After having such a great time at The Chocolate Tweetup, we decided to start planning for round 2. The time has finally come….
On Thursday, June 16th, Burd Ford will be hosting The Viva La Mexico Tweetup! This is a theme like never before. We are giving you the freedom to exercise your imagination and bring ANY food or snack that is Mexican themed.
(All guests must bring at least one Mexican themed item)
To go along with the Mexican theme, we will be having Boomerang Bob’s supplying flawless Margaritas to those who are of age. Also on the menu will be Rum Runners and Bloody Mary’s provided by Boomerang Bob’s.
To make things even more eventful, we will be holding a raffle for great prizes provided by Howl at the Moon, Burd Ford, Firestone Indy Lights Driver Stephen Simpson, Live Nation, and more! The event will last from 7-9p, so the raffle winners will be announced around 8:30 and you must still be present to win! Tickets for the raffle will be sold for $5 per ticket or in a bundle of 5 tickets for $20. You can buy as many as you’d like. More tickets = Better chance to win!The proceeds from the raffle will be donated to a pending organization, details will be announced as they come.
Make sure you come out and enjoy a great evening with great people. Share this with your network and let’s pack Burd Ford full!
*PLEASE REGISTER AT EVENTBRITE. YOUR FREE ADMISSION TICKET WILL BE EMAILED TO THE EMAIL ADRESS YOU PROVIDE. PLEASE PRINT AND PRESENT THAT AT THE DOOR ON THE 16TH*
For those of you wondering what I’ve been up to over the past week or so (and for the next week), I’ve been out at Indianapolis Motor Speedway covering the 2011 Indianapolis 500 activities for our sister company, Surge Bucket Media, and specifically Naptown Buzz.
I’ve been blogging, podcasting & taking a lot of photos. Feel free to have a read, listen & look when you have a minute.
The Stutz Artists Association will host its 18th annual open house April 29 and 30, 2011 and Watershed Studio will be welcoming visitors both days in Suite B-310. Come visit our studio and check out some of Brian’s photographs & artwork.
Courtesy of Verizon Wireless we will be demoing the Motorla Xoom on Friday night, so if you’re curious about tablets, be sure to swing by for that.
And on Saturday bring out the kids and spur their creativity. Rumor has it that there will also be free ice cream for the kids in the building on Saturday, and what kid doesn’t love ice cream?!
Stutz Artists Association Annual Open House
More than 70 artists open their studios to visitors during the two-day event. It’s not only an opportunity to see the work of 70 local artists in one place at one time, it’s a chance to see where and how the work is created. Artwork ranges from paintings, drawings and photography, to sculpture, jewelry and furniture.
Win FREE Tickets
Would you like a chance to win a pair of FREE TICKETS to attend the Stutz Artists Association 18th Annual Open House? If so, please leave a comment on Naptown Buzz’s post by 1pm EDT on Friday, April 29, 2011 and one lucky winner will be chosen at random.
The Stutz Artists Association will host its 18th annual open house April 29 and 30, 2011.
More than 70 artists open their studios to visitors during the two-day event. It’s not only an opportunity to see the work of 70 local artists in one place at one time, it’s a chance to see where and how the work is created. Artwork ranges from paintings, drawings and photography, to sculpture, jewelry and furniture.
Would you like a chance to win a pair of FREE TICKETS to attend the Stutz Artists Association 18th Annual Open House? If so, please leave a comment on this post by 1pm EDT on Friday, April 29, 2011 and one lucky winner will be chosen at random.
And if you make it to the open house, be sure to swing by B-310 and say hi to us in the Watershed Studio / Surge Bucket Media suite. Rumor has it that we’ll be demoing the Motorla Xoom as well as doing some giveaways.
Come enjoy an evening of CHOCOLATE & WINE while hanging out with the Naptown Buzz / Utter Oddcast crew at Burd Ford
on Tuesday, February 8, 2011
from 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
All attendees must register to attend
AND
must bring some sort of chocolate to share.
Organizing tweetups requires a lot of time and effort. If you like what we do and want to help grow the tweetups, we appreciate any and all help that we can get. If you are interested in assisting, we are in need of:
Word of mouth promotion – tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell everyone you see!
Prize donations - Prize contributors will be announced as they come in and if you are interested in providing a door prize, please contact Brian Groce.
Giveaways – something that all attendees will receive such as coupons, t-shirts, etc.
Monetary sponsors & supporters – monetary support helps us tremendously and allow us to do things we couldn’t otherwise do. If you are able to donate a dollar or two, please use the PayPal button below to do so.
