MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Alexander Novikov, a sociologist and General director of the company “Joy of Understanding”. This year Alexander and his colleagues have accomplished a large-scale research identifying the global trends that will, probably, change the Russian society.

Alexander told us about the fundamental conclusions of this research. For instance, people nowadays tend to read less, and that is why information is mostly provided in the form of images or video…

MILDBERRY’s passion for modern art began with the opening of a small art-gallery on the ground floor of the company’s office in Moscow. For more than one year already we have been showing our guests the art works we like ourselves, while regularly renewing the expositions.
And now, in order to be deep in modern art, the time to use a scientific approach and the help of art market professionals came.
MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Alexander Evangeli, an art critic, specializing in modern art, an editor-in-chief of Photographer.ru web resource, the author of many art catalogues and magazine publications. He also lectures on media theory course in the School of Photography and Multimedia after Rodchenko. Alexander told the audience about successful artists and galleries in the world, being the most considerable part of a modern art today. He also covered the situation on the art market of Russia and pointed out the modern art trends.

Alexaner Evangeli websites and blogs:
http://www.photographer.ru
http://azbuka.gif.ru/authors/evangeli/
http://chuzhoi.livejournal.com/

At MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests’ requests we decided to touch upon the theme of infographics once again. That’s why we’ve invited the team of Russian analytic web-source on infographics called www.infographer.ru, consisting of the project’s founder Irina Dobrova and her colleague Maxim Gorbachevsky.

Since the first meeting Irina Dobrova and Maxim Gorbachevsky had to deal with many interesting tasks, and they eagerly did share their experience with the audience, getting portions of praise and criticism. During the practical part of the meeting the audience was asked to do two tasks on infographics; the results were discussed in details. Based on various examples Irina told about the main principles of infographics successful project creation, shared some secrets of the work with the most accessible programs.

The presentation prepared by Irina and Maxim is available on Infographer website.

On November 9 MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Alexey Kortnev. Alexey is one of the founders and unchallenged soloist of “Neschastny Sluchaj” group, talented actor, copywriter, poet, writer and translator. Moreover, he enjoys all these occupations sometimes even more than music. Kortnev told us about the times when he was writing texts and slogans for ads, about scripts for comic TV-shows and music radio programs he writes today, about popular foreign musicals he makes adaptation for in Russia, about music he composes for theatre performances, and cartoons characters he dubs his roles both in cinema and theatre.

Although the theme of the meeting was “About everything but music”, music was constantly accompanying us that evening: we heard Alexey singing both a-capella and with his guitar, were the first to see the video of the new song “Shla Sasha Po Shosse” made by Pilot Studio.
The meeting was lively and informal; Alexey told some funny stories from his life and career, and made everybody absolutely excited and charged with inspiration. The last one we are sharing with you publishing the full video version of the meeting.

This meeting was prepared with the help of Business Relations.

In the Russian business community Sergey Vykhodtsev has been associated with such notions as breakthrough and revolution. He’s introduced more innovative brands and products than anyone else in this country. Invite, Bystrov, Velle are all the products of his audacity and creativity. RSA and NASA selected Sergey Vykhodtsev’s company as one of the firms to develop food rations for the astronauts of the international space station.

On October 21st Sergey was a member of an international jury that assesses business projects of young entrepreneurs from all over the world at GSEA (Global Student Entrepreneur Awards) www.gsea.org. In the first part of MILDBERRY INSPIRATION meeting Sergey told about GSEA founded in 1998 and being the most prestigious among student- and young entrepreneurs. GSEA supports early-stage student entrepreneurs who require much needed mentorship, recognition and connections to take their businesses to the next level of success. Undergraduate and graduate students who have owned and operated a business for at least six months are eligible to be nominated to compete for the title of Global Student Entrepreneur Awards International Champion. The winners get financial support provided by sponsors – successful businessmen from all over the world investing in innovative projects.
This year the projects of young entrepreneurs from different countries of Europe, America and Asia were presented at GSEA. Russian projects did not appear. And Sergey believes the integration of young Russian businessmen in GSEA to become his social-business project.

