Personally, I enjoy “geeking” out at the planetarium and am very excited about the latest film,  Hubble 3D, opening tomorrow March 19!

The remarkable images of outer space on the huge IMAX screen will take your breath away and make you think, ‘What else is out there?’

You can watch the trailer and get ticket information at the Clark Planetarium website.

Astronauts Steven L. Smith, and John M. Grunsfeld, appear as small figures in this wide scene photographed during extravehicular activity (EVA). On this space walk they are replacing gyroscopes, contained in rate sensor units (RSU), inside the Hubble Space Telescope. A wide expanse of waters, partially covered by clouds, provides the backdrop for the photograph. Photo and text from NASA.

Tim Riester discussed why science and education are important in a post last year welcoming home space shuttle Discovery.

We invite you to take some time to watch this outstanding talk from TED by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Towns Movement. Like most TED talks, this is a provocative, insightful and informative perspective on some of the great issues of our times.

TED is a non-profit dedicated to spreading great ideas.

Geneva in 2009, by Robert Farthing.

I have spent the last eight days in Geneva, Switzerland, on assignment photographing and interviewing forty Executive MBA students from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. As I sit to write my final report from Switzerland the sky is grey, the air chilly, and the sounds of mopeds, tram bells and pedestrians drift through my third floor hotel window. It has been a long week: exhausting, invigorating, compelling and thought provoking.

I began working with Thunderbird a year ago on a video that included portrait style interviews blending images of life on Thunderbird’s Glendale, Arizona campus with those of Thunderbird students traveling abroad. I interviewed faculty, staff, and undergraduate students at various stages of their education. During that project I first realized what Brand Activism means for me personally.

REISTER shares mutual values with Thunderbird: Each organization strives to activate and inspire people to be the best they can, within the personal and organizational missions that drive them. Thunderbird School of Global Management evokes a powerful spirit of thoughtfulness and compassion on a global scale and you can not help being swept up in what is often referred to as “the Thunderbird Mystique.” When you ask a student about this mystique or global mindset, which is at the core of a Thunderbird education, you will get many different responses that all recognize an empowering sensation that resonates within, creating the desire to work for a purpose greater than yourself.

Thunderbird Executive MBA students are successful professionals who have a wide range of life and work experiences, be they financial executives, entrepreneurs, managers, CEOs or CFOs. Some work for major national and international firms, while others are transitioning in their careers. They come from all over the world. They are striking in their individuality, yet Thunderbird instills in them a foundation of common principles and creates a collective identity. You can go anywhere in the world and find a T-Bird. Alumni honor the Thunderbird brand as exemplary global citizens.

No matter where they are from or how they aspire to apply their education, I find T-Birds to be strong- minded dreamers with a vision to transfer the knowledge and skills they are gaining in ways that aid others in the world. They want to create sustainable prosperity within their field of interest and expertise. They have a concrete value base built on being a global citizen in a changing world. Some will work in developing countries, with farmers or refugees, threading together powerful networks to serve the less fortunate in our societies. Others, representing a broad spectrum of corporate brands, have clearly expanded their views to embody a wider view of the way the world needs to do business, conscious of their impact on humanity.

I leave my adventure in the beautiful setting of Geneva transformed as I know these remarkable Thunderbird students have been. By sharing our mutual interests in activating people to rise above old ways of thinking, I am inspired to be a better activist for all the brands we represent at RIESTER. Behind the products, services and causes our clients represent is the power of human beings with a wealth of dreams, visions and desires we can help them harness. Serving as a Brand Activist for Thunderbird is an experience I will carry with me always.

Bon Jour.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

View of Lake Geneva from Thunderbird's campus, by Robert Farthing.

Clark Planetarium serves as a gateway to science and exploration. I’ve had the honor recently of helping them revamp their website to enhance the online experience for visitors and to encourage real life visits to Clark.

On Monday, space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Right now the shuttle is at the International Space Station with astronauts doing their job to advance human knowledge and add to our experience in outer space.

There is a good chance that a young visitor to Clark will someday become an astronaut. Imagine going for a ride like this:

If sending Americans into space isn’t exciting enough, Utah received its own visitor from space on Tuesday night when a meteor lit up the night sky. Clark has an exhibit of meteorites—these are meteors that made it through the atmosphere and landed on the ground. They are pieces of rock from the earliest days of our solar system and are billions of years older than any earth rock. It’s too soon to say for sure, but there could be freshly landed pieces of outer space somewhere out in the Utah desert right now–possibly at Dugway Proving Grounds, which makes meteorite hunting problematic.

Watch this amazing nine second video of this week’s Utah meteor:

Yes, it’s an exciting week at Clark Planetarium. Visit their new website today and experience the thrill of exploring other worlds. Then plan your visit to Clark in Salt Lake City’s Gateway Mall soon.

