Eva Niewiadomski was an employee & co-worker that anyone would love to have.  She is smart, creative and has lots of energy.  She had a ton of experience in different job functions including accounting, financial analysis, brand management and new product development during her 15 year career at Quaker Oats.  She is that person that always goes the extra mile and it shows when it comes to finding fresh and new ways of doing things.

IT STARTED OFF SMALL…

Eva’s workspace at Quaker was very important to her.  She found that dull corporate workspaces didn’t provide the inspiration she needed to be most effective.  So she started to funk up her space a bit, some artwork here, some trinkets there and the next thing you know her workspace was the talk of the department.  In fact, she created such a buzz there were times when she would return from a meeting to find tours for new employees stopping by to check out her spot.

IT GOT BIGGER…

Eva felt the momentum her workspace was gaining and convinced senior management to allow her to create other inspirational areas.  Long before creative workspaces were en-vogue, Eva created a couple of “Innovation Hallways” and a “Creativity Room.”  These new additions made it possible for all employees to share their thoughts and insights on how to make better products…not just the folks in marketing or new product development.

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Join us here at Catalyst Ranch next Thursday, January 26^th, as we celebrate self employment. The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship (IAE) will be teaming up with WBEZ’s Front & Center to host a resource fair for the self employed, small businesses, start-ups, and freelancers.

Perfect for those creative professionals that are no longer working in traditional offices, Making Your Own Job, will provide freelancers and small business owners with helpful resources, speakers and insights. New opportunities are out there and this event is designed to help you find them.

Mini Seminar Topics Include:

Entrepreneurship 101 by Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship

Come learn the first 10 steps you need to take to make your idea become your start-up business.

Taxes for the Self-Employed by Center for Economic Progress

CEP’s tax expert Barbara DelBene will highlight basic income tax issues that affect self-employed taxpayers, with emphasis on record-keeping, types of business entities, and employment taxes. Founded in 1990, the non-profit Center for Economic Progress (CEP) provides free tax and financial services to improve the bottom line of 20,000 Illinois’ families each year.

 Create. Innovate. Repeat by Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship

Learn the art of your pitch from 4 individuals who have 5 minutes and 7 slides to show you how it’s done.

Funding your project with alternative lending by ACCION

ACCION will be briefly going over the services that ACCION Chicago provides, what lenders look for in loan applicants, and alternative financing options for small businesses.

Participants:

LAW PROJECT: The Law Project of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights provides pro bono legal assistance to nonprofit organizations and to low/mod income entrepreneurs.   Visit us for a brief legal consultation. 

INDIEMADE: IndieMade offers a simple, affordable way for indie entrepreneurs to build an online presence. Stop by the IndieMade table and get all the information you need in order to build a strong web presence on a tight budget. 

ACCION CHICAGO: ACCION Chicago is an alternative lending organization dedicated to providing credit and other business services to small business owners who do not have access to traditional sources of financing. By encouraging the self-reliance of micro-entrepreneurs throughout the Chicagoland area, ACCION Chicago strives to help strengthen businesses, families, and communities.

ROCKSTAR CPA: Rockstar CPA is an accounting firm specifically geared toward clients in the creative and entertainment industries.  Stop by to learn how incorporating your one-person business might save you thousands in taxes per year. 

NORTHSIDE FREELANCE NETWORK: Launched January 20, 2011, the Northside Freelance Network is a collaborative resource and community-building tool for current and fledgling freelancers and solopreneurs living and working on Chicago’s far north side, from Uptown through Evanston.

 INDEPENDENT WRITERS OF CHICAGO: IWOC (Independent Writers of Chicago), an organization of professional writers, provides tools, support, and connections to help freelancers succeed in writing for clients in various business, marketing, technical, journalistic, and nonprofit fields. Come talk to practicing writers about how to use your expertise to define a niche and launch your own independent writing business.

THE INSTITUTE FOR ARTS ENTREPENERUSHIP: Developing the creativity, human intelligence and ethical culture to fuel sustainable productivity in today’s world.  

coLAB  EVANSTON: coLab provides shared working space for companies, individuals, and organizations. We are a member-only community, driven by the need for collaboration and interpersonal interaction in a work-centered environment. coLab is ideal for individuals or teams who are tired of working from a home office or public, coffee-shop environment.

ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE: Illinois Department of Insurance’s mission is to “To protect consumers by providing assistance and information, by efficiently regulating the insurance industry’s market behavior and financial solvency, and by fostering a competitive insurance marketplace.” Swing by the table to find out what options are available to you as an individual or small business and learn about the current and future status of health insurance in Illinois.

NORTHSIDE COMMUNITY BANK: North Side Community Federal Credit Union- A full service community based federal credit union with an array of products and services including small business loans up to $35,000 for the entrepreneur.

INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL OF NEARWEST CHICAGO: Located on Chicago’s Nearwest Side, ICNC offers no cost Small Business Development and International Trade assistance in one of the world’s largest business incubators.

