My inner Buddha is fahrklempt!

I am on a voyage to space, the final frontier – in my closet.  What I crave to have in my possession is space.  Less stuff, less options, less stress.

I have to tell you about this fabelhaft challenge I just discovered:

Can you live with just six things in your closet for 30 days? Lingerie and shoes not included.

Some people who have attempted this have stumbled upon some surprising insights.  One woman was delighted to realize that she really didn’t need everything in her closet.  Another woman was slightly annoyed that her husband didn’t even notice she was wearing the same six pieces for 30 days.  I liked the guy who found a creative approach to the challenge – reversible shorts!

As you know, I am all about less so this sort of lifestyle overhaul is just the kind of thing I was looking for.  I especially like the forgiveness clause about shoes.  But really, think about what this can reveal about you, your relationship with your stuff and your buying habits.

How much of what you own owns you?

What six things are important to you?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Hiring is game of risk and resumes.

For me, its all about the interview.  The one on one, the unspoken signals, the gut instinct and the conviction that personal energy is the dealbreaker.

I read an interview with Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos and author of “Delivering Happiness” where he described his hiring philosophy.  Here is an excerpt:

Tony Hsieh: For us, the whole belief is that our culture should be our number one priority, and if we get the culture right then most of the other stuff — like great customer service, building a long term enduring brand — will just happen naturally on its own.

Every employee understands that part of their job description is actually to live and inspire the culture in others.  We have passed on a lot of smart and talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line but if they are not a culture fit, we won’t hire them.

For candidates we do the same thing: We pick them up, give them a tour, and then they spend the day interviewing. But at the end of the interview process, our head of recruiting goes back to the shuttle driver and asks them how they were treated. If they were not treated well when they thought they were off the clock then we won’t hire them, it’s not even a question.

Something else I believe in I learned from someone I trust and respect very much.  My friend Jerry, who has recently retired from a long career in human resources, told me that at the end of the interview, you should ask yourself just one question.

And the question is…

Could you have dinner with this person?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

It takes me a couple of days to let go.  Why I have to work so hard to relax is beyond me but thanks to all of you, I am happy to share Step #3 of my Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives.  This Plan is for you who work hard and are passionate about what you do.  There is this fabulous quote by Leo Tolstoy that opens Part One of The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, two creative social media thinkers, which I want to share with you.

“Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself”

I just got the book and am so thrilled that Beth and Allison have provided a “Google map”  for nonprofits to navigate their way into a new and highly networked world.  More on this book to come!  Just do yourself a big favor and get a copy for yourself.

Back to Tolstoy.

This Plan is to help you change yourself into a relaxed and rested version of yourself  so you can This is why it is so important for you to calm down!

I am so grateful for the suggestions you have sent me and will be writing them up for you  every Wednesday.

In case you missed them, here are Steps 1 & 2

1 Get over yourself

2 Get off the grid

And today we have -

3.  Get local

Slide your feet into those flip flops and stroll down the boardwalk to Rockaway Taco.

Check out the used surfboards with a fish taco in your hand.  Somehow you will feel a strong desire to wear one of those tank shirts that say, “Eat, Sleep, Surf” and watch the tide roll in.  I have been intrigued by the new patterns I have been seeing in board shorts.

“You got to take in a wave in clutch shorts, dude.”  I overheard this fashion tip from a bunch of surfers so it must be true.

Lose yourself in a different world.  Be a local in a different galaxy, one where the fire trucks sport rescue surf boards and the firemen look like surfer dudes.  It is hard to get aufgeregt (Yiddish for agitated) with sand between your toes.

What do you think?

Get more Wow, dude!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

One of my favorite quotes in the world is by Agatha Christie who said,

“Conversation reveals all”

And she should know.

The Grande Dame of Whodunit has built an empire of mystery novels of assorted murderers, scoundrels and thieves who have been undone by conversation.

I prefer to keep company with other types of people less deadly but just as fascinating.  For me, the best place to do this and to have a conversation is over lunch.

How do you get to know someone?

Spending an hour with a person over a sandwich and coffee is a great way to start a relationship.  Breaking bread is usually followed by breaking the ice.  If you are a skilled conversation artist, you will find yourself listening a lot more than talking.  If the food is exceptionally tasty, this is not difficult to do.  People like to talk and share stories about themselves.

I think of lunch the same way I think about weddings.

Who is the wedding for, really?  The bride and the groom?  Guess again.  It’s for everybody else.  You guys are just animated versions of the cake figures.

Who is lunch for?  I’ll give you a hint:

The most important letter in the word “lunch” is u.

U, as in you.  Not you, the other you.  The other person.

