Author Archive
Tim Minchin @ Encounters Film Festival
Katrina Percy - November 19th, 2010Last night Alan and I went to see Tim Minchin (comedian) and DC Turner (animator and director) talk about their 9 minute animated film created to accompany Tim’s well known beat poem called ‘Storm’. Minchin explained that his poem was based on a real life dinner party he attended where he sat through a conversation covering various ‘alternative’ views with an irritating woman. While he did not verbally express his frustrations out loud during the night he did inevitably have much to say; and so ‘Storm’ was born. He had found himself ranting so much about subjects such as homeopathy and physics, that ‘Storm’ was his way of having one last big vent.
Turner then continued by showing the audience 5 clips that inspired the end result of his beloved hard work, including South Park, Power Puff Girls and Ren and Stimpy’s ‘Powered Toast Man’. He also expressed the overwhelming response he received from fellow animators offering their help on the project for nothing in return, showing how people will create for the sake of producing excellent work.
We then got to be the first audience to see the first ever official festival screening on the short animated film and it did not disappoint.
Encounters Short Film Festival 2010
Tim Minchin and DC Turner @ The Arnolfini for Encounters Short Film Festival
Versus Launch
Katrina Percy - November 12th, 2010Last night was Dave Ashby’s (aka LiquidLizard) launch night for his illustration project ‘Versus’ (see past post: Versus Illustration Exhibition 11th Nov for details of the project). If you couldn’t make it here are some pictures to see how it turned out.
You may be a big boy now, but you could still be getting it wrong
Katrina Percy - January 19th, 2010I laughed when Alan sent me a link to a video of how to tie shoes properly. It turns out that Jason Fitzpatrick, the guy who posted article and video showed me! I am now more efficient at tying my shoes and I know the difference between the granny knot and the reef knot. Impressive I know.
Amazon!
Katrina Percy - December 23rd, 2009A couple of days ago I received an e-mail from Andy containing a link. That link took me to an article called Amazon.com: Earth’s Biggest Anything Store Driven by “Two-Pizza Teams”. It simply explains some of the reasons why Amazon works so well. It’s a pretty interesting read.
Check it out for yourself http://www.good2work.com/article/1324. Or if you are not in the mood for much reading, here are the best bits.
“Amazon.com is one of the Web pioneers – along with eBay, Yahoo, and Google, but Jeff Bezos is the only founder in that row who’s still running his company as CEO”. *Cough* I think you’ll find that you can put Team Rubber next to amazon on that one! In fact we can go one better, all three of the founders are still running the company. Not that I enjoy bragging or anything…
“Jeff Bezos has promoted innovative efforts among his employees through the Just Do It program, which rewards those who come up with and execute ideas that help the company without first obtaining permission from their bosses”.
“One more remarkable feature of Amazon’s corporate culture is fun, cultivated and cherished by Bezos himself. Fun is a good way to keep everyone’s enthusiasm and make people really love their work”.
“No, communication is terrible!”
Wine Tasting @ Averys
Katrina Percy - November 12th, 2009Some of Team Rubber and friends attended a wine tasting night at Averys on Tuesday 10th, and it was very well received. Especially by me and Laura.
When we arrived we were greeted with a warm smile and a cold glass of champagne or two. Followed by a blind tasting of three stunning white wines accompanied with explanations of what to expect and why. It was interesting because not only did we have to work out the grape, but we were also challenged to figure out which country they were from and the price. Thankfully we had options for the first two questions, otherwise we would have been there all night. The rest of the evening was taken up by cheese, pate and bread and then the tasting of three red wines.
Along with the points awarded from the tasting we had a mini multiple choice quiz and I was overjoyed when my team, which was the smallest made up of myself, Alan and Tom called ‘Peach honey and the silks’ won. We were presented with a bottle of red Bordeaux.
Stop Killing Birds! So Cruel…
Katrina Percy - September 3rd, 2009I happen to love birds! As a number of Team Rubber peeps obviously don’t understand the joys of these winged creatures, so here is a clip from BBC1 show QI.
How to embarrass your work mates 101
Katrina Percy - September 1st, 2009I have to say how sorry I am to Jake for what I did to him at this years Shambala festival. Though it was funny as hell!
Jake’s in a band called LUND and they did an amazing set, well done, the response was unforgettable. Therefore, as I am so proud I promise never to bring a ‘Jake we love you’ sign to one of your gigs ever again or shout out that I want your babies lol. Hopefully you can forgive me… and Jenny
‘Jake performing’
‘The crowed goes wild’
‘Jake, Kat loves you’
‘Jake, Jenny loves you too’
‘Managing Oneself’ by Peter F. Drucker
Katrina Percy - March 16th, 2009
Oh look, another book that is nice and quick to read….. I love em. It is always good to find something to give you a quick burst of motivation or something that makes you stop and think.
Drucker’s book starts off making you look at your strengths and weaknesses, which I am sure most people have been told to do at many points in their lives. However Drucker continues to ask more, or rather gets the reader to ask themselves further questions (even questions within questions):
How do I perform?
I am a listener or a reader?
How do I learn?
Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?
Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a predictable environment?
Do I work best in a big or small origination?
What are my values?
What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror?
What should I contribute?
What does the situation require?
Where do I belong?
At first I felt a little bombarded with the shear amount of questions that had been thrown at me. Though it becomes obvious that Drucker is hoping that the people reading his book will actually know the answers to some of them. Plus it only feels like a lot because they are all asked within 33 pages, no more than the size of A6. If they had been spread out between 200 pages it would have felt like far less, but then the impact may not have been as strong.
At every possible opportunity Drucker gives examples of where people go wrong and points out all ‘if only’ situations for them. I found this helpful, it makes you think of occasions where similar things could have happened in your own working life that you may have previously discounted as irrelevant.
After reading the first two thirds of this book I had a strong craving to do a personality test, two came to mind, one you can do online is:
Myers Briggs
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Finally the book ended with looking at what can change when a person hits midlife. He gives suggestions to keep oneself from, well, going stale if you will. I am sure that it is good advice, I will find out….
