Catalyst Ranch’s
Creative Juice Blog
Happy Admin Appreciation Day! It’s always one of our favorite times of year: a time to celebrate all the hardworking gals and guys that keep our offices running without a hitch! We like to reward one very special administrative assistant each year by giving their cubicle a Catalyst Ranch style transformation. For this year’s contest, we wanted to see [...]
We had a great time hosting Juice on the Loose for World Creativity & Innovation Week, featuring three inspiring workshops from creativity thought leaders David Kaiser, Jill Wachholz, and Adam Shames! For more pictures, click here.
The following post is written by Juice on the Loose facilitator Adam Shames: Read more about Adam’s musical story, click the picture In my mid-twenties, I did not believe I could ever, ever, play music or respectably sing or write my own songs. Even though I loved music, my mindset was: [...]
Get to know Jill Wachholz, GroupStir principal, and one of our workshop leaders for Juice on the Loose – World Creativity and Innovation Week: Who am I: I’m an experimenter, explorer, and evolver… seeking to make a sliver of a positive difference. The work I do: […]
The debate about “working from home” continues. Last week, Chicago Ideas Week shared the video “World of Work,” a conversation between 37Signals co-founder and CEO Jason Fried and James Warren of The Daily Beast/Newsweek. (if reading from email, click here to view this video) Fried presents his office’s non-traditional work methods, including “quiet Thursdays” where [...]
As we prepared for our friend Brendan Sullivan's workshop Why Didn’t We Think of That? Ideas for Generating a Culture of Innovation in Your Workplace on March 21st, I couldn't help wonder what my own "Why didn't I think of that?" moment was. One of my favorite websites is BuzzFeed. I love how they present topics relevant to varying demographics [...]
We're very lucky to meet some of the coolest people at the Ranch. One such person is our friend Brendan Sullivan is a creativity coach. Not only does he work with such clients as PepsiCo, Kelloggs, and GE, he also facilitates our Art-Work partnership with The Art Institute of Chicago. That's why we're so proud to present his [...]
Here at the Ranch, we're extremely passionate about arts education for the next generation. Every year, we host fundraisers for LYDIA Home's Project Music (sending forty of their children-in-need to camp,) the parents of Skinner School in an effort to bring arts programming to their school, and Kaleidoscope Kid Art Show which auctions off art created by the [...]
The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Bar Dance is a one hour documentary that tells the story of a changing America through the lens of one of the nation's most popular country music radio shows during the 1930s and 40s: the National Barn Dance. We will be presenting a screening of it here at the [...]
Continuing with our series Local Feature (which celebrates Chicago-based filmmakers), we are proud to present the premiere of Episode 6 of hit geek-webseries Platoon of Power Squadron on October 26. The Platoon of Power Squadron, or PoPS, is about four strangers in their twenties who all ended up renting rooms in the same apartment. They've all been out [...]