Three great places for lunch

I have three places for you to have lunch in Queens, the borough of great food.

In Jackson Heights, you will love Espresso 77, an artsy cafe just off 37th Avenue.  It is owned by my friend Afzal Hossain who is an artist as well as the owner of this delightful neighborhood coffee bar.  You can relax with a cup of coffee and a sandwich among work on the wall created by local artists.

In Flushing, there is an oasis of a restaurant in the Queens Crossing building called Mulan.  This place has an interesting dining area in the center of the restaurant enclosed by the illusion of a waterfall.  Nice place to chat with a board member or a prospective client over elegant Asian cuisine.  Here you will find yourself surrounded by art from a roster of international artists.

In Long Island City, a new spot I have recently discovered  is Testaccio on Vernon Boulevard.  Hearty handshake from Ivan, the owner and handmade pasta too!  What’s not to love?  Their roof garden will be opening soon and they have several smaller dining areas in the back, perfect for a small gathering of artists, a staff lunch or a tete a tete with a colleague.

Bon appetit!

Lunch is about everybody else, if you really want to get to know people.  When you invite someone to lunch, ask them to bring their appetite.  You bring your ears.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

I always imagine things can be better.

I am constantly trying to lose those elusive ten pounds.

I want to be self improved, streamlined, and sexy would be nice, too.

Today, in all of its punishing heat and humidity, I dragged myself out of bed before the moon had a chance to escape and ran five miles along the beach in Rockaway to have a conversation with the universe.  Standing by the water’s edge, I take a deep breath and start talking:

Hi, its me again!  Wow, you’re up early.  Just kidding, you are eternally up.  Me, I am only here physically waiting for the rest of me to wake up and catch up with the rest of the world.  Hey listen, before I get going I just want to say – thank you thank you thank you for everything.

I love being here to see the sun come up, I love standing on this morning beach, I love breathing in ocean scented breezes.  I love feeling so alive.

OK, I have some questions for you about stuff that I could use your help with:

• Should I be a creative or a reactive?
• What does success look like for me?
• What am I going to be write about this week?
• Is what I do meaningful to anyone?
• Are you listening to me?

I could go on but this is typical of what I ask about.  Most of the time I just listen.  And run.

If we have a big discussion or a lot of stuff to figure out, I set my sights on  the light house at the tip of Breezy Point and put in thirteen miles.  In this distance there are lovely long spaces for me to ask these questions, close my eyes and run guided by the sound of the waves until I begin to get answers.

What does the universe say

It feels good to let the universe know what I am wondering about.  I imagine myself shining a flashlight into the night sky, but instead of light, I am shooting my inquiries into the far far away.  My questions are now a part of an immenseness that is at once inspiring and inconceivable.

Sometimes the answers come to me with a clarity that is embarrassing.  How could I have not known?

Sometimes it feels good just to be out there with unanswered questions.  Do I really want to know?

Opening your soul like that has unexpected benefits like the sudden realization that perhaps you already possess the answers to questions that have yet to be asked.

What is life without a little mystery?

Do you have something to ask the universe?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

In a year or two, all the computers in our office will splutter and shudder into obsolescence.

Quite frankly, I am a little tired of sitting next to this huge server and worrying about it losing all of our data when it starts gasping through its death throes.

What if?

I am sure things get invented because aggravated people like me start wondering about ways to improve our lives and ask, “What if?”  And me, I detest being surrounded by stupidity and poor design.  How can I make the workflow in my office Wow?

What I want less of

No paper. No big things sitting on my desk and on the floor holding stuff that can be sent cloudward.  Why do we need forms to contain the formless?  Who needs to be dusting all of that?

Our financials live in QuickBooks, our database is in Raiser’s Edge, our grant applications go through CueRate, and we communicate through email, e-newsletters, blogs and our website.  Every morning I see an average of 50 -60 emails in my inbox, 1or 2 voice mail messages.  All of this stuff lives somewhere in space.  Why can’t we access this from iPads and laptops in spaces of our choosing?

What if we got rid of this big noisy server?  Would we need to physically gather around a 9-5 schedule?

Is it possible for us, an arts service organization to:

• Work remotely, connect digitally
• Meet as needed, preferably in cool places with great food
• Produce independently
• Skype, conference call

What if we became officeless?

People need to connect.  Nothing can replace a face to face meeting in building relationships.  Gatherings  generate social capital and are crucial in creating friends, supporters, audiences, fan bases, clients, inner circles.  But working?  Especially in these times when so many institutions are sinking into obsolescence, I can’t help but wonder if the way we work is a vestige of a manufacturing mindset that has been rendered outdated and out of touch with the potential that technology offers.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

?

