Chapter two.
Erik Cargill:I'm Erik Cargill.
Rachel Elnar:And I'm Rachel Elnar. And this is Cheers and Tiers.
Erik Cargill:Design leadership tales retold.
Rachel Elnar:Oh my god, Erik. It's been so long. How are you doing?
Erik Cargill:Yes. It has. It's been a while. I've been I've been doing alright. Even though I saw you two weeks ago, I'm still doing okay.
Rachel Elnar:That was so much fun. So, Erik we we have two amazing community leaders as our guests. Our guests first connected through AIGA Charlotte, where both served on the board, Carolyn across multiple chapters, including Charlotte, Boston, and Pittsburgh, and Taylor for nearly a decade, including as president. Today, Carolyn is the associate director of expanded education at the School of Museum of Fine Art at Tufts, connecting artists through lifelong learning. Taylor is VP of technology at Carbon House, a Charlotte digital agency that's built websites for over 300 arts venues worldwide.
Rachel Elnar:Together, they bring deep expertise in building creative communities and bridging art with technologies. And I'm so pleased to have them both here with us today. Please welcome Carolyn Colonna and Taylor Null.
Erik Cargill:Welcome both of you.
Taylor Nall:Hey, thank you. Thank you.
Rachel Elnar:Oh, yeah. I'm so excited to have you guys. I have not seen you both for forever. Please don't tell me that I've not talked to you since Omaha, because if so, I'll be very sad.
Carolyn Colonna:Rachel, I think you and I met up in New York at some point. But I'm I'm blanking on what I was in New York for something, and you were in New York for something, and we we
Rachel Elnar:It was the gala. For a
Carolyn Colonna:glass of champagne. Oh, great.
Taylor Nall:Rachel, I think we tried to connect and yeah, I think, I was out in LA a few times for work and I think we tried to connect, but it's just the schedule's never aligned.
Rachel Elnar:So It never does. Thank God we have social media and we're able to keep up with each other's lives. But for those people who are not aware of both of you, was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how you got involved with AIGA, what year, what chapters, what roles, and we'll start with you, Carolyn.
Carolyn Colonna:Sure. I started my AIGA journey in Boston. In my first job, my boss got me a membership to AIGA as my bonus for the year. And so that was my first introduction. I admittedly didn't attend a lot of events but I received a phone call from one of the board members asking me to join a membership panel just asking folks about the chapter and I said, well, I haven't really attended much and they said, great, come and give us your opinions as what would, you know, make you get more involved.
Carolyn Colonna:And from there, next thing I knew, I ended up on a committee, which brought me onto the board. And from there, I got very involved in the membership community. And then when I moved to Charlotte, I immediately thought, where am I going to find my community? And I joined AIGA Charlotte there and started attending events where I met Taylor and some of the other folks there. And Charlotte, at the time was going through a period of a lot of influx of people coming from other cities and other states.
Carolyn Colonna:So there were a lot of folks like me who had come to the area and were looking for that community. So AIGA was really a great connection point. And again, naturally, I ended up joining a committee, which ended up becoming a board position, which ultimately led to being chapter president. From there, similar type of move, I moved to Pittsburgh and again immediately joined the AIGA community there. At the time, I was the incoming president's council chair and then the President's Council Chair and then from there moved on to be part of the membership chapter advisory committee.
Carolyn Colonna:So I stayed as part of a board position for AIGA Pittsburgh, but, kind of holding those national roles. And then later found myself circling all the way back here to Boston again. So it was sort of a a journey.
Rachel Elnar:Wait. You're in Boston?
Carolyn Colonna:You are. Yeah.
Taylor Nall:Oh,
Rachel Elnar:didn't know. Oh, right. Okay, Taylor.
Taylor Nall:Yeah, so I think I moved to Charlotte just a little bit before Carolyn. And at that point, I kind of got sort of given the position of internet director from my boss. He wanted to sort of keep the AIGA Charlotte site under our company umbrella. And so, one event he couldn't make it to. He was like, Hey, can you go?
Taylor Nall:I'm gonna miss it. And I think from there on out, I don't think I was even actually elected to the board at any point during my tenure. It was just sort of like, I was just given this role. But then I was internet coordinator for two or three years, then got roped into doing the VP position when Carolyn was president. Then of course, took on president for two years after that.
