A successful afternoon discussing creativity in Atlanta
This afternoon’s program for the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was a success. Or, at least, I’m calling it one.
We had, I’m guessing, about 30 folks in my session, “The Art of Being Brilliant.” There were a lot of folks there from the AJC, naturally, including several who attended the SND Quick Course at which I spoke this summer. It was fabulous, though, to see so many folks from other papers, too. A number came from The Independent-Mail in Anderson, S.C. — the town in which I was born.
No one fell asleep, no one jumped out of a window and no one threw rotten fruit. So mission accomplished.
The topic wasn’t just about graphics or design. It was more about how to come up with interesting ideas or fresh approaches when time or resources or other factors may be holding you back. It required me to write a whole new presentation from my usual schtick.
Which was why the gig appealed to me. A new challenge. Bring it on.
The problem — if you call it that — was that I kept having ideas on things I’d like to add to the presentation. So I’d go back and rip up this or that part and completely rewrite it, which required new talking point slides and, in some cases, a change in what pages I was showing.
I spent much of Sunday reworking the show and then worked late Monday reworking parts again. I worked until about 2 a.m. Monday night, tweaking the presentations.
Again, it went pretty well. I was afraid it’d come in long. The time alloted for me was 90 minutes. I ended up with 425 electronic slides. Which, unless I’ve done my math incorrectly is about 12.5 seconds per slide.
Which sounds about right. If you’ve ever seen one of my shows, then you know I run through my stuff pretty quickly.
Here’s the funny part, though: I was glad I opened the final PowerPoint document with my iBook back in the hotel a couple hours before: it took my Mac 16 full minutes to pry open the slideshow.
That’s with an iBook G4, 1 MHz and 1.12 GB of RAM. 16 full minutes. The final Powerpoint documet is 173.9 megabytes.
I gotta start talking more slowly.
I heard a lot of great buzz about the other sessions. Other speakers included Debbie Newby of The Associated Press, Anne Glover of The St. Petersburg Times, Jan Schaffer of the University of Maryland and Richard Halicks and Thomas Oliver of the AJC.
Afterward, we had a great sit-down session with the AJC graphics department and then dinner with Patty Murphy and Joanne Sosangelis. Sorry I wussed out of the sushi, ladies. Back in Anderson, we called that stuff bait.
Tomorrow morning, I do it again: I’ll be giving the same presentation to another shift of folks before catching a plane for Boston.
Downstairs in the lobby, I ran into a big crowd of folks with the signage convention. Not a terribly rowdy bunch. I’m looking forward to a more lively crowd in Boston.
This evening, as I attached my digital camera to my iBook, I suddenly discovered that I failed to reload the Canon software I need to download my photos. Dammit. So unless I can find a good card reader somewhere, I won’t be posting photos. Some blogger I am. Sigh.
Ah, well. It could be worse. I could be in the signage business.
I’ll close with a couple of cellphone-cam shots from my foray downstairs for lunch in the CNN Center food court…
The huge escalator in this shot lifts about four stories up to begin the CNN studio tour. This was formerly the entrance to the old World of Sid and Marty Krofft indoor amusement park, way back in 1976. The park lasted about six months.
Behind the escalator and to the right are CNN offices. the first floor is a food court, ringed by various shops, including an Atlanta Braves fan store and a big CNN gift shop. This photo was taken just as you walk out of the CNN shop.
My daugther and I got our picture taken at that CNN shop this summer.
If you walk forward and bear left, you see more of the food court…
…And a giant LCD screen that appears to be about 30 feet, diagonal. It’s kind of weird to sit among the CNN workers and watch CNN on the huge monitor. Kind of evokes a George Orwell feeling. Or an old Apple commercial.
I’ll have to run down here Wednesday morning for breakfast. I know in the mornings, CNN runs a ton of those “Head On — Apply directly to the forehead” commercials. I can’t say I’ve truly lived until I’ve seen a Head On commercial on a 30-foot screen.
By the way, if you walk directly through the rows of tables and past the shops in the far background of this second photo, you come out at Phillips Area, home of the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Threshers.