Click on individual events for more information and to register or you can head directly on over to Eventbrite to register for the events. Note that some events have limited space, so register early.
Fall is officially upon us and Watershed Studio, Surge Bucket Media & Indy Media School have decided to pack up their recording gear and head out into the big city and mingle with our fellow citizens as part of the October Oddness 2010 Meetups/Tweetups. We’ll be podcasting, snapping photos & recording videos as we facilitate these events in conjunction with our gracious event hosts. If you live in or around the Indianapolis area we’d love to see you and your family out at an event or two.
As we all know, this is the time of year when things start picking up in preparation for the Holiday season and year’s end. We’re here to assist if you need anything at all, be it blog related, social media related, marketing related or anything in between, so please contact us and we’ll be happy to help out in any manner.
In the meantime, check out these blog posts from September:
At Surge Bucket Media we’re currently gearing up for Utter Oddness‘/Utter Oddcast‘s October Oddness 2010 and are in the midst of doing some minor re-branding of everything, including the logo. As anyone in design knows, it’s best to get opinions, and that’s where you come in.
Utter Oddness Logo: 100px & 200px wide
Utter Oddness Logo: 300px wide
We are looking for any and all feedback regarding this logo concept and here are our specific questions:
What did you first think of when you saw this logo?
How did it make you feel emotionally?
What are your thoughts on the readability of the text?
Is the text readable at the smallest size?
Is the text readable at the largest size?
Were you able to read it at first glance?
What are your thoughts on the colors?
What would you change about this logo?
Would you wear/display this logo on a t-shirt, button or another product?
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. We truly appreciate it. (And we may just send random commenter’s some goodies once the logo is finalized…hint, hint.)
When I saw this story this morning, my jaw dropped.
Taking a step closer to an eerie Orwellian state where creativity is crushed in the name of “the greater good,” the city of Philadelphia is demanding that bloggers pay $300 for the privilege of writing on the Internet.
This $300 “business privilege license” is for all local bloggers – even the ones that make no money off their words.
The city doesn’t stop there. In addition to the $300 for the license to write on the World Wide Web, bloggers must pay city wage taxes, business privilege taxes and taxes on any net profits — on top of state and federal taxes — even if the blogger only made $11 over two years, reports the City Paper.
Even though I’ve never heard of anything like a blanket “business privilege license”, I understand paying taxes is something we all have to do. If that’s how it is in Philly for any business, then fine. But when you automatically label bloggers as businesses then I have a problem with that.
Taking a step back to the mid-1990′s, I used to publish a ‘zine (and yes, ‘zines are still alive and well in 2010). We printed 100 copies, got some free music to review, had a few small ad sales, and if we were lucky we broke even. But it was about our passion for the subject and it was nothing more than a hobby for a group of college kids.
Step forward to 2002 and I jumped head first into blogging and haven’t looked back. The idea of being a zinester & the idea of being a blogger were pretty much the same thing for me, but with blogging there was a lot less overhead and many more potential eyeballs.
Now jump to present day 2010 and I find myself making a living off of blogging. (Note that I didn’t say from blogging.)
When Watershed Studio was started back in 2004 our focus was on web design and building PHP based web applications since that’s what I was doing as a day job back then. Today that has morphed into a lot of WordPress development for clients as well as social media related consulting, coaching & training. Last year WordSprung was launched as an extension of our WordPress services and earlier this year we launched Indy Media School to focus on the social media training side of things.
On the flip side of the coin, in 2006 the decision was made to separate our content (blogs, podcasts, writings, etc) from the design & consulting side of things and Surge Bucket Media was formed. Four years later Surge Bucket Media (SBM) consists of dozens of web properties, many of which are networked together. The difference here being that SBM is currently nowhere near the money maker that everything under the Watershed Studio umbrella is. And a lot of that is on purpose as we are trying to keep advertising down to an absolute minimum and frankly we do that because we like to do it.
All of that to say, we have seen quite the spectrum of blogs & bloggers throughout the years. While many of our clients are businesses, both small and large, we also have numerous clients who blog out of their own pockets. In other words, their blogs are their passion and they are funding them themselves without a concern for monetary gain. And it’s this crowd that the vast majority of bloggers would fall into.
Going back to Philadelphia, I honestly don’t see how this will hold up. There are just too many issues at hand, not to mention the moment when freedom of speech and press are brought up (and Philly should be pretty familiar with those, right?). If I were a small potatoes blogger in Philly I wouldn’t be packing my bags just yet, but I certainly would raise a ruckus with your city government.
What are your thoughts on the matter? Please leave us a comment or leave a voicemail at 317-565-4250.
