The Creative Coast’s blogspot is Savannah’s sounding board for local thinkers, innovators, wanderers and wonderers. Guest bloggers share their thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s blog is from Summer Teal Simpson,  one of Savannah’s non-stop movers, shakers, and all round hip people.  Read on for Summer’s approach to making good things happen……

I moved to Savannah nearly six years ago, leaving behind fast-paced life in Atlanta in favor of the charm, the ease, and the eccentricity of the Hostess City. Finding myself in a state of professional transition, I waltzed into the United Way building in search of a position volunteering until steady employment came along.

That’s the day I met Shirley Sessions, the director of Hands On Savannah, the volunteer center of United Way of the Coastal Empire (UWCE). She was instantly – and is still – one of my most favorite people I’ve ever met. She is genuine, kind, fun and remarkable champion and vehicle for volunteerism in Savannah. By the end of that meeting, our fates were sealed. I would go to work for her in service as AmeriCorps Project Coordinator. It was a tremendous introduction to this great community and one of the more uplifting professional endeavors I’ve ever been part of.

Every other week or so we’ll turn this space over to a guest blogger so you can get thoughts, opinions and creative noodling from all over the map. This week’s guest blogger is Summer Teal Simpson, long time friend and confidant of The Creative Coast, Knower of All Things Cool, Brian Jolly’s housemate and co-organizer of Savannah Stopover 2011.  Read on to catch the latest buzz from Summer….

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We met at Pinkies almost three years back. I remember the night exactly…because I would document it a day or so later in my first-ever blog post for The Creative Coast. For me, it was love at first sight. Kayne Lanahan, a self-proclaimed corporate drop-out who had followed her dreams out the front door of corporate America into a career all her choosing, as CEO/Founder of TheMusicFile.com. Little did I know that eventually I’d trail her, Pied Piper-style, into the belly of the whale.

Savannah’s own Music Intelligence Solutions was featured on The Discovery Channel’s website, just days after coming off a big win at the 2009 Innovation Awards. It would seem that the same innovative and technological prowess that enamored our judges also caught the eye of America’s most popular science/technology/history channel.

What’s the scoop?

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Music Intelligence Solutions, Inc. (uPlaya) took home the gold in the Small Business category for their interactive online services – including creative development, branding, social networking and discovery tools – for established and budding musicians and songwriters, producers, music supervisors, mobile distributors and anyone who has an affinity for music. One of only a host of resources for musicians, producers, songwriters and consumers, uPlaya.com uses proprietary and patent-protected technology to produce immediate, scientific market analysis and popularity ranking prediction of music worldwide.

“The songs that score the best include a certain amount of unpredictability in the music,” CEO David Meredith told Discovery News in the article. “Norah Jones is a great example of an artist who pulled from jazz and pop to create a sound that was different from other artists at the time, but the underlying patterns of her music was strong and the music scored very well.”

If you’re a bargain shopper like us, listen up. (Seriously, we’d buy a broken barometer if it were half off.) The Creative Coast Alliance and Geekend are rewarding you just for waking up this morning. Thaaat’s right, it’s Two-fer Thursday! Actually, it’s more like Two-fer October because when you purchase your tickets to the 2009 Innovation Awards, you’ll receive 58% off the weekend pass price for the Geekend Conference, November 6-8, 2009. (This is valid for the entire month.)

As most of you hopefully know by now, Geekend is the annual gathering of the “geek tribe” (that’s us!) that will take place here in the Hostess City. It’s what you might call an interactive conference with some truly awesome parties, the kind of event that you’ll be texting, tweeting and Facebooking from. You’ll be surrounded by creative geekiness – the brightest designers, developers, techies and social media mavericks ever to descend upon Savannah – for a weekend filled with cutting edge speakers (we’re not kidding here, the list is impressive) and panels, afterparties and networking.