Sooz Media

Cheri Ruane coworking at Design Annex

Todd Vanhoosear and I are hosting a mostly weekly coworking morning and lunch at Design Annex in Union Square Somerville. The inaugural session happened this past Friday. We’re moving it to Thursdays to coincide with Design Annex’s regularly scheduled third Thursday of the month brown bag lunch and afternoon coworking.

I’ve been working out of Design Annex since October 2009 — soon after they first opened their doors. If you need a place to escape beyond your home office or coffee shop and Union Square Somerville is a convenient location for you, this is the place to be. There’s also a great conference room you can book meetings in for up to eight people. The space has been a huge help as I work on my freelance web marketing and photography work plus my new endeavor Awesome Office Party. Union Square is also home to some seriously delicious restaurants including my favorite, Ronnarong. Their lunch specials are $7-$8. Everything is made fresh. It’s a crazy, tasty bargain. You can follow the restaurant on Twitter, too.

RSVP for Thursday Coworking at Design Annex

Let us know you’ll be at the next Thursday morning coworking by RSVPing on the Facebook event page. If you don’t use Facebook, send me an email to let me know you’d like to join us. If you’d like to attend the third Thursday brown bag lunch and afternoon coworking, RSVP on their EventBrite page.

Connect with Sooz Media on Facebook and follow on Twitter.

For the third year in a row I did event photography for the TECH cocktail Boston startup mixer. The photos for TECH Cocktail Boston 4 at Microsoft NERD on July 29th are at Flickr in TECH Cocktail’s photo album. If you’d like to buy a print, visit the album at Sooz Photography. If you missed the event, there’s always next year! Visit their website to learn more about TECH cocktail and the other cities in their network of startup mixer events and happenings.

If you would like help with event planning and photography for your next office party, visit my new endeavor, Awesome Office Party. Mention you saw the photos of TECH Cocktail Boston 4 for a special discount on your first party with us.

Photo of TECH cocktail co-founder Frank Gruber welcoming attendees to TECH Cocktail Boston 4 at Microsoft NERD.

UPDATE: TECH cocktail made a rocking video slideshow with photos I took at Thursday night’s event.

I worked with the guys in Boston rock and americana band Cassavettes to bring their new website to life. I used WordPress and the Bueno theme from WooThemes. Follow Cassavettes on Twitter, connect with the band on Facebook listen to full-length tracks from their latest album Shake Down The Sun and join their email list. If you’re not in Boston, there’s a good chance they’ll be in your area soon enough.

photo of Casasvettes with fans on stage at Paradise Rock Club by Sooz Photography

On April 26, 2010 Design Annex and Sprout hosted CrossHatch at Design Annex in Union Square, Somerville, gathering many of the collaborative groups, design collectives, artist communities and coworking spaces throughout greater Boston.

View my CrossHatch event photo gallery →

The guest list included:

Act Roxbury
AIGA Boston
Allston Arts District
Artists for Humanity
Artists Group of Charlestown
Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media
Betahouse
Boston Cyberarts
Boston Handmade
Boston Street Lab
Brickbottom Artists Association
The Brickyard Collaboration Space
BzzAgent.com
Cambridge Arts Council
Cambridge Coworking Center
Cambridge Innovation Center
Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation
Clean Energy Fusion
Deep Snow Boston
DIYbio
DogPatch Labs Cambridge
Dorchester Arts Collaborative
Dorkbot Boston
East Boston Open Studios
Eliot School
FEAST
Fort Point Arts Community
Friends of Fenway Studios
Fringe Movement
GASP Gallery Artists Studio Projects
Geek Offices
Boston Geek Girl Dinner
Graphic Artists Guild
Hangout Hub
Hyde Park Open Studios
Jamaica Plain Open Studios
Joy St. Studios
Magpie
MassArt, Center for Art & Community Partnerships
MIT Museum
MITERS
Muskat Studios
Nave Gallery
Nerdnite
North Shore InnoVentures
Papercut Zine Library
Pecha Kucha Boston
pinkcomma
Proof Gallery
Prospect Hill Forge
Roslindale Open Studios
Somerville Open Studios
South Boston Open Studios
sprout, inc.
Tech Superpowers’ Digital Lounge
The Center for Arts at the Armory
The Distillery
United South End Artists
Vernon St. Studios
Waltham Mills Artists’ Association
Willoughby & Baltic
Workbar

oneforty (the app store for Twitter) enlisted my event planning help to bring their ideas to life at a party to celebrate their new office. I recommended the food and drink menus, arranged the party space’s layout including balloons and flowers and took event photos during the event. I’m definitely looking forward to the opportunity to work with Laura “@pistachio” Fitton and the rest of the gang at oneforty again.

