So I have just learned about something called The Big Green Egg that has me totally fascinated. The product itself is a really unique type of barbecue grill that I do find interesting. However, what I’m truly finding intruiging is that there is a group of enthusiasts for this product that have really grown up around it to support it as a community.

First things first, what’s the product? Well, The Big Green Egg is a charcoal barbecue used for both smoking and grilling of food outdoors. What’s particularly cool about this product is that you can purchase some add-on accessories that also turn it into an outdoor oven. That means that you can grill steak and bake bread from the same device all while enjoying your backyard. Cool stuff.

In fact, this is so cool that the product has a huge following. People who adore the Big Green Egg actually call themselves (and others like them) “eggheads“. They communicate with one another to share stories about their use of the Big Green Egg along with providing tips, suggestions and recipes for one another. They frequently communicate through online groups and forums.

However, a lot of eggheads take their interest even further than this. They attend conventions and festivals about the Big Green Egg. The main feature event is called Eggtoberfest. It happens every year in Georgia where the headquarters of the The Big Green Egg company are located. Over 1500 people have been known to attend the event in one year. Many of these people also attend smaller festivals called EggFests; there are hundreds of these festivals around the globe.

Why do I find this interesting? It’s not because I’m a fan of the The Big Green egg, per se, although it does sound like a cool machine. Instead, I’m really just fascinated by the things that people get passionate about. I, personally, can’t imagine getting so excited about a product like this that I would travel to attend an event to talk about it. But then, I’ve been known to attend Blogger Meetups, MacWorld and burlesque festivals - interests which would all probably baffle the Eggheads.

How is it that we come by our passions? Maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is a like-minded community of people for almost every possible interest that you might have. I think it’s terrific if you can find that community no matter what it is that you get passionate about!

Tags: big green egg, eggheads, people, society, the big green egg

This is hardly a perfect picture. It could probably be manipulated to be brighter or to have more contrast. However, there’s something that I like about it just the way that it is. Shadowy and imperfect images watching the water that I live by.

Tags: bay, kathryn vercillo, people, Photos, pictures, San Francisco, water

Today’s photo was actually taken a couple of weekends ago at San Francisco’s Pride Parade. I didn’t get too many good shots of the parade itself since it was so jam-packed down there but I got a few good ones of the various people who had come out to watch the Parade. Here’s one:

Tags: glbt, kathryn vercillo, people, photo, pink, pride parade, San Francisco, san francisco pride, sf pride

I don’t work in an office. I work from home and have been able to avoid office politics for a long time. There are many reasons that I’m glad for that but I’m particularly glad about it now because the recession has changed the mood in most offices. At least that’s what it sounds like from what my friends and acquaintances have been reporting from their own experiences in the 9-5 world.

What I keep hearing is that there is a climate of fear in most offices today. Employees are worried about layoffs and cutbacks in hours. There are a lot of closed-door meetings. Employers are scared of what’s going to happen and how to navigate their businesses through these tough times without adding to the climate of fear.

This has changed the way that people are acting in the office. Productivity levels have changed. Work habits have changed. Relationships in the office have change. And people feel really unsettled and unstable and unsure of what’s going on at work which makes everyone a little bit uncomfortable there.

It’s not all bad. There are some companies, particularly small ones, that have been able to create a climate of comradeship in the office and to foster the notion that working together to get through this can be a way to strengthen the core of the business. However, there are also a lot of businesses that either can’t or won’t approach the problem in this way. It’s a scary time and I have to confess that I’m a little bit glad not to be enmeshed in it on a daily basis.

Tags: business, economy, kathryn vercillo, office, people, productivity, recession, work

I recently wrote an article with 20 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People. What the common denominator for almost all of these tips ended up being was that you really need to deal with difficult people by changing yourself rather than them. This is a firm belief that I have for all situations that are making us unhappy. We can rarely change the circumstances around us and can even more rarely change the others within those circumstances but we can always work to change ourselves.

We like to believe that it is the people around us who are causing trouble for our lives. Although the problems that we face do often come to us in the form of conflict with another person, the solutions lie almost entirely within ourselves. How we opt to take in information, react to situations and deal with our own feelings about things is all up to us and that’s something that can entirely alter the situations that we find ourselves in.

For example, your husband goes on a business trip and doesn’t call you when he arrives even though you think that he should. You get angry. And then you get worried. And then you get anxious because you’re wondering where he is and what he’s really doing and why he hasn’t called and who he’s doing things with and … you make yourself crazy and angry. And when he calls, you express this anger and the two of you get into an argument.