Taylor Nall:Then I was on the advisory board for two or three years. After which, kind of work took over kind of and AIGA took a backseat from then on out, so.
Rachel Elnar:And that happens. Both of you, I've noticed when you're telling us about your history, you've really been part of AIGA for a long time. I mean, it sounds like for well over a decade. Is there anything that you've learned from your experience of AIGA that feeds into what you're doing right now?
Carolyn Colonna:Oh, I think for sure. I have to thank AIGA for so many aspects of my career that AIGA was really a training ground for leadership abilities, community building, the ability to be a public speaker, event planning experience, how to coordinate volunteers, how to run a meeting effectively, how to rise other people up around you that you work with to bring out the best in them. So I think the most direct career connection I would say AIGA had is sort of pivoting from my early career was really brand design and strategy focused. Then through my experience with AIGA, I started to realize I really enjoyed that sort of planning community building aspect. And I started shifting into project management, which ultimately brought me to program planning, which is what I do for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts right now.
Carolyn Colonna:So I say AIGA has been sort of this common thread on my resume that has kind of, I don't know, lent expertise to almost every avenue that I've pursued in the time since I joined Wow, that's a lot.
Taylor Nall:Yeah, I have a lot to owe to AIGA because at my current job they actually found me through the AIGA portfolio website. I didn't even apply to the job. They just kind of found mine, called me in, and the rest is history. I'm here twenty years later. But one of the biggest things was just the leadership aspect.
Taylor Nall:I think I came in mid 20s or something like that and just didn't really have I'm an introvert and so it's like coming into these roles, you gotta learn how to bring extrovert. Definitely, AIGA kind of developed those leadership capabilities and that really just contributed to my career and just being a leader there. I think also just friendships as well. So I know Carolyn already spoke about there was an influx of several of us at the same time. Developed a lot of friendships there.
Taylor Nall:So yeah, just a lot to owe to AIGA personally and professionally.
Erik Cargill:Both have been very impacted by the leadership aspect of AIGA, which is a good segue into talking about the leadership retreats that we're here to talk about. And if you could, tell us about the first leadership retreat that you both attended together where it was, when it was, if you remember, and some of the more memorable aspects of that retreat.
Carolyn Colonna:I think even though Taylor and I both attended Miami Miami was our first year together, right? Yeah. I would say Omaha, I have to say, is the more impactful of it, if you don't mind us jumping forward to that one. Because for me, having attended the Miami retreat and the San Francisco retreat before that, one thing that had stuck out was the ability to be involved in the retreat itself. So Charlotte either was invited to speak, do a presentation, when they had the little, presentations in between things, or either that or maybe I volunteered us, But either way, we were selected.
Carolyn Colonna:And I realized that not many of the other retreats had presentations that really stuck in my mind. So I was thinking, I really want us to be remembered. Here we are, this little chapter that most of the big chapters get all the energy. And so Taylor and I and a few other members of the board, Erin Schertz, was on the board with us at the time. And we had this arc of programming that we were really proud of, that because most people were transplants, there was, we sort of had these, networking, meet other people type events, all the way through these very professional events.
Carolyn Colonna:And we were trying to come up with a hook, and Taylor, I don't remember who came up with this, but we started to come. We started referring to our business plan, our event plan as a mullet, where it was business in the front and party in the back was our arc. And so we created a presentation using a mullet meter Awesome. To present our arc. Yeah.
Erik Cargill:Love it.
Carolyn Colonna:I know. I think you designed our our logo. You are Banks. Yeah. And we had a little slideshow.
Carolyn Colonna:We had a mullet icon and we had a meter that showed our arc of events from, you know, the big speaker events where we brought in Stefan Sagmeister, Debbie Millman as our business in the front, moving on through different speaker panels and whatnot, all the way down to our very casual networking and casual coffee morning groups were the sort of party in the back. So that I think kicked off Charlotte's, I don't know, exposure at Omaha. I'll let Taylor chime in a bit from here on how we
Taylor Nall:Yeah, I think too, that was also, like, the website that we had for the chapter, we kind of went rogue, and we weren't using like the platform on aiga.org. We had done aigacholette.org, built this whole thing. And so I know a lot of people are coming to me like, How did you do it? What did you do? And so it kind of tied in with our programming as well.
