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Meet Chattanooga’s Newest ArtsMove Artist, Jeweler Carley McGee-Boehm Wednesday, July 22, 2009
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve awarded our first ArtsMove relocation incentive of 2009 to California-based jeweler Carley McGee-Boehm. Carley specializes in noble metals and gemstones, and has recently won awards from the American Gem Trade Association and the Women’s Jewelry Association.
Carley comes to Chattanooga after nearly a decade of work in the jewelry industry. In the past, she has created pieces for charitable auctions, including the Boehm Birth Defect Center in Chattanooga. “America’s children are desperately in need of support to aid in their personal and professional development,” says Carley. “A dream of mine is to provide funds and opportunities through charitable gifts and volunteering in Chattanooga and throughout the United States.”
Carley’s vision is to grow professionally and creatively in Chattanooga, with hopes of one day expanding her creative operation to employ several bench jewelers and a full-time sales team. “My goal is to create an internationally recognized brand of fine, high quality, truly unique jewelry. A company built on excellence and originality. Chattanooga is the place I feel the creativity and energy I need to continue my art.”
“Each day presents a new reason as to why this is my calling and passion,” she says. “My desire is to bring joy to life, by creating the symbol that will forever hold that moment frozen in time.”
We’re so pleased to add Carley to the roster of fine artists who have made the ArtsMove. Qualifying creatives can receive up to $2500 as a relocation expense reimbursement once they have moved to a neighborhood in Chattanooga’s urban core. With an expansive footprint and a flexible award, ArtsMove helps attract America’s finest creative minds to our city.
Want to find more ways to make the Chattanooga move? Visit http://artsmove.org.
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Book Review: “Good to Great” by Jim Collins Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Jim Collins’ 2001 best-selling book, Good to Great, has received a great deal of hype over the last eight years, but I am not sure I share the same sentiments. Please feel free to disagree with me—I would understand if you did—since the book is well and simply written, filled with a good message and some valuable insights.
The book has received several critiques in recent months, most notably in the book Luck, Inc. by Michael Raynor. Dr. Bob Sutton summarized my own feelings when he recently wrote, “although it is mediocre research, I think the message has done a lot of good. I just wish that Collins had shown more modesty.”
The validity of Collins’ arguments might be called into question based solely upon the current standings of his eleven “good-to-great” companies. The recent financial crisis complicates the issue of course, but it is certainly noteworthy that of the eleven, three (Circuit City, Fannie Mae, and Gillette) have been bought out or tanked recently and several others have experienced little to no growth relative to the market. The exceptions, Nucor and Wells Fargo, have done very well since the book’s release.
The biggest reason I do not like the book all that much is its overstatements and its research methods. Like most business success books, every idea is branded with a unique phrase and things tend to be over-simplified. This can be helpful to the reader for memory purposes, but phrases about flywheels, doom loops, hedgehogs, and level 5 leaders can wear out their own welcome quite quickly.
Collins is very bold to make sweeping statements about the attributes of successful businesses and their leaders. Though I agree with his ideas and see how they could lead to tremendous growth, I am not sure his method of producing the list of these said qualities is good research.
Finding the eleven successful companies and working backwards to prove that their common characteristics were the driving force behind their success is sort of bad scientific research, whether it is qualitative or quantitative. The book would be more credible in my mind if the research team had matched their findings with pre-existing research outside of Built to Last, Collins’ first bestseller. Retrospective research in this case may have worked and I am not sure how else he could have gone about it, but I am still sort of uncomfortable with it.
The book’s message is what I really do like about Good to Great. Collins’ emphasis on prioritization, simplicity, honesty, hard work, and commitment are all things that every businessman should learn in school, if they happened to miss it growing up. Turns out honesty just might be the best policy—along with humility, selflessness, a good work ethic and a commitment to making an impact. If you have not read it, a quick skim might do you some good.
By Chris Nystrom, Culture Fellow
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Why ChattanoogaWorks For Me: Let’s Document Our City
It’s a beautiful afternoon in the Chattanooga region, and I’m reminded of how many facets our city has to offer as I work from the CreateHere space, located in our city’s urban core.
Over the course of the summer alone, Chattanooga has seen the new installation of public art, thousands of attendees at the Riverbend music festival, families gathering at Movies in the Park at Coolidge, national and local artists represented at the 4 Bridges Arts Festival, the Nightfall Concert Series, and STAND, a community visioning effort, committed to asking 25,000 people four questions about the future of our city.