All of you amazingly busy and creative people out there – stop what you are doing and relax, for crying out loud!  It is summer in the city of your soul and time to take a much deserved vacation.

In a recent post, I introduced the first step of  my Twelve Step Plan for everyone like me who needs to be accomplishing things all the time and asked you to help me create this.   Thanks to everyone who responded with great ideas for the Plan!

I always believed that one of us can be so much smarter with all of us.

OK everyone, the first step to get you in the right frame of mind is:

1. Get over yourself

Here is the next step

2. Get off the grid

This is really scary.

It works better if you accidentally jump in the pool with your phone in your pocket, but for the rest of us who lobsterclaw our phones in our sleep it may be more difficult to let go.  If you must must must have your phone with you, shut your ringers and alerts off and try getting used to the silence.  After a while you will start to feel disconnected, a little bubble drifting above the rest of us.  Suspended.

Like floating on your back in the ocean, suspended between sea and sky.  A sunrise, a fading moon.

Have a conversation with the universe.  No data plan required.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Every morning, for about 2 hours, I pay myself first by researching, reading, and writing blog posts…before I dive into email hell

This is from a post about how to think about your blogging by Jeremiah Owyang that tells you to pay yourself first.  Why is it that we head first to the inbox where we can lose ourselves in responding and reacting to what other people want?

Take charge and take that time up front for yourself!

Do what you want to do, then do what you need to do

Get to your thinking, reading, writing first while your mind is fresh.  Makes sense to me.

What do you think?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

?

I am at the sweet spot of the summer.

Early summer, just after the Fourth of July weekend, lazy wide open days ahead of me.

So what does any self respecting nonprofit executive director/momspy/artspy/nonprofit knitter do – angst!

That’s right.  I am frantically scheduling relaxing moments and down time into my Blackberry with alerts to remind me to calm down, take deep breaths, wear sunscreen, read, exercise and lose 10 pounds.  God forbid I forget to do something.

Another couple of things I have added to my evergrowing List of Things I Must Accomplish are blog related tasks.  I want to write, write, write and accumulate a cache of posts.  Then I want to work on some sketches, videos, guest posts, reviews – just a few thousand other things.

Sound familiar?

Why do we do this at a time when we are supposed to be on vacation from all of this?  Simple.  It’s a habit.  We are in the habit of overachieving and addicted to the challenge of being ahead of the game.  Since we do this more than we are on vacation, it is difficult habit to break especially if we don’t have something else to replace it with.

What we all need is a plan.

This is what you should do.  I will give you the first step and then I will need your help in completing this list that will make us happier:

A Twelve Step Plan for Restless Creatives Like Me

1. Get over yourself

You are not as irreplaceable as you think you are.  If you go off the grid, believe me, everybody will somehow get along fine without you.

If you feel that the world will explode without you being part of everything, you are a bottleneck, not a leader.  Shared decision making infuses your team with an increased sense of responsibility.  You can delegate someone the authority to sign off on say, decisions revolving around purchases under $500.  Or all correspondences to committee members.  If it is something you need to weigh in on, have that someone evaluate the options and make a recommendation.  That way you can simply agree or disagree and move forward.

Get addicted to the gradual distancing between you and every little thing that has to be taken care.  Design a better system that removes you from doing it all.  This is a habit we can get used to.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

photo by John’s copper craft

People like to see things.

Your eye is naturally attracted to images, colors, interesting objects.  Less so to text.

Come on, admit it.  Don’t you like looking at book jackets that are zippy?  How many of you go into a wine store and really know the difference between all of those bottles of wine and end up picking a bottle because it has a nice looking label?

I like blogs that have pictures and videos.  When done well,  my respect for the attention paid to visual detail and artistry transforms me into a subscriber.  Make it easy for me to enjoy your content and I will be your biggest fan.

As with any communication effort, it is important to know how effective your tools are in building your presence.  How engaged are your viewers?  What is your Return on Investment (ROI)?

Video is the romance between text and image.

It is the energy that brings to life words and pictures on a page.

I am in love with the two minute video.  One minute is even better, depending on what the story is.  Video is a powerful way to bring faces of the people involved with your work to your viewers and to the world.  While this is a very compelling reason to use video,  it is just as important to know what your ROI is.

Here’s an excerpt from a post by Michael Hoffman of See3 on figuring out if  and how video is working for you.  He suggests  5 questions to help you think this through and does a great job at helping people become better at visual communication.

In fact, a Forrester study found that “any given video stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page that Google has indexed”.

Cast your eye over the full post here.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?