I’ve been here this week working at AGU’s Fall Meeting, which is the largest gathering of geospace scientists in the world. There are thousands of brilliant earth and space scientists sharing their research findings with each other, networking, drinking beer (seriously, these folks like their beer–they tap the kegs every day at beer o’clock which is something like 4 pm and then the conference center smells like a frat party) and just being smart people who have serious concerns about global warming and climate change.
Way to welcome a girl to town!
The first day I walked into the conference center my jaw dropped and a big grin came across my face. The staff at AGU had taken my murals from the 10-year strategic visioning retreat we did back in October, had them reproduced and mounted in stand-alone frames and placed in the conference atrium so they can’t be missed by the 15,000 AGU members attending the conference.
(Oh, and the reproduction quality–Gorgeous!)
Seriously, if you’re a local, you could drive by the Moscone West conference center and see these things from the street. They are that big. OMG Julie-ness in life-size, panoramic color. I don’t think I’ve ever filled an atrium before!
This figures into one of the new goals: to have greater transparency about what the organization is doing for its members. They wanted everyone to see the new vision and direction for the organization. And what a way to do it!
Interestingly for me, I don’t usually see my work again, especially the life-sized originals, once I hand them off to the client. So I typically don’t revisit, in full-scale panoramic color, what I create for my clients. I mentioned this to one of the facilitators I worked with (we revisted the strategic plan during a one-day council meeting before the conference). And she said, “So how’s that working out for you?”
I could get used to this.
Seeing these murals from one of my favorite gigs of all time, reproduced so beautifully and used in such a powerful and relevant way–I’d have to say it’s working out pretty darn well, thank you!
Some of the murals I’m doing at the conference are on AGU’s blog which you can check out here.
Update: AGU’s membership is 55,000 and about 15,000 of them attend the Fall Meeting. The membership number in my newsletter was incorrect.