BRAND STRATEGIST

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Disposable Film Festival

Disposable Film Festival @ the Castro Theatre
March 21st 8-10pm

Film is too important to be left to the experts, and so are the events happening in SF. This was the Disposable Film Festival's seventh annual premiere, and my big 50th event crash! The Disposable Film Festival (DFF) highlights filmmakers from all over the world with the best short films made by everyday equipment such as mobile phones, webcams, and screen capture tools.  The first year of this film festival, it was thought that making a film on your cell phone was a weird, experimental idea. My four favorite films of the evening goes to show how far disposable can go (still weird, but also now incredible). 

Solo Piano by Anthony Sherin. On a cold winter morning, a lone piano stands curbside in New York City. Passersby slow, stop, and play. Some play well. All day long they collect and disperse, and into the night they measure and shove and deliberate. What if...? Can we take it? Who abandons a piano? Plinking slightly out-of-tune over the white noise of Broadway's cars, buses, ticks, and sirens, the piano awaits its fate. A 5-minute film of the last 24 hours of a once-wanted piano.
http://youtu.be/YuOcqjtHTeI

MALARIA by Edson Oda. MALARIA tells the story of Fabiano, a young Mercenary who is hired to kill Death. This intriguing short film combines Origami, Kirigami, Time Lapse, nakin illustration, Comic Books and Western Cinima.
http://www.edsonoda.com/malaria/


Delta Heavy by Ian Robertson. Offers a stop-motion slaughter of some classic games like Hungry Hippo, Connect4 and Rubik Cubes (80 cubes to be exact). Displaying over three thousand photographs in four minutes, this ambitious collision of games and butcher utensils destroys toys and feeds the debris into a mincer while chopping up to dub-step beats. http://youtu.be/8cOt9UcYGOU

Tape Generations by Johan Rijpma. Large groups of tape rolls go through a long process of development and degeneration. The extremely slow paced life of these objects is revealed within an isolated space where everything starts from a symmetric composition, with unpredictable movements that somehow feel familiar. http://vimeo.com/28826269


CRASHED IT putting disposable on display with DFF as my 50th event crash! 

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Gandhi and I


Friday, March 15, 2013

The Runway

Canadian Technology Accelerator Demo Day
March 13th @ The Runway 


I was given three million dollars and welcomed in by Max Shapiro, the Founder of PeopleConnect. We immediately clicked as our backgrounds seem to parallel one another. As two strategists turned entrepreneurs with a sense of creativity and a passion for networking, I crashed his event to connect with other great people. Max has an enthusiasm for finding talent and he immediately had me meet Allan T. Young, the man who was in charge of this new co-working and incubation space called the "Runway."

Runway is one of the biggest of it's kind in the Bay area and housed in the same building as Twitter (CRASHED Twitter) and Yammer. With 30,000 square feet and a runway down the middle, the openness of this  creative space promotes endless collaboration amongst the best early stage technology start-ups. Allan took me on a personal tour down the runway as we chatted about the dome like structure that's referred to as the "igloo." The igloo was built off the runway to create a place to step into another environment, go somewhere else and think differently. The Runway attracts smart people and companies, so everyone can truly learn from each other. These are the two start-ups that I learned about that evening I crashed it.


I met Mike Gozza and Steve Panetta, the two Founders of Appifier. Appifier builds captivating mobile apps for your WordPress website, realty business or event, extremely quick without code. Focusing on those specific popular verticals provides non-developers a Zero to App in 60 seconds.

David Ciccarelli was also there to represent his startup Voices.com - the largest global web hub for voice actors. Voice.com is the number #1 Marketplace for voice over talent and David also wrote this book Voice Acting for Dummies. After he ran out of business cards he personally signed a copy of his book for me. With this new read, I'm now prepared to get into character so my voice can be heard world-wide.


CRASHED IT... To voice my passion for start-ups (and I'm not even acting when I say that).


























Friday, March 8, 2013

Nissan Infinity

Art RockX @ Nissan Infinity
March 7th 6-10pm 

Briefing Him

Nervous 
Into It











I sent my dog, Patrick, out for the night to show him what's it's like to crash an event. After a quick brief, Patrick crashed Art RockX which was taking place at the Nissan Infinity building. Patrick realized when he walked in with a bow tie and a top hat that he may have come overdressed to his first event crash, or that no one else had received the memo that it was a black tie affair. After a few drinks though by SF Vodka, a couple brews from Last Exit, and some Los Osuna Tequila -he was ready for the party. Halfway through the night a go-pro was strapped on his back to document this event crash from the dog's perspective. The footage consists mainly of Patrick being drawn to dropped pizza crumbs across the room, however it does also show him rocking out with the DJ, and sneaking back to where the models are and then strolling down the run-way.

Enjoying It

Joining It
By the end of the night Patrick was into ArtRockx and this reality show for visual artists. As the competition unfolded, each artist had 45 minutes to create a work-of-art with the audience as their judge.

Just like every other "guest" that I bring, I summed up the situation the same way that my dog felt on his first event crash... You get nervous because your'e crashing an un-invited event so you grab yourself a free drink. You then start enjoying the scene, you hear the music, you meet the people, you see why we're all here. You get more interested in what's going on and you feel like you're a part of it. You want to get closer, and now you're VIP or backstage or walking down a runway -you join in and that's how it goes. 


Art RockX CRASHED IT Animal Style!

Crashing It 


Monday, March 4, 2013

RSA Conference

RSA Conference

March 25th-27th

This is the story of what happened when I crashed RSA, a conference on the topic of security.


Where the world talks security. RSA is all about measuring data and securing the world, which is interesting when I crashed it (all three days). RSA has consistently attracted the best and the brightest in the field, creating opportunities to learn about IT security's most important issues. As this field continues to grow in importance and influence, I got myself a badge in order for me to play an integral role with RSA in keeping security professionals across the globe connected and educated.  I also observed about a 30:1 ratio of males to females which led me to collect an all-time high of business cards from this event, 28 in total.

From crashing the expo I continued to gather badges and added a VIP All Access Pass to IOActive. In the Presidential suite of the St. Regis I learned why they were buying me a drink and a massage.  IOActive is an industry leader that offers comprehensive computer security services with specializations in smart grid technologies, software assurance and compliance. They're a progressive force in the security community "using our past to secure your future" and working with a majority of Global 500 companies.


Another stop was for this giant ice block that turned out to be Qualys' logo. Qualys had cordially invited me to a private reception in the terrace, well maybe not me necessarily, but I stumbled upon this event that celebrated their customers and crashed it. Qualys is the leading provider of information security and compliance cloud solutions, so I joined them for some drinks and tasty treats by the chefs. Their prized possession is the QualsGuard Cloud Platform, an integrated suite of solutions helping organizations simplify security operations and lower the cost of compliance by delivering critical security intelligence on demand and automating the full spectrum of auditing, compliance and protection for IT systems and web applications.

Amongst these afterparties was an exclusive event put on by Juniper Networks with a private concert by the Plain White T's. I recorded a few songs with my phone and remixed it into one.

REMIX -Plain White T's

After the show I got back stage and chatted with lead singer Tom Higgenson as we joked around about him having the same chance as I of getting with Delilah. This is Tim Lopez, another singer in the Plain White T's, as I wished him the best of luck on his recording in L.A.










RSA is helping drive information security and helping me meet the Plain White T's -CRASHED IT!