Last night the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, along with several other politicians, including Sam Crump, Jim Lane, the Mayor of Scottsdale, David Lujan, who is running for Attorney General, Jim Waring, who is running for U.S. Congress, and Barbara Leff, who is running for State Treasurer, all attended a National Association of Women Business Owners Phoenix Chapter Public Policy event at Alexi’s Restaurant in downtown Phoenix.  NAWBO President Loretta Love Huff and NAWBO Public Policy Chair Lolita Prescod hosted a great event where NAWBO members got to meet with their local representatives to discuss small business issues that affect them.

The Governor told about how when she was eleven years old, she used to work for her mother, a widower who started her own dress shop.

Here’s a recent picture of the Women in Scottsdale’s Woman of the Year awards. This year’s Winner is Paula Cullison, 4th from the left, standing next to my friend, Wink Blair, who brought me as her guest. The Honorable Carolyn S. Allen is on Paula’s other side.  Wink is a founder of Women of Scottsdale, and in addition to having her own PR firm, I discovered my friend, artist, Robert Sutz is her brother-in-law.  Wink has a pretty interesting group of friends, including former Mayor of Scottsdale, Mary Manross, who is standing next to Sleep America’s Debby Gaby, 3rd and 2nd from the right.  Mary sat next to me at lunch, and I discovered we have something in common, her son is a sailor who has his own harrowing tale of rescue at sea.

Great event, great group, I will definitely think about joining.

I was flattered to be sitting on a panel with Dr. Brenda McCaffrey of White Mountain Labs and Michelle Kort of

As You Wish Pottery, moderated by my friend, Kathy Sacks, recently as part of a Phoenix TIE event.  We thought

to tape it late in the afternoon and didn’t arrange for everyone to get all miked up as we would have liked, but

here’s a few snippets mainly from me, Steph. I couldn’t take this too seriously so I amused myself and tried

out the Annotations in YouTube. I think there’s room for improvement w/ that feature, but hopefully

you will get my humor. Enjoy!

“Roni does a superb job – she devotes many hours to researching, viewing, reading reviews, and selecting the best of hundreds of films to find those that meet our high standards before presentation to our Screening Committee for final approval.  Her leadership in and dedication to the Film Festival are unmatched.”
Jerry Mittleman, Executive Director, Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival

Roni Zee is in the role of artistic director for the third year now. She has been working with the Phoenix Jewish Film Festival since 2004. The organization has merged with the Sun Lakes Jewish Film Festival to become the Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival in order to grow, have the ability to promote and reach more people as one strong valley-wide organization.  There are about 27 board members and a handful of volunteers that make the festival happen.

The 2010 Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is fast approaching with the opening gala on Feb. 20 running through March 4. Films will be shown at the Camelview in Scottsdale as well as the Harkins Chandler Crossroads.

Roni is no stranger to the entertainment industry. She was a successful make up artist based in the San Fransciso area for more than twelve years. Her “breaking into the industry” story happened when she and her family lived in Kansas City. After raising her family for several years, Roni was ready for a new challenge. She knew of a professional make up person in the area and called him to ask if she could apprentice for him. He was very rude initially. Roni told her husband when he got home from work that evening. Mr. Zee called him back and must have made a very strong case, because Roni soon started working with the man.  When Roni relocated to the Bay Area, she approached KTVU and offered to do someone’s makeup for free. That led to her first commercial.  She was in the Union originally and eventually became a free lance artist. Her favorite project was “Over Easy with Hugh Downs.” Roni worked on that PBS show for 3 years, and met people from all walks of life in that position.

Roni is very proud that this year there is a selection of high caliber films. We have two Arizona premiers, and several area premiers which was a goal,” she says.  The process begins in February, when the selection committee starts to research what’s available on the Internet and make a list of films they want to review.  Roni even reads international press to keep the festival on the cutting edge.  She says sometimes a film she is interested in will be released before the timing of the Phoenix festival, which happened recently with Waltzing with Bashir. “It’s extremely disappointing when that happens.”  Roni also vows not to show any films that you could already get on Netflix or Blockbuster to keep the festival choices fresh and exciting.  She wants to share these films outside the Jewish community and extends a warm invitation to anyone who is interested in great cultural independent films.

We asked her about her favorite snack as a movie buff.
“Red Vines, red licorice!”   she smiles.
Roni’s definitely earned some Red Vines this year. Check out the schedule, attend a flick, and be to let Roni know your feedback on this year’s festival.

NAWBO association welcomes you to join the Phoenix chapter.

Last night I went to a Phoenix Film Society screening of The FlyBoys, produced by Dark Coast Pictures. One of the producers, Arizona local Dan Urness was there for a Q&A after the film with the Arizona Republic’s Bill Goodykoontz. He was also the film’s stunt coordinator.

The film is about two twelve year olds who end up in a mobster’s airplane during a scam. I was impressed and happily surprised by the quality of the story and the film overall. Dan told us they tried to stay true to a realistic storyline as opposed to a “Home Alone” type silly escapade, and they did a great job. The story was terrific. I was really shocked by some of the events at the end of the film which included airplanes, parachuting, and free falling. No wonder they needed a stunt coordinator!