10,000 SMALL BUSINESSES: Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses is a $500 million investment to help small businesses in the United States create jobs and economic growth by providing entrepreneurs with a practical business education, access to capital and business support services.

Illinois Small Business Development Center at UIC: The Illinois SBDC at UIC assists pre-venture, start-ups, and established businesses with management, marketing, and financial counseling. Assistance is also provided in the areas of business and marketing plan preparation, securing capital, improving business skills, accessing international trade opportunities and addressing other business management needs.

Freelancers Union: Freelancers Union and its members are building a new support system to help the growing independent workforce thrive. A free membership gives you solidarity, benefits, community, and a political voice.

Date: Thursday, January 26 2012 6:00pm – 7:30pm

 Admission: FREE

Location: Catalyst Ranch

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We are very lucky to meet some cool people at the Ranch and equally lucky that they let us profile them every now and again. You can check out some of those videos here. Often a lot of fun and humorous tidbits end up on the cutting room floor. Our new friends, Rick and Susan Riddering of NorthStar360 Business Solutions are not only extremely personable and engaging, but share some great insight on balancing their work and personal life. Check out the OUTTAKES video from that interview!

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  We all are innovators in our own ways. We know how creative you can be, we have seen it over and over again from focus groups to ideation sessions, you all bring the “sky is the limit” to the ranch. Now here is a chance to gather with like minded friends both new and old to achieve the impossible. Share ideas, projects, and connect with other local artists and entrepreneurs in an exchange of ideas and creative concepts that will help lead you to your next big idea.  This Thursday, October 21^st, is your opportunity to really get those creative gears going during Create. Innovate. Repeat..

It’s a pop-up.

It’s experiential learning.

It’s an art fair and a performance space.

It’s an event open to the public.

It’s a mini-festival, a series of classes, workshops and, most of all, an opportunity to show the public what artists can do!

It’s Create. Innovate. Repeat.. Entrepreneurs and Artists Unite! is an experiential entrepreneurial happening. 

Thursday, October 21st

from 7-9 pm at the ING DIRECT Cafe Chicago

@

21 East Chestnut in Chicago

Create.Innovate.Repeat. is presented by the Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship, a school designed to help you turn your creativity into a living.  Find out more about the IAE at www.TheIAE.com.

For more info and to RSVP click here.

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Looking for a break this summer, somewhere to “vanish” for a little vacation? Well here is a hotel that literally is invisible to the surrounding forest. This hotel just recently opened a few weeks ago and looks like its straight out of a sci-fi story, the perfect place for the Jetsons if they moved into the Swedish Artic.

Located in the remote wilderness of Harads, Sweden, Treehotel offers guests a unique experience: accommodations in one-of-a-kind tree-house rooms, designed to exist in harmony with the natural environment around them. Founders Kent Lindvall and wife Britta, are particular about preserving the landscape around them.

Currently the hotel consists of five rooms, the cabin, the tree sauna, the blue cone, the nest and the mirrorcube. Two additional structures are scheduled to open in October, the UFO and a room with a view. These first structures were designed by different architects including sandell & sandberg, interior group ab, marten cyrene, inredningsgruppen and tham & videgard architects. The hope is that in five years the Treehotel will have 24 rooms each designed by 24 different architects.

The Mirrorcube

 Like the name implies, it is a large cube room with an outer surface that is entirely composed of reflective material, encompassing a single tree that runs through the middle. Treehotel owner Kent Lindvall describes that the concept behind the room is to make it appear nearly invisible in the forest. To avoid any harm to wildlife, the mirrored walls will be fitted with an infrared film visible only to birds.

 “Everything will reflect in this – the trees, the birds, the clouds, the sun, everything. So it should be invisible nearly in the forest.” – Kent Lindvall

Check out more information and pictures about all the rooms at Treehotel and the creative art blog Designboom.

The Bird’s Nest

The Tree Sauna

The Cabin

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“Going Green” is nothing new to us and has become common lingo for promotion. A little while back I shared with you a company who create eco-friendly advertising “clouds,” Flogos- Logos that Fly. New concepts come up everyday, well recently I ran across a photo of an ad for Shredded Wheat looking a lot like a crop circle in a wheat field. After some research, I discovered CURB-The Natural Media Company, as the mastermind behind its creation. CURB is an award winning British eco-advertising company, already achieving worldwide coverage through the creation of unique eco-advertising that uses natural earth elements. CURB ultimately believe that “it is not just what you say in your communications but also the medium you use!”

 “Curb offers a unique portfolio of sustainable media types that create maximum impact at minimal cost to the environment. Our creative team use solely natural earth elements to create everything from bespoke pieces to nationwide advertising campaigns”-CURB.   Their advertising medium includes sand, snow, grass, and bio based concrete stain. Check them out!

