Whew, what a great night Yeh IDeology's 5 Year Celebration turned out to be. In all the years meeting the best of the best in every industry category we've heard some of the best business practices and advice on running businesses, building and investing in design and strategizing career paths. Wanting to do more than just celebrating, we brought together some great friends and colleagues to share their insights with everyone and inspire us as we enter the new year. 
Our Speakers Yasemin Bernardete of Springs Global reminds us you have to identify and respect what makes each brand unique and hold true to that element. Brand strategy and brand management is becoming more critical than ever.
Brad Lacey of Converse reminds us in this new day and age to never rest on your laurels and always have a healthy does of paranoia, always learning something new to stay current. Brand strategy is key here as well and Brad shares how critical it is to work with other divisions and collaborate.
Joe Moya of MindsInSync talks about having been on both corporate side and consultancy side that knowing your core values is key as you represent yourselves to your clients and customers. Even firms need to stay true to their value proposition and know how to best represent their brand image.
Cliff Kuang, the Founder of Co Design, tells us that with the uprising of technology and new crowd sourcing organizations now is the time to invest in that amazing idea that you had. Cliff cites how too many creatives are panicking and diluting their identity by accepting and taking on everything not standing firm to what they excel at.
The panel discussion inspired us to venturing into 2011 with a new outlook, as we all reflected about representing ourselves and our true value propositions, we turned to the networking portion of the night. We were 150+ of the most talented individuals in the creative industries gathered in one room and here was a perfect opportunity to connect, learn about each others goals and initiatives and help each other in our mutual endeavors.
As a fun exercise to spur the merriment, we gave out YehID magnets and an award was given to the first guest that successfully swapped magnets to meet 3 people, the individuals that the winner met also won prizes as well, rewarding the connections made. Meryem Tangoren was the first one to come up to us having successfully swapped and collected 4 of her 5 magnets and in the process she reconnected with old friends and met new ones. Meryem reconnected with old classmate Janet Villano of SkipHop, and met Dina Romanko as well.
We then put a shout out to all of our friends and thanked everyone for coming out that night to celebrate and we broke into our delicious beautiful cake by Heather Barranco-Machado who has just opened DreamCakes. Think of Ace of Cakes and incredibly delicious in the tri-state area. Another great connection through her husband Jason Machado whom I've know in the industry for years.
Right after the prize giving and cake cutting we couldn't stop the crowd going back to their feverish networking and merriment. It was amazing. So many friends and clients from past and present, as well as new came to congratulate us bringing along their friends they insisted that we just had to meet as well.
I've planned parties and events all of my life. It's an incredible feeling when you've successfully created just the right moment, energy and vibe, and when you scan the room everyone is having a blast. That was this night.
It's the bonds that you make that help you make things happen. And this night would not have been an absolute success without the great partnership and friendship of Stephan Clambaneva and his dedicated IDSA.NYC team (Courtney Hewitt, Jerry Mejia, Anthony Puleo, Daghan Perker) and their introduction to the Knoll team and the gorgeous expansive showroom.
Let me say too that planning a party at the last minute on the fly, not everything goes right and my deepest apologies to all of our friends that were not able to make the guest list as we had a limit we had to keep to. I suppose we'll have to plan to get a bigger place next year. ;-)
And take a look at the articles about our celebration, brought to you by the good folks at Core77 and IDSA!