Catalyst Ranch’s
Creative Juice Blog
The Chicago wind is making Fall music by plucking leaves off the trees and scattering them down the street. It is whipping through your hair and whooshing in our ears. The wind is playing in the skyscrapers and dancing on the lake. Create your own Fall music with this clay Chilean ocarina, available in our monthly [...]
Who hasn't wanted to be a monster for a day? We know we have, which is only part of the reason we love these insane knitted monster masks from Brutal Knitting, which we spotted over at Nerdcore. Brutal Knitting, also known as Tracy Widdess, does “creepy sci fi and horror-inspired custom knitting” of all kinds, but [...]
At Catalyst Ranch, Chicago’s unique meeting venue, we’re always looking for innovative methods to improve the meeting experience. We recently test drove Get Going Meetings, a collaboration process that harnesses the power of technology to collect, organize, and prioritize information and insights from our management team. Everyone contributed anonymously and on their own time, which led [...]
To celebrate our upcoming 12 year anniversary, Catalyst Ranch is putting together 12 Days of Creative Inspiration. Inspiration is all around us, and we’re looking high and low for unexpected sources of creative inspiration. Where do you find inspiration? Maybe it is in something tactile like gardening or in the visual arts or in a piece [...]
Successful fundraising events can make a huge difference in many non-profit organizations, but pulling together all of the resources required for an event can be quite daunting. You need human resources to design and execute the fundraiser, a venue that enhances the event, quality vendors to participate, and, of course, people to attend! How do organizers [...]
At Catalyst Ranch, the first creative meeting venue in Chicago, many of the Ranch hands begin their day with a cup of coffee or tea. We are lucky that we don’t need to stop at a coffee shop on the way to work because the some of the best coffee in the city is waiting for [...]
At Catalyst Ranch, Chicago’s original creative meeting space, we host all kinds of meetings from week-long conferences to half-day meetings. Sometimes our clients have pre-meetings before meeting with the whole group, and sometimes clients break out to meet with have a a colleague across the country via conference call. How can you make the most of these [...]
Here at Catalyst Ranch, Chicago's creative meeting venue, we like to give away a unique prize every month to one lucky Ranch visitor! We’re just generous like that! We have oodles of toys, puzzles, books, and games in our meeting rooms to help clients ignite their imaginations and have the most productive offsite meeting ever! Sometimes the [...]
Chicago Ideas Week brings hundreds of the world's brightest thought leaders together to inspire, connect, and activate the city of Chicago and beyond. Catalyst Ranch is thrilled to be partnering with Ink Factory to present an Ideas Week Lab about Graphic Recording on October 13! The Ink Factory founders have over 25 years of [...]
Catalyst Ranch, our innovative meeting venue in Chicago's West Loop, is known for its unique environment. Many words have been used to describe the atmosphere and decor at the Ranch, including eclectic, bright, inspiring, quirky, whimsical, and . . . FUN! Back in the olden days, some folks said, “Work isn’t meant to be fun, that’s why [...]