Natural media solutions have been used for:

■National advertising and marketing campaigns

■International press and publicity stunts

■Highly targeted guerrilla marketing

■Event displays and center pieces

■Product launches

■Presidential portraits

■Corporate and event sponsorship

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Random Acts of Kindness. They happen every day. Sometimes we are so busy and caught up in our own lives we may not see them. We may not realize how many and how often these wonderful random acts of kindness happen throughout any given day. Some acts are huge, generous and very noticeable while others are small and can sometimes go unnoticed until we really focus.

Pittsburgh’s Here You Go, gives out umbrellas on rainy days with just a request to spread the kindness in return. Equipped with a stock of 1,000 umbrellas, Here You Go has outfitted a staff of some 50 volunteers for random acts of kindness on Pittsburgh’s many rainy days. Volunteers watch for sodden individuals without umbrellas on the city’s soggy streets and then cheerfully give them one of Here You Go’s bright yellow offerings. Attached to each specially designed umbrella is a waterproof postcard encouraging the recipient to do something kind for someone else in return. They’re invited to describe their kind act on the card and mail it back to Here You Go, which then posts the story on its site.

Julie Kresen, flanked by Geoff Barnes and Katy DeLancey, are the team behind “Here You Go,” where distinctive yellow umbrellas are given to someone stranded in the rain and the recipients are asked to do a good deed for someone else.

It’s part of a pay-it-forward project that started two years and 1,000 umbrellas ago and already is generating interest from around the world.

It was an unexpected moment of kindness that put Julie Kresen on the road to creating the “Here You Go” program. Sitting in her car at a red light, she saw a young woman waiting for a bus in the rain. For reasons Kresen can’t quite explain, she hopped out of her car and gave her umbrella to the woman.

“She was so thankful, and I felt great about it for hours,” said Ms. Kresen of Emsworth. “I just started thinking, ‘Man, I want to give everybody an umbrella.’ ”

And with that rainy day, an idea started to bloom.” I knew I was going to need the umbrella as soon as I got where I was going,” she says, “but I gave it to her.” Driving to a dollar store to pick up another umbrella, Kresen was thrilled at having brightened a stranger’s day. “I started thinking, how could I buy lots of umbrellas and see if I could just give them out … and I started asking everyone I knew to start giving me umbrellas instead of gifts.”

The project began to take shape when Kresen’s boyfriend gave her 50 umbrellas as a birthday gift. A graphic designer friend created postcards to attach to each umbrella, asking recipients to keep the kindness going by doing something nice for someone else.

Kresen planned to fund the growing project herself with help from friends, but then another moment of serendipity intervened: She came across an application for a Seed grant from the Sprout Fund. “I started looking at the criteria for the grant,” she says, “and I saw one that said ‘to enhance the image of the region through community activities and building diversity between groups, and bring young people together…” And I thought ‘this is completely what I’m doing!”

Unexpectedly, Kresen then lost her job: “I spent the entire first week after my layoff writing the application and submitting it at the very last second.” The Seed grant came through, funding the purchase of 1000 umbrellas. Dozens of enthusiastic volunteers are now armed with umbrellas, handing them out around Pittsburgh on rainy days. They say these acts of giving are as inspiring for them as for the recipients.

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As kids, most of us spent time lying in the grass, watching clouds roll by and imagining the shapes we could see in the fluffy white masses. Special effect inventors Francisco Guerra and Brian Glover aimed to bring to life these daydreams with their invention of Flogos – Logos that Fly! They can make “clouds” in the shapes of, well, anything, from the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk to Mickey Mouse’s iconic head.

The company uses re-purposed artificial snow machines to generate the floating ads and messages, dubbed Flogos. The machines can pop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires. Designers use computer software to make a stencil that when placed into the snow machine, “cuts the foam in the exact right shape,” said Flogo inventor Francisco Guerra.

These clouds are actually a mixture of soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases such as helium, something like what you’d get if you married helium balloons with the solutions that kids use to blow bubbles from plastic wands. They are 100% environmentally friendly; eventually a Flogo will just evaporate in the air.

Check out this video, Flogos in Action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85aQf8rDXl8

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Our friend Lisa Canning of Entrepreneur the Arts was interviewed recently in Crain’s Enterprise City Blog. Lisa has taken a different perspective on applied creativity by starting the Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship.

The “starving artist” stereotype thrives even during economic boom times, so it makes sense that the recession would make times even tougher on artists.

But entrepreneur Lisa Canning sees potential in the art proletariat—she believes the legions of talented, highly educated artists working in non-arts jobs can succeed as professional artists if given entrepreneurial skills and new ways to apply their creativity.

It’s in that spirit that Ms. Canning, a musician and serial entrepreneur, launched the Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship, a non-profit that aims to equip artists with the means to combine their artistry and innovation with practical business skills. The Institute, which holds classes at Flourish Studios in Lakeview, has programs ranging from a $20 lecture series subscription to a two-year arts entrepreneurship program with annual tuition of $15,250.

Ms. Canning explains her vision to Crain’s contributor Steve Hendershot.

To read the full interview, click here

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