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.

Ogden Elementary Variety Show

Here are Rowan, Grace and Jillian dancing to “Let’s Dance” by Miley Cyrus in the Ogden Elementary School Variety Show.

Grateful Dead – Frost Ampitheatre – 1982-10-10

I am posting the following night of the Frost 1982 shows because this one is considered to be in the top ten live Grateful Dead shows to get on disc or tape. I didn’t go to either of these shows, but this is another cassette I wore out back in the day. I only had the audience 2nd set until I found the whole soundboard show in a DAT trade back in 1998. So, I wasn’t really familiar with the first set until then, which is a shame, because this one is hot!

I am going to post some comments from the archive.org message board about this show because a lot of people have already said all you really can about this show. So here are some comments:

This show is on the top of people’s lists of favorite shows (especially for 82) for good reason. The first set songs at the end of the set which once occupied the b-side (remember XL II-s) and had garcia solos that were dead on perfect one song after the other. The fact that they were some of my favorite song solos for him to play made it all the better. I’m talking about his solos on Far from me, then Loser, then Looks, then Rider. Front to back, one of the best first sets of the year and top twenty of the decade. The second set features my favorite sailor (for those of us who love this song) and one of the most furious solos garcia ever took part in– at the end of saint. This one is my favorite show from one of my favorite years and one that should be had by anyone who likes the 80s.

The boys were on this night.The LLR is THE BEST VERSION I HAVE HEARD. I read that Bobs girl just left him a few days before this show.Listen to the end section where does him”speil” and listen carefully…very emotional!!

In my opinon just may be one of the best sounding shows from the early eighties. The mix is just perfect through out the entire show. Unfortunately “Space” is missing but, other than that this show is on Fire ! In no way does the band go through the motions on this night. Upon listening you can hear how each member is pushing the other to higher and higher levels. Satisfaction is a great reflection of this. This is a prime example of what made the Grateful Dead so good. So if you don’t have it get it enjoy it and tell your friends ! On a side not not that it even matters what I think but, I have never given a show 5 stars before.

So, here it is:

Grateful Dead – Frost Ampitheatre – 1982-10-09

I am testing the embedded player from Archive.org to see if I can put it into the blog.

I went to 84 Grateful Dead shows from 1981 to 1995 and I started documenting some of the experiences at my page on Dead.net . But, I thought I would add some actual concert audio on this blog with some commentary about the music and leave the real (and potentially not so family friendly) commentary about the concert experiences at Dead.net.

I was a tape collector and I still have DAT copies of 100’s of shows. I am going to post the audio of concerts that I attended and many more that I didn’t attend here.

The first post is a show that I did not attend. It is from the Frost Ampitheatre at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA in 1982. I had seen the Dead by this point, but hadn’t started traveling to see them yet. That really started in 1983. I had an audience recorded cassette of this show for years and I think I literally wore it out. Some nice soundboard copies have come around over the years and I have a good one on DAT. I am not sure I like the board copy better than the audience because it’s missing some of the energy and Bobby’s guitar is not high enough, but I have to put it here because the quality is so good. So, here is one of my favorite Grateful Dead concerts of all time:

The whole show is just about as perfect as the Dead were in 1982. The first set is extemely high energy and erupts with Music Never Stopped and Deal (the best I have ever heard). The second set has some of the first versions of Throwing Stones and Touch of Grey, before they were cheesed out and made into pop songs.

Tomorrow I will try to post the following night at Frost because it is considered in the top 10 of Grateful Dead shows to get on tape.

Enjoy!

(Update) Oh hell! I had to include the audience copy of this show because you just can’t hear Bobby’s guitar work well enough on the board copy. Listen to Deal to see what I mean. It’s a nice contrast:

Noises Off

Laura Leo Ownby played the role of Belinda Blair in Theatre of Western Springs 2004 Mainstage 3 production of Noises Off. It took me a while to get these pictures so things are a bit out of order on this site.  This was her personal favorite play to be a part of until Summer and Smoke last year.  It is a really fun production and a great comedy. The pictures are a bit small, but she is in red.

Interactive Marketing Consultant – Jeff Ownby Accepts a Job

Well, I think I found the perfect job for me. I am expecting to accept a position with a digital marketing company in Chicago that is building out a new Interactive Marketing deparment. This means we won’t have to relocate and I get to do what I enjoy doing best; all sorts of projects for really good clients. Yep, Jeff Ownby is accepting a position.

There really were a lot of job options for me with the Internet still booming, even while traditional advertising companies are looking to downsize right now. It seems like I turned down at least 3 SEM ( search engine marketing) positions a week. I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed into search. I also decided not to pursue a few other out of town postions including one with Dell in Austin. We’ll get to warmer weather eventually. (It’s 10 degrees here in Chicago today)

The point at which I was sold on this new position was when they told me there may be instances when a project comes in that nobody really knows how to handle and we just have to figure it out. They also told me they don’t have a specific job description for me since they are not 100% sure how this new group will be evolving.

Sold!

I can’t imagine a better situation for me. I have spent the last 7 years “figuring out” all the interactive marketing I have done.

Zappa Plays Zappa – Zomby Woof

I mentioned getting Dweezil Zappa’s autograph in a previous post. I managed to get 5th row tickets to Zappa Plays Zappa at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in 2007, and the crowd energy was so intense that Dweezil stuck around at the front of the stage for about 1/2 hour after the show ended. Zappa Plays Zappa is basically a band that Dweezil put together to play his father’s music. I saw them 2 years in a row and in 2006 (where my seats were not so good) the special guests included former Zappa band members Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozio and Steve Vai.

Here is a clip of the song Zomby Woof from the 2006 tour featuring an unbelievable solo by Steve Vai, who, in my opinion is the best guitar player alive. Even if you don’t go for wanky guitar playing, you have to appreciate his absolute mastery of his instrument.

UPDATE: Youtube removed the Zomby Woof video so I am posting Echidna’s Arf from the same tour. It’s a pretty nice composition too. Hard to believe a band playing this live, but Zappa did it way back in 1972.

Search Engine Optimization – Jeff Ownby Knows What He’s Doing

I ( Ownby ) have been doing search engine optimization (seo) since about 1996, long before the majority of marketing people  even knew what this meant or the importance of it.  I guess I was a web 2.0 guy in a web 1.0 world.  It was really hard to get gigs doing this back then,  and now it’s a matter of fighting against the agencies and design firms who sell this service into their existing clients even though they don’t do it well. 

One thing that has always killed me was not having great rankings for my OWN keywords in my industry.  It wasn’t because we couldn’t do it. It was more the result of not having any time to do it because we were so focused on doing it for our clients.  It was the classic case of the cobbler’s kids who didn’t have any shoes.

In October,  we decided to focus a little more on our site for the term search engine optimization.  It’s now Decemember and I just noticed some increased traffic coming in from this term.  I checked in MSN ( and Live.com, which is Windows default search engine) and got a great Christimas present for the company – a #4 listing. Here is a direct link to the listing if it still shows up.

We’re still not showing up well in Yahoo and Google,  but these things usually start in MSN and then move to the others as you build up your strategy.

I’m so glad we finally spent some time in our own house and got some good results.

Summer and Smoke

Laura Leo Ownby finally got a lead at Theatre of Western Springs and it was a HUGE lead.  She played Alma Winemiller in Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams for Mainstage 2, 2007.   This show was a personal favorite of the theatre’s creative director so it was a big deal.  The part was gigantic with huge monologues and lines on all but 2 pages of the script.

As I have written about before,  I think Laura is a great dramatic actor and she really nailed this part.