Archives: Inside The House

Here at the House, there's a large mural in our conference room. The mural—designed by an Intiman set designer—is pretty dramatic and features a pastoral scene . . . I think. There's a narrative happening within it, and I've tried to decipher the story on many a Monday staff meeting. Anyway, we're refreshing the ground floor space with some expansive new whiteboards so we can use the room even more effectively in ideation sessions (the downstairs and upstairs meeting rooms have already added whiteboard amenities; you can never have enough whiteboards—I want whiteboard clothing!). Have a look at some possibilities created by designer Dave Cole.

Which one is your favorite?

A semi-edited-PG-version of a Mad Lib from our Valentine’s Day staff meeting. Not really so much a fairy tale — more like a true story!

I recently attended a Puget Sound Business Journal event on clarifying your purpose and passion, and the importance of approaching business relationships with cooperation and collaboration in mind (even with competitors). It's key to establish internal clarity, understand how it translates to successful external relationships, and constantly re-evalutate and adjust to overcome those roadblocks that always appear and be in tune with yourself and organization.

A closing thought:
A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you forget to make a turn.

As a part of our never-ending improvements to the PBDH Creative Lounge, we recently repainted - including adding a mural to two of the previously boring hallway walls. The new vibe was so well liked that we have decided to extend the artwork all the way up the stairwell!

Here's a little vid showing some of the mural painting process.

A couple months ago, I was introduced to Emerald City Trapeze (www.emeraldcitytrapeze.com) through a Seattle Twitter fundraising event, called Twestival (http://seattletwestival.com/). Global Twestival 2010 and Concern Worldwide (www.concern.net) partnered to hold several fundraising events around the world on one day: March 25, 2010. A few hundred people joined the Seattle-based event for this good cause.

The worldwide event raised over $400,000 for Worldwide Concern's education programs. Over the next year, Concern will impact over 27,000 students and 82 schools in poor communities in countries like Haiti, Burundi, Malawi and Liberia. Plans are underway to renovate or build new classrooms and schools, to supply students with much needed equipment, to train over 250 teachers/headmasters, and to increase enrollment of girls in schools. Furthermore, Concern will open and support new Child Friendly Spaces in Haiti, safe transitional places where kids can learn and play.

The event not only raised money to support these initiatives, but also introduced the Seattle crowd to trapeze! Emerald City Trapeze opened earlier this year, and was a great host for the event. Attendees had the opportunity to take a swing on the trapeze and see what it was all about. I, of course, had to give it a try, which only sparked my interest in taking an actual class down the road! What would it be like to learn how to fly?

After much discussion with friends, we booked a group class in May and spent 2 hours learning not only to fly 40 feet in the air, but to do a knee-hold, flip back, and most exciting of all...do a catch with another instructor (that is, if you scored the "cow bell," AKA acceptable performance).

It's hard to describe one’s emotions during the 2-hour class. After beginning with utter fear, you are filled with adrenaline, excitement, and nervousness each time you make the tall climb up to the platform. You begin to wonder why you are doing this, but several turns and pep talks later, you realize it’s all worth it. You challenge yourself, cheer-on friends, and walk away with a new experience.

Check it out!

Designers, when you post comps for open critique, switch on the hot box! It's like raising the flag on your mailbox. Never again will your amazing, creative, ground-breaking work hang on the whiteboard, unnoticed. Read on, if you want to know why and how I made this.

PBDH encourages open-collaboration, cross-pollination and a lot of other great hyphenated phrases relating to idea sharing. One way this is accomplished is by posting new design comps on the whiteboard in "The Core" - our primary public space where we hold critiques, eat lunch and argue about last night's episode of Lost. Often a designer will hang up a few design roughs or ideas before the "real" internal review, to see what other folks have to say and get some fresh perspective. The system works fairly well, but I have noticed one flaw: Sometimes I pass right by those comps without realizing they are posted there for public critique. For all I know, they are just left over from a previous meeting and commenting is closed. There is nothing to draw my attention to them. Never again. Post your work, pull the chain and get ready for an influx of insightful, relevant, meaningful feedback.

And if you see the light on.... please take a look at what's on the board and offer your thoughts. That light is somebody's beacon asking for your input.

No doubt somebody will ask "How did you make that" which is usually a long answer, but I can give you one hint. I found a little laser-cutting shop right around the corner from our office. Take them a vector file and they can cut your design out of wood, paper, plastic - a lot of things. Check out Metrix Create Space, it's a haven for tech geeks, "makers" and design-nerds like myself.

PBDH's Interactive Manager, Bryan Zug, nabs the highly coveted Geek of the Week title over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Bryan discusses streaming-video tea parties, pinewood derby, and the question that defines all geeks: Star Wars or Star Trek? Get the answers and the state of Seattle geekdom on the PI's Web site.