” fabrics in the fall.
The store’s affordability is also striking and purposefully hard to miss with large red tags hanging off products from vases to petite Buddha sculptures. Because RoomService’s own factory and domestic production allows it to keep costs comparatively low, it may hit a sweet spot with new parents and trendsters looking for a respite from the area’s green and grey.
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlasis the type of book one picks up in a museum gift shop and buys not for themselves, necessarily, but for a roommate or partner so it can live on a shared shelf or table. Author Rebecca Solnit has assembled an amazing team or cartographers, designers, writers, and research for a soft cover look at local history and geography. Its variety is fantastically browsable: between glances at the Mission (“North of Home, South of Safe”) and film hot spots, there’s a Where’s Waldo-esque look at the origins of the chemicals and cheeses that go into San Franciscans’ bodies. The part atlas, part urban policy tome is visually arresting–so much so that it’s even worth buying a copy for no one but yourself.
I’m happy that independent film showcase Cinema Speakeasy is bringing rock ‘n dialysis story D Tour to the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts screen on Thursday. The film follows musician Pat Spurgeon as he tours with Rogue Wave and awaits a second kidney transplant, and both filmmaker and subject will be on hand at the evening event. Healthcare issues and hard rock to be discussed.
Southern Exposure’s annual fundraiser and art auction MEGA MEGA MEGA isn’t limited to a single fancy gala (though there is one on Saturday night) but is to include music, creative projects, and live and silent bidding. The roster of participating artists reads like a who’s who: Lisa Congdon (she of A Collection a Day), Libby Black, Todd Hido, Mel Prest, et al. Browsers and collectors alike can see the 160 pieces up for auction through Thursday, and the “famously fun” weekend gathering provides direct support for the organizations public art and education programs.
I saw the feature length “Another Earth” on a recommendation from a friend and the Times’ intriguing coverage; I left startled and, well, more intrigued. The San Francisco International Film Festival selection and Mike Cahill’s directorial debut is a vibrant look at the aftermath of a car crash caused by Rhoda (co-writer Brit Marling) and her attempts to help the grieving husband (William Mapother). Interplanetary elements are woven throughout, and well, to a haunting score. Friend and filmmaker Alley Pezanoski-Browne called it a “sci-fi film that is actually a character study.” Take her advice and see it.
As the style site Refinery29 launches its San Francisco edition this week, it will play host to a “shop crawl” with drinks and deals at some beloved local boutiques. Gravel & Gold, General Store, and Harputs are on the revolving party list for this evening, and I can’t think of a better night to make the rounds. The site will be expanding to Miami, Washington D.C., and Austin next.
When the rad team at Clever Girls Collective reached out about a chance to share good spring news, it was good incentive to pull this post out of draft and hit publish for y’all.
After a few years working in online publishing, I’ve left my full-time work in the City by the Bay to start studying in Stanford’s Learning, Design & Technology program this fall. After discovering how interested I am in the ways that people–and especially school-aged girls–learn online, I’m looking forward to working with engineers, designers, educators, and MBA types in Palo Alto (though I’m not yet sure what will happen to the name of this fair site when I go).
In the meantime, you (and Twitter) can find me trying to stay out of trouble thanks to:
Writing and video projects with entrepreneurial friends at Ecofabulous and Women 2.0;
Heading to Nairobi in July with the Africa Yoga Project, a group that trains yoga instructors to find… more
“A Collection A Day” doesn’t read like other books, and that’s because it’s not like other books, coffee table or otherwise. Illustrator and general creative type Lisa Congdon has assembled a softcover series of a year’s worth of ephemera, and its presentation in a small metal box reminded me of my own sets of Girl Scout badges and POGs.
Inside a set of photographed and drawn “small treasures and curious things” includes vintage art supply packaging, old and colorful prayer cards, and plastic and wood rings. But that’s not all. “Mid-century paperbacks with awesome cover design and typography”! Japanese notebooks! Candy jars! It’s well worth a flip through the digital preview to see the breadth of Congdon’s inspiration–but I’d suggest owning one (or the corresponding 20×200 print) to appreciate the bizarre wonder of baby doll hands, aggregated.
At this week’s ODC conference Women Who Frame the World: A Symposium on Creativity, I was deeply struck by the work of sculptor and creator Beverly Pepper. It takes a lot to stand out in a group of presenting artists that included novelist Carol Gilligan, sound artist Kui Dong, and documentarian Eleanor Coppola (even a sampling of the total group reads like a coffee table book about major creative contributors, no?).
Pepper’s talk–Monumentality, A Life in Art–at the B’Way Theater focused on her “amphisculpture.” It includes very large scale sculptures with watercolors (“Sol y Ombra,” Spain, top right), cast iron, stones (the Italian “Omphalon,” top left), and steel. She’s as humble–”when I think about bodies in conjunction with my work, it’s mostly how I can’t get hit by it during the construction”–as she is visionary.
How does she know when one of her large scale pieces is complete? “When you step away from it and the only reaction is ooooohhh.” The same went for her dialogue with local lady artists.
