I was quite content to spend an early morning for another installment of Career Tools, AIGA Portland's quarterly breakfast series. Frankly, I had gone in with a plan of saying a quick "hello," catching a bit of the action and then making my way to a client meeting with time to spare. As you've likely surmised, I stuck around. The presenter, Kelly Coller, is perhaps best known in this town for her retail design outlet Office PDX, which aside from shelling the most supreme workplace tools, also touts a lively design-centered event schedule. During most days, she is marketing director for Twenty Four • Seven, a Portland firm who serves clients worldwide in providing design strategy, retail and graphic design. Her presentation was called Grass Roots Marketing: A Handy Top 10 (which may well have gone to 11) and provided a portmanteau of strategies and tactics for freelancers and firms, alike. I came away enlightened and considered Ms. Coller pitch-perfect for this environment. Respectful of Kelly's content, I've requested permission from her to post a summary of the tips and most certainly will, if granted. Stay tuned.
Obligatory shouts-out: It's always nice to sit between previous (AIGA) board members and firm principals Kim Malek and Rick Hooker and current board secretary and designer, Lisa Holmes. I enjoyed seeing Jacqueline Bos and Brent Loosli, Brian Wright (who puts together AMA Oregon's Connect Networking series), Lia Miternique of Avive Design and yet another present board member in Jennifer Green, formerly of Volt. I'm certain to be missing other good friends in that run down, but can't overlook the behind-the-scenes works of Tiffany Jackson, Heather Dougherty, Steve Potestio of 52 Ltd., Joaquin Lippincott of Metal Toad Media. And of course, lest we not forget the efforts of the ever-talented Lindsey Hammond of HUB. Nice work, all.