sweetriot blog - cacao | culture | cool!

Try this trick next time you're flying.

I had a 940 pm flight to Florida last Friday – flights were super busy due to Easter.   I was hoping to fly early so my family wouldn’t have to be in the airport at 1230 am to pick me up. I called all week and they said there was no way to get on as all flights were sold out.  I went to the airport early anyway.   

The ground check in crew guy for the 645 pm flight seemed a bit grumpy.  I made sure I was on the standby list, and he told me status, class, etc. didn’t matter.  Due to my crazy travel, I had been upgraded on the 940 pm flight to first class but he didn’t care.    I went and asked him politely one more time for an update, and he said he wouldn’t know until 5 minutes before.

Finally, I visited again and said I was sorry but my family was waiting and I was hoping for an update.  This time I pulled out my secret weapon (a sweetriot tin of course).  He was surprised when I gave him a little sweet gift, and then he said, what’s your last name?

A few minutes later, I was called. First class, baby! I'm not kidding!!!  You should try sweetriot gift giving too!  It works wonders.  :)

Mary's Birthday in Florida

I was lucky to head to Florida to celebrate my sister's birthday and yes, we did have many delicious chocolate desserts like the one pictured twice above!   

Not surprisingly, my sister and I ran into the former mayor in town.   I'm not sure what it is about sweetriot and Mayors, but the activism is alive.  They all love to riot!

Dr. Weil & the OTA!

It was an honor to see Dr. Weil again, one of our world's leading health gurus.  He was speaking at the Organic Trade Association (OTA) Dinner at Expo West.  This man is smart and he loves superfoods like cacao! :)

Expo West. Always a 'whew' afterwards

We just returned from largest natural & organic food show of the year, Expo West.  It truly is a 5 day festival of beautiful delicious food!  The team always has an amazing time there -- this year we support the THINK Vitality Fashion Show and the Sambazon, sweetriot, Sahale and more friends party on Saturday night.  Here are a few pictures of our time out West!  Thanks to everyone who rioted there including Nicolas, Bud, Bill, James, Mary, Karen, Debbie, and more!

Expo West - the largest Natural/Organic Products Show in the World!

If you're heading to Expo West, come riot with us!   It is an amazing show of natural and organic products from around the world.  Here are the dets:

sweetriot @ Expo West
March 14-16

sweetriot @ the Convention Center -  Booth # 2479
Friday, March 14 – Sunday, March 16

sweetriot @ the Think Vitality Fashion Show
Saturday, March 15 – 6:30 pm – Tent outside Marriott
http://www.expowest.com/attend/events.cfm#think

sweetriot @ the Sambazon--sweetriot--Numi--Steaz --VitaCoco- & other fun companies’ party
Saturday, March 15 – 9:00 pm – 1:00 a.m. – Hilton Pacific Ballroom

NYU's Eco Fashion Show.

NYU Stern's 'Think Social' social enterprise club put together a great Friday night event, and we stopped by to check it out.   We also gave sweetriot towards their worthy cause.  The highlight was an eco fashion show, which included models such as the school deans.  We love supporting our local university, NYU.  The students did a great job!

sweetriot at SXSW!

sweetriot Loves SxSW and Good Magazine.  Visit a very cool event this coming Wednesday in Austin.  Check it out and enjoy some sweetriot there too! 

Presented to you by: GOOD, sweetriot, NRDC's Its Your Nature & The Hotel San Jose.  A celebration of what makes Austin an amazing home.

Wednesday, March 12 - Noon to 9pm - Hotel San Jose

Performances by: Lightspeed Champion, Deadly Syndrome, Scissors for Lefty, Mason Jennings, The Exit, Langhorne Slim, Hello Stranger and surprise guests

TED 2008.

Intense.   I seriously haven't been able to blog about TED for 7 days because I was percolating on the experience.   Anyway, TED is a conference held annually on the West Coast, which is highly thought provoking; in addition, at the conference and through out the year, the TED organization works to create a community of people who are committed to changing the world through business and more.

Not only did I attend TED but sweetriot was lucky to be featured there and attendees and speakers were happily sharing and snacking on cacao through out the 4 days.

Some of my favorite speakers are not yet online but they will be soon at TEDTalks.  Benjamin Zander of the Boston Symphony was absolutely fantastic.  I will say that one of my favorite presentations used this website - World Mapper - it's an amazing way to look at world statistics.

And lastly, my favorie part of TED was definitely the people...here are a few pictured above.  Artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, and more.

Faith Popcorn.

Faith Popcorn is one of our favorite futurist marketing gurus and she recently hosted the visionary Majora Carter to speak at her home.   sweetriot was of course standing by for the happy guests...

GOOD, Kiva, & sweetriot!

Our friends at GOOD magazine threw another great party with their non profit partner, Kiva.   Kiva facilitates microlending online around the world, and I was happy my friend Jessica, Kiva's co founder, came out to NYC. 

sweetriot was happy to stand by and to support their efforts - Clare did a great job rioting with the crowd.  Here are a few great pictures and GOOD's blog on the event.