BLOCK PAR-TAY!

Egg Toss

Decorated egg

Mike and John hanging out

Beans the Hotdog dressed as a hot fudge sundae

Three years ago, one of the dads on our street (shout-out to Warren Cohen!) decided to organize a block party.  Word had it that 10 to 15 years had passed since there had been one on 1st Street in Brooklyn, NY.  He got some of us together for a meeting at a local bar, and we brainstormed ideas for activities.

"There's a lot of young children on our block, so maybe we should just have quiet activities."

The more experienced people who had grown up in the neighborhood set me straight: "So we'll have a DJ and a bouncy castle for starters."

I sat back and listened; clearly, they were the pros!

As it got closer to the actual event, more people stepped forward with ideas: a pet parade, bike decorating, temporary tattoos.  I volunteered to run a name tag table so people didn't have to be awkward if they didn't know each other's names.

A few days prior to that first block party, signs went up telling people to move their cars off the street.
The night before and the morning of the party, the cars disappeared as if by magic.  More magical, still, was the beautiful empty of the street presenting itself to all of us residents to fill it with whatever we wanted to.

The morning of that first party, there was a buzz of excitement in the air.  Young people came out of their homes and looked around, then came out to play with each other.  Slowly, the adults brought out tables and grills with food to share.

Then the bouncy castle arrived.  Bouncing happened, then the castle deflated and was driven away.

There was a pet parade, and one of the pets was a chicken brought over by a guest of one the street residents.  There was also a dog with a cape.  Some of the children brought out their stuffed animals, and came along for the procession.  It looked like something out of an Ezra Jack Keats book.

Then along came the DJ, and the children did tons of group dances - the Electric Slide, the Cha-Cha, a modified version of the Thriller dance.

The day stretched into evening, more food came out, more people kept talking to each other, the children kept playing, and when it was truly dark out, guys came around selling glow-in-the-dark toys that broke within the hour.

I was exhausted, but so happy, the day after that first block party.  Having a space - a physical space - and also the span of an entire day and evening for all of us to put aside our other responsibilities to just BE with each other was such a treat, and helped us remember each other during the rest of the year even amidst our busy lives.

Since that first block party, there have been two more.  In last year's event, an egg toss was added into the mix.  Also: Beans the dachshund arrived at the pet parade dressed in a soft sculpture hot fudge sundae outfit.   In this year's festivities, the children created a Wizard of Oz skit which they performed for a bunch of us.  People sat on a picnic blanket in the middle of the street until it was time to go to bed.  I ran my third year of the name tag-making table, where people could write their name and street number. 

I hope that this tradition continues on for many years to come.  It is such fun, and a terrific reminder that each block is a community unto itself.

Long live the block par-tay!

GOOD NEWS! THIS BROOKLYN-BASED, ARTS-LOVING, SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST CAN HELP YOU BUILD A FOLLOWING FOR YOUR COMPANY OR CAUSE

Hello, Creative Times Reader!

Do you know of an organization or business that could use a hand expanding, connecting to, and engaging with its community of patrons / customers / clients / readers?

Look no further!

A seasoned arts and culture writer, promoter, educator, and community-builder, I bring to the table a carefully-crafted network of nonprofit organizations, small business owners, civic leaders, artists and art organizations built over 20 years of living in New York City. As a Brooklyn-based blogger and one of the organizers of The Brooklyn Blogfest, I also have a deep knowledge of and connection to many arts and education organizations in the borough.

I am currently available to lend my areas of expertise to a Brooklyn-based project, business, or organization on a part-time basis. If you know of a potential partner within your professional or social network who would benefit from my services, I'd be grateful for an introduction.

Sample Work Projects

* Collaborated with team of 25 organizers to plan and oversee GO, a historic borough-wide open studio weekend designed to foster personal exchange between 1700 Brooklyn artists, their communities, and The Brooklyn Museum. Resulted in 147,000 studio visits in a single weekend.

* Conducted Twitter campaign and created mascot for 8^th Annual Ladies of Hip Hop Festival to increase reach within New York and national dance communities

* Conceptualized and Co-produced The Brooklyn Blogfest, an annual event for 300 bloggers, journalists, and community leaders. Recruited and managed 30-person volunteer staff. Organized monthly, neighborhood-based gatherings of Brooklyn bloggers.

* Consult with Bank Street College of Education to use social and new media platforms to publicize alumni events; galvanize alumni activity on LinkedIn group and Twitter accounts; and strategize content areas and recruitment of writers for alumni blog.

* Consulted with Jim Henson Legacy to improve aesthetics, usability, and interactivity of their website.

* Founded and publish Creative Times, an eight-year-old blog which highlights New York's literary, performing, and visual artists, organizations, and venues. Use social networking platforms to successfully promote launches, premiers, and special events of New York’s performing, visual, and literary arts and culture scene.

* Co-founded and lead Creative Conversations, a women’s monthly goal-setting group for visual artists and writers who wish to stay on the edge of creative and professional growth.

* Managed PlayNet, a grant-funded project at The Brooklyn Children’s Museum designed to increase educators’, parents’, and caretakers’ understanding of play and capacity to facilitate play with children.

