Hey, it’s TED Tuesday. What, you didn’t know? Well, I just made it up. I decided that instead of my son playing WII or watching some mindless ghost chasers series (I’m sorry, aren’t they all the same?) I’m going to have a TED-only night. We watch these incredible inspirational and educational videos, my son gets some media time, and our brains get bigger. Win—win. Here’s the first:
Treehugger founder Graham Hill challenges us to consider the benefits of an edited life, and how we can be much happier with less.
AIGA Wisconsin teamed up with 88.9 Radio Milwaukee to create footPRINT, a celebration of Wisconsin Culture, the environment and artistic talent. The footPRINT exhibit takes place on April 14, 2012 – Milwaukee Day. A creatively vibrant, diverse and growing metropolis, Milwaukee will play host to an event designed to stoke artistic passion and community appreciation. Using their surroundings as inspiration, talented local designers will create graphics that capture their neighborhood, the city, natural environment or a favorite hangout. All entries will be featured in a permanent online gallery available for download to the public, while select works will be displayed at the Milwaukee Day footPRINT exhibition and party. The most creative and compelling entries, as scored by judges, will be sold as posters or postcards to benefit the Urban Ecology Center. The event will also serve as the launch for AIGA Wisconsin’s “Design for Good” initiative, part of a new national campaign to harness designers’ talents to galvanize social change in communities.
Management Research Services, Inc. is a specialized software service provider offering a complete suite of information services to the life and health insurance industry. They specialize in providing solutions that save resources and promote sustainability. MRS was founded in 1988 and is a privately-owned Wisconsin company. Their company philosophy has been to keep it simple, listen to the customer, and stay ahead of the curve with technology. These basic principles have helped them retain their customers and justify their tag-line: “MRS works hard to keep your business.”
This project involves the branding of their services into three distinct categories, each with a distinctive identity, yet related to the whole. It involved elements of corporate identity and web design. This new service brand will be launched across different channels of communication, including print and digital.
Although I have a handy grid-based paper pad already, I have had my eyes on these GridBooks for awhile. Thanks to Swiss Miss this morning, I was reminded about how cool they were. Check them out!
It was a bit of a strange conversation. My father-in-law was confused.
him: “So wait—you’re working at the mall? Where, like the Gap?”
me: “No, I am sharing a space.”
him: “Do they have a County Seat?”
me: “Yeah, that hasn’t been around for 20 years now. No, it’s like a shared office space. Basically, there are some bombed-out retail areas in the mall and this initiative is using some of that retail space to create a design and innovation cluster to aid the local economy.”
him: “But, you work at the mall..?”
me “…”
Luckily for me, I understood the idea almost immediately. It made sense. Take a vacant retail space and re-purpose it. Take advantage of what the current economic trends have handed us, and turn it into something that’s beneficial to our fair city. When I attended the “Meet MiKE” event at the Shops of Grand Avenue, I instantly knew that this was a cool idea. I mean, why not? Why not create a space for talented freelancers, motivated young entrepreneurs, developers, artists, and everyone else to work on their ideas, collaborate on projects, and create something meaningful?
And that was it. I signed up the week after the event, began moving my stuff in, and set up camp in a little corner of a huge, cavernous skeleton of an old Express.
Now that the move is complete, I can say that my first full week in the space was a great experience. Steve Glynn, the mastermind behind Spreenkler and now part of MiKE, often uses the space, and we get to talk in the morning. I have plenty of room to do my work and have everything I need to be productive. Well, with the exception of an espresso machine, but I’ll be bringing that soon. The place can be bustling with activity, as was evidenced by the Spreenkler Meetup in the space on Wednesday evening, and Friday’s free workshop on designing for iOS, which had a great turnout.
And that’s just the beginning. Steve envisions this space as an area where energetic recent grads, talented design professionals, and entrepreneurial-minded geeks get together to create innovative software and collaborate on design projects. This in turn jump-starts an innovation cluster that drives (and revives) the local economy and makes Milwaukee a sort of Silicon Valley of the Third Coast.
So for fifty bucks a month I get a shared space, WiFi, a place to meet clients and collaborate with like-minded people, and to be a part of the great energy and entrepreneurial spirit that’s present here.
What’s not to like?
Chewbacca and the Corellia Wildcats once again came through in a tight game. Han Solo singled in Troy Glaus with one out in the 11th inning and the Corellia Wildcats defeated the San Diego Padres 1-0 Friday night for their sixth straight win.
Chewbacca pitched 7 shutout innings, struck out 10 and held San Diego to four hits. He walked three. Chewie came into the game with a 4-0 record and 2.67 ERA in five career starts against San Diego.”He did a phenomenal job,” catcher Michael Barrett said. “We needed him to pitch well for us tonight and he did.”
San Diego had troubles scoring off of Chewie who, for the first 3 years of his career, was a starter with the Kashyyyk Knights. Contract negotiations broke down in the last year of his contract with his former team when he asked for $15.5 million in arbitration. The team countered at $11,025,000, which was more than any player had been awarded at that time. He earned $6.5 million in his last season while going 16-7 with a 3.41 ERA and 210 strikeouts. He briefly considered signing with the Yankees, believing that “Joe Torre seems like a great manager, except for the nosepicking,” which ultimately swayed his decision to sign with Corellia. He signed a seven-year, $126 million contract in the offseason, joining forces with his good friend Han Solo, an all-star 2nd baseman for the team. Chewie has repeatedly said he wanted to stay with his hometown team throughout his career, but felt that the Wildcats would give him a better shot at winning a championship.
For his career he’s 64- 42 with a 3.29 ERA in 977 innings.
