The AIGA Next Conference in Denver, CO!

 

I recently attended the AIGA Conference, lovingly dubbed NEXT, in Denver and, as expected, came away with a ton of information.

 

Below is an excerpt of my comments as posted on Speak Up. The full story and all comments can be found here (clicking this link will open a separate window)

 

Thanks Joe for the review.

 

Knowing you couldn't be in every break-out session, I would like to add that Stanley Hainsworth from Starbucks put together a hugely informative and inspiring session on Friday morning titled, "All the Best Stuff Stays In-house (and Other True Stories)."

 

Of course, being on the client-side myself I may be a bit biased toward the topic. Still, Stanley put together a stellar presentation, littered with humor and engaging anecdotes that spoke clearly to the challenges (and dreams) of every in-house designer.

 

On a similar topic, Jim Hauptman (L.L. Bean) and Ed Krug (Aquent Consulting) threw down a very informative set of slides (with no shortage of circular shapes) in a session titled, "Building a Breakthrough In-house Agency. Naturally, this was more tactical than Stanley's version, but proved equally as compelling for those of us who spend our time in the coporpate grind.

 

All in all, I thought it was a great conference with an unthinkable number of take-aways. And, yes. Command X was outstanding. While it might be a pretty limited viewership, I would definitely tune into the televised Reality Series should it every find its way to a network. Might even upgrade my digital cable package to add whatever channel it lives on!