Sunni Brown » Appearances & Interviews

Interview with Adobe CS Extraordinaire Deke McClelland and my Lovable, Slave-Driving Editor

Sunni — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:38:36 +0000

I like to make the most of my work trips around the country, and evidently my editor at O’Reilly, Colleen Wheeler, likes me to do that as well. So while I was returning from a presentation on The Doodle Revolution, she asked me to interview on Martini Hour with she and her co-host, Deke McClelland, the author of, oh I don’t know, 99 books on the Adobe Creative Suite. Because the show was called “Martini Hour,” it was not in my vocabulary to say no. So we all took our shoes off and proceeded to have a lively conversation about visual thinking, the importance of the doodle, innovation in the workplace using design thinking, and how much I thought the two of them should be in love because they got along so well. Oh, and of course, we also discussed our forthcoming book, GameStorming, which is a playbook for explaining why and how you can get your hands dirty at work using visual thinking to solve business problems. To hear the audio, click: MartiniHour-075-128Kbps. But first, pour yourself a dirty martini.

Foo Camp 2010 – The Doodle Revolution, Ignite-Style

Sunni — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:26:06 +0000

I was planning to write up a description of Foo Camp 2010 myself, but I decided to be more time-savvy and just use the content from Wikipedia, below. Suffice it to say that it was an honor to be invited and a pleasure to present The Doodle Revolution to such a stellar audience. Some highlights from my experience include (as I mentioned), presenting on the topic above, bonding with author Scott Berkun who, seemingly impossibly, is even more likable in person, meeting June Cohen, Executive Producer of the TED Conference and finally, drinking bourbon with my editor, Colleen Wheeler who – poor thing – was probably relying on bourbon to get her through the last edits of Gamestorming, which comes out in July. Colleen, you are amazing. I will send a non-alcoholic present your way very soon.

FYI, reader, Foo Camp is an annual hacker unconference hosted by publisher O’Reilly Media. O’Reilly describes it as “the wiki of conferences”, where the program is developed by the attendees at the event, using big whiteboard schedule templates that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees to optimize the schedule. The goal of the event is to reach out to new people who will increase the company’s intelligence about new technologies, and to create opportunities for cross-fertilization between people and technologies that are on the O’Reilly radar. Some have described it as a meta-birds-of-a-feather session, that gets smart people together to discuss technology issues. [Added by Sunni:] During the event, people camp out in actual tents – not something I expected to do in the desert heat of Sebastopol, CA. But for this crowd, it ended up being worth it. Thank you, O’Reilly, for being a publisher that defies tradition and instead focuses on innovation. Nice work.

Visual Thinking: The Conversation on 5by5.tv

Sunni — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 14:48:07 +0000

The Creative Series – Guest Blogging with the incredible Steven Pressfield

Sunni — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:23:57 +0000

Thanks to Twitter, my visual book summaries of The War of Art eventually made their way around to the author himself, Steven Pressfield. According to him, he was “floored” by the work (and I then floored by extension) and he asked me to be a guest blogger for his blog series, The Creative Process. It took me a nanosecond to agree and I was delighted when I received the interview questions, as they clearly indicated that he had done his homework (although what would I expect from the man who wrote Killing Rommel), and that he was genuinely interested in my work. I responded thoughtfully and tried to do justice to his questions, which I hope I did. You can judge for yourself by reading our exchange. And Steven, if you happen to read this blog post, know that your work is respected, admired and appreciated more than I can describe. Perhaps I should draw you another picture to tell you thank you.

TEDx UT – The Doodle Revolution

Sunni — Sat, 01 May 2010 07:34:54 +0000

TEDx UT: The Doodle Revolution

Sunni — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:43:13 +0000

On my way to Wimberley a couple of months ago, I got a call from Derek Woodgate. He was on the planning team for TEDx UT and I assumed he was going to ask me for speaker recommendations, since our team had just produced TEDx Austin and we had a long list of incredible possible presenters. You can imagine my surprise then, when he said that the committee wanted me to be one of the speakers. I mean – I’m good – but I wasn’t sure if I was TEDx good. However, never one to miss an opportunity, I said yes and then hung up and had to roll down my window to get some fresh air. Speaking in front of academicians and graduate students about visuals and the brain opens yourself up to all sorts of criticism about your empirical data. But I’m Ms. Brown. Risk never stopped me before. So, like all good girl scouts, I did a lot of homework, prepared for weeks, and custom-doodled my slides so the audience would have fun and learn at the same time. I think they did and I think I did justice to the TED brand. Once I get the digital video, you can see for yourself.

