Wiener Eistraum 2010

Mar 5, 2010 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Video

Some of you might remember the time lapse footage video I made a while back featuring the Wiener Eistraum event.  A new camera and a whole lot of experience later…here’s my 2010 take on one of Vienna’s most beautiful winter events.

From the official Wiener Eistraum website:

The Vi­en­na Ice Dream awes its vis­i­tors by trans­form­ing an ice skat­ing rink into an ice land­scape. Since the Vi­en­na Ice Dream 2005, the dream path run­ning through the ro­man­ti­cal­ly lit Rathaus park has con­nect­ed the two large ice sur­faces. Since 1996, the size of the ice sur­faces has in­creased from 1,800 m2 to now over 5,600 m2. And that isn’t all that’s changed: the event pro­gramme, tech­nol­o­gy and the com­fort and ser­vice have been con­stant­ly ex­pand­ed and adapt­ed to newest stan­dards.

Over the years, more space has been al­lowed for ice stock shoot­ing, and there are now six ice stock lanes avail­able for fierce com­pe­ti­tions Mon­day through Fri­day.

This also marks my first entry with a full HD video at 1080p resolution.  Go ahead, full screen it….you know you want to.

Twestival Wien – HELP NEEDED!

Jan 19, 2009 by Dan Taylor    5 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

Those of you involved in the twitter community have undoubtedly heard of ‘tweetups’, where the local twitter community organizes an event where they call all meet and socialize offline.  An outstanding idea in it’s own right, but a group of organizers from London have decided to take this concept one further and combine a charity fundraising event and tweetup into one cause.  On the 12th of February, twitter communities around the world will band together not only to meet each other, but to raise money for an amazing non-profit organization.

After hearing about the event, I took a drive on over to Twestival and did a bit more reading.  The non profit that twestival will be raising money for charity:water.  While I’ve never had any direct contact with this particular charity, I did work with the good folks from WaterAid a few years back, and know that what these folks are working on is truly a great thing.

Ok, looks good.  Who’s organizing the Vienna event?  Ummm.  No Vienna event?  Well, far be it from me to let my horrible german skills prevent me from organizing the Twestival Wien.  This was spawned on by a recent conversation I had with Amy from LetsFreckle.com.  She commented, “Wow, there’s so much tech going on in Vienna that I just don’t know about.”  You and me both Amy.  Hopefully, this event will not only raise money for a good cause, but spur on future twitter and tech events in Vienna.

And so it is born.  @MountainDan has become the official organizer for the Vienna branch of this global event.  As it stands right now, I’m also the only volunteer, organizer, location getter, and fundraiser (both corporate and private).  This is also my plea for help.  I’ve received a bunch of stuff from the Twestival folks, and to their credit, they’ve really mapped out a lot of procedures and ideas, but have ultimately left it up to the individual (or in most cases, local teams) to handle things on their end.

Right now, we have no sponsors, and no location.  The first official vienna.twestival.com blog post went up today, but sadly only with about the same info I’m writing to you here now.

Location

I do have a lead on a cool location, and thanks go to Thomas Fuchs for suggesting werkzeugH as another possible location.  I’ll be shooting them an email as soon as this blog post goes live.  Ideally the twestival location should have wifi access (the bigger the bandwidth, the better), multiple projectors (event organizers are currently working on live web streams of events around the world, and Thomas Fuchs and Amy Hoy are working on something tied in to twestival that would look VERY cool on a projector.  They’ve bound my lips with duct tape not to reveal any details, but is IS very cool), a decent but not overpowering (the whole point is to meet and talk) soundsystem, and perhaps most importantly: Booze.

Sponsors

Ok, here’s where the good news starts to flow.  I’ve already spoken with my boss, Martin Herdina from fatfoogoo about the event, and he’s verbally pledged support.  We have not, however, gotten into details about what form that support with take?  Cash only?  Cash plus entertainment (i.e. a video gaming station – yet again, need for those projectors), Cash plus some fatfoogoo staff to help organize and/or work the event?  Notice the casual dropping of the word cash?   Ideally, I’d like to see two sponsors for this event.  One that will sponsor the evening, and one that will make a matching donation for all funds raised.

Music

Music is the one of the things that I DO have nailed down.  Smartula, Stephono and hopefully I (time permitting) have our copies of Traktor fired up and will be laying down the niceties all night.  Other Vienna DJ’s are more than welcome to and encouraged to participate.  Simply get in touch (see below)!

PR

Martin has a great connection in Mirjam Mieschendahl from groops.at, and she’s offered to help out in any way she can.  Groops.at has a huge user base, hopefully some of which are involved with twitter as well.  She’s also got a Rolodex with some of the most important media contacts in Vienna (think FM4, Vienna Online, Kurier…etc.) and is the administrator for the women’s group at the Vienna BarCamp.  I’m also quite good friends with Ritchie Pettaur (@datadirt) from datadirt.net, and I’ll be calling upon him shortly.  Needless to say, we’ve got a good lead on getting some coverage, but as my grandmother always used to say – the more the better.  If you are, or have a media contact in Vienna, please let me know (see contact details below).

Prizes

As recommended by the twestival folks, prize raffles and/or silent auctions can be one of the most effective ways to raise money at this event.  Given the recent NPD report that the Nintendo wii was the console sales winner last year, a natural choice is to raffle off a wii.  Another thought that popped into my head was doing a silent auction for a night at the MonzaKart go-kart track in Vienna.  Who doesn’t love go-karts?

