Food & Wine Best New Chefs 2010
Monday night was the second night I have stayed up way past my bedtime so last night was not going to be a late one. We were invited to attend the Food & Wine Best New Chefs of 2010. It is definitely an industry highlight for the year. Since I am not part of any industry, I could watch the event from a bird's eye view. I knew very few people there but wanted to make sure I said hi to the belles of the ball, Dana Cowin and Kate Krader. Two people who I have just begun to know and am looking forward to getting to know them better. Love hanging with them. Two smart interesting women. The other people who I wanted to see last night live the life of the young. I noticed their arrival this morning on Four Square was somewhere in the 10pm range when I was thankfully in bed fast asleep.
The industry event started me thinking how each industry is a basketball game unto its own. Different players learning how to navigate the court and the rules. As I am in the midst of having my fingers in so many different worlds that I really belong to my own industry. From real estate to Internet related businesses to food to publishing to non-profit and education, I am all over the place. It is certainly fun, when I am in the chatty mood, to go to an event where I just touch the surface and meet new people yet at other times I feel like I am lost in a void. Sometimes I feel like the spouse of someone who is going to their 20th High School reunion.
That is one of the many pieces I love about the Internet. People can create their own niche, space, group across the globe. If the niche grows, someone can be a self-starter and create a Meetup event and have their own personal industry get together. Every industry is trying to figure out the ever changing social media piece of the world we live in today because it is relevant at this point to success. Yet seeing people who through the Internet have created their own industry or their own success when they would not have had that without the Internet is the industry I am most excited about it.
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Comments (Archived):
This is a really nice counterpoint to your post from a couple weeks ago, “Grrrr…”You cut across so many worlds/industries and then see what’s coming next, how they might take form….that is a really critical thing to “do”. And observing from afar, you really do it.For a lot of people, this skillset is outside of their vocabulary. They need a pithy title or a ribbon to wrap around you (and everyone else). So if there isn’t one, they flail.Having a title can feel validating. But the wrong one, confining. I’m tempted to call you a “trend hunter”. But that feels somewhat both narrow and shallow and since I don’t know you personally, it also feels kind of inappropriate to suggest.Anyway I’m a jack-of-all-master-of-none type myself, so perhaps I’m projecting.But I’ve been amazed at seeing women up the shingle of her own label, and it turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you’re going to go through the effort of creating a label, make it one you love and drives you forward.
Great advice in regards to the label. I like the “jack of all trades,master of none” ….to me, it is a good thing. Trend setter…hmmm.