Digital Arts Service Corps - california

Premieres, Premieres, Premieres

Rich Beckermeyer — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:07:18 +0000

We have been working on premieres for our summer programming, among other things, for California Voices. My specific role was to create the promotional flyers and postcards. A byproduct was putting the new design for the programs on T-Shirts we ended up giving out to the students who participated in the program.

Our biggest challenge we ran into was we wanted to do a six hour premiere with 2 hours going to each of the three parts of the CA Voices Initiative. We didn't schedule a venue soon enough to hold all three programs so we ended up having to split up into separate venues, dates and times. This afforded us to have more targeted marketing though, with our Hmong Voices Film Premiere being promoted on a Hmong language heavy TV channel, newspaper and making the front page of the online edition of the city newspaper. We filled up the venue and it was a great success with over 100 people for the first film premiere we've done in the Sacramento area. Our Latino Voices Film Premiere will be at a local latino club and will have cultural performances and our Native Voices Film Premiere will be the featured entertainment at a regionally and culturally prestigious banquet in December.

I have also been working with the youth entrepreneurship aspect of our organization, the Youth Empowerment Studio. Using a youth development model to create a safe place for teens to learn we have about 30 youth between our two offices. A planning meeting this weekend helped flesh out what the students in our office would like to learn and provide to clients throughout this next year: media conversion, trainings for other non-profits and businesses, videos and some graphic design/web design.

The biggest challenge I've faced with the organization is getting them to use industry standard software. Its a big expense, but its all about the perceived expertise of the youth and us. If we are using Adobe software and are Adobe or Apple certified, other organizations and businesses will perceive us as more qualified and more able to provide technical support, which seems to be the direction they want to go.

Finally, I am creating a communication survey to understand how we as an organization process information flow and creation. From this I will be better able to recommend equipment purchases and further training/ certification we need to undergo.

That's it for now. Attached is a postcard for our Latino Voices Film Premiere.

This girl has landed!

Naomi Jimenez — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 08:26:12 +0000

I flew to Oakland from the Boston PSO at 10:30 pm (I'm a Philly girl so that is 1:30 am my time) and was so tired yet filled with excitement. I can't believe my cat and I made it in one piece! My supervisor from OTX-West (Oakland Technology Exchange) picked me up from the airport. I was missing one of my bags thanks to Delta but that didn't bother me because I was in Cali! My supervisor took me to my co-workers house in Alameda where I would be staying until I find a place. Him and his wife are really cool folks. They've never met me but they offered their home to me. We sat back and talked, ate expensive cheese and drank some wine (now that's my kind of greeting).

In the morning, I went with my co-working to OTX-West to get a tour of the site and sit in on the computer literacy class that he was teaching. This place is awesome! They have done so much already to help bridge the digital divide in Oakland. I'm really glad I'm a part of their team I checked out my desk and it is cool. I don't think I've ever had a desk before so I"m excited to have one. I can't wait to start on Monday! , I look forward to my year of service and helping OTX-West better server the people of Oakland. Later....

Naomi

First Entry... EVER

Corey Funderburk — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:18:37 +0000

This is the first official blog that I have ever written, very exciting. I've been here in Boston for nearly 24 hours (another first) for the Pre-Service Orientation. It's been great-- great cruisin', great people, great sight seeing (following the Red Line, you know who you are) and, of course, great blogging. When I leave here tomorrow I will return to San Diego, CA where I was born and raised and will also be serving, although an hour or so away from home. Laura Hanley and I will be living and serving together at a non-profit called Pangea Foundation. The specifics of our duties are still under construction but I'm definitely excited for the possibilities! I'm looking forward to meeting other Vistas in the area and maybe even doing some "social networking" which has gotten a lot of discussion time at the PSO. All in all, PSO has been awesome, and I think this year will be a great adventure :)