Just thought I would share this little guy with you all. He’s a Green Heron who visited us during the River Walk Festival this past weekend. He was so good at posing, I had to shoot a few photos of him.
And yes, this is actually why we named our organization.
20/30 #SMCSFblog
Toilet Paper. The answer to the question, “How do you tell you are at a poorly organized event?”
I have been to some bad events in my time. Recently, I have been to some really terrible events. It seems like we have an event-epidemic these days. I am not going to name names, so don’t bother to ask. Even if organizers are good intentioned and “doing their best”, if the event is poorly executed, it reflects badly on not just the organizers, but on other similar events. It brings everyone down. The more bad events that are produced, the more likely people will not attend future events, even if by a different organizer.
You guys know this is a pet-peeve of mine, that anyone who can pick up a phone and rent tents thinks they are an event producer. Event production takes careful planning and execution, and to create truly great events takes lots of experience and understanding of what the attendees want.
So, toilet paper. Toilet paper is one of those small things that makes a big difference. Running out of toilet paper is a huge no-no. Ladies, especially, hate it when there is no toilet paper, and when the ladies are in a bad mood, you know the gentlemen are, too. The thing about toilet paper is that this is so easy and cheap to fix, yet many inexperienced producers forget about it.
Sure, if you have a TON of money, you can rent massive stages and glorious tents, and make it look all pretty, but if you forget the toilet paper, this is a clear indication that you do not know what you are doing. It is like the canary in the coal mine. I can guarantee you that any event that runs short on toilet paper also has issues backstage. I would bet you that if you asked the performers or participants, they would tell you a horror story. Poor communication, bad marketing, disorganized execution, delayed payments, schedule running behind, all of those things are likely happening behind the scenes. There is no chance that an event producer who forgets toilet paper runs everything else smoothly, it is a clear indication of bad organization.
Now, so what? So, please stop supporting bad events. Buy continuing to buy tickets from the same bad organizers, you continue to encourage this bad behavior. There are so many bad events in Miami and the reason is that attendees have low standards. Raise your standards. So what if your favorite band is playing, they will be back soon. Spend your money with those who do a better job and soon either the bad producers will go away or learn their lesson, which improves the event scene for everyone. But, you have to raise your standards!
As more poor events are produced, more sponsors get burned by these producers, which means that they will be less likely to sponsor other events, even if my different organizers. This means less money for the good events and fewer good events. These bad events really do ruin it for everyone.
If you are one of those whose events ran out of toilet paper PLEASE GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS and let the ones doing a better job grow. You know who you are and you are making us all look bad. There are better ways to make a living and it does not matter how good your intentions are, if you are doing a bad job, you are hurting everyone.
19/30 #SMCSFblog
This is a pretty standard weekend day for me these days. Pardon the quality on these photos, they are from the phone.
Of course, the first thing is always updating Soul Of Miami with new events and such. Never ending. Then onto working on our upcoming Life Is Art events. Finishing up details on the Arts and the Affordable Care Act seminar and working on promotions for our T-Shirt Award and Art Basel Welcome Party.
Far before I was ready, it was time to head out to cover as many of the events happening that day as possible. It seemed like every event we hit was just ending, but we still got some shots.
Started off at Downtown Miami Riverwalk Festival. It was very nice, but I did not even manage to get a phone photo. Was not even really all with it at that point.
Down to Coconut Grove for the Mad Hatter Arts Festival, a fun and funky festival put on by the artists of the Grove. It hearkens back to the good old days when Coconut Grove was a mecca for music and art. It was nearly over by the time we got there, but we did catch some nice music and get to chat with most of the artists.
Off to the Miami Airport Convention Center for Sabor Peru. Again, got there just as it was ending, but we got to see a really cool traditional dance show.
After that, we headed up to Fort Lauderdale. MAC Fine Art grand opening was the first stop. We loved them in Wynwood, and their new space is huge. Really nice event and some great artwork.
We stopped by the FAT Village Art District. Of course, nearly everything was closed, but it looks like a really cool place. The Art Heart for Rwanda was still going and had some very interesting pieces.
