Gel 2008 - Sold Out
Thursday-Friday, April 24-25, 2008
New York City
Rhett & Link at Gel 2008
Thursday-Friday, April 24-25, 2008
New York City
Rhett & Link at Gel 2008
• Gel 2008 schedule & location
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On Gel's second day, Friday, attendees saw over a dozen speakers on stage at the TimesCenter.
CEO, Joie de Vivre Hospitality
Author, Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow
Read the interview in Good Experience
Author, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations; faculty at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program
Psychiatrist, Professor at Harvard Medical School
Gel host
Documentary filmmaker
...and making special appearances...
(view animation)
By Michael Montes, Sacred Noise, and Bran Dougherty-Johnson, Grow Design Work
On Thursday, April 24, attendees went on tours, workshops, and seminars offering experiences all over New York City. Morning "icebreaker" events and afternoon choices were assigned to attendees by ticket-purchase date - see schedule here.. (The earlier people bought, the better chance of getting their first choice for the morning and afternoon.)
Watson Adventures will lead a scavenger hunt through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where attendees will be traveling from Egypt to Rome, from India to China, and from Colonial America to regal Paris. No prior knowledge of art is required. See the Gardens of Versailles... Cupid... an ancient Egyptian temple... watch a mummy unwind... what's on Van Gogh's mind... follow George's gaze... learn why Freud's subject has Venus envy... and much more.
Michael Glenn and Jennifer Sauvageau will teach the art and skill of Sphereplay. Achieve what seems to be the impossible by learning to balance and roll a sphere around your hands and arms. We will explore how playfulness can energize our personal and work lives to help create positive experiences.
Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd will lead you in a deceptively simple multiplayer game called Werewolf (sometimes also called "Mafia"). It's easy to pick up and fascinating to play. Do you have the skills to convince the group you're not a werewolf, even if you are?
Experience fresh, natural, and organic food firsthand. This tour will include discussion and live sampling at leading culinary locations in downtown Manhattan, hosted by Sarah E. Endline, the Mastermind & Chief Rioter of sweetriot. Stops include the original home of Balducci's, City Bakery, and Whole Foods. This tour is good for anyone who is curious about trends in authenticity and purity design.
Make Magazine editor Bill Gurstelle and Etsy video producer Bre Pettis will lead "Building Bridges," which will show how much fun technology can be. Participants will compete to build a bridge capable of supporting the weight of a human. This event consists of presentations and a workshop. Participants in this workshop will improve their skills at making things and learn about teamwork and cooperation.
Douglas Quin will lead you on a listening experience in Central Park to explore the park's sonic spaces and acoustically distinct places, and discover the balance of natural and urban rhythms, sound textures and voices that are part of this unique environment and soundscape. Participants will be given a map of the park and invited to create sound maps, journals, or "scores" of their walk--translating the sound world into their own words and images.
Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D., founder of New York Gallery tours, will lead a guided tour of eight art galleries in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, a world center for contemporary art. You'll see the very newest in painting, sculpture, electronic media and photography. At each stop on the walking tour, Rafael will explain the artwork and lead the group in lively discussion. Come out and see what is extraordinary in Chelsea!
Explore two old industrial areas that are evolving into popular destinations in New York City. Discover how these locations are becoming known for gourmet food shops, ethnic restaurants, boutique shopping, and nightlife. Taste delicious specialties from several food shops along the way.
Join Randy Garutti, Director of Operations at Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, for the trifecta of restaurant experience. Learn how to properly taste wine from a professional sommelier at Eleven Madison Park, watch as the chefs at Tabla prepare a traditional Indian dish with American style, and finish in Madison Square Park with a tour and taste of the legendary Shake Shack.
If your curiosity about American farmstead cheese extends beyond the reaches of the cheese counter, this is your tour! Join Saxelby Cheesemongers for a delicious trip to the Valley Shepherd Creamery, a sustainable family farm producing farmstead cheese, yogurt, and gelato from their flock of East Fresian sheep located in Long Valley, New Jersey. Learn how great farmstead cheese is made. We'll tour the creamery, visit Valley Shepherd's aging cave, see the barn where the sheep are raised, and enjoy a cheese-tasting at the farm.
A walking tour exploring the Manhattan's East Village, a neighborhood made famous by radicals and immigrants alike. This tour combines the history of German, Ukranian, and Jewish immigrants with that of labor activism, the Bowery, and the Second Avenue Stage. Stops may include the Fillmore East, the founding of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Yiddish Arts Theater, and sites associated with Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, Peter Stuyvesant, and Sophie Tucker.
Rachel Shechtman, founder and CEO of Cube Ventures, will take attendees to four retail environments in Manhattan's varied neighborhoods, exploring how brands are moving above and beyond product differentiation and creating unique, engaging experiences. You will listen, taste, touch and move your way through these experiences; each will feature the store's founder speaking and touring attendees around the space.
Cathy Salit, President and CEO of Performance of a Lifetime, will host an interactive, improvisational session where participants will learn some of the "tricks of the trade" of the improviser and performer - in service of creating a great experience for you, your team, and your customers. (No acting experience required.)
Midtown Manhattan is best known as New York's central business district. It is also home to distinctive buildings in a potpourri of architectural styles from the 20th and 21st centuries. Join author and historian Francis Morrone on a tour he'll lead on behalf of the Municipal Art Society, which focuses on New York's greatest Art Deco and post-modern hits. Stops may include the spectacular and beautifully restored General Electric Building, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Rockefeller Center, the Austrian Cultural Forum and the American Folk Art Museum.
Learn the fundamentals of robotics and programming from our Robot Village experts in a hands-on overview of sensors, actuators, and the algorithms needed to control them. Compete in a ball sorting competition, which will test and expand on the skills you will learn. Using the Mindstorms NXT robotic kit, and good old-fashioned ingenuity, competitors will be challenged to build a machine that will be able to sort colored balls autonomously and in the shortest time. (No prior experience with robotics or programming necessary).
Embark on a food tasting journey through an old Italian neighborhood with a guide from Foods of New York. During this tour you will taste a variety of food specialties that has secured Greenwich Village's reputation as being one of the greatest culinary and cultural centers of the world. Discover the secrets to having the ultimate food and cultural experience off the beaten path!
Attendees will visit four sacred spaces on Manhattan's Upper West Side representing a range of spiritual traditions (including the New York Buddhist Church, whose entryway statue is pictured at left). These venues are all new to Gel, so past years' attendees of the Sacred Spaces tour may consider signing up again.
Take a bicycle ride with Caroline Samponaro, Bicycle Campaign Coordinator at Transportation Alternatives, NYC's leading bicycle and pedestrian advocates. As the Department of Transportation adds bike improvements at an unprecedented rate, don't miss out on a live tour of NYC's increasingly bicycle and pedestrian friendly streets from the experts who are helping to make it happen. The nine-mile route will take us along a newly protected bike lane, new Lower Manhattan bike network, East River Bridges, a view of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park, and along the Greenway. (Bikes and helmets will be provided to all attendees.)
Erin McKean, lexicographer & editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition, will drill you on the basics of word creation, give you the "raw materials" for new words, and help you invent your own word to let loose into the English language. The maker of the "best new word" (as voted on by the participants) will win a new dictionary.
P.S. Thanks to Sam Brown, at explodingdog.com, for designing the Gel logo.
