Hudson Valley Art Incubator

Project by Kelly Demers

Arts Development and Mentor Centres are in rare supply. Kelly Demers fundraiser project for the Hudson Valley Art Incubator is to see the creation of a downtown Artists Community Hub where the artists receive access to an environment that is both supportive and inspirational.

The centre would provide the level of services that coach and mentor artists to become equipped with the skills and knowledge to conduct business successfully. In addition, tools and services that give access to creative outlets still left untapped will find new talent emerge in the community. This activity will offer positive results within the larger community’s socio-economic status.

As Kelly Demers writes in her Kickstarter campaign page:

We’ll provide the tools, business resources and equipment – AFFORDable shared studio facilities such as a print shop and photo lab as well as editing equipment for low/no budget filmmakers and computer workstations for writing, scanning, graphic design & desktop publishing. In addition we’ll give artists regular gallery exposure and opportunities for networking within the community and beyond. The goal of this project is to not only help artists support themselves, but also to directly support the creative economy by creating jobs and opportunities for artists and people within the creative cluster, and to actively engage and enrich several community networks through outreach efforts and regular exposure to the arts.

This modest, yet impactful project holds tremendous promise with the right level of support to ensure its successful launch. You are invited to visit and lend your support at any level you can. The trick with the Kickstarter fundraising is that it is an all-or-nothing gamble. Not reaching the goal, all monies donated are returned, and the challenge is to surpass that goal, which only you can make possible.

Participating can be both financial to reach the goal, or in sharing so the project fundraiser is seen by more people across the web, increasing its opportunity for reaching the right audience able to see this vision through to success. Make a difference, one man is inviting you to join Hudson Valley Art Incubator and support this vision’s goal.

Business trends have always swung extreme-to-extreme in conduct, behaviour, and strategy (or tragedy). Human Capital is always the bottom-line for every transaction and reason for being. Losing sight of this creates all sorts of havoc in social spheres and financial spheres. Examples of short-term thinking losing sight of the long-term impact.

A quick buck is seductive, and the market has driven itself to producing a consumer that throws away and buys replacement so that our markets can sustain themselves. Don’t get me started on explaining this – it’s a sore point – as our once ability to adapt and repair has been reduced to throw away and replace, regardless of the expense. Our attitude toward material objects spills into our relationships with people.

In any sphere, as in every business, people make the machines go. We buy, we sell, we make, we serve, we support, and we create. It is in doing all these things that we also provide a basic human need to interact; to know others and to be known. Loyalty, service, value, and earnings are all directly tied to our value upon the human capital, whether serving the company, or a customer of the company.

Whatever it is you are selling, understand some basic principles.

• Relationship: Invest in your relationships on a personal level. Build a commitment to them so that they will engage in return. Don’t worry about the dollar value, worry about the relationship value. Investing wisely will yield tremendous Return$.
• Freedom: People are free to choose and you desire the same freedom of choice. Provide and offer your customers freedom. Whenever they hesitate, offer an alternative. Always focus upon filling their need first. Once they’re committed, the relationship will offer the right up-sell.
• Change: The Top Dog isn’t the Top Dog forever. There is a natural evolution with everything in life. When more choices hit the market, the consumer base may disperse a little or a lot. Always be ready for change, always enable movement and supported change. The more you empower your customers choice, the sooner they can return as you adapt and change too.
• TurnOver: Why are Dynamic websites the most successful, and the way we continue to go? People need stimulation, change, growth, and more. It might be a little more frenetic than is healthy, and it is what it is. Facilitate change, bringing new talent, creativity, and ideas to the organization. At the same time, empower departing talent with the support to transition successfully. Paths may cross at new levels again. As the Culture of Society shifts, so does the culture of the organization.
• Adapt: With life continuing, adaptability, growth, flexibility, learning, change, empowerment, etc., are all encouraged in an individual. As it is in an individual, so it is in an organization. Allow the creativity of life from all fronts be brought to bear upon the marketing efforts, etc. Sure we don’t fix what ain’t broke, but we don’t let it die a slow death either.

You’ll have noted this encompasses an attitude that fits Life, Business, human resources, customer service, etc. If there were a word to describe it, it would be FLOW, the ability to allow Life to move in and out of your grip. Trusting that Life would replenish as she does with the Seasons, and that every up and down is an opportunity for change, improvement, empowerment, and success.

Keep tweakin’!

I was just reviewing the search terms from my WordPress stats service. It touches my heart seeing the search terms, as I wonder at the quality of people and the hope for humanity and our future. Check it out:

Yesterday

2008-01-13

2008-01-12

2008-01-11

2008-01-10

2008-01-09

In the world of metrics and search engine traffic, these may not be big numbers, but they’re certainly big enquiries. I hope you found what you were looking for.

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Reputations are vanishing with the click of a mouse. The risks of social networking can impact any individual, company and brand. Sites like Facebook and MySpace are being checked by employers, recruiters and clients – and they’re about to become more easily searchable. While the risks can be devastating, when social networking is managed thoughtfully, the benefits to companies and brands can be rewarding.

clipped from Techvibes Blog, Online Reputation Management in Vancouver

Forty-three years old, and I have worked 26 of those years full-time. Beyond that, I worked part-time all through my teen years, beginning with a paper-route. Well, you can imagine as a kid I would goof up quite regularly. I’m sure I left many customers either stifling a laugh, fuming, or shaking their head in amazement.

In the military, the business of building a cohesive unit strips the individual to create a piece of the whole. A man surrenders his freedom to bond with a woman, and become a father. A woman surrenders her freedom to bond with a man, and to bear children. Individuals born and raised in families identify with the group. Foibles, goofs, and gaffs embarrassed everyone, kept us humble and human. And then something changed.

What exactly changed and how is somewhat of a mystery to me. In a big way, my own experience really speaks to an age of individuality. I’m not sure if I’ve got the right read on this just yet, so lets just play with it loose and fast, rather than getting hung up on technicalities just yet. Take a look over the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, or even 50 years, and the changing social landscape speaks volumes about what is happening.

The sciences offer a great deal of information that synthesized can reveal the social impact of the time period, the affect of politics on the consciousness or psyche of the people, literature reveals much as well, also exploring the emotional undercurrents and philosophies of an encapsulated period of time in a culture. And looking back, a shift and change has pronounced what we have become over recent decades, and the longing in the heart of people everywhere echo the want for more authentic and intimate relationships.

And now technology drives a wedge even further into the divide business, people, consumers, markets, money-lenders, employers, employees, unions, governments… wait… what is going on? Judgement. The worst kind of thing is happening that we wish children would stop doing in schools: Bullying, Peer Pressure, Picking On, Singling Out, Ridiculing, Fighting. Need I go on?

People everywhere, at every single level of business, market, government, service, religion, and so on and so forth had better start realizing that everyone is simply human, and that we’re all simply here to do life together. The restriction on human freedoms is strangling the life and vitality of people all over North America, and has been killing people world-wide for centuries. We are at a time in our lives when more and more people are supposed to be waking up to the truth and enacting powerful and positive changes in their lives.

Live the Life, Love the Joy, and Bless the Pain… this is just the way it is:

There but for the Grace of God, go I.

Case Sample: Boston Legal

So, you nincompoops who want to make a case out of the messy games the Internet trails leave I say, “Shame on you! I wonder what messes live in your closet to shame you so much to reach such harsh critical judgement upon the lives of others and the games they chose to engage as curiosity suits?”

Life, after all, is to be explored.