Lively Virtual Room Embed Test

Dweezil’s Signed My Flesh

I drove up to Summerfest in Milwaukee last night to see Zappa Plays Zappa and I caught Dweezil in back of the stage after the show and had him sign my leg around my Zappa tattoo.

Dweezil is pretty cool.  This is the 2nd time I got his autograph,  and he is always such a nice guy.  He is really enjoying traveling around playing his dad’s music.  I’m enjoying it too.

Other Ownby’s Finding This Site

I was just wondering if any other Ownby’s are finding this page.  If you are an Ownby and you land on the site,  take a minute and post a comment. I am curious to know how you found the site and what you were searching for; or if you just typed in Ownby.com because it’s your last name too.

Thanks

Jeff

A Nice Old Grateful Dead Show

This is a good Dead show from Berkeley Community Theatre on August 21, 1972. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Laura

So, I’m a few days late, but it was Laura’s birthday on the 8th.  Happy Birthday Laura!

Ownby Kids

I just wanted to post a recent picture of the kids. Rowan just finished 4th grade today, Jaden is moving on to 1st grade, Mason will be in kindergarten, and Elle is heading into preschool.

Lake Geneva House

I decided to build a website for our Lake Geneva House. We are going to start allowing family and friends to rent the house for vacation and put the site up for general information and to check for availability. Seems like a waste to only use it part of the year. We hope that people we know will enjoy it as much as we do.

Mason is 5

I haven’t had time to post anything before today, but Mason turned 5 on Apri 24th.

Happy Birthday, Mason !

Iron and Wine and Califone

So we were backstage at the Iron and Wine and Califone show at the Vic in Chicago last night. I am so glad I got turned onto Iron and Wine and wouldn’t have if our friend, Ben didn’t play percussion for them. I think they are my new favorite band. Great sound and great lyrics, but definitely on the mellow side

Here is a cool clip of an Iron and Wine show in Amsterdam on 01.21.08. You can see Benedetto behind Sam in almost the whole video of the show.

Creative Brainstorming

I forgot how much I like to brainstorm creative ideas with a group, and it was really cool to be a part of a session last night at the digital marketing company I work for. I hope we end up doing this more in the future. Because I have worked for myself for a while, it’s been a while since I have been in a formal brainstorming session. I did lead a few for an online casino that I worked for a few years ago and also at an agency back in 2000.

I was reminded of some great tools for running a brainstorming session and I wanted to post some of those here.

Brainstorming session setup:

1. Choose a facilitator - It is important that someone is in charge of leading and enforcing time limits in order for the session to stay on focus and on time.

2. Pick a comfortable environment - It is important that the brainstorming session is held in an environment that is comfortable for everyone involved.  Good brainstorming sessions depend on free-flowing ideas so it is essential that the comfort level is high.

3. Whiteboard or flip chart - It is essential to have a tool for capturing the ideas as they come.  Software or a word processing application can also be used.

4. Variety of participants - Brainstorming works best when a wider variety of people participate.  For this reason it is recommended to invite people from many different areas of your company or group.

Brainstorming rules:

1. Define the issue - It is important to clearly define the issue you are trying to solve so that ideas will be on target. Creative brainstorms  start with phrases such as: “In what ways might we…?” or “How could we…? These challenges should be concise and clearly related the defined issue.

2. Set time limits - Time limits are essential in order to keep things on task. Sessions should generally run from 15-30 minutes. Going over this amount of time can lead to over-thinking an issue and wild creative that will not effectively address the stated challenge.

3. Start brainstorming - Ideas should start flowing with everyone participating.  The key rule should be,  “there are no bad ideas.”  It is important to not put down any ideas until after the session has concluded.  There will be plenty of time for scoring ideas later.  It is best to keep the atmosphere open and creative.

4. Choose a shortlist of ideas - Once the time limit has been reached, the group should go over all of the ideas and create a list of the top 5 ideas that came out of the brainstorm.

5. Score the finalists - Depending on the criteria,  each idea should be given a score between 0 and 5.

7. Pick a Winner -  Add up the scores and pick a winner.