oneforty office warming party event photos

I shot an assortment of photos capturing the participants and happenings throughout oneforty’s office warming party. View the photo album at Sooz Photography.

Event Planning for Startups and Office Warming Events

If you would like help planning a party at your new office space, get in touch by emailing contact-at-soozmedia.com or call (617) 379-0637. I can help you plan a party for 20 people or 2,000 people including meal and drink planning with local chefs, restaurants and beverage consultants. Onsite help during the event is also available so you can enjoy the party and talk to your guests without worrying about the details.

I joined friends for an Earth Day dinner at Dot2Dot Cafe on April 22, 2010. The restaurant featured an entirely vegan menu. If you’ve never been to Dot2Dot Cafe I highly recommend it. It’s a short walk from the Shawmut stop on the Red Line. Seriously delicious.

View the Dot2Dot Cafe Earth Day dinner photo gallery at Sooz Photography.

I’m organizing a new music series called Do It Solo. It’s a night for Boston rockers who usually play with a full band. At Do It Solo, they break out on their own. This is a music series for music appreciators who like to listen. Hint: solo performances mean it’s not going to be a loud rock show to talk your way through. Listening rocks!

The first Do It Solo show is coming up on Wednesday, February 24th at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge at 1667 Mass Ave. The featured performers are Marc Pinansky (from Township), Ian Adams, and Nate Leavitt (The Blizzard of 78). Doors open at 8:30pm and the first performer goes on at 9pm. Discounted admission of $5 is available to everyone who is on The Sooz List and it’s $8 for everyone else.

Before the music starts, Sooz Media is hosting a tweetup (social mixer) upstairs at Cambridge Common from 7-8:30pm. The first 15 people who attend (and have RSVP’d in advance) will get a free beer.

RSVP for the Tweetup on the EventBrite page and say you’ll be at the concert on the Facebook page.

I’m hosting the 1st Annual Soozapalooza at Precinct in my neighborhood of Union Square, Somerville on Saturday, January 23rd. In a previous life, the building that Precinct is in was home to the Somerville police station.

Soozapalooza is a birthday party and a celebration of my favorite music. I’ve lined up some great bands to perform that night: Ryan Walsh (from Hallelujah The Hills), Good Night, States (in town from Pittsburgh), Houndstone and … the Soozapalooza Supergroup, featuring two dozen Boston musicians from Trucker Mouth, The Lights Out, Old Jack, Aloud, The Rationales, Three Day Threshold, The Liz Borden Band, Angeline and The Crushing Low. The night will end with late night karaoke 1-2am.

Festivities will also feature some of my creations: chocolate truffles and cocounut rum sorbet. If you’re a company with a cool product or service, make contact and inquire about contributing to the Soozapalooza prize vault. Giveaways include an 8GB iPod Nano compliments of Tech Superpowers. Sponsors will be noted before, during and after the event on the Soozapalooza website, Twitter, Facebook and the email list.

Design Annex was bustling with people at the grand opening and open house last week for the new coworking space for designers and creatives in Somerville’s Union Square. In between meeting a lot of interesting people, I shot a few photographs and here’s the gallery. Click on each photo to see a larger image.

One of my event planning projects, Free Agent Jungle, hosts networking lunches for freelancers, free agents and consultants in the Boston area. The next event is coming up on Thursday, November 19th at Tavern In The Square in Porter Square, Cambridge. My favorite aspect of the lunch is the diverse group of participants from many different fields of work who attend: attorneys, writers, publicists, marketers, technologists, engineers, architects, graphic designers and more. It’s a great event if you want to get out of your home office for a couple hours or find a collaborator (or referral) for new work.

Learn more about the lunch on the Free Agent Jungle website.