Taylor Nall:There was just a lot of, what are you guys doing and trying to figure that out? And think it was just, we had a lot of free time at that point. So we were just, and also just spending a lot of time together. So yeah, but I remember Omaha, especially, you know, it felt like a lot of the smaller chapters like us were, giving these presentations about all of these things that they were doing. And I think before then, it felt like it was more the big chapters, they were kind of running the show.
Taylor Nall:And so it's like you could just sort of see sort of the power of the smaller chapters and their ideas and what they could bring to sort of the AIGA community as a whole.
Rachel Elnar:Were you both on the board at the time?
Carolyn Colonna:So at the time I was president and Taylor, were you vice president at that point?
Taylor Nall:You know? I have certain requirements. Let's see. I'm trying to yeah. Because
Carolyn Colonna:Or were you still Internet director? You may have
Erik Cargill:kind of
Taylor Nall:been bridging, during the summer, so getting ready to be president, so.
Carolyn Colonna:We also, that reminds me, in that same vein, we had branded all of our events, which I have to thank Josh Silverman for being sort of the granddaddy of branding an event that from AIGA Boston, I stole or borrowed from the idea of the AFTA, which they had branded. And so in Charlotte, and again like Taylor said, we were all new to the area and AIGA was professional and our social life. So we put a lot of energy into it and we branded all of our events as well, which was also sort of part of this presentation. So I think being in a smaller chapter in Omaha was part of it. Being part of a smaller chapter that had its profile raised in that moment, having the energy of the other smaller chapters, and then obviously the proliferation of social media just really kind of combined to make that such a memorable experience, I think, for a lot of people, but for us, and our chapter in particular, that Charlotte kind of had a bit of a spotlight on it for a while after that return.
Erik Cargill:Was Omaha the first branded retreat?
Carolyn Colonna:I think they each had a theme, there was
Erik Cargill:Focus was the theme and I don't see any other themes. I only call that out just simply because I wasn't at Omaha myself, but, you know, a lot of the guests that we've had on here Omaha is really I I can't think of the the right metaphor, a North Star.
Rachel Elnar:It's a prerequisite. You can't get on this podcast unless you've been to Omaha.
Erik Cargill:That's right. Yeah. I've been to Omaha, but I you know what? This wasn't there for for AIGA. But, you know, Omaha being the where where human pyramids started.
Erik Cargill:Yeah. The the whole pyramid thing.
Taylor Nall:Which I think I think we were part of the first one. I'm pretty sure. I think there's photo evidence of that. Yeah. Oh, fantastic.
Carolyn Colonna:I know. I've I've heard that contested quite a bit on this podcast, but we we do have photos from there used to be a costume icebreaker night, and Taylor and Banks Wilson were wearing, NASCAR outfits that that Banks got that were, like, legit real NASCAR outfits. And Rachel Martin and I were dressed as NASCAR fans, we had, you know, big hair and big earrings and all the you know, we were being sort of a stereotype, I would say. But we are in costume at a bowling alley or a bar or somewhere that I think may not have been where the costume party still was, doing a pyramid with with the now the now infamous Lauren Langford. I will say, which I need to find somewhere, I do have a photo somewhere of Lauren and I in a human pyramid with Rick Griffin that I am actually mailing on Rick Griffin's back.
Taylor Nall:So
Carolyn Colonna:I will have to find that for you.
Erik Cargill:Yes, definitely. Please. Please find that.
Rachel Elnar:I will sell prints of that.
Carolyn Colonna:Limited edition print. Pictures.
Erik Cargill:I also love the the mullet meter because, I mean, you could bring that back now, and it would still be relevant. So
Carolyn Colonna:that's
Erik Cargill:I mean in terms of
Carolyn Colonna:We'll a whole line
Erik Cargill:of March. Memorable moments that yeah that sticks out. I love that.
Carolyn Colonna:Oh Omaha was just such a fun time and I think also the proliferation of social media made a big difference. Showing up and not having an account at all and then leaving with an account and 100 new friends. And it just made a big difference versus the previous retreats. You'd come home with, like, a Ziploc bag full of business cards cards, which were cool. But, you know, for two retreats before that, I met people, but they kind of went into the wind because you didn't really have a string of a connection to those folks other than if you had a very specific reason to reach out.