In the Q&A we learned that the budget of the film was only $2,000,000.00; low by Hollywood standards of course; and that the film’s challenges were running out of marketing dollars and being usurped by a film with the same name. The producers ultimately decided to delay the film’s launch so they could avoid confusion in the market. Someone in the audience had mentioned they tried to look up the film and found the other which was made in 2006.

One of their marketing challenges is that there are a number of reviews from 2008 when the film got out to film festivals, etc. The producers need to re-launch the film to keep it fresh. I would recommend encouraging supporters to post new reviews to all the usual suspects, i.e. Rotten Tomatoes, Flixter, etc.

The film has a great visual web site, although other bloggers and writers will understand when I complain about the press section: there was no easy way to find a text synapsis, photographs or embed video. Also, I didn’t see a Facebook or Twitter logo or links – in this day and age, I’m not sure how an indie film can survive without giving their supporters the extra step and tools they need and want to help promote for them.

At any rate, go see this film in Arizona at the SuperStition Harkins on Feb. 26 and then Facebook, MySpace and Tweet  the flick with your friends so it can get the national release it deserves.

We are in Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show to see the latest and greatest – and talk to companies about launching, PR, visual marketing, digital media, etc.

Last night we went to Ignite Phoenix for the first time. I first heard about it from Kim over at Terralever several months ago. I applied and although I was in consideration I wasn’t invited to be one of 20 presenters. Then earlier this week Perri told our AZ Women in Media group about the event and we decided to show up early and get a free ticket to attend at the Tempe Center for the Arts.

Creator Jeff Moriarty (pictured below) and his friends put on this amazing community event where people can get up and talk for five minutes with slides. This was their 5th event.

We got in with no problem. It was great seeing Shawn V., Scott H., Joe R., and of course Dan S. was there, the Creative Connector himself chatting with Francine H. who promised to attend a future CC. Later we saw the guys from Gangplank and Forty and then we ran into Bill. S.

The event was a great showcase of Phoenix talent and personalities. We listened to everything from a presentation on bat poop to Bluetooth douchebags. I probably could have done without the lecture on public restroom cleanliness – TMI.

We shot a video of the first presentation, called “Use what you got to get what you want” by Nicholas DiBiase. See below.

I highly recommend you come out for the next Ignite and better yet, fill out an application to come present on something you are passionate about. I haven’t decided if I’ll reapply. My topic – Six Million for Six Million is a little heavy and not condusive to audience clapping and participation. But I might come up with something else..

It was fun and kind of surreal to listen to my friend and mentor, Howard Lindzon speak at the MIT Enterprise Forum at the Hilton Hotel in Scottsdale, and not just because he used the kind of colorful language on stage that would have been bleeped on public airwaves. I hadn’t seen How in awhile so I heard about some developments that wouldn’t be news to a regular Howard Twitter follower or reader of his blog. Apparently Inc. Magazine recently said his blog is a must read for entrepreneurs. (Sorry but I couldn’t pull up that quote online, please send me the link if you have it.) The other news – that Howard recently got to open the market and ring the bell for NASDAQ which he told me was a life long dream. I also heard that one of Howard’s many disciples, a guy named Cole, has help found DeedStreet.com, another Twitter application – for realtors. Now savvy agents will be able to instantly trade information on listings, buyers, and sellers. How smart is that?

So, Howard has already shared in his blog that he only got to about page 4 in his Powerpoint while addressing the group. (I think it was at least 12 pages; the MIT Enterprise Forum Group should be sharing the presentation in its entirety soon for anyone interested.) Instead of sticking to his slides, he got on tangents including an inspiring rant about how he has cold called many people, which has lead to a lot of big business for him including early investments from infamous local Life Lock to a lesser known but equally successful company called The Gripp.

He also shared some of the influencers he reads on a daily business making a good point that there’s so much out there on the Net, you definitely have to focus on your area of interest. He said the Internet is about filtering and discovery. His list includes:
Upside Trader
Fred Wilson
GigaOm
Seth Godin
Investors Business Daily
Brad Feld
Techmeme
Techcrunch

It’s always good to be reminded, as Howard said, that failure is part of the process. When I asked him during the Q&A what was his biggest mistake, he answered that he had been working with a partner in the nineties in his hedge fund. They were successful, and Howard said he had a big ego and in his own opinion was way too flamboyant, so his partner ultimately ended up stealing from him which was a very painful experience. Later at dinner we laughed as he recalled having to move out of that office and personally wheeling his leather desk chair across Camelback Road in the middle of the summer.

Howard also joked about his massive Twitter following. People get so mad at him for some of the things he writes, that they send emails to let him know that they are going to stop following him. He said, “I didn’t ask them to follow me!”

One of my favorite remarks of the evening?
How said, “I learned from Mark Pincus you can hate people and make a fortune on social networking.” This was after referring to Mark as a prick several times. Like my other favorite Howard (Stern), I can’t wait to see what he says next. Find out yourself by attending the upcoming Fourth Annual Entrepreneurship Conference November 12 at the Desert Willow Conference Center where Howard will be one of the main speakers.