In your mind, this entire thing was caused by the fact that your husband didn’t call. In reality, it was caused by your own belief that he should’ve called and your choice about how you reacted to it. Yes, he could’ve been doing god knows what with god knows who or he could’ve been lying in a ditch somewhere but neither of those things would have been altered by your own over-the-top reaction. You can choose to simply not react in this manner and save yourself a lot of chaos in your mind.

This isn’t to say that your husband shouldn’t call if he said he was going to. It’s to say that you can choose healthier options for your own mind and healthier ways of communicating your feelings. You can wait until your husband gets home to discuss how this made you feel and what you wish could be different next time. And you can give him the room to react accordingly. You can choose to be different if you want your relationships to be different.

Tags: change, communication, dating, friendships, how to improve relationships, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, people, Relationships

I’ve been thinking a lot about art lately and about what draws me to different types of art. There are many different mediums that I like and many different styles of art work that appeal to me but I’ve been trying to see if there is a common theme in what I find myself most attracted to. Although it doesn’t hold true all of the time, I have found that I particularly like artwork that depicts people.

I suppose that people in general really fascinate me. I am interested by human emotions and human psychology and human relationships. The artwork that I’m drawn to is artwork that manages to capture those human things in images and to convey them to me somehow without words. (An example that is at the forefront of my mind right now is the work of Kenney Mencher, a San Francisco artist who is showing his stuff in the city this week.)

I am certainly attracted to other types of art at times. Mobile phone art was an example I talked about here recently. And yet, even with that, I tend to be interested in the statement the art makes about humans. I relate object art and landscape art back to the people who aren’t in the image. Is that true for you as well? Do you create stories about art that include people or is there something else in art that draws you in?

Tags: art, creativity, kathryn vercillo, paintings, people

Most of the time I’m not someone who is a fan of newly coined phrases. The reason for this is that I think they’re a trendy way to describe something that already has a name which is totally adequate. However, there are exceptions to this. One exception is the term innerpreneur.

The word innerpreneur is, in some ways, a new word for entrepreneur. However, it describes something that is distinctly different from entrepreneurship and something that doesn’t have another name that I know of. For that reason, I think it’s a word that has value.

An innerpreneur is defined as someone who decides to launch their own business but who is motivated by very specific reasons for doing so. Those reasons have to do with a true desire to start a business that is going to be constantly challenge and to allow for the individual’s own personal growth. The innerpreneur is also interested in creating social change with his or her work. And he or she is uniquely capable of identifying opportunities in society that allow for this to happen.

I think that innerpreneur is a great word to describe a segment of entrepreneurs in today’s society. I also think that the current economy is great for innerpreneurs. We’re in a time when we really need people to be creative and forward thinking in a way that is good for the whole instead of just the individual. Hopefully there are some people out there who will rise to the challenge!

Tags: business, creative, economy, entrepreneur, innerpreneur, innerpreneurship, people, small business, start a business

You know what I think is one of the smartest things that you can do for yourself emotionally? Learn to find support when you need it. We all need people to support our choices and decisions and actions so that we can feel confident in what we’re doing. Finding the right people to support each different aspect of our lives can be hard but learning to do it can make the difference between a tough life and a much easier one.

One of the areas of life that we need support in is our work. Another, for many of us, is our creativity. And for those of us who do freelance work such as freelance writing, those two things often go hand-in-hand. Our creative selves and our money-making selves are all tied up in one and there can be a lot of conflict around that. To be strong enough to resolve that conflict, we need support.

The smart freelance writer will figure out where to get that support. They will realize that it can come in many different forms and from many different people from the support of people who read what we write to the support of people who pay us for our work. Making sure that we know where it’s coming from and that we get enough of it can be one of the smartest things we do for our careers!

Tags: employment, freelance, freelance writing, people, Relationships, support, work, writing

One of the things that has become really important to me in the last year or so is the great friendships that I have with other women. I’ve always had female friends around me but I wasn’t always good at truly developing a close connection with the other women in my life. I feel like that is changing as I get older and I think that part of the reason that it is changing is because I am more and more capable of being a good friend to other women as I get to know myself and become more comfortable with myself.

How I’m approaching my female friendships and working on improving them can be explored a little bit in today’s article on How to be a Great Friend to Other Women. In that article, I focus on a few key things that we as women can do to make sure that we are being the kind of female friends that we want other women to be for us.

Would love to know your thoughts on female friendships and how to make them better!

Tags: be a good friend, female friends, friendships, life, people, Relationships, women