As a presenter, I get to use 20 slides that will auto-advance every 20 seconds. That’s six minutes of presenting on any topic I want. ANY TOPIC.

I did some brainstorming today and came up with 10 ideas. I’d like to bounce them off you and get your take. Maybe everyone sees one idea that’s perfect for me to focus on. Maybe a new idea is born through feedback. In any event, I appreciate your thoughts.

Oh, and you should definitely come to see the final presentation at Pecha Kucha Night KC. It’s at Crosstown Station on February 26th at 8:20 (20:20… get it?). And now with the ideas (in no particular order):

1. My social graph is getting weird.
   
   • What do you do when the critical mass of Facebook begins to yield strange fruit? For instance, people you were never really friends with from high school and college suddenly come knocking on your virtual door. And they come revealing bits and pieces of your past that you maybe don’t want co-mingled with your current life. More importantly, do you accept your ex-wife’s friend request?
2. Why am I doing this?
   • I spend my days creating presentations for a living. Why am I in a bar doing it for fun? What do I stand to gain?
3. How To Fake Your Way Into Advertising
   • I got into advertising in a very unconventional (or maybe not) way… I bullshitted my way in. I’ll show how you too can have a career in advertising by making up a bunch of work.
4. The Art and Science of the Heat Tent
   • When I was a small boy, one of my favorite winter activities was to curl up in front of a heater vent and just relax and snooze. Over the years I created an artform of inflating blankets with the hot air, creating cozy tents of heat to while away the hours. I’ll show you the best ways to make your own heat tent.
5. How to make pruno.
   • Pruno is prison wine. Straight up. I’ll show you how to smuggle cafeteria ingredients in your underwear back to your cell and make this shitty brew guaranteed to fuck you up.
6. What is a creative generalist?
   • Have you ever wondered? Even if you didn’t, I’ll tell you.
7. Augmented Reality
   • I’ll admit, this one’s kind of a cop out. I already have the slides made.
8. Story of the ceramic cat.
   • Star of the Bad Gift Emporium, I’ll detail the origins of the ceramic cat and what it means to mankind.
9. The underground Chinese City in Oklahoma City.
   • In the 1940′s there was a secret underground city in the heart of downtown OKC where Chinese immigrants lived. Bet you didn’t know that…
10. If I lived in the 60′s…
    • I was stretching for a 10th idea and didn’t want to quit until I had 10. Move on. Nothing to see here.

See anything that catches your fancy? Let me know please.

This year they asked me to be on the Portfolio Development panel. I thought this was a welcome change — a change that I could bring a unique perspective to. You see, I know jack crap about portfolio development as it is formally taught (although my years in the business have let me catch up). This was explicitly reflected in our panel introductions. After the other two talked about the art schools they attended, I rounded the intros out with:

After going through five majors in college and finally landing on a philosophy major, I decided at the last minute that advertising looked like fun so I faked up a whole bunch of work and the rest is history.

The point is that being self-taught obviously caused me to craft a portfolio/demo reel that was not conventional but was ultimately successful. My introduction always gets a laugh when I speak to students and generally when I have the whole time to myself I qualify that statement with the fact that had I realized earlier that advertising was the industry for me I would have certainly taken the right classes for it instead of just teaching myself. However, at Career Day I only get ten minutes. In the interest of time I left that qualifier off and went into my content, which dealt specifically with demo reels and the importance of having an online portfolio to supplement (or in some cases replace) your physical book.

I think that my flippant introduction mixed with the fact that I de-emphasized the importance of a traditional portfolio made an enemy out of one my fellow panelists (an owner of a design boutique).

When Q&A time came around, the questions overwhelmingly involved interactive portfolios. Most specifically, “How do you create a good one if you’re not interactively inclined?” I mentioned Indexhibit and perhaps some books one might pick up that covers basic web design. However, about 5 questions into the interactive line, my “adversary” barged in at the end and said that “not enough people were asking questions about the physical portfolio book, and that’s what’s important, so let’s talk about that.”

A question came about rules of thumb using copyrighted music came up, which is a topic I’ve had a lot of experience debating over the years. Adversary quickly suggested to “just find a stock sound to use” and while I agree that stock music is a safe bet, I have suggested over the years that if you have the means for you or a talented friend to compose original music for the reel, all the better. I mentioned that I have composed the music for most all of my reels, and was met with “well, that’s fine for you but most people won’t do that.” Had I not been absolutely floored by how catty this woman was being toward me I would have mentioned that anyone with a Mac can throw together some loops in GarageBand and make something good.

I definitely hit a nerve there. For her and her design business, I won’t deny that the physical portfolio book is very important. But for agency types, I also truly believe that an online portfolio has possibly surpassed a traditional portfolio especially for purposes of securing an interview.

