Design Salon Holiday Networking

Happy Holidays!  

Please put away last minute deadlines and stress to join the ladies of Design Salon at Twelve Chairs for a networking evening and some holiday cheer (and maybe some last minute shopping at one of our favorite boutiques!)  This is a great opportunity to share your business, your products and your ideas and conundrums with other creative ladies.  Feel free to bring samples, products, etc.  

   

When:  Tuesay, December 18th

Time:  7:00 pm

Where:  Twelve Chairs 

www.twelvechairsboston.com

319 A Street

Please bring wine and snacks to share! Oh, and bring a friend

 

Pintrest Anyone?

Jodi Vautrin, Pintrest

For designers, Pintrest is quickly becoming a better Social Media outlet than Facebook and Twitter ever could.  But, should you use it for your design business?  Do you need it?  

Meet Jodi Vautrin http://pintrest.com/jodi_vautrin/ Boston based blogger with 450,000!!!! Pintrest followers.  When you have a look at the smart content and crisp, stylish images on Jodi's  blog,  Ourhaus.blogspot.com, you can understand why her following is so great.  Jodi's "day job" as the Freelance Design Director focusing on UI + Interactive design.  Jodi also volunteers her time on the board of AIGA Boston as Vice President of Emerging Ideas and Events.   Because of her keen design eye along with the experience in the field, Jodi has exactly the right amount of inspiration and content to share with her vast followers.    

Come spend Tuesday night to find out WHO Jodi is, WHAT Pintrest does for her business, WHEN she decided to use Pintrest to enhance her business and WHY you should, too!  

When:  THIS Tuesday, November 27th
Where:  Twelve Chairs 
319 A Street
Seaport, Boston
RSVP:  Jill Palese
Please bring wine and snacks to share with the group!  

It Just FELT Right

How Kelly Smith and Traci Roloff Grew Their Business

Kelly Smith, Co-Founder of FilzFelt www.filzfelt.com has always been attracted to wool felt. Her career as a trained architect and later the founder of Etcetera Media, a German wool felt line of goods pointed Kelly in the direction of FilzFelt. Traci Roloff began her career in corporate interior design and historic preservation before making her way to Boston and partnering with Kelly to start FilzFelt.

In 2008, FilzFelt was born as a labor of love. Kelly andTraci poured hard work and passion into building an exceedingly high end textile company with exceptional customer service. FilzFelt sells German-milled 100% Wool Design Felt and their product offering includes floor coverings, wall panels and perforated panels. Their efforts did not go unnoticed. In late 2011, FilzFelt was acquired by textile and furniture giant Knoll www.knoll.com. Today, Kelly and Traci have executive roles at Knoll and continue to run the FilzFelt out of their Boston office.

Design Salon is especially proud of the FilzFelt team! Kelly is one of the Design Salon founding members and Traci has been a Salon member from the beginning. Please come out to share Kelly and Traci's success with Design Salon!

When: Tuesday October 30

Time: 7:00 pm

Where: Knoll Showroom

281 Summer Street (next to Papagayo)

RSVP: Jill.palese@gmail.com

Please bring wine (NO RED WINE PLEASE!) and snacks to share with the group!

Tiffani Faison: Sizzle and Shake It Till You Make It!

Boston is quickly becoming a mecca for fabulous female chefs and Restaurant owners. Tiffani Faison has not only joined the ranks, but has been crowned Queen Bee. It's her approach that makes us stand up and take notice. For anyone who has ever watched the reality show Top Chefs, you should be very familiar with this spicy redhead. Her path from the kitchen to top reality television star back to the kitchen has been brilliant! It's Tiffani's work ethic, passion for real down home cooking and sheer talent that has paved her way.

Last November 2011, Tiffani rolled her reality TV stardom into a successful little Boston gem...the Southern BBQ restaurant called Sweet Cheeks on Fenway Park. http://www.sweetcheeksq.com/ Now, the warm-hearted, super talented, hyper-competitive female chef has marketed herself all the way to the top of the food chain. Done, done and done!

Uh-huh.

When: Tuesday, September 18th

Time: 7:00

Where: Joss and Main

Address: 177 Huntington Ave

24th Floor

***call 603-714-5224 if you have trouble entering the building

RSVP: Jill.palese@gmail.com

Please bring wine and snacks to share with the group!

Business Building in the Fast Lane

Please join us on Tuesday, May 15th to take a journey with Kay McGowan as she is only months into the process of building her corporation through the Venture Capital Accelerator.   

Kay McGowan, one of the planning board members of Design Salon and 14 years as General Manager of the venerable Boston based Furniture Empire: Mohr and McPherson.  On December 30^th, quite like Alice in Wonderland, Kay packed up her well worn suitcase of experience and took that big, scary leap into “A Curated World” www.kaymcgowan.com.

Change is always difficult, especially when leaving a beloved career to go it alone.  Like Alice, it is the choice in pathways and whom you meet along the way that matter.  Kay’s Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, and White rabbit happened to be her friends; most important being Owen Johnson, an MIT grad and founder of Beta Spring venture capital accellator.  Owen recognized Kay as a woman with a very big idea and the brainpower to go along with it.  Kay was scooped up and is being groomed at the incubator in Providence, RI as the CEO of a projected multi-million dollar Boston based corporation.    

