Blog McGuffinanother what, not a who

My neighbor Gary has been talking about making beer for eight years. Needless to say, until this year no one has tasted a drop of Gary’s beer.

One night, over wine and vodka, Surrey, another neighbor, busts bad on Gary for talking about beer making and it never happening. We get out our calenders - it’s going to happen.

Meanwhile… Joe’s wife Julie is being attacked in her own home by a squirrel who has jumped from her kitchen cabinets onto her head and is now shotgunning around the house like a pinball on crack. From this - Angry Squirrel Ale is born.

Joe did the Squirrel illustration - he’s an amazing guy - check out http://www.joefournierstudios.com/

Marketing Plan: There are just too many laws to be able to sell beer. Therefore, we don’t sell beer, we sell T-shirts. If you buy a t-shirt,  we’ll give you a beer. At the time, this seemed like a perfect plan.

Rule #1: It takes beer to make beer.

Cost Analysis: By far, our largest expense in making beer was the cost of the beer we drank while making beer. The second time we make beer, our expenses will be cut WAY back - we will be able to drink the profits.

After a full day of brewing and three weeks of fermenting, the beer was AMAZING.  The most memorable moment was Gary cleaning his mouth with vodka to back-blow a  clogged syphoning tube.

If there are enough requests, we may even sell hats.

Been a little busy. Been meaning to talk about the HOW conference I went to way back in May (it followed a Vegas trip I took with my brother that that I won’t talk about). Overall the conference was great. Held in Boston, cool town, good people, mostly top-notch speakers (David Baker may be my new Hero). HOW does a great job. I guess there were 4,000 attendants, mostly designers. From this I have two topics to discuss:

side note - I ate a Wrigley Field dog and a Fenway Frank within a 2 day period. Wrigley’s dogs are better.

1. On the first night there was an opening speech given by Jeremy Gutsche, founder of TrendHunter.com, I was running late, finishing off a drink with Mig Reyes, who put together a worth-while blog about the conference. I walk into a packed auditorium, didn’t think I’d get a seat, and start walking forward towards the stage. I then notice that the there are more and more open seats towards the front. It turns out that the first three rows are pretty much empty. Then I put it together, I know most designers are introverted and self reflective - therefore most will do whatever they can to not be noticed without a mighty mouse and strong concept in hand. This of course teaches me that I can grab front row for every speaker throughout the conference, which I do. I can’t sit in the back anymore, I did in Junior High, but now I find too many ways to distract myself: other people talking, e-mail, any shiny things. So if you’re going to a conference with a bunch of designers - the best seats in the house are available.

2. which brings me to: If you are going to a conference to speak:

PLEASE think about what it took for everyone to get there. The cost of travel, the cost of hotel, the cost of being out of the office and  not billing, then multiply it by every single person in your audience. This is what your talk should be worth. Do not misrepresented what your discussion is about. Do not use the stage and every-ones valuable time (read money) to try to further your own cause. Yes. this happened, not often but yes this happened.

Overall - Yes, I’m going back to the HOW conference, and I’m definitely going back to Boston.