What do you think? Am I full of crap when it comes to demo reels and interactive portfolios? Let me know in the comments.

Ultimately, I had fun and I think I really helped a lot of students during the panel, but I don’t think it’s the place for me next year… or is it?

Of course, Robin and I brought Nathan (forevermore known as tatertini) along. He had a great time and dazzled the ladies with his tiny sandals.

If you were at the Tweetup, leave your profile name in the comments of this post so we can have a list of people to follow (if we’re not already following you).

It was great to put faces to Twitter profiles!

I’m really bummed that I won’t be able to attend the farewell festivities Friday night, but hopefully I’ll get to hoist one more cup of coffee with ol’ Brazilian Art Director before he goes.

We’ll miss you, Bruno!

//EDIT: I’m running for a spot on the Art + Copy Club Board, which is a subset of the Kansas City Ad Club. If you’re a member, I’d appreciate your vote on May 23rd. This video should illustrate the platform that I’m running on.

The straight scoop from the flyer:

Feather your mullets. Get the IROC-Z tuned up. Extend and lock the metal horns.
It’s time for BATTLE OF THE AD BANDS PART DUH!

Want to start the night early? Check out the pre-party:
Berg Studio – 1525 Grand
7:30-9:30PM
$20 gets you unlimited drinks at the party, entry to The Brick and that sweet t-shirt.
Plus, BOTAB ‘06 winners Miss Major and Her Minor Mood Swings will be rockin’ the house.

See you there, my peas in a pod.

Snake Saturday tailgating has been a tradition with Robin, my brother-in-law/sister-in-law, and I for six years now, and we’ve gotten pretty serious about it. Last year was the debut of the portable kitchen, and this year will undoubtedly improve on last year’s design. Before my little heart incident, Pete and I had planned on making a podcast available throughout February and leading up to this Saturday that detailed our build plans, gave some jello shot recipes, etc. and so on. Next year, I swear you’ll find all that and more at freakinsnakesaturday.com. Instead, we’re doing our planning and building tonight. So, I wouldn’t imagine it’ll get too fancy this year.

We’ll get to our usual parking lot in NKC (near Denim & Diamonds… one crazy cowboy dive bar) around 8:30 tomorrow morning and set everything up. In years past, there was plenty of beer and jello shots to be had, and there still will be, but the festivities are taking on a slightly more family-friendly slant with the addition of my wee nephew Tyler, friends’ new kids, and well, let’s face it… I can’t quite party like I used to either.

I take the day as an opportunity to take a lot of candid street photography, grill a few pieces of meat in the portable kitchen and unwind.

Robin wanted me to make invitations this year, and I never got around to doing it. If I had, I would have probably put together a little illustration like this:

If you’re in NKC for Snake Saturday, maybe we’ll see you there. Bring your own meat.

A bunch of us went for Mongolian barbecue for lunch yesterday in between symposium speakers and parked in a busy parking lot. That in itself is nothing to report, but after we left to head back, I had been blocked in by a glorious ass driving a silver Mercedes SUV. We had 15 minutes before Ze Frank was scheduled to go on stage. I went back into the restaurant and the gracious Chinese lady let me use the PA system to page the owner to the parking lot.

They weren’t in that restaurant and there were too many other places that the driver could have been, so we quickly decided to hoof it. I left a note on the windshield before leaving.
It may look like the picture is overexposed, but really that’s just the camera picking up my white-hot aura of rage. What did I write?

“Thanks for blocking us in jackhole! – XOXO, Your mom”

We headed down 39th Street, and Average Jane was about a block ahead while I was emailing people at the venue to come pick us up. My friend Jeff picked a bad day to wear flip-flops too, so he was also lagging behind.

We made the 1.1 mi. trek in roughly 15 minutes. Pretty good for me, given how shamefully out of shape that I am

So, in summary, when parking for lunch, don’t be a jackass, find a parking spot or move on. That’s my advice.

I got a valuable email from the curator of the Eichler Squidoo Lens this weekend on the existence of Eichler inspired homes in the Kansas City area.

KC Modern is a repository of modern homes in the area. It was a treat to be introduced to the homes of Don Drummond (pictured). He has a design sense that rivals Eichler. You should log into the site and see some of his homes.

There’s also a blog on the site that chronicles one man’s restoration of his Drummond home. I was also glad to see that if a Drummond isn’t on the market when I’m ready, Form Modern Development (no site up at the moment) in Kansas City is available to create some great modern architecture.

I caught them for the first time last Friday at the Uptown Theater at a benefit concert, and I suggest that you give them a listen. If you’re in the Kansas City area, they’re playing at The Brick tonight and then playing a Neil Young tribute concert at the Record Bar in Westport on May 5th.