Carolyn Colonna:But leaving a retreat with a digital thread to all these folks that you can keep in touch with even just passively was a really great way to connect and foster those relationships over time. I mean, I know, Rachel, that's where you and I first met. And I think that just really strengthened this sort of class, I guess, of AIGA leaders.
Rachel Elnar:It was not only the digital thread or social media, but was actually having that group. We had a group, an AIGA Leadership Group, group, which a couple of people said, can you please not tag me on my photo? Because I don't want anyone else to see that. So when you mentioned Taylor was in a NASCAR costume, I my brain went right to that photo. Like, I can see it Like, super yeah.
Rachel Elnar:It's because of those photos, and that shared album, and the shared tagging. Yeah. That was crazy when we got home and everybody was still talking. It was so much fun.
Erik Cargill:That was 2008. Was Facebook open to everyone at by then? Or was it still Just
Rachel Elnar:my space? Opened. It just opened, which is why I went down that printed list that we got and invited everybody.
Taylor Nall:Gotcha.
Rachel Elnar:Okay. I don't know what we've done before that. So you you went to you both went to Miami. Do you remember anybody from Miami? I mean so I'm just trying to think, like, social media or no social media?
Rachel Elnar:Like
Carolyn Colonna:I mean, definitely, Varick and Karen, for Who could forget those two? It was a fun time. I mean, we definitely connected with people, but it was I would say Miami was one of my lesser favorites in that it was less accessible. I I know I listened to the podcast with Barrick and Karen, and I I there were, like, the really fun pool parties, but I think it was so expensive there, and it there was less concerted groupings of of going out about in the area, I think, because of how expensive it was.
Taylor Nall:I think that's why the pool parties happened. So yeah.
Carolyn Colonna:Yeah. Yeah. Which was super which was super fun. But I find overall that that retreat was less burned into my memory than sort of the the Omaha forward ones where I think that ability to communicate and keep the group sort of moving in similar directions really made such an impact on how people participated.
Rachel Elnar:I do wanna say something, wanna remark, because you said people keep coming in and out of your chapter. You mentioned Aaron Schertz, who was part of your chapter. Gage Mitchell was also part of your chapter, correct?
Taylor Nall:Yeah, he was in Miami with both of us.
Rachel Elnar:Oh, okay, got it.
Carolyn Colonna:So Gage Mitchell and also Aaron Schertz, who you guys spoke with, were on the board together with Taylor and I. And then there were a lot of Charlotte chapter folks who, you know, we were all transplants from other places that came to Charlotte and then sort of due to the economic changes in the, you know, 2010s ish area, folks just sort of dispersed all over the country, again, back to, you know, people went to California, people went to Seattle, people went to New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, you know, Florida. So it was kind of fun in some ways to come back and see folks through lens. Like for myself going to AIGA Pittsburgh or Pittsburgh and then coming to the retreats as an AIGA Pittsburgh chapter member board member and getting together with my former AIGA Charlotte chapter board members, it's those were and seeing actually, I think Gage also was there as well. So that was kind of this reconnecting moment after we'd all dispersed to other chapters.
Rachel Elnar:It's like we have a national chapter. Everybody's together. You mentioned Josh Silverman. It's like everybody knows each other.
Carolyn Colonna:Yeah. For more overlap, AIGA Charlotte, partnered with AIGA Raleigh to do a joint design competition. And so to do that, we, a few times, got our chapters together socially and to work on projects. There are a lot of these connection points that happen not only during the retreats, but then I think that camaraderie that you experience at the retreat, you just want to keep making that magic happen wherever else you can. So I think that inspired us to have some of these get togethers with our other state neighbor chapter.
Carolyn Colonna:Mike Josie, Matt Muniz, those folks were leaders kind of at the same time that Taylor and I were.
Taylor Nall:I went to several conferences after the fact, because Aaron Schertz and Gage were both in Seattle, and I think we almost had a mini retreat out there with, I think Seth Johnson was speaking as well as Karen Kareke. So yeah, just continued connections across, especially from those that just dispersed from here in Charlotte.
Rachel Elnar:So much fun. Tell about some of the other retreats. I didn't attend either Miami or San Francisco. Was there anything notable about those retreats even though they're not as fun as Omaha?