SXSW Interactive 2010: Done and done.

Sunni — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:43:43 +0000

2010 was my most immersive year for SXSW and oddly enough, my most tranquil. I had more responsibilities than ever during the event but I also got more rest. I think that means I’m growing up. I was able to (1) host a VizThink SXSW party with Dave Gray, (2) curate a team of 6 live artists to capture the keynotes for each day, (3) graphically record two of the keynotes myself, and (4) present on a visual notetaking panel that was actually well-planned. All this and I still managed to be a good bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding. Yep, Sunni, not too shabby. (What? You talk to yourself, too.)

Below are pictures from the event so you get the general idea of what I was up to. The first is a picture of other people taking pictures of the graphic I created live. The second is a snapshot from our Visual Notetaking 101 panel and the third is the crowd – which was awesome. I’ll soon post the actual graphic records from Twitter CEO Evan William’s keynote and from the keynote with Valerie Casey, Founder of the Designers Accord. In the meantime, may all your SX dreams come true. Assuming you’re getting some sleep.

Fundamentals of Visual Notetaking for SXSW Interactive 2010

Sunni — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:51:47 +0000

The first bits of coolness around SXSW Interactive 2010: a baby graphic giving some insight into the contents of our Visual Notetaking Panel. The panel, Visual Notetaking 101, is on Monday, March 15 at 3:30 pm, so join us for a conversation on how to stop taking notes that look like punishment. I’m joined on the panel by my co-author Dave Gray, and by sketchnote masters Mike Rohde and Austin Kleon. Visual thinkers, come out of the closet. And be rewarded with excellent content when you do.

Producing TEDx Austin at KLRU Austin City Limits

Sunni — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:37:33 +0000

Producing TEDx Austin felt like birthing some kind of gigantic baby. I think I can speak for the entire team – Nancy Giordano, Jen Spencer, Kelley Burrus, Shannon Mehner, Chris Justice, Mary Baird-Wilcox and Stacy Weitzner – when I say that it would be impossible to capture the experience in one word. There were triumphs, frustrations, elation, teamwork, tough decisions, and absolute overjoy at what we were putting together. And through it all was the undeniable knowledge that Austin, TX needed and deserved a killer TEDx. That our little town is growing up, transforming into a big city with a big heart, a big brain and ideas that are big beyond belief. I have to give thanks to my graphics team, composed of Honoria Starbuck and Austin Kleon, but if I started thanking all of the other heads and hands that were involved, you would probably stop reading this blog post. (We all know that in this day and age, people want pictures.)

Some personal highlights for me:

Seeing the program designed by the Butler Brothers and the video that showed its creation. One of those ‘wow’ moments.
Establishing a relationship with Shiny Object – a film production company whose work I admire and enjoy.
Connecting with Philip Berber and his wife Donna of the Glimmer of Hope Foundation.
Hanging out with a freaky astronaut and a sexy firefighter.
The fact that we had 10,000+ individuals who watched the livestream (29% of which were in New Zealand!)
Working with a team of women who were indomitable.
NOT working during the event itself. I so often graphically record or contribute to the group process in some live, visual way that I just wanted to be present and enjoy the birth of our big ole idea baby. (The graphic architectures above were created by me beforehand and the audience populated them with content over the course of the day.)
Being thanked on stage for our efforts and feeling how much the crowd really did appreciate it.
Going to the TEDx Rejects party at Conjunctured afterward. Word up, rejects.
Slowly absorbing long after the event was over how truly incredible it was. Is it too dramatic to thank God for the TED people? I mean, it’s not just an event they’ve created. It’s a humanitarian movement. And I think that’s worth saying thank you for.

Onward to TEDx Austin 2011.

SXSW 2009 – Interview with Dave Gray and Sunni Brown

Sunni — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:11:24 +0000

Jessica Mullen and Kelly Cree of The Popular Podcast – among other exploits – make it a point to interview panelists and performers coming through Austin for SXSW. Since Dave Gray (Founder and Chairman of XPlane) and I were on a panel together, they invited us to join them for a brief and…um..deliberately informal interview. Dave, being the good sport that he is, and I, wanting to see my new hairdo on camera, agreed. This interview doesn’t do what my normal interviews would do: it doesn’t describe visual thinking; it doesn’t talk much about my background; it doesn’t discuss learning or group process. In fact, I’m not sure if it hurts or enhances my reputation. But no matter – it’s a fun one. And I look forward to the next Popular Podcast at SXSW 2010. Minus the references to poo.