Last week we planned the National Christmas Tree Lighting VIP After-Party. The party was hosted by the National Park Foundation to honor their donors as well as talent from the tree lighting concert. Team Mesh set-up for the event, while others took our clients to the concert. The concert was amazing (yet terribly cold and rainy) – and kicked off with President Obama and the First Family lighting the tree. Aretha Franklin and Mariah Carey were some of the many talents who performed – who kept the guests moving through out the concert. We look forward to this event again next year! Images via Stephen Bobb Photography.
We attended a fantastic conference – Demand Solutions – hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank. The purpose of the conference was to highlight those who had bridged the gap between innovation and practical application to better people’s lives around the world. We learned the story of many entrepreneurs, who quit their day job, or for the really young ones, who never had a day job!
The story we found the most interesting, was that of Dean Kamen. Amongst many of his accomplishments (the Segway and Slingshot), is also the collaboration he formed with Coca-Cola. Kamen was looking for help in getting his water purification center into underdeveloped parts of the world. After speaking with the CEO of Coca-Cola (and some bartering), they delivered EKOCENTER. We were inspired by all of the speakers and hope to bring some of them, and their innovation, to your conference soon. Watch the video below to learn a little more.
This week MESH attended EIBTM in Barcelona. EIBTM is a global event for the meetings, incentives, conferences, events and business travel industry. The event gathers over 15,000 MICE industry professionals for three days of tradeshow, education and business networking.
We have also amicably dubbed EIBTM as International Carb Week since the show booths and evening networking events are a feast of tapas featuring many delectable breads, potatoes and other form of starch, (but always with a side of jamon iberico).
This inspired us to mention a book by Nathan Mhyrvold called The Photography of Modernist Cuisine. For those of you who have not leafed through the pages of this outstanding compilation of art, we encourage you to at least take a look at the website and learn about the techniques used for capturing foods in a most stunning and original way.
This book has motivated us at MESH to re-think food displays and re-imagine the possibilities of the art of culinary presentation.
The Photography of Modernist Cuisine from Modernist Cuisine on Vimeo.
This week finds us in Washington DC. The 800,000 Government furloughed workers are returning back to the daily grind. We find ourselves slowly getting over the queasiness created by the constant drone of ugly politics taking place a few blocks away here in the US Capitol. But MESH is not easily dispirited; MESH is constantly inspired. This week’s politics reminded us of the English graffiti artist and political activist, Banksy. Banksy has delighted us with creative street art, sculpture, physical props and social commentary through film.
At MESH we have had some grand ideas of what we could do with a Banksy inspired event in the near future.
See Banksy’s latest work in NYC here.
We are enjoying the most spectacular weather, which got us feeling active and outdoorsy. This reminded us of a particular conference in the field of sports that we recently attended in Lausanne, Switzerland. City Sports brings together leaders in the Global Sports arena and the cities that bid for these events. Waiting for one early morning meeting to start, seated in the usual uncomfortable chairs, we were ready to doze off in the way that you only do when you are terribly jetlagged and short of sleep. Suddenly, a young trainer takes stage and leads us all into a rigorous warming up session. As we flailed our arms and tried to squat awkwardly in our stilettos and skirts, we had the realization that this is the most awake and focused we have been at any conference. We we were also starting the day with a good giggle.
This brings us to our inspiration of the week, a little TED talk by Ms. Nilofer Merchant, who encourages us all to Walk and Talk.
At MESH we had discussions about how we could energize the next meeting we plan. We were inspired to brainstorm – while walking – to spring the next conference into action.
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