The second part of the meeting consisted of Q&A session. Sergey’s answers were very instrumental and inspirational for everybody.

On October 13 MILDEBRRY INSPIRATION hosted Masha Gessen, a journalist, writer and a trail-blazing celebrity. A typical snob (deputy editor of the Snob project), Masha spent a long time living and working in the US where she was writing about Russia. Now she’s living in Russia and writing about the US, among other things. She seems to be capable of tackling almost any issue, her articles have appeared in such publications as Novoye Vremya, Itogi, US News and World Report, New Republic, Bolshoi Gorod, Znamya, Wired, Lingua France and Granta. Masha also appears on TV in her usual role of an iconoclastic extremist, discussing various issues from totally unexpected viewpoints.
Unlike so many other journalists who mostly tend to be quite superficial in their materials, Masha digs deep; a talented analyst, she writes profound books and articles that address important political and social issues. Equally adept at both hard work and leisure, she is a frequent guest at parties, has lots of hobbies and is raising two children at that. How can she manage all this? Here are some of the secrets and rules Masha shared with the audience:
- There is not such an option as “not to meet the deadline”. One has just to realize that there is nothing behind this line
- An unanswered mail will likely remain unanswered forever
- One’s work takes time just assigned for it. There is no need to extend or shorten this time intentionally; one has to follow the rhythm.
- Almost every project is scheduled according to the universal formula in terms of timing: there is no activity at the first part – everybody work hard at the second one. Therfore, being involved in a number of projects one can spread his activity phases
- Some changes are very useful. For example, once a week one can work at home. This lets focus on other tasks and have enough time to miss colleagues
- It’s important to go in for sports, since it removes stress and lets one give way to aggressiveness
- A clear distribution of responsibilities in the family, dishwashing machine, food home delivery and other benefits of technical progress help extending the time for personal contacts
And here is, probably, the most important thing. Besides being super-efficient in terms of managing her own time, Masha believes the freedom of choice to be the guarantee of success: “I choose myself the most of my occupations, and that is why I am happy enough, since I do nothing that somebody told me to do!”

On October 21 MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Yunna Vradiy, a journalist, fashion expert, stylist, and deputy chief editor of Yes-Zvezdy magazine. Yunna told us about her observations of the style, fashion and manner of consumption. She believes that the clothes we choose affect not only our relationships with the outside world but also our view of ourselves. There are not such questions as “What Is good?” or “What is bad?” in fashion; the main principle to be followed is aptness. Our will to choose our clothes in a specific way is based on our intention to position ourselves with the help of our apparel, to communicate our social status, success and our view of the world around us.

Yunna has also defined very accurate and useful advices which would undoubtedly make the process of clothing choice easier:
— purchase the clothes you like;
— purchase how much you need;
— choose the clothes produced ethically and able to make the world better;
— your clothes can always turn into a canvas, your message to the world is put on.

The meeting with Yunna was continued with the lively exchange of opinions as well as with audience’s questions Yunna almost constantly answered with confidence and witty. Then all the MILDBERRY INSPIRATION guests were invited to TRIBUNE club-restaurant for the viewing of “September Issue” film telling how the thickest VOGUE issue was created.

Audio

On September 10, MILDBERRY INSPIRATION hosted Yevgeniy Maslov — probably, the most mysterious industrial designer in Russia. Having acquired a huge experience from various projects at home he has been already for 5 years generating ideas for BMW Group Designworks USA, design sub-division of BMW involved in strategic projects for BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce. Last time Maslov came to Russia more than two years ago, and therefore the meeting with him mostly featured Q&A session. Yevgeniy told about his life and work in Germany, “what’s going on in Russia and Europe”. Being a Russian professional working for European company, he also shared his view on industrial design. Answering a lot of detailed questions asked by the audience, Maslov also managed to talk about the sources of his own inspiration.