I heart Jacksonville, FL (and AIGA)

Over the past few weeks I’ve been traveling in Florida. Just before leaving I found that AIGA was having their Creative Monster re:CHARGE 08 conference in Jacksonville — I completely adjusted my plans and stayed south for a few extra days.

I arrived in Jacksonville around 3:30pm and checked into my hotel at the Extended Stay America on Prudential Ave. The staff were C+ students and the hotel itself definitely was a B.

I really felt the need to sleep, seeing as I had worked from 7am to 11:45am and then drove three hours north from Winter Haven. But I was in a new city! I was here to grow personally, creatively, and explore!

Screw sleep. Let’s find that Skyway monorail thing and hop across the river.

I checked in with the AIGA folks at this newly renovated public library — gorgeous by the way, and that goes for the entire city. I picked up my goodies and walked down to The Landing for some dinner and people watching.

While waiting for wings at Hooters and sitting right along the water, I used my handy dandy iPhone to research bars in the area. It dawned on me that being a sole female in a city I’m not familiar with might not be the best place for me to walk around and feel safe.

Solution: Gay Bar.

I found something similar to what used to be the Brickyard in Hartford. 5 rooms of variety and spices of life in a place called METRO. Yes folks, that’s right. Complete with piano bar, lesbian bar, gay bar, disco, AND drag queen stage area, this was the place to be! And it was only a two minute drive from hotel. Hooray!!

Bonus: It was Lesbo-A-Go-Go Night!

Drag queens dressed to the nines, lip singing to pop’s greatest songs filled the smoke filled stage. It was a fantastic show hosted by the drag king of the evening, Spikey Dikey! The audience was an incredibly well mixed crowd: gay couples, lesbian couples, straight couples, trans-genders, cross-dressers, straight singles, and more I’m sure of it. It was quite the well rounded club with a welcoming staff and wonderful drinks. Thanks Metro!

The following day was the final piece of the conference for which I had signed up for. I hoofed it across the Alsop draw birdge and grabbed an iced coffee on my way in.

8:45am: My first seminar entitled “Growing a Successful Creative Business: Carl Smith will review the first 5 years of nGen Works: The good, the bad, and the ugly.” It was a fantastic overview of exactly that. I picked his brain like mad later on in the conference.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the workshops I took, but I will tell you this: AIGA did an incredible job at putting together a fantastic group of speakers and panelists. The conference was also affordable and easy to get to. And here is a list of things I learned from re:CHARGE:

1) Every business owner screws up and spends money carelessly at least once or twice.
2) Put a stall clause in your contract for when you’re waiting to get content from one of your clients.
3) Have quarterly meetings with your team.
4) Go out and party! Invite people in! Celebrate your life as a creative business!
5) Good Design does good things. Find ways to better the world a tiny bit at a time with your design.
6) Design firms really exist! You don’t have to be an advertising agency to survive.
7) Referrals, joining orgs, and writing stuff will get you more business than you’ll ever solicit.

And that’s all she wrote!

Posted by Stacey Dyer, Triple Frog LLC