Carolyn Colonna:I would say my next most notable would have been Portland. So Taylor and I both attended Portland after Omaha, which was the proliferation of Twitter after Facebook. So it became the the hashtag was the the next, step. So I think other folks have brought this up, but I remember going to that retreat and sort of the after parties or the after gatherings would be, folks would put the AIGA retreat hashtag on a piece of paper and like tape it to the doors of things so that you would know where to go next. So if the rumor was everybody go to XYZ, you know, bar or place and we were moving on, we would leave notes, like taped to the door of the bar where people were supposed to be and saying, you know, find out where we are next, you know, BIJ retreat.
Carolyn Colonna:And
Erik Cargill:That's great.
Carolyn Colonna:So I think that having those tools kind of helped folks move things along. And then I, you know, to bring up Josh Silverman again, I have a memory of, and I'm hoping my memory is accurate, but of being at, I believe it was the Chattanooga, like, pre part, the last night of the retreat party that the next host city runs, we were at their party, and it was kind of winding down, and Josh Silverman sent me a message or texted me or whatnot and said, Kelowna, get everyone to go to the Doug Fir. I know you can do it. I have faith in you. And so we just started spreading the rumor and saying, I heard people are going to the Doug fir.
Carolyn Colonna:Bridget, you heard that? I'm not sure, but I heard, I heard. So we started just circulating, I heard people are going to the Doug Fir. And then I have photos of just sort of this Mass.
Rachel Elnar:Long line
Carolyn Colonna:of Over the bridge. As you walking over the bridge on our way to Doug Fir where I believe there may have been some infamous pyramids that got kabashed by the bombs.
Taylor Nall:I think that was the sketches trying to get the five tier going.
Rachel Elnar:Ah, got it. And so, Taylor, you were in a bunch of pyramids too, correct?
Taylor Nall:I think so. I tended to be on the bottom, I don't know. I'm not that long. I can relate. Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:Any memorable ones?
Taylor Nall:Yeah, think it was probably one of those in Portland because we got pretty, pretty high. There was one that we did in somebody's room, I remember. Across the bed. Across Yeah, the yeah, yeah. And I think Debbie Millman was there.
Taylor Nall:What? So, which was, yeah. It was kind of a weird, what's going on? What are we doing?
Rachel Elnar:Was she in the pyramid? No.
Taylor Nall:Think she was just an observer. Yeah, yeah.
Erik Cargill:Just gonna watch that happen.
Taylor Nall:Yeah, yeah.
Rachel Elnar:And Carolyn was always on top. Because when we always say we need someone on top, everyone says Carolyn.
Carolyn Colonna:I know. I think that if I were to write a memoir of the leadership retreats, would be titled, like, Tales of a Pyramid Topper or that there's I think I have a photo of of the one of the infamous five stack. Although, I I heard rumors that folks may have done a higher one later later on but it was the the ones that happened at the I think it was in Portland at the top of an elevator bank there was like a little little, like lobby area and in the photo I'm I'm like holding on to the ceiling beam because I'm just like if this goes out from under me you know, I don't You won't fall. Want to land on everyone. Yeah.
Rachel Elnar:So I've only heard through our guests that they started in Omaha, but they kinda started in Miami, right, on stage?
Carolyn Colonna:I don't remember that, but I heard other folks say that, so I can't say for But there was a talent show that used to happen. Really? And I so there used to be, think Omaha was when the chapters just got too big, so, or the number of chapters got too many, but it used to be that the initial night icebreaker was that every chapter had to participate in a talent show or some kind of performance. So you had like four or five seconds on stage to do a skit. And I think the first year when I went to San Francisco, our president at the time didn't mention it, so we didn't participate.
Carolyn Colonna:So we, I don't even 100% remember what ours was. I just remember we all had red t shirts that said AIGA that we put on with like iron on letters. I just don't remember what ours was.
Erik Cargill:I think
Taylor Nall:that was Miami. Yeah, yeah. I'm remembering
Carolyn Colonna:it. So that was Miami. Yeah. Mhmm. And that was when Bernard had, like, a he did, like, a ukulele performance.
