Pure Thinking

CU-Boulder students create Pac-Man Vacuum Game

Check out this video of CU-Boulder aerospace engineering students creating a Pac-Man Vacuum game to demonstrate their use of unmanned aerial system software. It would be even more impressive if they were able to discover a way to get college students to actually clean their dorms and apartments!! -- Tim

Soft+Furry Toys Posted

If you missed Soft+Furry, the custom toy show put on by Cypher13, get clicky here, where you'll experience the resulting toys via the exceptional high-res capabilities of 2008. Most of the toys are sold, but that doesn't mean you can't oogle them - including this one, the uncuddliest of all (Kluver, yeah!).

Date Night

Ad agencies and clients are sort of like couples. In order for things to work out between them, they need to make sure that they have some things in common. Communication styles, interests, lifestyle choices (ahem); all important issues to consider when choosing cohorts. But it's tough finding that perfect paramour, especially if you don't know they're out there. That's where this comes in.

October 9th at the Denver Newspaper Agency Auditorium-- go or be single.

JoyEngine

My pals at JoyEngine run an awesome blog tracking art, design, and the occasional sneaker, and if you're hoping to keep an eye on the stuff that most people don't understand (but will be desperate to in two years), then you should read it. Sometimes it's political, and sometimes it raises eyebrows, but it's always, always gold. Kind of like The Beatles.

Additionally, these are the guys behind Soft+Furry (which you should know about by now), and track the arty side of CO better than anyone else in town, so read up, readers- a little f bomb never hurt anybody.

Yosi & MHGallery

Yosi Sergant is one of the most amazingly talented PR/Pub-types I know. Aside from being one of my most valued contacts for the arty work I do outside of Pure, Yosi is a wonderful person, a crazy-intelligent guy, and was behind the DNC's madly successful Manifest Hope Gallery-- and it shocks me not one bit to know that LA Weekly thought to interview him about the whole thing.

Regardless of your political affiliations, this this is an incredible read and case study on the current climate of campaign event planning and PR; find it here.

Where My Ladies (and Ben Affleck) At?

Road closings, crowds and angry protesters aside, being a Denver resident during the Democratic National Convention has been pretty sweet so far. 

Keeping in the spirit of helping Denver aim to be a great host, we volunteered for The Denver Metro Visitors Bureau and the City of Denver to provide all media with hospitality, support and assistance. What better way than to ask public relations professionals to volunteer for this role. The City turned to PRSA to help staff events with media professionals to assist and help journalists find their way around, access information and make them feel like home.

We volunteered at the first of several roundtable discussions taking place this week at the Denver Performing Arts Complex (for a full schedule, click here). In addition to meeting reporters from L.A. to Berlin to Japan (and everywhere in between), Kate was able to catch Nancy Pelosi speaking at the "Unconventional Women" roundtable and Erika listened to transportation experts from across the country.

KATE: Regardless of whether or not your political views match Pelosi, you have to admit that her road to becoming our nation’s first female House speaker is nothing short of incredible. If you ever get a chance to see her speak, I recommend going.

A new organization called SheShouldRun.org covered the event as well. They’re not telling you who to vote for - they’re just asking you to put candidates on the ballot.  Know a woman who should run? Sign her up! At the risk of sounding way too “girl power!” I’m inviting you to check them out. Susan B. Anthony thanks you. Nominate your sister. Or your mom. Or yourself. Or me? Click here.

ERIKA: Unfortunately, the City didn’t need volunteers for the roundtable featuring Ben Affleck. Oh, well. I attended the transportation roundtable featuring speakers Richard Gephardt, former minority leader of the House of Representatives, and Representative Rose DeLauro (D-CT). I escorted reporters to the media area, answered questions and provided them with background information about the event and our great city. The handful of journalists I talked to said they enjoyed their time so far in Denver. Once media was all settled, I was able to settle in for a dynamic and interesting conversation about our country’s transportation system and the funding crisis we face as a nation. Considering I have local transportation client, it was certainly interesting to hear a national  discussion on the topic right in front of my eyes.

- Kate Miller and Erika Sauerwein

Donkeys, Faireys, and Obama

Whether you're a donkey, an elephant, or some custom mix of the two, there are about fifty good reasons to  lose it over the amount of brains and talent that are about to descend on our dear Denver. In fact, let's talk for a second about how our pants are peed-- particularly my pants-- in honor of the Manifest Hope Gallery, a showcase of modern contemporary artists, acclaimed NY painters and sculptors, and grass root and street artists who will be using their creative talents to support and nurture the change that they hope to sees in our nation.

The long line-up includes Shepard Fairey, Mel Kadel, Sam Flores and Evan Hecox, and their even longer entourage includes Cold War Kids, Nada Surf, and Moby. It opens to the public at Andenken on Monday the 25th, runs through Thursday the 28th, and missing it would be almost as bad as not voting in the upcoming election.

For other useful info, including where to find tickets to Unconventional '08 (read: san-freaking-sational concert), download the full press release.

Download manifest_hope.doc .

Trendy or not?

Whether it's the latest  gossip in Hollywood or the biggest headline to hit CNN, these days it seems like the secret to success is being inline, hooked up and in touch with the world around you.  Luckily, Google can help that happen with a little tool called Google Trends. 

Unbeknownst to me, Google Trends has been keeping people up-to-date for the past two years, so if you've heard of it or if you use it, you're way ahead of me. 

For those of you who don't know, though, Google Trends lets you type any word you want into a search box and then it charts how frequently that word is searched around the world, giving you an international perspective of what's "in" and what's "out."  Hot Trends, a one-year-old addition to the Google tool, will keep you even more informed with its hourly-updated list of the 100 most searched queries of the moment.

So, if you've got a social engagement to attend, if you're looking for new small-talk material or if you're just trying to reconnect with the generation beneath you, try logging on to Google Trends to see what everyone's buzzing about.

Sarah Cass Kicking A**

Sarah Cass, the NY-based photographer with a Colorado area code, got a shout out on It's Nice That today - which is not shocking, considering her considerable skill at snapping indie acts in all their hipster glory.  The fact that her work has made it to one of the best creative-spotting blogs in the UK (I'm saying best because it's my favorite, and anything I say is golden [but I do share that opinion with a significant number of people]) is something that, these days, can speak as much to the legitimacy of an artists career as a review in the New York Times.

Obviously, there are different types of blogs, and getting written up in someone's personal online diary won't really add to your street cred. But the sites led by industry experts - people whose opinions are often read and valued by hundreds of thousands of people - are, as lamely dramatic as it sounds, really helping to shape futures.

Anyway, I bet Sarah's feeling glowy today. Some of that might even rub off on you if you look at her amazing portfolio, which includes most of the golden children our musically exploding city has been churning out.

NYLO Hotels: Holy Wow

There's a new trend emerging in the mid-priced hotel industry, and it's making the thought of rampant business travel seem sexy again.

Case in point: NYLO, a new hotel chain whose first location recently  opened in Plano, Texas. As the picture suggests, NYLO's goal is to create modern, design-conscious (super conscious, apparently), non-cookie-cutter hotels, where today's new class of visually selective travelers can chill out comfortably and affordably. While the hip-travel mentality has been around since people took to the trains, the idea of offering all of that style for not all of those dollars is groundbreaking, and I can't wait until more NYLO hotels open their doors.

NYLO plans to have 50 hotels across North America by 2010, and 2009 will bring us locations in Irving, Texas, Denver/Boulder, Colorado (woohoo), and Kansas City, Missouri.

Via Contemporist