Staff

Once a location is secured the next step will be to ensure that we’ve got enough twestivalwien volunteers on site to make sure that the night runs smoothly.  Currently I need someone to work the door and collect tickets (I’ll update this post once I’ve heard a bit more info on that from twestival), and I would estimate 3-4 other folks that will be there in an official capacity just to make sure all of our high-tech is running the way it should.

Help

So here it is Vienna and the world.  You dear author of this blog (and others) needs your help.  Whether you can volunteer, offer your services, or simply donate to the cause, any and all help is now being accepted.

Remember, no donation or help is too small or insignificant.

Connect

Email address: twestivalwien@gmail.com
Official Organizer: MountainDan

So there you have it folks.  I’ve got just over three weeks to pull off what looks like a miracle.  Yes it’s going to be a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day, I’m quite certain it’s all going to be worth it.

Audio

Jun 19, 2008 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under:

Squeeze

Title – Mix – Artist

Gloryhunter – Original Mix – Sweaty Fish
Bomoh – Original Mix – D Dub
Broadwalk – Original Mix – Roberto Rodriguez
Everybody’s Talkin’ – Original Mix – MyMy
To The Mountain Top – Two Arma – The Discowboys
Flashing – Sinebass Beatport Only Mix – Mauro Picotto
Construkt – Original Mix – Ricky Ambilotti
New Day – Dub Mix – Round Two
Memories feat. Aime The Dreame – Fred Everything/JT Donaldson
Get Away – Christian Brukhardt Mix – Anja Schneider

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Deep Into the Vibe

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Jazzy Kinda Sum’n

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Fabrik

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Mostly Naked

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About

Jun 15, 2008 by Dan Taylor    Comments Off    Posted under:

About Me

Hi!  My name is Dan, and I make pretty things.

I’m 35 years old, living in Vienna, Austria.  Here’s a short summary of what I’ve been up to:

• 1999 – Graduated the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY with a Bachelors of Music degree – Vocal Performance
• 2000 – In between singing gigs, I started doing client acquisition/business development with an internet startup, bla-bla.com
• 2001 – On 9/11 I was living in Manhattan, and experienced that truly odd day.  Shortly thereafter I was offered a job in Oxford, UK where I worked as a graphic designer
• 2003 – Returned to the U.S. to start up the American sibling company of the UK parent company I was working with.  This time around as the National Recruitment Manager
• 2006 – Served as Director of Marketing at flix55.com, a video sharing site working closely with a WLNY, a major NYC television outlet
• 2007 – Returned to Europe with my wife, settling in Vienna
• Current – Working as an independent digital media consultant

As you can see, I’ve worn a number of hats over the past 10 or so years, and each position has taught me something unique, which makes for the entire Dan Taylor experience.  I’m a ‘learning through doing’ kinda guy, and I see no project too big to take on.

The goal of turnthescrew.com, which originally started out as an a place to host my images, is simply an outlet for any and all creative work, social media and all things digital news, things I find amusing, or anything else that might be of interested to like minded folk.  In addition, it’s an experimentation platform, which means I try out a lot of ideas here, and pass the best practices on to my clients.

The Long Version

I grew up in a small town in Upstate, NY, went to University in Rochester, NY to study Opera singing, figured out it wasn’t really for me, and then landed my first ‘real job’ during the first internet boom at a company titled bla-bla.com. Even though the name was strange, I learned a ton of valuable information, not only about the business of ‘teh internetz’, but about business, specifically sales and marketing, from the good folks at bla-bla.

I’ve lived in Glens Falls, NY, Rochester, NY, Toronto, New York City, Oxford, UK, Philadelphia, PA, Mineola, NY, and Vienna, Austria. Some might say that being on tour all summer would qualify as a separate address, but I discount this.  I enjoy traveling, but don’t do as much of it as I’d like.

My interests are so varied that I could talk your head off about each topic, but the main things I like to do outside of the work related sphere would include making person video projects, photo projects, skiing, and playing video games (although, technically – that’s part of one of my consulting jobs).  I’ve also been known to lay down a groovy deep house set, or two, and like to pick up the 4 and 6 stings once in a while.  I studied cello as a kid, and would like to start playing it again.  And last but not least, as an American living in Europe, it’s just to hard not to sample some of the finest beers on earth.

I’m currently working with both MindMeister.com and fatfoogoo.com on various marketing initiatives.  If you’re interested in what I can do for you, please fill in the contact form below, and I’ll get back to you shortly.

All the best,

Found Humor – Vienna Edition

Oct 15, 2007 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: Humor

So here are just a coupla shots I got in my daily travels through Austria:

Got this one at Ikea in Vösendorf. On our way in to the store, I noticed this guy casually checking out the sofa on sale. I figured, oh, he’s just resting his eyes, no big deal…kinda sounds like a good idea right now. Well…an hour and a half or so later when we exited the store, the guy was still there, fully asleep. I just had to snap this pic. I wonder what time he actually woke up and decided to go home? Note to self; when in need of a comfy place to sleep where you won’t be disturbed…head to the nearest Ikea.

In the same shopping complex (SCS Wien) at the Spar supermarket, I was casually doing the weekly shopping. I’m walking along and minding my own business when this thing jumps out at me. Let’s just put it this way…Tex was not the first thing that my mind thought of. And not just that…but for only 3.99…such a bargain!