Carolyn Colonna:So that was really one of the only ones I I really have a strong memory of was the the ukulele performance. But the so there may have been a a pyramid that took place as part of the skits or the talent show. And then I think moving into Omaha, there were just so many chapters, it was so time consuming. That's when they moved to the costume party, that you were supposed to wear a costume that represented your chapter, your city. And then I don't know, Portland, I think, moved to buttons, that we all made buttons for our chapters, which Nikki Mueller, now Clinton, in our chapter became obsessed with button making and just made us a huge number of buttons for everything, for every event and everything that we had moving forward.
Erik Cargill:Do you still have all those? Do you still have all those funds somewhere?
Carolyn Colonna:I have a handful. I have one have
Taylor Nall:There's probably like a box of swag from all of those. That's true. You know, that I just, who knows where it is now.
Carolyn Colonna:I have a photo of Meera Azraim wearing a jacket with just buttons up and down from all the chapters. I don't remember in Minnesota what the icebreaker was, which I should remember because I was checking
Taylor Nall:was, like, trading cards? Like, we had to design design trading cards. Yeah.
Carolyn Colonna:So there there were always, like, a fun icebreaker element that, you know, usually you'd come home with some collectible stuff. I think maybe it was Minneapolis was also the one where there was a chapter that they did mug shots. That each chapter has a table with their swag and someone had mug shots set up. And I Do you guys remember which chapter was We the
Erik Cargill:had that in Denver.
Rachel Elnar:Yeah. That was San Francisco, and they had little tattoos. AIGA for life.
Erik Cargill:That's right. That's right.
Rachel Elnar:I'm starting to think, listening to you, that you have to get people out of their safe zones. Right? Get out of their comfort zone. And once you do that, like, those bonds, those memories are more cemented. Because if you just sit there and you just watch people do those things, you might not remember it.
Rachel Elnar:But if you actually do it and you get into costume, wow, those those stories really come alive. It's really interesting in terms of community building.
Taylor Nall:Yeah. I I think that was Omaha. It was like just being in that NASCAR outfit. It was like, you you don't know who I am. And that kinda, you could just really get out of my shell there, so.
Carolyn Colonna:Yeah. I think Rachel brings up a really good point that having that these are the things that here we are you know, or in a bit of time later, these are the parts of the retreats that stick in our mind even though I'm confident that there was amazing content Yeah. That we listened to, it was really the relationships and the connections and the fun and the, you know, leadership building pieces of it that over time have really stuck in my mind, that those moments where folks are dressed up in crazy costumes, and the Jacksonville folks with the Michael Jackson masks, or we're walking around in NASCAR outfits, or what have you, and then the buttons and the trading cards and the various ways that you're connecting with other people. Even the infamous personality test at Omaha, where they had the, I don't know if they were like a life coach or type of inspirational speaker, but they came in and had everybody divide out into their personality trait, ENFJ or what category you were in, and then they were asking people questions. And of course, the introvert side was a little calmer and quieter, the extrovert side was
Taylor Nall:It was so loud on the other side.
Carolyn Colonna:And as you may have guessed, Taylor and I were like yin and yang of operating with the introvert and
Rachel Elnar:the extrovert. We made a good team, so. Before the conference, I do remember receiving that piece of paper where you had to fill it out, right? You had to do a little bit of homework, go to some website and take this test. And I'm like, you know, this is so annoying.
Rachel Elnar:What is this for? And then when the session happened, and you had to get up out of your seats, push the chairs over, and people started moving across the room, that is one of the talks that sits in my mind. Just getting people up out of their comfort zone really gets them to participate in the content more so than just sitting there and observing. So yeah, I remember that. That's eighteen years ago.
Rachel Elnar:I remember that.
Taylor Nall:Wow.
Erik Cargill:That's incredible. Yeah, I could think back. So Denver was my first and it was kind of like, I went, I had a lot, I met a lot of great people. That's where I met Rachel. And Carolyn, I guess you and I met them too.
Erik Cargill:But ultimately, it was about those relationships.
Rachel Elnar:Yeah. I always try to think about how to bring those back to the chapters. Right? How do you get people to to re or how do you recreate that magic? There's something that happened at the chapter, the leadership retreats that didn't happen in our own chapters.
