Spare me.
Tonight after work I’m headed to Bark Productions to see David Schimmel speak about the changing landscape of design and advertising. I realized this morning that my actions run counter to a tweet I published yesterday morning:
Although I’m interested in the subject matter of Schimmel’s presentation, there’s always the risk that half way through I’m going to be completely turned off to the guy. While I was driving in to work I figured out exactly why that is.
If I’m coming to see you speak, especially if I’m paying money to come see you speak, I want to hear more of your thoughts and feelings about an issue or idea and less about you.
Unless you are a very famous designer or artist, I don’t want to hear about how great you are. I want to hear about how great your ideas are. Even then, keep the back patting to a minimum, please.
Being on the C-List speaker circuit myself, I am very cognizant of the fact that self-aggrandizement during a presentation is tantamount to massive douchebaggery to many. As such, I keep my personal bragging confined to a two-minute introductory video which I never reference during the rest of the presentation. I spend the rest of my time sharing my thoughts about issues that the audience wants to know more about. That’s why they paid to see me.
N.B. If attendees want to know more about me, they are free to ask during Q&A or after the event. And, of course, a quick scan of The Google will yield more than one would probably ever want to know about me.
The last time I attended a speaker event I resorted to checking Twitter and playing Solitaire on my iPhone 20 minutes into the event. The speaker was a nice guy with smart work, but I really wasn’t interested in what he was saying. It was too much about him and his office space (albeit a very cool office space) and less about his work (which was fantastic and it was a shame that he waited so long into the deck to parade it out).
Secondarily, I don’t like it when artists and designers try to make something out to be so much more than it is. Yesterday’s tweet was prompted by an artist who made a raft with his friends and took a float trip down the Missouri River. End of story, if you ask me. But he had to get knee-deep in his own bullshit and start talking about how the raft symbolized the connection of communities along the river and how that leads to bunny snuggles and granola trees and rainbows and whatever other self-important drivel was running out of his mouth in the name of artistic rationale.
You took a float trip on a homemade raft. You probably had a good time and even more probably did a few recreational drugs along the route. Good for you. End of story.
Now, if you really were trying to capture the struggle of the proletariat in your series of macramé pot holders, great. I can get behind that. But don’t just sit there droning on trying to make some crap up on the spot because you think it makes you look and sound smart, because it doesn’t. I can smell your bullshit from a mile away and you just end up looking like a douchetard.
So… yeah. Looking forward to tonight! Hope to see you there.