Hey Houston AC friends: I’ll be in your city this Wednesday (Feb 17th) delivering a talk on creating on demand and staying inspired to the AAF – Houston. The event is a luncheon and is open to the public. If you’re coming, I’d love to meet you!
Event: Houston AAF Luncheon
Date: Wednesday, Feb 17th from 11:30a-1p
Venue: Junior League of Houston
Pricing: AAF Non-member ($35), AAF Member ($25)
For more info on the event, visit here.
I want to thank my new friends at Intuit for their hospitality at the XD Forum. I had a great, though short, jaunt to the San Francisco area. A few highlights of the trip:
- Intuit CEO Brad Smith spoke for an hour on leadership lessons. It was killer stuff. Best line of the day, in my opinion, was “Be both Greek + Roman”, or be both a lover of ideas AND action-oriented. It’s fine to philosophize, but be MOVING.
- I experienced the magical stylings of Jamy Ian Swiss, who designs illusions for Penn and Teller (among others) and has consulted and taught magic to many of the greats. In addition to wowing all of us with his sleight of hand, he talked about his work with Edward Tufte on a project illustrating magic. The killer line was about using the “smallest effective difference”, or the least amount of difference required to effectively illustrate data. He also talked about magic as a model for disinformation design. Fascinating.
- I was approached after my talk by someone who volunteered to start a San Francisco AC Group with some friends/colleagues. (Thanks Rochelle!)
- Mmmmmm….dinner at Izzy’s. (Enough said.)
My family just arrived home from vacation in Florida. We spent the majority of our time at Disney World, hitting many of the parks during our stay. I’ll be writing more about the trip over the next few weeks, but I wanted to share a video that my friend Steven turned me on to a few years ago. It is a film of Walt Disney sharing his vision for Central Florida and what could become the “city of tomorrow.” (EPCOT, by the way, stands for “Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.”) You can see that Disney was a man of immense vision, and even though his dream was only partially realized, his legacy still impacts millions of people each day.
This was my favorite moment in Seattle. We took a wrong turn, (actually…several of them…) and ended up at the base of a street called Troll Avenue. We decided to turn onto it, and when we arrived at the top, the above sculpture greeted us. Jennie tossed me her camera and I grabbed a quick shot.
It was unexpected, cool and memorable. (And we almost got into a…well…”creative accident” as I was taking the shot…)
So… I’m in Seattle for a few days. Highlights of the trip so far:
- On the flight, I finished Steve Martin’s UNBELIEVABLE autobiography Born Standing Up . All artists or anyone wishing to build something meaningful must read this book. Really.
- I finished the plans for AC Groups. They’re coming soon to a city near (or surrounding) you.
- I managed to go through the entire landing with my seat not in upright and locked position. (Symbolically slapping myself on the wrist.)
- Today we’re visiting the Experience Music Project.
- I’m currently in the University District staring through a coffee shop window at my favorite all-time movie theatre sign. The Neptune advertises Scorsese’s “Shine A Light” and beneath it says, “Let’s Spend $9.25 Together.” Beautiful.
Thanks to all of my new friends in Jacksonville for a great weekend. This was my first opportunity to get together with a group of college-aged and twenty-somethings and talk about living life with a creative ethic. I was changed by what I encountered. There were some big dreams and bold visions – wow!
(By the way…that whole "Southern hospitality" thing is real. They arranged for me to stay in an amazing condo right on the beach. This was my view from bed each morning. Again – wow!)