Rachel Elnar:Go back, and there was maybe a talking panel or or whatever, an interview or some sort of demo or workshop or whatnot. But there's something that happened, and it could be because all of us were leaders, but the leadership retreat was such a joy. I kept telling people, join the board because you get to go to the leadership retreat.
Carolyn Colonna:I think what LA needed was a little project mullet. Yeah. That I would say that we our our Charlotte board, I would say, and our Charlotte chapter in general, I think, mimicked a little bit of the retreat in that one of the magic of the leadership retreat is you have all these folks from all over the country who come together with different perspectives, different ideas, combine passion, and then you're thrown into this two or three or four day consolidation of people and space to trade ideas and think about things. And Charlotte at that moment in time really were people from all over the country, from different places, and AIGA Charlotte was somewhere they could come together and share that passion. And like I said, I think it became a social life and professional outlet for folks, so that really kind of mimicked that experience, especially with the type of programming that we offered at the time, where we had this balance of fun, networking.
Carolyn Colonna:So we kind of had the extrovert and introvert version. We had the networking at a bar, you can have a beer, talk to people. And then we also had these coffee house morning before work, discussion groups that there were folks who would come month after month after month and never say a word, but they just wanted to observe. They just wanted to be part of it. And so I think it I wouldn't say it's you know, we didn't have human pyramids or those types of things, but I think that our chapter in that moment kind of mimicked a little bit the way the retreats work, that you just had all these ideas from all over the place and a a bunch of different outlets for expressing those ideas and coming together.
Rachel Elnar:Amazing. I love that. I would like to know a little bit about more about the mullet. So was it just do you mean it's like a blend of events, or it was how you connected or how you conducted the events? Like, you're talking about branded events.
Rachel Elnar:What does that mean exactly?
Carolyn Colonna:So we had a spectrum of events that each type of event had a brand, so that way we made them repeatable. And so each type, had, and of course I'm kind of forgetting what we called some
Taylor Nall:I'm of trying to remember the marquee ones that we used to do, like the speakers. Mean we even had, those it was like, this is gonna be this type of event. Buzz is really the only one I can remember right now.
Carolyn Colonna:Yeah. So from the, I guess if we started from the tail of the mullet and worked that way, we had Buzz, which was the morning coffee shop discussion group. That was every month, it was a moderating discussion, so it would have a topic that was preselected and a preselected moderator. So I think originally we had one moderator who ran them every month, month after month, and then we started mixing it up and having a guest moderator who was an expert on that topic that would facilitate the conversation. They were an hour.
Carolyn Colonna:And then we had meet market, but m e e t, meet market, which was monthly. That was our networking event, which was always held at some kind of bar social place where you could come and there was no theme. It was just come and meet fellow designers and chat and have a drink or soda or whatever. We had Design Unplugged, I believe, was the name of our panel groups. So we would have those, I think, were maybe quarterly ish.
Carolyn Colonna:And we'd have a topic, we'd have a moderator, and then we'd have four or five panelists, and the moderator would ask questions to the panelists who would answer, and then we had an audience who could pose a few questions as well. Then we had at least one other kind that I'm forgetting. And then we had our marquee events like Taylor mentioned, where we brought in Devin Millman, Stefon Sagmeister, Brian Singer, Imaginary Forces and those would be the sort of lecture style event that know would be in a larger hall. But each one had a brand, each one had a logo, each one had a repeatable event plan so that it wasn't a drain on our volunteer board. So at a time for a chapter that only had a couple 100 members, we were putting on, you know, 30 something events a year because we had these sort of repeatable
Taylor Nall:It was like
Carolyn Colonna:structure.
Taylor Nall:It was almost like every other week, we were having something. So, yeah.
Rachel Elnar:That's great. Not only for revenue for the chapter, but also for engagement. And if they're easier to produce and execute, that's better for everybody. So I love that idea. Plus the idea that you are making sure there's something for everyone by mapping out these brands across both introvert and extrovert type of, audiences.
Rachel Elnar:I love that. Yeah. That's a great, I think this is the type of thing that some of the new chapters could could or not the new chapters, but the new leadership of chapters could definitely benefit from, especially after COVID. Right? A lot of our communities have sort of disintegrated a bit or lowered, and it's really hard to get people back together.
Rachel Elnar:I think brand awareness is a great way to bring people back on a regular basis. So, yeah, I think those are great ideas. Bring the mullet back, guys.
