Starting with Tuesday morning, my brain went into over drive. We got the most succinct run down of the history of branding by Debbie Millman. The premise that successful brands today represent the promise of a new community or family. In short, there are more people living solo today than ever before which goes against the human nature of needing family or a tribe. Through social media, humans have found a new way to connect and create family. Brands that deliver the promise of this connection will ultimately be the successful ones. I felt a little depressed with this, but somehow it explained why I don’t have the drive to jump into social media on a personal level with the exception of wanting to police my daughter’s Face Book page… I get it, but it makes me sad. It makes me want to do all I can as a designer to help people make more human connections in person.

We rolled into a fabulous talk given by Sam Harrison on how  to sell your ideas. We’ve all been there and all left a pitch thinking, “they don’t get it.” – Sam gave us a few tricks to help smooth the process out. I wonder if he has ever pitched to a group that insists on 100% consensus? We picked up his book idea selling to sleep on and hopefully absorb it through osmosis.

At that point we jumped over to a quick session on specializing your firm. This is worth an entire blog as I continue to be unsure of our direction here.

And to top it all off we danced our butts off to the tunes of The Jakarta Band. It was a white party, but we didn’t get the memo until we were already in Denver so had to come up short with white outfits. Wonder if my legs would have sufficed? More community. More connection.

The last sad but sweet day created more internal questions and more resolve.

Sum it up- HOW was amazing and I highly recommend it to any designer no matter how big or small.

Today was one of those great big overwhelming fabulous days. All in one day I heard about collecting what motivates you- as in it might be something you use later. Which is really funny, because this is something I have had to fight in myself all my life- not to be a pack rat and I feel like I’ve done a pretty darn good job with that. Here I find out that all that crap was actually a good thing. On a side note- I’m really good at finding stuff when I need it. Gail Anderson was a hoot and reminded me of a very good friend which made me smile more while I was watching her.

I learned that it’s OK to be a kick ass swaggering female. I am good at what I do, which is really great design and I’m psyched to be doing it. Erin Sarpa and I should have coffee sometime. I like other kick ass women too.

I learned that when I come back again in another life I want to be Leatrice Eiseman. She gets to travel the world looking for inspiration and new trend with color for Pantone. She is the person along with a few others, that tell the WWD what’s in for the coming seasons regarding color. The Pantone color of 2010- Turquoise. I had my turquoise bag 2 years ago! I was feeling pretty smug about this fact. Kidding aside, I heard a lot of what I felt, which seems to be a continuing thread at this conference for me. Confirmation is a beautiful thing.

After the mellow fashion vibe from Leatrice, we found the complete polar opposite with Mike Perry.  He had a stint with Urban Outfitters and I get the feeling he’s still wondering what hit him. He’s a kook and eclectic and just plain funky, but again, its the theme. He is authentic. Gotta love that.

After a day of all that yummyness, Cara and I had to call it a night with burgers and a bottle of wine and a really bad movie featuring one of my favorite bad asses- Benicio del Toro. We’ll forgive him the gory werewolf film.

Did I mention how much I love design?

Andy Stefanovich. WOW! This man was insane in a good way. He’s about authenticity and finding joy in what you do. He’s about being motivated and full of life. He’s about seeing what those serendipitous moments are about- they happen for a reason. Treat everyday as if you are going to a museum.

Andy was our keynote speaker tonight. He was amazing and inspiring. I wonder if he is like this all of the time? I have been accused of being a high strung poodle before- Andy makes me look like one of those mellow hound dogs. It was so fun to watch and be around.

What’s next?

I kid you not, but I’ll come back to that.

Day 1: Sunday morning. Here we are in Denver for the HOW Design Conference, and it’s so wonderfully warm here. We made the decision to expand our minds and probably end up feeling bad about ourselves with all of the super talent mulling in the halls, but what the hec, why not. It’s been a while since I did any sort of “continuing education” thing for myself and Cara is always along for a party. So we came.

9:00 am we stroll into a large room at the Conference Center, you  know the voyeuristic big blue bear peeping in the window? That’s the place. So for our first session of the week, we’re in this large room with a dozen or so round tables covered in paper and all these really fun toys, tape, pencils, markers, play-doh, tape, I love tape, and stuff. In walks this nun. He is about six feet plus and he rocks his habit. He’s making sure we are all behaving. I love this class already. It makes me want to giggle out loud but the room is sort of quiet at the moment. We grab a seat, meet our new best friend Aldo who hails from Vancouver, one of the coolest cities ever, and well, start drawing on the table. I really can’t help myself. Cara is over there building cairns and stuff, and sporting an ear to ear grin. Did we really pay a gazillion dollars to play with stuff. You bet we did, because that is just about exactly what Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee tell us what to do.

Somewhere along the way, our over mature brains have lost the ability to bust loose. I’m thinking this evolutionary process might have skipped over Cara and me, but I get it. We all get to be so successful, snicker snicker, by basically self editing which is exactly how we can’t open our tiny little brains to find the really BIG ideas. Or at least find the kernel of a big idea and let someone else run with it. We’re all Creative Directors! The truths we have learned:

1. Creativity is a habit

2. Think before you think

This class is about running a better brain storm session forever now to be called a brain squall, getting people to participate and doing what you are supposed to do in a brain squall- start throwing down some good ideas.

What I have found out is that all they are saying is all the same stuff I think, preach, and talk about sometimes incessantly.  But it feels great to have yet another way to reform these thoughts and communicate it to our clients. Its great to have more people like us out there.

Oh and Stefan was wearing a nun’s suit because he feels better in a dress…