These are only a few of the ways that Chattanooga has opened its arms to residents and visitors alike, but they are significant gestures that remind me of how very special this city is and continues to be 24/7.
So, what about ChattanoogaWorks?
A few months back, it dawned on CreateHere that all of the acts that take place at any given hour in Chattanooga are those which are worth documenting, and in that vein, ChattanoogaWorks was born.
ChattanoogaWorks is an online photo gallery that aims to highlight and showcase our local gems. From a neighborhood block-party, to a Sunday in the park, to an evening at the pub you frequent most, it’s all worth showing and sharing.
Whether you be an amateur or a professional photographer, ChattanoogaWorks cares not. We simply want to see how you capture our city through the eye of the lens. So, take a look at what’s been submitted and then share your story. It’s you and your vision that makes our city tick.
To submit, email your photos to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
By Jessica Martin, Senior Arts Fellow
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Chattanooga Stand: Another Successful Weekend Monday, July 20, 2009
Chattanooga Stand received another huge boost this weekend at Nightfall, Movies in the Park, and the Chattanooga Market. Over a thousand surveys in 48 hours! Thanks to everyone who took a stand for our cool little city.
The four questions that compose the Stand survey are unique and powerful for their ability to inspire sincere contemplation from anyone that earnestly considers his/her own personal answers. Conversation, vision, thought, and passion are exuded from many of those willing citizens, and such dedication to an idea of ‘home’ is exciting to witness for everyone working for Stand.
What’s important to you? The answers vary… The citizens are diverse in mindset and background… But from the many different opinions within this region come common themes for collective growth and progress.
Collective? Progress? To the skeptic, these words represent the vocabulary of the idealist ‘do-gooder,’ the hippie activist, the philanthropic posers… But for anyone that has taken a Stand, it is clear that conversations amongst many, for the well-being of a common neighborhood, city, or region, can produce a citizenry that is deeply vested in the well-being of that community. This is the mission of Stand—to provide a means by which citizens take collective ownership and responsibility. Chattanooga’s future will be determined by anyone and everyone who believes that the common person can positively influence this place—our place. Participation is key! To have a voice in the direction of something, one must always be willing to get involved.
Take a Stand! Share your thoughts about this region that we all call home.
By Fynn Glover, Stand Field Organizer
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When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Portable
Monday began like a normal day at CreateHere—if you can call any day normal. Got in around 8:30 and began work on my various projects. Fellows strolled in and we greeted each other after the long weekend apart. At our weekly team meeting, Helen commissioned the purchase of some fuel for the fellows (snacks, fruit, and such) and so I knew this was going to be a great day.
Then the unthinkable happened: my laptop died. Power just shut off. Tried many a thing to get it working, but to no avail. There was a sense of urgency as well, seeing as I had a conference call in 30 minutes, and notes for it were on that laptop. Urgency, but not panic, for I had planned for such a contingency. I borrowed a laptop, and utilizing a few free tools and services that I will detail in a moment, I was able to access those notes and continue on as if nothing had happened. (The shock over the death of my laptop had yet to really sink in.)
First, Dropbox. This handy online service performs an instantaneous backup with an online server—they give you 2 GB of free storage—and, consequently, syncing with another computer. Everything saved in your “dropbox” is uploaded to the hosting server, which means you have all of your files safe in the “cloud.” I store any document I could want to access from another computer in dropbox, and it’s come in handy. Using it with OneNote—my preferred note taking and organizational tool—is simple: just make the default save location in your dropbox; then your OneNote notebooks are synced across computers, and accessible even if your computer crashes.
Second, PortableApps. This website has a huge collection of programs that can run from a flash drive. The main one that is handy in this case is Portable FireFox with Xmarks extension. This will backup your favorites—and passwords if you choose—and sync them across computers, so that you only need to plug it in to the borrowed computer and your bookmarks will be available as if it were your very own.
Third, Skype on a stick. If the borrowed computer doesn’t have Skype, you can still use this to access your contacts and make those important calls.
Google Docs is also a helpful app in these situations; as any word docs, pdfs, etc. are accessible online anywhere. Also great for collaboration.
By Ben Johnson, CreateHere Economy Fellow
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