Erik Cargill:Yeah. Yeah. Is is Charlotte still going? Still going strong?
Taylor Nall:Think so. I I was checking, and I think it has it has gone away, unfortunately. So I I think yeah. You know, the previous president before we joined the board, he had a brief stint. And then I think COVID just kind of I think we were really like punching above our weight when we were on the board.
Taylor Nall:We really, just for the community around here, it's a bit more, I guess ad driven. So sort of gravitating more towards that than AIGA. So yeah, and I think just, we also, it's a bunch of transplants, people moved and so we just didn't have that same core. So yeah, it's unfortunate. Like I said, I fell off after the presidency and advisory board.
Taylor Nall:So, but yeah, that kind of stuff happens.
Rachel Elnar:It does happen. And you're bringing your best practices to your work, is where when we get older, that's kind of what you need to Yeah. Focus
Taylor Nall:Well, think, you know, when we were on the board, Carolyn, we we talked about like, we were not gonna be like the past regime and just disappear, never to come to events and that kind of thing. And sure enough, like as soon as you get through, you know, those years being on the board, you're like, okay, I need a break, you know? And then you just feel like, oh, it is kinda nice to to explore some other things here.
Carolyn Colonna:That reminds me when Taylor said that, it reminds me that so much of my social life in Charlotte was AIGA Charlotte And all of my friends really just were designers that actually, a few other women and I inspired by an episode of The Office where the crew of The Office had the finer things club where they I don't know. At lunchtime, they've read poetry or drank tea or something. We made a group called the Other Interest Club because realized we all actually had other interests outside of design that we were never pursuing with one another because we were so focused on design. So we had these monthly get togethers where we would go to a museum or do something gardening related or made a craft or just something other.
Rachel Elnar:Wow. Who knew that had to inspire a movement? We're so deep into design. You need to have a movement just to talk about other things. Other things.
Rachel Elnar:That's amazing. I love it. It's so great speaking to you both. I did want to ask you, even if it's not AIGA, are there other communities you're a part of or you contribute to or you attend?
Carolyn Colonna:I think for me, working in higher ed right now, my community really is the art school. So I think I kind of put my AIGA esque energy into the SMFA community that I still, you know, love design and love mentoring folks. So I often share with our director of career services and our career services for AIGA. And she will often send me design students to just kind of give them my personal experience. And I often give them resources from AIGA and then planning events and programming.
Carolyn Colonna:But I think that and then my teenage daughter is an athlete, so I'd say my other community is sort of supporting the boosters and the different sports franchises that she belongs to.
Taylor Nall:Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm completely removed from design at this point. So fully fully in as a web developer. And even that, you know, it's like originally was in a few communities here and there.
Taylor Nall:But you know, most of my time right now is I've got a three year old, so that's pretty much been it.
Rachel Elnar:That's the best age.
Taylor Nall:It really is.
Rachel Elnar:It really is. Yeah.
Erik Cargill:Yeah. I've got I've got three teenagers. That's not the best age.
Taylor Nall:That that that doesn't sound good. Yeah. I'm now looking forward to that.
Rachel Elnar:Well, wanna thank you both so much for sharing memories and talking about all the things and just remembering what amazing chapter you guys led. And you're right. You were punching above your weight. You guys were rock stars for a small chapter like Charlotte and doing 30 plus events and just hearing about it across, you know, all the way here to LA, like quite amazing. So thank you so much.
Rachel Elnar:It was great sharing this with you.
Erik Cargill:Thank you.
Carolyn Colonna:Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Rachel Elnar:Cheers and tiers. We'll be back next time with more design leadership tales retold.
Erik Cargill:Please subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast with your creative community, design leaders, and friends.
Rachel Elnar:Cheers and Tiers Design Leadership Tales Retold is a production of chapter two and hosted by us, Rachel Elner and Erik Cargill. This episode was produced and edited by Rachel Elner. Podcast graphics by Erik Cargill. Animation by Verso Design and Megato Design.
Erik Cargill:The theme music track is Loose Ends by Silver Ship's Plastic Oceans. Follow Cheers and Tiers on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube podcasts, or wherever you get your audio and video podcasts. Subscribe to our email list at cheers and tiers dot com so you don't miss an episode.