RIESTER’s CEO, Tim Riester, wrote about the importance of space exploration and education when the last shuttle landed. If you missed his post, read it here.

Thanks you Clark Planetarium for being such an invaluable asset to Utah.

Alan Perkel, RIESTER

World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

I am not an espresso drinker usually, so this must explain the fact that it is 2:30 in the morning here after a full day and evening and I am writing to share the day.  I think I found the cure for that mid afternoon wall I tend to hit at my desk when nothing sounds better to me than a power nap!

Today I was letting my mind wander around one of the consistent themes that come up when talking to Thunderbird MBA students and that is the idea of being a “global citizen.”  What does it mean exactly?  Am I a global citizen?  Do you have to aspire to run global organizations, or to travel extensively and speak multiple languages?  There is more for me to see and hear before I can offer anything deeper than the fact that I might actually be able to learn French if I really tried.

Tuesday in Geneva was unseasonably warm. It felt like a great winter day in Arizona – minus the brown cloud of smog.  Today was a day when our three person marketing production team headed out on our own to meet with an alumnus at his place of business in the morning and then bussed into the world renowned financial district of Geneva for photos that captured the essence of international business and finance here in this truly international city.  It was a lunchtime scene dotted with book fairs, vendors, cobblestone alleys, street musicians (some friendly, some not) and waves of elegantly dressed business folk maneuvering deftly through bicycles, trolleys, trams, buses and mopeds.  I don’t mean to poke at my hometown of Phoenix, but I wonder if a couple hundred years of business and culture in our downtown center would develop a similar richness and depth of character that you feel walking through this area?

Afterwards we rushed to the new satellite campus of Thunderbird here in Geneva. Historic Chateaus are used for classrooms. The student housing is in post-modern buildings. It all sits within a majestic public park at the edge of Lake Geneva. The snow-capped Alps were off in the distance.  I am sure a poet could find all the right words to describe the fall colors carpeting the grounds along with the young lovers that cooed at each other, perched on an old stone wall, while my photo partner Andrew and I ran around like crazy men capturing all the pictures we could in the limited hour of dying light that we had.

We closed our work day interviewing two students at the hotel.  One in particular, a business executive from Brazil, nearly brought us to tears with the recounting of the way in which he surprised his mother by flying his wife and young son to her home with him to Brazil to share the news that he was accepted to the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  For him the quest to be a Thunderbird student was a dream that started 12 years earlier.  The development sessions that the students participated in today were discussions about the concepts and practical applications of creating sustainable prosperity in global business ventures.  Sustainable prosperity is one of those unique Thunderbird applications that impress the principals of sustainability into the global business mindset.  For this student from Brazil, something clicked today and he was one step deeper into his life as a global citizen.

Below is a video we shot late this evening that further inspires the feeling of being a global citizen.  It is the bells peeling at Cathedral St. Pierre in old town Geneva.  For me it synthesized a day having immersed myself one step deeper into a global mindset, head swimming with the ever moving definitions of a citizenship on the planet and eyes keyed to capture the spirit of men and women striving to develop sustainable prosperity on an international level.  Sometimes you just have to stop and appreciate something beautiful to have it all make sense.

Bon Jour.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

The Palace of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

There have been many moments throughout my career in production when I have found myself standing on location in an unusual place. I would look around and appreciate all the elements that came together that brought me to that moment in time when something remarkable was happening. Tonight I am reflecting on a day filled with remarkable moments.

I have the humble pleasure of being on assignment in Geneva, Switzerland this week.  I am following 40 Executive MBA students from Thunderbird School of Global Management.  My job is to track these students through the experiences of their day as they meet with influential diplomats, economists and esteemed professors.  These are men and women who meet every other week on the Thunderbird campus in Glendale, Arizona over 18 months and this is their first trip abroad for an immersion experience in international business.  The group is a microcosm of the globe with students from places like Pakistan, Brazil, Mongolia, South Africa, the United States and many other countries.  

My task initially has been to be invisible and to capture in still photos, pure moments of their experience here, whether it be engaged in a thought provoking debate with a cohort on child labor issues, or gazing out picturesque windows of the conference room deep in thought, pondering what it means to be a global citizen today.

Today we went to the U.N. and toured the great chambers, where issues of the world have been debated for decades.  I could not help but feel the power of the historic and relevant decisions that have been made here as we moved through hallways of marble in this storied building that was originally built for the League of Nations. 

To be on the floor of the U.N. under the great golden symbol of peace and unity and standing with these students from all over the world was an intense experience.  I am captivated by the students as people and to be able to watch them through a long zoom lens as they debate with passion and compassion on important global matters is an honor.  It’s exciting to witness the spark of enthusiasm through their eyes as they experience a personal epiphany.  Here we were where leadership characteristics like this matter. It is the human quality of compassion, care and concern blending with practical knowledge and the desire to drive the world to a better place.  These are the qualities of leadership that I see being transferred to the men and women in this class from Thunderbird and it was humbling and remarkable to be there.

