Chicago Tribune
Catalyst Ranch: Where business, wonder meet
March 18, 2012
By Rick Kogan
Rick Kogan experienced Catalyst Ranch for the first time a couple weeks ago when he came to interview Brendan Sullivan and Rick Kaempfer about their unusual collaboration that resulted in a successful novel "The Living Wills." Their story appeared in Rick Kogan's column Literary Saloon in the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Magazine also on March 18, 2012. Rick K. was overwhelmed by his experience of Catalyst Ranch and decided he had to devote a separate article to it. To read Rick's impressions of Catalyst Ranch and the wonder he found here, please click here for the full article |
InspirationTri.be
PASSION & INSPIRATION…IT WORKS FOR EVA…
By Mitch Morrison
Read Mitch's interview with Eva, the owner of Catalyst Ranch on what inspired her to open Catalyst Ranch and why creating inspiring work environments is a passion in her life. Click here for the full article |
Financial & Insurance Meetings
April 29, 2011
Creative Meetings Happen in Creative Spaces
By Regina Baraban
We all know that it takes more than a timely topic or even an inspiring speaker to get creative juices flowing at a meeting. For Chicago-based Eva Niewiadomski, owner of a quirky and colorful event space called Catalyst Ranch, the key to creativity is an engaging environment. "It's incredibly important to how individuals feel, to the caliber of work they create, and to the outcome of meetings," she says. Click here for the full article |
Catalyst Ranch featured in Chapter 6 of "Disciplined Dreaming. A Proven System To Drive Breakthrough Creativity"
By Josh Linkner
Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, Copyright 2011 Josh Linkner
Eva Niewiadomski, the owner of Catalyst Ranch was recently interviewed by Josh Linker for inclusion in his book "Disciplined Dreaming." Her story is delineated as the lead-in to Chapter 6, Preparing Your Environment to Promote Creative Passion. Click here to read the intro to the chapter.
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Biz Bash Chicago
February 14, 2011
EventCamp Discussion Focuses on New Technology, Engagement Techniques
By Jenny Berg
The EventCamp National Conference took place at Chicago's Catalyst Ranch from Friday through Sunday. With an opening night cocktail party followed by two days of educational sessions, the conference let planners explore the ways technology and other new engagement tools are adding value to events—and have potential to add even more. A main theme was that while existing social media help broaden an event's reach, future developments should focus on making events more valuable to live attendees, virtual participants, and sponsors.
Paul Salinger, vice president of marketing at Oracle, led a general session on "Social Casting," or the integration of social media and live events. Using Oracle's 40,000-guest OpenWorld conference as an example, Salinger said that actions such as live-streaming the conference's keynote speeches onto Oracle's Web site and allowing followers to tweet questions have become basic ways to engage remote attendees.
To read the rest of the story, please go to
http://www.bizbash.com/chicago/content/editorial/20008_eventcamp_discussion_focuses_
on_ new_technology_engagement_techniques.php
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Chicago Reader
September 30, 2010
The Nest Issue
Stuff, and how to have it: inside the homes of Chicagoans with a decidedly maximalist aesthetic
By Tate Gunnerson & Katherine Raz, Photography by Leslie Schwartz
Mark and Jeri Webb own enough wooden shoes to hang a ring of them around their kitchen. Sandra Soss's heaps of small dolls make her shelves look like Woodstock in Lilliput. Neil G. says the desire to acquire sleek Italian lamps and mementos of trips he didn't take is in his DNA. Eva Niewiadomski surrounds herself with brightly colored textiles and baubles in which she feels the artists' presence. And Amy Meadows has so many collections she has to rotate them in and out of basement storage. These people acquire at a rate and with a single-mindedness that puts normal American consumerism to shame. But they're not normal American consumerists, piling up new clothes or the latest electronic ephemera. Neither are they hoarders, getting slowly displaced by old newspapers and rubber-band balls. Their triumph is that they've found ways to live gracefully, enjoyably, beautifully—and, some of them, profitably—with their antique crucifixes and American art pottery and vintage candy boxes. They know how to have stuff. — To take a peak into Eva's home and see some of her stuff which led to the creation of Catalyst Ranch, click here: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-nest-issue-stuff-and-how-to-have-it/Content?oid=2491330
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Crain's Chicago Business
September 27, 2010
Thinking Outside the Office -- The best places around Chicago to meet, greet and socialize
By Michelle Evans
In the downturn, the biggest challenge facing meeting planners is delivering a compelling event on a tight budget. But right after the budget concerns comes something less tangible: finding a venue that provides the right ambiance, accommodates the crowd, projects the proper message and doesn't evoke yawns or, worse, gripes. Crain's scoped the Chicago area to find the best places to host networking mixers, staff workshops, corporate parties and more. To do so, we got a little help from the experts – members of Meeting Professionals International, people always on the lookout for a good venue and a good buy. What follows is hardly a scientific survey – think of it more as an insider's guide to some well-known and not-so-well-known venues. To see all the venues featured in this article (including Catalyst Ranch) and to read the rest of the story, please click here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20100925/ISSUE02/100929931/chicagos-best-meeting-spaces-for-idea-generation.
