Revolution in Philadelphia for Event Camp Twin Cities!

Mindy Holahan, our business support manager and one of the handlers of our Twitter feed, was on-deck to experience the magic of Event Camp Twin Cities' Philadelphia pod. Here's what she learned about hybrid events.

--

A Revolution in the Meetings Industry? There’s a Room for That.

Two weeks ago, the meetings industry took a big leap forward. Did you feel it? That’s when the second annual Event Camp Twin Cities took place in Minneapolis. We hosted the Philadelphia pod in our Revolution room.

But wait! What's a "pod"? And how can an event in Minneapolis have anything to do with Philadephia?

A hybrid event brings off-site participants into an on-site meeting and allows them to participate in the meeting. Off-site participants gather in a pod for real-time streaming of meetings that are going on at the home site. Guests can ask questions and give immediate feedback, just as if they were at the main conference. This year’s event had pods in Philadelphia, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Silicon Valley, and Hawaii.

All we needed was a steady internet connection, but we like to do things a bit fancier in the pods. Traci Browne of Red Cedar Publicity and Marketing organized the entire Philadelphia pod experience from top to bottom. Jeffrey Halligan from Dyventive made it so that the feed went both way: participants in Minneapolis could see us, as well. And we wired secondary monitors that allowed the pods to interact with each other (that led to some friendly competition, especially with the Silicon Valley pod).

Communication

Event Camp Twin Cities uses Twitter, and the hashtag “ectc11,” for better real-time discussion flow. Followers of the #ectc11 stream sent along questions and comments, and Emilie Barta, the virtual emcee, represents the off-site audience.

What makes Event Camp so special?

Event Camp Twin Cities is the first hybrid event lab—a conference specially designed for event professionals to experiment with technology and social media together, rather than risking failure with their own events. Failure was a welcome partner in the event: The motto for the event was “If we’re not breaking things, then we’re not innovating.”

In the Philly pod, we threw ourselves into the experiment. Some of the tools failed. We had some trouble connecting with the Facebook app that streamed the secondary sessions. We had moments when the incoming flow of information was more than we could handle. But overall the event was a resounding success. We learned how to better use social media to bring together people across the globe—and we formed new friendships with our pod-mates.

I missed it! Do I have to wait another year?

No! Event Camp Europe is this Friday! You can check out the full list of Event Camps here.

Yoga is for Corporate Types Too!

We've all felt the stresses of a madcap day practically ruin our evenings.
The Hub has a way of relieving that tension. For the past few weeks now, our CityView and Chemical Heritage Foundation locations have been overtaken by brilliant yogis as they work to relieve busy office workers of their everyday stresses.
That's right, our friends at Deliver Me Yoga have found a key to a happy, balanced corporate life, and they're demonstrating it at The Hub.
Co-founder Alice Dommert, who worked for many years as an architect before trying out life as a yogi, said she came to the idea that yoga is a critical part of the corporate life after seeing "too many bright people who couldn't manage their thoughts. Yoga is really about turning off the workings of the mind." Making yoga accessible to corporate types, she says, is critical, since personal responsibility for health is such a basic issue, and often gets ignored in the rush of a busy day.

Corporate serenity in our CityView location makes this the perfect place to lay out yoga mats.

With that thought, she and Sarah Hill set about finding a way to introduce corporate workers to a better way of living. Her first step was finding a space that would recall corporate life, and thus evoke a level of comfort with busy executives. The Chemical Heritage Foundation space, she says, was a ringer for its thoughtful design, and our CityView space struck a chord with her for its wide-open views. "I will only do yoga in beautiful spaces," she says. "It makes a difference when you’re trying to practice yoga, because a lot of it is about the environment."
We're happy she and Sarah found us.

Alice and Sarah, left and right, respectively, are partners in a new movement to bring yoga to all stripes.

Deliver Me Yoga holds two classes a week in our facilities. Here's the class schedule for the Hub, which runs through August 11. Drop in any time for $20.
If you can't make it to one of our classes, though, Alice has two really important tips she wants to pass on to you.

• Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, three deeps breaths. "You're not chanting, you're not using Sanskrit words," she says. "You can do this in a meeting. Just take the time, every few hours, to breathe."
• Twist. Twist to your right first, and then your left. "This is really about squeezing the internal organs, and flushing them out," says Alice. "And don't forget to breathe."

Friday is Hub Day

We know, it sounds suspiciously like Hump Day. But it's not. See, Hump Day is Wednesday. Hub Day is Friday. Got it now?
No, we're kidding. That's not the only difference. Every Hub Day from here on in, we'll post something here that rotates around our core values. We want you to get to know us, and we want to get to know you. Please, feel free to post comments.
Today, we'll tell you a little bit about some of the art in our space.
At our CityView offices, we're very fond of our Calder room, which we'll focus on today.
There were three generations of Calders, all with ties to Philadelphia, but probably the best known was the youngest of the Calders, Alexander, also known as Sandy. He confined himself not to working in one medium, like his father and grandfather before him, but stretched his limits to work both in two-dimensional and three-dimensional art.
In fact, Calder is the inventor of the mobile. You know, that thing that hangs over a baby's crib? It got its start as a piece of high-concept art.

Not this...


...but this!



In the Calder room, which seats 10-12 people, you'll be greeted by two works of Calder art.
Red Moon, Black Sun (1968) is a lithograph. We like it for many reasons, but we like to think of a young Calder in one of his first jobs out of college as a fireman on a boat. One morning, he woke up on the deck of the ship, which was docked just off the Guatamalan coast, and saw both the full moon and the rising sun. It was a motif that would inform much of his art.

"Our Unfinished Revolution" is from 1975, and is actually a cover from Calder's book of the same name.

Calder's life was peripatetic. He went from Philadelphia to Roxbury, CT; from there to Paris; from Paris to New York. His artwork meandered, as well; from paints to steel to wire and into the realm of jewelry. He is by far one of the most versatile artists we know of.
Perhaps it's for this reason that we chose Calder for this room. When you're here, we want you to think in terms that are as varied, as wide-ranging, as Calder was. We want you to feel energized, to come up with solutions and ideas that are innovative and creative. And although we don't guarantee that result in the Calder room, we think you'll feel just as inspired by his work as we were.
One more thing: Calder was also a huge fan of the circus. That could be part of the reason that much of his work was so playful-looking. We encourage that, too: Approach your work with as much enthusiasm as you would play, and that, we think, will have a terrific effect on your meeting.
To take a virtual tour of our Calder Room, click here. To find out more about Alexander Calder, visit the Calder Foundation on the web.