Meetup 7/17

Emily, Eric, Bridget, Christine and Stefan joined us for our Meetup. We had lots of healthy snacks and we commented each other on the great food choices we all made today.

We started talking about our favorite topic: Food. In particular gluten-free food and people in the PNW seem to be more concious of choices. We met with some other coworking spaces that also reported a high percentage of their members are gluten-free. We have some food experts and one food professional, our nutritionist Bridget.

Bridget will do a gluten-free cooking class at the Office Junction on Tuesday, July 23 from 6.30 to 8.30 pm. This hands-on class will feature: 
Prosciutto-wrapped Turkey Meatloaf
Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
Sweet Potato and Polenta Fries
Almond Butter Chocolate chunk Cookies

Register for her class at www.mylifenutrition.com/services. Cost is $45 per person.

Emily reported on her success with some contract work. She used the 'Just ask' method and succeeded.

Christine looked for creative ideas how to spice up 'Art Walk'. Emily recommended 'Art with a view' advertising the roof top bar, a great summer destination.

Bridget talked about her Social Media work, using HootSuite to schedule posts. Christine just started using Buffer for the OJ social media and is still open to any advice to do better. 

Eric just discovered the scheduled posting world and Stefan shared a book his daughter just read about a future were people are not working, but get paid by their social media ranking/status. Potential vs. nightmare. With more social media and advertising, video bloggers, facebook and twitter, most of us will be influenced by social media in the future. Eric shared something he heard on the NPR TED Radio hour about a musician realizing people will download music instead of paying and simple 'asked' her fans to pay her, so she can write and produce more music.

Emily talked about a study researching 'near-sightedness' in kids in relation with 'screen time' and how the vision changes with less outdoor time. Researchers might be able to track how much time someone spent in front of a computer screen by checking someone's vision. Asian kids apparently don't spent much time outside anymore, but get really successful in playing and watching (yes, watching - there is a whole market there) videogames instead. Preparation for the future? Or wasted time?

'Sitting is the new smoking'. We all know how much better we would feel if we would move more. But how incorporate movement in your work day, especially if it's in front of a screen. Stefan had some ideas to connect usual work day movements in workouts, e. g. having an oversized keyboard on the wall or a weight resistant mouse or other physical challenges to get tasks done. We discussed how this could work without losing productivity. 

This goes along with everyone spending way too much time on the internet instead of moving (stop reading and get movin'! or not yet ;-)) and how to set personal barriers for media use. 

Have we ever thought about pulling out cable or internet from your home? 
Have you ever put your TV in timeout?
Have you ever thought about finding a more physical job to keep you healthy?
Have you experienced how media consumption talkes over your life? 
How much easier it is to watch TV then to engage with your partner or family members?
We have! :-)

We talked about how to change our habits, find effective tools and tricks to limit our daily media use.

We also talked about how gmail changed to the 3 tab folders to 'primary', 'social' and 'promotions' and how each of us 'likes' or 'dislikes' it - and how much influence google has over our daily life by doing so.

We ended our lunch at 1.20.

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