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Corporate & Incentive Travel
March, 2010
Creating Teachable Moments
by Karen Brost
When he wasn’t busy discovering the law of relativity, Albert Einstein discovered a thing or two about training. He once said, “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” Creating that ideal environment for learners continues to be just as important today. . . Start with the right location. Nick Morgan, Ph.D., is an author and communications coach for Boston-based Public Words Inc. He believes that holding training sessions in an unusual setting helps “jolt” participants with new ideas and new experiences. “Instead of the common ballroom, when hosting a training meeting, look for alternatives,” he recommended. “A good place to start is by checking out Chicago’s Catalyst Ranch. Use that for your inspiration.” To read the entire article, click here
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Meetings & Conventions Magazine
February 1, 2010
Great Spaces for Networking
by Allen J. Sheinman
When it comes to creative thinking, productive palaver and making new contacts, the standard meeting room format of table ringed by chairs seems so...standard. But a number of venues around the country offer beautiful spaces where schmoozing can reign supreme. Here are a few stellar examples of square footage expressly made for mingling. To read the entire article, click here
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Chicago's Colorful Catalyst Ranch
September, 2009
Apartment Therapy
by Heather Blaha
The Catalyst Ranch is an event and meeting space that does anything but shy away from color and visual stimulation at every turn. On first glance, these rooms look like they'd belong to a Color Contest home entry... Although the space is larger than most apartments, a lot of colorful ideas can be transferred to daring apartment dwellers. We spotted this tour over at Strange Closets (many more images where these came from!) and pulled a few of our favorite ways Catalyst Ranch uses color. See the photos, click here
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Catalyst Ranch featured in Strange Closets
September, 2009
Strange Closets
by Tate Gunnerson
...Bored of a long bland hallway,Catalyst Ranch founder and former Quaker Oats marketing executive Eva Niewiadomski found a clever way to subvert the staid corporate culture pervading so many office spaces by transforming a long bland, artless hallway into a colorful idea area. Using her trademark funky style, Niewiadomski constructed floor to ceiling wall panels covered with a bright velcro fabric that teams could pin their ideas and inspirations. While intended primarily for the marketing folks, all employees were welcome to jot down their ideas. The program was so successful, the company gave Niewiadomski a conference room, which she decorated with 50s era furniture upholstered in fun colors... to read the entire article, click here
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Shore Magazine
May, 2009
People Persuasion, Innovation Invasion
By Rick Kaempfer
Can you remember back to the year before you started using email on a daily basis? What year was it that you started to carry a cellular phone with you everywhere? When did you start importing and exporting information about every person in your life from gadget to desktop to cyberspace storage facility? What's the next new thing? We asked some folks to describe a favorite new innovation.
. . . to download the entire article, click here http://visitshoremagazine.com/2/?p=4542
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WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago Public Radio
November 6, 2008
As part of the Eight Forty-Eight Morning Program, Steve Walsh interviews Bobbie Soeder and Paulette Eastman from Catalyst Ranch about Proposition 8 (same-sex marriage ban in California), gay "weddings" and commitment ceremonies.
Click here to hear the interview
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Inc. Magazine
September, 2008
Catalyst Ranch has been named to the Inc. Magazine's list of 5000 fastest growing private companies in America!
To bring it a little closer to "our home" we’re officially ranked #87 on the list of top 100 fastest growing companies in the great state of Illinois!
We're thrilled to be in the company of such giants!
Thank you to our clients for making it happen!
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Nikkei Trendy Magazine
An Upscale Japanese Business Magazine
July 2008 Publication
Download the article
English translation:
Professional translation from Japanese to English language by: Mika Sato-Foley of Sakura Translation Inc.
Eating sweets and playing Wii during meetings...
More and more hotels provide “Stimulate right-brain rooms”....
In America, anything related to “right brain” is very popular. Because many books talking about right brain thinking is the success of business consistently became a best-seller, right brain booms are spreading to the hotel industry.
Catalyst Ranch, which is located in the center of Chicago, provides sweets, games, and clay at their meeting rooms to stimulate right brain. “Stimulating five senses brings creativity and innovative ideas. To do so, it is important to make with participant’s vitality to the meeting by using some fun” said Bobbie Soeder, operating staff.