Although there were many remarkable moments today it seems fitting to end my first entry for this travel blog with this one particular moment. Today I was a RIESTERite standing in the halls of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  I felt humbled to be here on many levels and in a fleeting moment I felt the honor of what we get to do at the agency sometimes, and that is, to play a small role for a client which in turn empowers them to play a small role in the lives of people who may very well go on to change the world in a remarkable way.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

Gladwell discusses research that was completed regarding the question of why, as a group, Chinese immigrants to the United States were outperforming white Americans in the U.S. The Chinese arrived with no money and limited or no language skills. They knew nothing of American culture, yet over time they were more likely to succeed (defined as achieving positions in high skilled and high paying areas) than the Americans.

He references a study that took a group of American ten year old children (any race) and Chinese ten year olds and gave them a difficult math problem to solve. The Americans gave up on average two minutes into their efforts. By contrast, fifteen minutes later the Chinese children were still working at the problem. The cultural attitudes toward persistence and effort are much different.

Gladwell’s books include Blink, The Tipping Point, Outliers and What the Dog Saw.

If you are interested in the development of human potential you will enjoy spending twenty minutes with Mr. Gladwell. That’s our challenge to you, to take twenty minutes to focus on Gladwell’s outstanding lecture. Keep in mind as you listen how he defines the term “capitalization rates.” In this lecture the capitalization rate is the rate at which a given community capitalizes on the human potential of those in its midst.

PopTech 2008 | Malcolm Gladwell from PopTech on Vimeo.

Special thanks to Poptech for posting this video.

Hispanics are a growing and important demographic group in the United States and Latina women have been steadily and increasingly establishing themselves in all facets of American life.  The Conference’s luncheon speaker, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, the first Latina to serve on a president’s cabinet is a wonderful example of how Latinas’ hard work has allowed them to move into important positions of political, social and economic power and responsibility.  But the conference does much more than just highlight accomplished Latinas.   It also serves to inspire younger Latinas to follow their dreams and work toward making them a reality.  A great example of someone who is doing just that is 16 year old Toni Gutierrez, a youth leader being honored in Phoenix today and who will also speak at the luncheon. 

HERDEZ, Mexico’s favorite salsa, proudly applauds the accomplishments and efforts of all Latinas to improve their lives and those of their families as well as inspire others to do the same.  To show its support, HERDEZ has elected to be the centerpiece sponsor for the scholarship benefit luncheon. The luncheon—which is sold out—is an assembly of a Who’s Who in the Hispanic community and serves as a showcase for Latina accomplishments.

HERDEZ is proud to support the Hispanic Women’s Conference.  These women are an integral and important part of American society.

Discovery Pilot Kevin Ford photographed on September 7, 2009 in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station while space shuttle Discovery remains docked with the station.

At 5:53 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time this past Friday, space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth. This was Discovery’s 37th mission to space.

The space shuttle serves as a symbol of human achievement, achievement that is made possible through a combination of science and the ability to dream. The space age began in earnest in the 1960s. The ability of our species to travel beyond our home planet came after millennia of the development and advancement of human knowledge. The generation that first took us beyond the boundaries of Earth would not have succeeded without the breakthroughs of the many generations that preceded them.

The American space program is close to my heart and it serves as an example of why RIESTER works so hard for causes like promoting education. Americans are leaders in space exploration because we are leaders in learning and exploring—vital components of a good education.

As we welcome Discovery home let’s rededicate ourselves to the cause of American education. We owe it to the future of the human species to pass on an education system that is second to none.

Who knows what dreams our children will dream, or where they will go?

Discovery crew members pause in front of the Airstream Astrovan that took them to Launch Pad 39A. From left are Mission Specialists Danny Olivas, Nicole Stott, Christer Fuglesang, Jose Hernandez, Patrick Forrester, Pilot Kevin Ford and Commander Rick Sturckow.

How else does the space program help us? For a partial answer read this report which NASA released last week on the scientific research accomplishments of the International Space Station during its first eight years. These accomplishments include advances in fighting food poisoning, discovering new ways to deliver medicine to combat cancer cells, and identifying better materials for future space exploration.

I hope you are as inspired as I am by the crew of space shuttle Discovery upon the successful completion of their mission. Visit the mission’s summary page on the NASA Web site for more information.

RIESTER is passionate about education because a good education creates the possibility of accomplishment. 

Photos from NASA.

America’s space shuttle photographed on August 30, 2009. The shuttle is the result of the aspirations of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Our generation has kept alive the dreams of the past generation. What are our dreams for the next generation? This photo was made by the Expedition 20 crew on board the International Space Station as the two spacecraft drew near to each other on Discovery’s third flight day. This view shows almost the entire top portion of Discovery, including Leonardo, the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, in the cargo bay.