We hope you can join us THIS Thursday, April 29 for our next meet up, a chance to get to know other It’s Better Together members better over drinks and tapas at mi Tomatina in Winter Park. We’ll be hosting a “round table panel” where everyone is the panelist and the everyone can ask the questions, opening up the conversation to whatever you’d like to talk about.

Everyone has questions about starting and running their own businesses and sometimes we just don’t know where we can get the answers. It has always been the goal of our group to support and help each other so we’re excited to open up the conversation and talk about the ins and outs of life and business here in Central Florida for young, creative pros. Attendees will be able to write questions on cards anonymously for discussion during dinner. We’ll pull cards at random and open up the conversation to discuss the answers. This will be the perfect place to ask that question about business or life or art that you’ve been afraid to ask. Come hungry, with a few questions and with an open mind.

Click here for more details and to RSVP (reservations are mandatory)

Hope to see you on Thursday!

Why You Should Buy Art by William Powhida via 20×200

Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing new post “curators,” freshening things up on the blog and planning for our upcoming meet ups and events. We are thrilled and how our group has grown in its freshman year and are really looking forward to continuing our journey together.

-Trisha, Becka & Anna

We hope you can join us for a evening of connecting with other business-savvy pros in the weddings and creative industries! Local design veterans Lure Design will be hosting us for a studio tour and talk with open Q&A about running a successful creative business. Afterwards, we’ll keep social time going over at Stardust Coffee & Video.

Who: Young wedding and creative industry pros interested in connecting with other business-savvy creatives in the Central Florida area
When: Thursday, January 28, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Lure Design in Orlando

For more info and to RSVP, click here.

• Catch up on our fabulous guest posts, event recaps and links for Better Mondays and Tech-Noted.

• Wondering how to stay productive during the holiday break?

• Times Online names to top 50 design blogs, definitely must reads if you don’t already have them in your reader

• Design*Sponge’s Biz Ladies series is an incredible resource of expert business advice and tips–definitely applicable to guys as well!

• Chris Brogan’s the 3 S’s for 2010: Small, Simple and Shared

• 10 essential questions for 2010

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the new year. . .see you in 2010!

• A must read with 2010 just around the corner: Liene of Splendid Communications’ 2009 Mental Detox

• The Joy of Marketing presents a free marketing web summit with 28 successful photographers next Monday, December 28

• Great round-up of department store holiday windows posted over at Poppytalk

• Take a peek into Pentagram’s holiday card archives and their unique way of celebrating Christmas

A look at the hard facts and numbers of this most wonderful time of the year by Bill Shrink (via notcot)

Ok… on to the PAR-TAY! I think it’s safe to say that our first It’s Better Together holiday party was fantastic. There was an abundance of absolutely delicious food, tons of laughing, some new friends, and a fairly epic party booth (photos to follow). But even more importantly, we were able to collect a big box full of canned goods and food to donate to the Second Harvest Food Bank here in Orlando. This was the first time our group has been able to come together for a cause and even though it’s something that seems so simple as picking up a few extra non-perishable items at the store (or raiding your own pantry, because you know you’ve got corn from who knows when in the back somewhere), we know that to those people that need it and to the volunteers that dedicate their time and hours to the food bank, it’s much needed and appreciated.

The incomparable Anna Bond of Rifle Design hosted the event and did such a beautiful job getting everything set up and ready for us. Everyone brought food, drinks, and desserts to share and we all took some time to pretend it was cold outside with our photo booth. We hope that everyone that came had a wonderful time and we hope to see you all again in January for our next quarterly meet up.

Enjoy these photos from the Party Booth
set up by Becka and Nate of Studio222 Photography…

You can see more Party Booth shots (and get bigger versions of the photos) on the
It’s Better Together Flickr

• Looking for a simple, designy, free, browser-based to-do app? Check out teuxdeux (collaboration by studio-mates swissmiss and Fictive Kin)

• Secrets to a faster and attractive web site design revealed

• Five technologies that will continue to shape the web in 2010

• Offline Gmail graduates from Labs with added features: option to choose which messages get downloaded for offline use and the ability to send attachments while offline

• Add your Chrismas wishes to the  Twitmas Tree with #twitmastree