Jeni’s Design Diary

Last night I attended an event at Seattle’s Design Within Reach, which was put on by Design Sponge. I’m still not sure what the event’s name was. DWR called it “Connecting Women in Design“, while D*S called it a “Biz Ladies Meetup“. I found out about it while doing a search for other design blogs.

I had never been to Design Sponge before, and that day I read only one post. I find it funny that I decided to go after reading, “…where women running their own design-based businesses (or who want to start one) can come meet, mingle and receive free business advice from local expert…”; knowing no more than that.

Only vague expectations were in my mind since I had never gone to anything like this before. I thought that it was going to be a seminar; everyone sitting in rows or whatnot, listening to a stream of presenters. I had inanely assumed that the majority of the ladies going would be interior designers, and had hopes of being able to do some networking. I even printed up business cards in preparation.

I showed up a few minutes after they had started, and the place was packed! It was more than a little confusing trying to find out what the heck was going on. I noticed that there was a discussion group going on right next to me, so I stopped and tried to pay attention. Then I noticed that everyone had on name tags. So I thought, “Obviously, there’s some sort of “Welcome, here’s what’s going on…” person or table.” I looked around till I noticed a table in the middle of the showroom, with name tags sitting out. I walked over and asked if I was supposed to put one on, and I got some non-committal answer. So, I put one on* and got a seat (barely) in the group closest to me.

I quickly realized that instead of having different presenters each taking a turn talking to the entire group, they were each having separate discussion groups - all at once. There were four discussion groups (Success Story; Retail; Legal Concerns; PR & Marketing) that each lasted about 30 minutes. After each segment we switched to whatever topic we wanted to hear next. Since I didn’t have a preference on what order I heard things (plus I didn’t know what each group was till it started), I just went around the room counter-clockwise. Due to the number of people there, I learned that it was crucial to make a b-line to your next group so you could get a seat.

Only one of the presenters - Grace from D*S - had a talk prepared. The other discussions started with, “This is who I am. Do you have any questions for me?” I’m sure I would have gotten more out of it, had I spent the time and thought of questions for each topic. I greatly appreciated Grace’s preparation for her topic, though I am unsure how I can apply it to interior design. I guess that’s one more thing for me to learn.

Though I don’t feel I gained much knowledge from last night, I’m still glad I went - even if the only reason is so that I can say I did.

*The fact that I willing put on a name tag should amaze your socks off!

B.G. Homework: Tell a Story.