[ Watch a high-quality HD version on Vimeo ]

I was invited to draw TEDxAustin this weekend. I was skeptical about an event that was so secretive about its contents beforehand, but it far exceeded my expectations. It was well-planned, well-executed, and had a stellar lineup of speakers. I bumped into lots of great people and had some good conversations. Kudos to the team, and thanks to my buddy Sunni Brown for the invite!

The theme of the day was “Play Big,” so I decided to do something special: I drew the background stage and the studio in my sketchbook, then drew the speakers on sticky notes. I wasn’t sure what I was going to with all the drawings, and then the idea of making a video popped into my head. The video was shot with my Aiptek HD camcorder and cobbled together in QuickTime Pro on my slow-as-molasses Mac Mini. Watch the results. (Be sure to click HD!)

Favorites? As someone who hates answering the question, “What do you do?,” Steven Tomlinson’s talk about keeping all your interests in play really hit home. I also loved Carrie Contey’s talk on the power of the pause. John Philip Santos had some terrific images in his talk on genealogical genetics. Both the musical acts, Ruby Jane and John Pointer, were really impressive.

If written notes are your thing, John Lebkowsky has some great ones.

Here’s a photo that Shane Guiter took of me during a break (annotations mine):

See scans of all the sticky note drawings after the jump or on Flickr.

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