In Kay’s new Wonderland, she has learned that although she doesn’t know everything about starting a projected $10 million empire, she is learning quickly.  These days, when Kay takes a peek into her looking glass, she certainly sees a bright and pathway into A Curated World. 

 Where:  Jill Rosenwald's Studio
369 Congress Street, 2nd Floor

When:  Tuesday, May 15th

Time:  7:00

R.S.V.P:  Jill.palese@gmail.com

Please bring food and snacks to share with the group. 

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

Jody Adams, Top Chef

Jody Adams, nationally renowned James Beard award-winning chef, hardly requires an introduction. Recently knocking it out of the park with Trade in Boston's historic Waterfront District, Years at the helm of a Rialto Restaurant, a venerable Cambridge institution in the Charles Hotel, Harvard Square, delightful to watch as a Top Chef Masters competitor and did she really cook for our President!
None of this is exactly why we ask Jody to speak.
Jody defined for herself expanded roles within and outside of her industry.
Child advocacy and hunger relief world-wide, Local farms and artisnal food producers, Partners in Health, Greater Boston Food Bank, Share our Strength, Pan-Mass Challenge
She invests in her tremendous talents, connects with community and figures out a how to spend time, resources, and energies on things that personally and socially matter outside of the walls of her own restaurants.
How does she make the key career decisions that allow for this influence and freedom to pursue personal goals and initiate and institute social change through both business and outside endeavors?
Our speakers are women who have made an impact in their fields, define their own success and have some wisdom or point of view to share. Jody embodies this spirit!

When: Tuesday, March 13th

Where: Twelve Chairs http://www.twelvechairsboston.com/

319 A Street, Boston

Time: 7:00

RSVP: Jill.palese@gmail.com

Please bring wine and snacks to share!

Thanks to the Lovely Ladies at Twelve Chairs for hosting us in their newly renovated space! You MUST stop in to check out their beautiful place.

PITCH and BITCH...how to successfully pitch your ideas!

An Evening with Amy Nobile: Author, Blogger and T.V. Producer

Have you ever wanted to PITCH your IDEAS and verbalize your creations BEFORE you invest countless hours and late nights...only to be told that your idea is a ridiculous, uninspired suck hole? (my 9 year old's favorite naughty swear word!)

On February 28th, Amy Nobile (http://www.reallygoodmom.com/) will inspire the Ladies of Design Salon with the brilliant gift of creative planning. The "Really good mom" designed a career path that began in a corporate New York City Public Relations firm. It was not by accident that Amy's creative ambitions has led her to authoring 3 bestselling books and making appearances on mainstream television talk shows. Stay tuned for Amy's reality television series, too.


After Amy married, moved to San Fransisco and started a family, she found the hidden supply closet of "dirty little secrets", that are discovered only when motherhood and marriage are set in motion. With with longtime friend, Trisha Ashworth, the women practically shouted the brutally honest, raw feelings that most women speak of only at a whisper.



The ladies combined their ambitions and talents to become the "Pitch and Bitch" queens by capitalizing on the idea of pitching their book ideas BEFORE putting pen to paper. Since the inception, Amy and Trisha have published 3 bestselling books: "I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids" (https://facebook.com/reallygoodmom), "Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms" and "I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper".



Amy is currently working on a fourth book, along with some new facets of her brilliant career... Pitching and producing a reality based television series.


You can see Amy on The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show (www.Oprah.com/oprahshow/Motherhood-Secrets/9) and Good Morning America.

Thanks to Stayci Fast for hosting Design Salon in her fabulous new studio! See Stayci's blog at www.Stay-Blog.com.

When: Tuesday, February 28th

Where: Stayci Fast's Studio

New England Home Staging www.NewEnglandStaging.com

369 Congress Street, South Boston Floor 2

Time: 7:00

RSVP: Jill.palese@gmail.com

Please bring wine or snacks to share with the group.

Delicious Design

Packaging -vs- Chocolate

Is it possible to create packaging that is more delicious than chocolate? Kathleen Fulton, the co-founder and Brand Manager for Taza Chocolate (http://www.tazachocolate.com/) has make it her life's work to find a way. Having studied art, design and architecture then going for her MBA, Kathleen gathered all of her tools in order to mix up a sweet success story. She is a firm believer that packaging, product and design account for 75% of her efforts, and why people pick Taza's product off the shelf. "Good design is critical to being able to engage the consumer". Apparently, her philosophy is paying off.

Salonistas will be treated to a conversation with Kathleen, and tour the Taza factory in Somerville. If we are extra good, maybe there will be a few "samples"!

When: Tuesday, January 31st
Where: Taza Chocolate
561 Windsor Street
Somerville, MA
617-284-2232
Time: 7:00
RSVP: Jill.Palese@gmail.com
Please bring wine and snacks to share with the group!