Many major companies are their clients including Google, Yahoo, and Boeing. Recently, their one day course which collaborates with The Chicago Art Institute has become very popular. In this course, participants enjoy the art to cultivate sensitivity at The Chicago Art Institute in the morning. In the afternoon, they learn communication and team work in a meeting room.
Read the entire translation... |
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New York Times
April, 2008
"Meeting on the Right Side of the Brain"
by Elaine Glusac
A key article in NY Times April 30, 2008 featured Catalyst Ranch front and center highlighting the benefit of right brain meetings in order to spark innovation. The Times explained how this realization has moved corporate America to seek out alternative environments to spark the right side of the brain which has been “linked to creativity, versus the left brain, said to be responsible for logic and other thinking. “…right brain meetings are geared toward playfulness to inspire employees and help solve problems,” per the NY Times.
... to read the entire article click here
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Chicago Journal
September 2007
"Making Art Work - Corporate training program takes a creative approach"
by Allison Riggio
It may be years since most white-collar businesspeople went to art class, but a new corporate training philosophy might change the way Chicago does business. The West Loop’s Catalyst Ranch teamed up with the Art Institute to develop an arts-based corporate training philosophy unlike any other...
...to download the entire article click here.
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Excerpt From the Book "Customer Loyalty Guaranteed: Creating, Leading and Sustaining Remarkable Customer Service"
by Chip Bell & James R. Patterson
Avon, MA: Adams Business, Copyright 2007 Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson.
In bookstores Fall, 2007.
Catalyst Ranch is pleased to have been featured as a case study for the chapter entitled “Customer Loyalty Creator: The Decorator.” To download the entire chapter, click here.
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Ensemble Magazine - Benjamin Moore & Co.
Fall 2006
Fueled by a fusion of cultures, colorful design sparks creativity at this Chicago event center. Vintage furniture, bold colors and ethnic art mingle harmoniously at Catalyst Ranch, a place owner and designer Eva Niewiadomski calls "the antithesis of a typical hotel conference space." ...to download the entire article click here.
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Illinois Meetings and Events Magazine Spring Summer 2006 issue “Best of the Industry”
Catalyst Ranch is voted “Most Unique Venue in Chicago” by it’s readers in this prestigious issue.
Unique Venue- “Waltz over- you’ll spring back. That’s the promise of Catalyst Ranch, a fun, funky space that’s all about inspiration, versatility and creativity. The 10,000 square-foot, five room loft space is designed to invite innovation with mismatched color combinations, whimsical art and uniquely designed furniture that is about as far away from corporate America’s cube culture as possible.” |
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Inc. Magazine
August 2005
“I’m stuck. Can you please pass the Play Doh?” In this light hearted but detailed study of creative off-site locations for corporate meetings, Catalyst Ranch is highlighted. Of the five other creative locations around the country, the environment of Catalyst shines in the offering. The writer goes into some detail on corporations who like the local SG2, Evanston, IL make conscious choices in selecting Catalyst when they want to spark innovation in their meetings and achieve greater positive results. The article goes further to focus on the design style in great detail as a key component in the overall meeting goer’s experience. Read the entire article in the August 2005 issue, page 68.
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Chicago Tribune
Jan 2, 2005
All About Eva; A life of collecting at home and abroad is reflected in an Andersonville condo
Look around Eva Niewiadomski's apartment and you will know the story of her life.
A goddess statue from Thailand. A bedroom set from a local antiques store. Collections of decorative birds from Eastern Europe. Niewiadomski grew up in Humboldt Park before her family moved to what she says was a "good Polish, Greek, Irish, Italian neighborhood" on Chicago's Northwest Side. . ... to read the entire article click here
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Crain's Chicago Business
March 8, 2004
“Layoff leads to startup” by Lisa Holton.
The article describes the impetus for Catalyst Ranch, and includes a candid interview with Eva Niewiadomski, Catalyst Ranch's founder and owner. Catalyst Ranch is described as a unique space "positioned to be the antidote to mind numbing meeting space...” which is the current standard offered for corporate offsite meetings. Also outlined is Catalyst Ranch's early nuts and bolts business plan along with advice for the entrepreneur who is considering opening a business. ... to read the entire article click here
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Wall Street Journal
Wed., Feb. 19, 2003 in Section B, Page 10 under
"Plots & Ploys" by Sheila Muto.
Here's what they wrote:
Sensory Stimulation
A bright red wall greets visitors. The games Kerplunk and Mr. Potato Head are stashed on the tables. Hammocks, a chaise lounge and hot-pink and lime-green pillows around a low table offer a host of places to sit. ... to read the entire article click here
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