Education

M.S., Education; Bank Street College of Education; NY; 1995

B.A., Women, Community and Social Change; Trinity College; CT; 1991

Sample Blog Posts

From Muppets to Mascots: The Incredible Journey of Bonnie Erickson

Taja Riley, Rising Dance Star

Maira Kalman, Creative Heroine

A Clear-Cut Space for Women in Hip-Hop

How to Contact Me

Eleanor Traubman
ETraubman@gmail.com
Twitter: @creativetimes
Creativetimes.blogspot.com

RELATIONSHIPS CONNECT US, NOT TECHNOLOGY

Have you ever been at a meeting with someone who leaves their IPhone on? And every time they get an email or a phone call or a Tweet, a little bell on their phone goes "Ding" and then that person's eyes are down on that IPhone trying to see who contacted them and what the message is. Holy smokes, is that annoying. Plus, ya know, communication is something like 90% nonverbal so that person whose eyes are glued to their IPhones is totally missing all the nonverbal cues they need to be registering and responding to and, well, the quality of the meeting goes to pot 'cuz they can't focus on the PEOPLE around them.

Me to people who leave their IPhones on at meetings: STOP IT!! Be with the PEOPLE who are at your meeting!

Margaret Wheatley, one of the great thinkers on the topic of leadership and community has this to say about technology:

Knowledge management is not about technology. [...] [W]e modern managers are dazzled by technical solutions. If people aren't communicating, we just created another Web site or online conference. [...] But these technical solutions don't solve a thing if other aspects of the culture - the human dimension - are ignored.

[...] [I]n the absence of face-to-face meetings, people have a hard time sharing knowledge. It's important to remember that technology does not connect us. Our relationships connect us. We share knowledge because we are in relationship, not because we have broader bandwidth available.

-- From Margaret Wheatley's Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

Seth Godin on Intentionally Building Communities

Intentionally building communities (More hallway!)

From Seth Godin's Blog

If you think about the tribes you belong to, most of them are side effects of experiences you had doing something slightly unrelated. We have friends from that summer we worked together on the fishing boat, or a network of people from college or sunday school. There's also that circle of people we connected with on a killer project at work a few years go. These tribes of people are arguably a more valuable creation than the fish that were caught or the physics that were learned, right?

And yet, most of the time we don't see the obvious opportunity--if you intentionally create the connections, you'll get more of them, and better ones too. If the hallway conversations at a convention are worth more than the sessions, why not have more and better hallways?
What would happen if trade shows devoted half a day to 'projects'? Put multi-disciplinary teams of ten people together and give them three hours to create something of value. The esprit de corps created by a bunch of strangers under time pressure in a public competition would last for decades. The community is worth more than the project.

The challenge is to look at the rituals and events in your organization (freshman orientation or weekly status meetings or online forums) and figure out how amplify the real reason they exist even if it means abandoning some of the time-honored tasks you've embraced. Going around in a circle saying everyone's name doesn't build a tribe. But neither does sitting through a boring powerpoint. Working side by side doing something that matters under adverse conditions... that's what we need.

CREATIVE TIMES IN HIP SLOPE MAMA

Come on over to the Melissa Lopata's amazing blogazine Hip Slope Mama to read my article Ten Tips for Building Community.

TEN TIPS FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY

1. Use the internet to create or join a community of people who share your interests or concerns. Meetup.com is a great vehicle for doing that.

2. Take it beyond the internet: Get out there and meet face-to-face with people you’ve met on the internet. Nothing replaces human contact. The Brooklyn Blogade (see pics above) is a monthly gathering of Brooklyn-based bloggers and friends which meets in the various neighborhoods of the borough. The Blogade is a great example of using the internet to build human relationships.

3. Walk your block. Every morning, I pass by and say hello to the same neighbors, shopkeepers, and crossing guards whose names I make a point of knowing. If people have a “fixed point” – e.g. behind the store counter, in front of their house, by the crossing walk – it’s easy to greet them each day.

4. Participate in local, ongoing projects – e.g. park cleanups, a community garden, meetings with local merchants. Strong communities are based on relationships that are built over time.

5. Make friends with people across (artificial dividers of) age, race, class, strengths, and life experiences. Do you remember adults from your young life who encouraged you and paid thoughtful attention to you, even for a few minutes? Do that for a young person you know.

6. Fundraise for causes you believe in. Fundraisers are a great way to get to know other people and to bring people together. They don’t have to be fancy.

7. Address what keeps you back from being part of groups. Most people have some unpleasant memories associated with being part of groups. Some people had a rotten time in school. Some people grew up in harsh family lives. Some people were dragged to religious services every week. So, there is fear about losing individuality or having our individuality discounted or disrespected.

Know that it is possible to shape groups so that they honor both a collective life and the amazing contributions and strengths of each individual, including you.

8. Keep in touch with individual people. If you see Suzy Q at a neighborhood association meeting once a month and you’d like to get to know her better, call her to go have lunch sometime. The life of a community is as strong as the relationships that individual people have with each other.

9. Speak, read, write and paint about the things that matter most to you. The more you put yourself and your interests out there in the world, the more chances you will have of finding people who share those interests.

10. Decide what your community-building goals are and start strategizing your plan to get there. Many of us are encouraged to have goals for our career, family, financial, or love lives but we’re not really taught that community is important or how to build it for ourselves and our families. Instead, we’re encouraged to prize geographic or career/economic mobility over staying put and developing relationships and community over time.

Some examples of goals:

1. I’d like my family to be part of a community of ten other families who share friendship, outings, meals, and childcare responsibilities.

2. I want to create a community of fifteen women artists who support and track each others’ progress over a three year period.

3. I’d like to have a group of five to seven close-knit friends who get together regularly for lunch.

4. I’d like to coach an athletic team for my son or daughter and bring together the families as much as possible.

5. I’d like to organize college students in my city/borough/state to help register people to vote in the next presidential election.

Where do you want to be in one year? In five, ten, and twenty years? Do you want to be surrounded by people that you respect and care about and who respect and care about you? Think about your big goals and start taking small, daily steps to reach them. Over time, our lives either contract or expand. Our world gets either bigger our smaller. It’s up to us to decide and shape how we want our lives to be.