And our buddies from C&I Studios have added this super hip coffee shop / mixology bar, where we also got some great BBQ ribs!
Finally, it was off to the Bar Stache 1920’s Drinking Den grand opening. I like this place a lot.
Finally, back home. Now on Sunday, @thepumagirl is hard at work posting photos and I am back hard at work on the Life Is Art shows. Hoping to have time to update our woefully behind Art Basel Guide.
17/30 #SMCSFblog
You see this is what our banner says. You might wonder what we mean by it. This came up in a PhilanthroFest steering committee meeting a while back and I liked it so much, I appropriated it as one of our slogans. Essentially, it means that every day everyone can do something to make the world a little better, and if everyone does a little something, the cumulative effects will be huge.
In the circles I run around in, there is a lot of talk about being a “leader” or “innovator” or “changemaker” (a buzzword I cannot stand), et cetera. All of this is a lot of pressure and may lead some people to not do anything because they cannot do everything. They are nonsense, you do not need to be a “leader” or an “innovator” or a friggin’ “changemaker” for pete’s sake to do something to help make the world a better place. You just have to be a concerned human. That’s all.
Changing The World One Day at a time just means do something small every day to make a little difference. Maybe you cut your shower short a couple of minutes. If everybody did that, imagine how many billions of gallons of water we would save. Maybe you bike to the market once a week, instead of driving. Maybe you give one dollar per month to your favorite charity. Seems like a little? If all 300 Million USA citizens did that, it would add up to over three-and-a-half BILLION dollars for good! Just for one dollar a month. Just a small thing, but it adds up so much.
So this is it. Don’t feel overwhelmed by trying to do ridiculous stuff. Just do a little every day and the cumulative effect will be enormous.
I use this photo as the accompaniment for this particular writing because it is a perfect example of what I am saying. Those look like full-sized plants, but actually, those leaves are barely a quarter of an inch across.
15/30 #SMCSFblog
The other day I was talking to a very nice lady who had recently moved here from a much colder climate. I asked her what the temperature was there and she said 21. So, I asked her if she was going to start posting photos of how amazing and warm it is here to taunt her family and friends back home. Everybody does that, right? She said, no, she was not going to do that. She said her father had done it when he moved to South Florida years ago, and so she did not want to do the same to her friends.
So, what do you think, do you taunt your friends from back where you came from? Post pictures of yourself on the beach while they are posting pictures of themselves digging their car out of six foot snow drifts? Do you complain about how cold you are at 65, while everyone else is wearing parkas? Even in the summer do you post about our balmy 85 degree weather, while places like New York swelter at near 100 degrees? Yes, it does get warm here, but other places are much hotter.
I eventually quit doing direct taunting, after about the first three years of living here, but I do still like to post about how amazing the weather is. It’s hard not to!
#SMCSFBlog 14/30
I get this a lot. As I mentioned in my first post “Start a blog,” I am a big blogging evangelist. But, I get this response a lot, “I don’t have time to blog!” Bullshit.
Let me ask you this, who is your favorite on “Desperate Housewives”? Who is winning on “America’s Got Talent?” Who’s your favorite sports team? Are the dead winning over at “Walking Dead”? Yeah, you have time to blog, don’t give me that nonsense.
I have two Life Is Art events coming up in the next couple of weeks AND I have to keep up with all the events added to Soul Of Miami AND I have to create our ever popular Art Basel Week Guide, and here I am writing. Yeah, I’m late for my daily blog post, and it is past 2am, but I’m doing it. Here’s a couple of Meme’s to piss you off and hopefully get you motivated:
credit: memegenerator.net
credit: www.cheezeburger.com
13/30 #SMCSFblog
So, for those of you who do not know, Social Media Club South Florida issued a challenge for the month of November to blog every day. I took this challenge and I am damned determined to see it through.
Unfortunately, November is INSANELY busy for me. I just quit my regular job to focus on my own businesses full-time and I am WAY behind. We have an event on November 18th and another on December 2nd. I have seriously been working from the second I get up until the second I can no longer see the computer screen. And, then I made this commitment to blog every day.
