AUSTIN KLEON : BLOG : Posts tagged \'Speaking\'

How to keep going

March 28, 2018

A few weeks ago I gave a new talk at Bond in San Francisco. It’s a list of 10 things that have helped me stay creative in such chaotic times:

Every day is Groundhog Day
Build a bliss station
Forget the noun, do the verb
Make gifts
The ordinary + extra attention = the extraordinary
Art is for life (not the other way around)
You are allowed to change your mind
When in doubt, tidy up
The demons hate fresh air
Spend time on something that will outlast them

I really loved giving this talk. (And, as I’ve hinted, it is a preview of my next book.) If you’ve been struggling too, hopefully you’ll find something helpful in it. Please share it with anybody you think could use it. The full video is below.

(Special thanks to Andy McMillan for inviting me and Paul Searle for the great video.)

The shape of the cards

February 16, 2018

I’ve been working on a new talk for Bond next month. (Tickets still available!) I had these 10 points on index cards, but I was trying to figure out a flow for them, and it just wasn’t working. So I did what you do: I quit for the day, ate dinner, drank wine, and watched several hours of Frasier.

The next day I looked at how oddly I had them laid out on the table in two rows of five. Instead of trying to re-shuffle the order of the cards again, I started just changing the layout of the cards, and the minute I hit on the last shape in my diary doodle above, everything clicked for me, and I had my talk.

That’s the thing about visual thinking and laying it all out where you can look at it: the tiniest tweaks can lead to significant insights….

Keynoting

September 3, 2013

Very pleased (and no, not at all terrified, not me!) to announce that I’ll be giving the opening keynote at SXSW Interactive 2014. I’ve been drawing and organizing panels at the conference since 2008, but this is quite the step up, and I’m honored that the SXSW crew asked me.

I gave my last keynote back in June at HOW Design Live in San Francisco. It was a huge room with a couple thousand people — definitely the biggest room I’d done up until that point, and probably the best talk I’ve given, ever. Alas, due to a miscommunication on my part, we didn’t get any video, but some lovely people on Instagram captured bits and pieces, which you can see below.

Maybe my favorite part of speaking, other than Q&A (yes, I actually love Q&A, because it’s unrehearsed and time I get to think on my feet), is signing books afterwards and getting to talk to people who were in the audience. The line at HOW was at least a hundred people long and it took me 2 hours to get through, but, as should be expected from a design conference, there were some creative moments along the way, such as when Genevieve asked me to sign with a silver Sharpie (why had I never thought of that!?)…

…and when Allan (maybe frustrated from the line length), did a blackout on the last page of Steal:

I’m not doing a lot of speaking for the second half of 2013, but I’ll be hitting the road again next spring for the release of Show Your Work! If you’re interesting in having me talk at your event, drop me a line.

Video: Steal Like A Writer

July 26, 2012

Here’s video of “Steal Like A Writer,” a talk I gave back in June at Cleveland’s Weapons of Mass Creation festival. It’s sort of a remix of the ideas in Steal Like An Artist geared towards designers, musicians, and anybody who wants to get better at writing. Here’s the original description:

No matter what your discipline, it’s hard to get any good work done without clear, straightforward communication. Simply put, being a good writer makes you better at your job. Using a few school supplies, a little visual thinking, and a whole lot of creative theft, this talk will help get you started on the way towards becoming a wordsmith.

Here’s the remixed list of ten:

And here are the slides:

And here are the links to the recommended reading:

It was a fun talk to give and a really nice audience — thanks to Joseph Hughes and the folks at WMCFest for having me.

See more of my talks→

UPDATE: Wanted to share these cool sketchnotes of the talk by Carolyn Sewell:

Video: Creativity and Curation Panel with Maria Popova, Maris Kreizman, and Maud Newton

June 4, 2012

Can’t see the video? Watch it here→

I was so thrilled that my friends and favorite bloggers Maria Popova, Maris Kreizman, and Maud Newton agreed to be part of this panel last week in NYC. It was really really fun, McNally Jackson was packed, and best of all, someone was there filming and has posted a video of the conversation online for your viewing pleasure.

Also, dig these hand-drawn notes by @mosteverybody:

Authors at Google Talk: Steal Like An Artist

May 4, 2012

Can’t see the video? Watch it here?

When I was in San Francisco, the folks at Google recorded a version of my Steal talk for their Authors at Google series.

See more of my speaking gigs?

TEDx Talk: Steal Like An Artist

May 4, 2012

When I was in Kansas City, the folks at TEDxKC had me give a 10-minute version of my Steal talk at the Nelson Atkins Museum after the TEDxChange simulcast. Watch below.

Can’t see the video? Watch it here?

Chalk talk and plain talk on the TV

May 3, 2012

Last week I had the new-to-me-and-slightly-surreal experience of being on three local TV shows — in Phoenix, they did something out of the ordinary: they asked me to draw! The producer found a room with a wall-sized chalkboard, and I talked about Steal Like An Artist while drawing some of the concepts in the book in chalk, and the team later edited the clip and sped up the tape to show me drawing. The effect is really cool:

[Read more…]

SXSW 2012: Everything is a Remix, So Steal Like An Artist

March 12, 2012

Polaroid via The Impossible Year

At SXSW Saturday afternoon Kirby Ferguson and I showed clips from his video series Everything Is A Remix and then had a conversation about creativity, influence, and theft. I collected some of the tweets, photos, and other reactions, and ~~there’s already a video online of the whole 55 minutes~~. (I think SXSW requested that video be taken down, but they have audio of the conversation online.)

Maybe best of all, a small army of visual note-takers were there sketching. Here are notes from Craighton Berman:

It was a helluva turnout — some folks couldn’t even get in and had to listen outside. (So sorry about that, y’all!)

Thanks so so much to everyone who showed up!

Reading Censored Mother Goose Rhymes at The Encyclopedia Show

December 28, 2011

Christopher Hitchens said that “the great thing about writing a book is that it brings you into contact with people whose opinions you should have canvassed before you ever pressed pen to paper. They write to you. They telephone you. They give you things to read that you should have read already. [Putting out a book is] a free education that goes on for a lifetime.”

Last month I got an email from Mike at The Encyclopedia Show Austin, telling me about Censored Mother Goose Rhymes—a charming little book featured in the Ransom Center’s excellent “Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored” exhibit.

Published in 1929 by a writer and editor named Kenneth Banning, it was dedicated to “THE CENSORS who have taught us how to read naughty meanings into harmless words” and was supposed to be a demonstration “of the effect of censorship upon anything it touches.” If I’m not mistaken, it was even passed out to congressmen in the middle of the censorship debates.

It’s a very very funny book.

Anyways, Mike asked me if I’d do something with the book, and while I almost never read my poems publicly, I think this book is even better read aloud, so, with the help of my iPhone, I read a few at the show.

Watch the video →

See the slides →