So, today I am blogging about how I just don’t have time to blog. But, I committed to do it every day, so I am doing it. That is what perseverence is all about, and that is what creates success. You commit to something and you see it through. So, even though I am barely coherent and 21 minutes behind, this is my day 12 of 30 #SMCSFblog post and by dammit I am going to make all 30 days.
As you can imagine, we have been watching the Miami event scene for many years. Even before we started Soul Of Miami, we got out and about on a regular basis. And now, Miami has finally closed the circle.
Years ago, I can remember when THE thing to do on one Thursday a month was JAM at MAM. That was really the start of mid-week evening events. People moved their art shows, networkers, happy hours, grand openings and other special events off the weekends because they started to get too busy. There was a time when Thursday was king. You would sit around the house Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then have a dozen events to choose from on Thursday. There was a time when full days would be empty on Soul Of Miami, just no events listed at all.
Slowly, it creeped across the week. After competition got too fierce on Thursdays, people started Wednesdays. I remember, a few years back, talking to friends about it. “Oh, this is as far as it can go, nobody would do Tuesday. Nobody would go out on Tuesday.” Well, needless to say, we were wrong.
Eventually it did creep across Tuesday. I think it was the Brickell Art Walk that finally sealed Tuesday’s fate. After they started hosting their walk on one Tuesday a month, more and more people started testing Tuesdays. We even plan to hold regular Life Is Art events on Tuesdays starting in 2014, whereas last year, we would not have entertained that idea at all.
We thought Monday would be the final hold out. There was a time when we personally designated it “Movie Monday” because nothing ever happened on Monday and we could actually take a personal day and attend a movie. Surely, nobody would be crazy enough to host events on Monday. The day after a big weekend in Miami, nobody would come out, right? Everybody needs a break, right? Wrong, again.
For the past several weeks, we have been attending events pretty much every night of the week, including Mondays. We are even contributing to the situation, our next two Life Is Art are on Mondays. Tonight (Monday, November 11), there are several nice events to choose from.
Can this continue? Will people continue to populate events every night of the week? Where do we go from here? Will we need to invent a new day just to cram more events into the week? So, I ask you, what are you doing tonight?
11/30 #SMCSFblog
It has always been my philosophy that everybody is exactly the same and everyone is completely different.
I just sent out an email to our Life Is Art list regarding our Arts and the Affordable Care Act seminar and I received the following two responses almost simultaneously.
“Great work and idea. We will definitely be in support. Thank you for
putting this together.”
and
“Crap
I am unsubscribing from this which has NOTHING to do with what I signed up
for”
I just thought it was kind of funny and had to share.
#SMCSFblog 9/30
I think this will come as a surprise to many people.
As host of one of the most popular calendar / event websites in South Florida, Soul Of Miami, we have a fairly unique barometer of the activity of the local residents. We can see how active everyone is by the rise and fall of our traffic. We also can see how busy the scene is by the number of events listed each month.
When we look at our numbers to see the slowest month, many people would guess August or September because they are the height of summer and supposedly the slowest months of the “off-season” in Miami. But, the fact is that January is our slowest month, in terms of visitors. There are still approximately the same number of events in January as other months, just fewer people looking for them.
Going into January, we have Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, followed by Art Basel, followed by Christmas, followed by New Year’s Eve. There are other big events thrown in there like Miami Book Fair. No wonder everyone is tired by January!
So, how about our busiest month? Again, a surprise. You would think it would be November/December, as everyone is coming in for Art Basel, and we have an excellent roundup of the happenings. But, it is actually October.
In this, we can see an opportunity. Everyone is looking for haunted houses. By far, our most-visited page that month, or any month, is the International Mall House of Horrors. Miami has a significant lack of haunted houses, as compared to other similarly sized cities. But, this is something the residents obviously want. There are a couple more that have popped up, but still very few.
So, there is a little Soul Of Miami resident analytics for you. Do with it what you will.
8/30 #SMCSFblog challenge
Tagged #SMCSFblog, Analytics, Art Basel, Halloween, Soul Of Miami