101 Project: Returning to Art

August 24th, 2009 by Sean

A few months ago I reflected on my time at UCSC and the art department. Working in the printmaking studio was the most productive and enjoyable time in my life. I loved the work I was doing, and it felt right to be doing it.

In order to get back a little of that breath of life, I have committed to a project: creating 101 prints. Each one will be a unique and individual work of art, using relief printing as the primary medium, with some other mixed media as well.

When I’m done, these prints will go on sale for just a few dollars each, as a shameless self-promotional stunt. The money I will be charging will be no more than I need to pay for shipping costs, my material costs, plus a buck to go towards a nice, expensive brayer for the next round of 100.

I have always been drawn to imagery that combines organic and natural imagery along with images of mechanics and technology. The juxtaposition between these two is the theme of this series.

The other theme of this series is “Sean makes art again”, which is the more important result of this project.

As a special, get my butt in gear bonus, I entered a little competition with my friend, Dr. WordPress. His site, Website In A Weekend, is all about how you can, over a weekend, not only start your blog, but get it firing on all cylinders.

Doc decided that he would write 101 articles on his website, and now we are having a competition to see who can finish first. He’s got a head start on me, but I’ve got a lot of time to spend on this in the next few weeks, and I think I might catch up.

I have 45 of my 101 started, and will finish about 20 of them this week. Next week I hope to get another 25 done, and another 30 the week after. It’s time to crank things up!

When it is all said and done, I will be releasing these on my website, BadDeacon Design. I’ve got a series of articles running on the blog over there about the web as a medium for art. I’m proud of this set of articles, check it out!

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Web Art, and the Internet as an Artistic Medium

August 24th, 2009 by Sean

What does it mean for the web to be an artistic medium, the same as painting, sculpture, drawing, music, poetry, and others?

From what I have found out on the internet, most art on the web has been a representation of traditional media on the web. There is not much that is being made to take advantage of the unique properties of the internet to make art.

It’s similar to the birth of television. Early television was considered “radio with pictures”, and early television had a voice over describing the action in the scene, even though the viewer could clearly see what was happening. This convention was a hold over from radio, when a voice over was required to describe the action.

Eventually people figured out what was unique about television, and this convention was dropped.

Similarly, artists are still figuring out what is unique about the web, and what this means for art.

A website consisting of a gallery of drawings and paintings by an artist is not web art. It is art that has been published on the web, just like in a book or pamphlet.

Even art that has been created on a computer using any means of digital production is not “web art”. Often the work made in this fashion can be printed onto paper, or put onto a video DVD.

(This is not to say, however, that whatever web art is, it does not consist of digitally created “stuff”)

Before I go on, I want to clarify: I am talking about art that is created for display on the web. I do not mean online galleries and collections of other type of art. The web as an artistic medium is very different from the web as a publishing medium.

What does it mean to be a work of art that is purely web based, and what separates it from other media? That is the question that I will be brainstorming in this series of posts.

I also want to clarify, that just as television reproduces certain aspects of radio, printmaking reproduces aspects of drawing, and even how painting reproduces aspects of sculpture, web art most certainly reproduces aspects of all mediums. Web art will not be something entirely different from painting, or video, or music, in fact many aspects of all of these mediums will make their way into web art.

To begin, I would like to discuss how exactly the web works, at least, as it pertains to art.

Art is not separable from its medium. You can’t have a painting without paint, you can’t have music without any sound (well, most of the time), you can’t have a photograph without light, etc. The medium that is used intrinsically gives form to the art created in that medium.

So it is also with the web. It is impossible to create a work of art on the web without the web. Since the web functions and behaves certain ways, web art will have certain characteristics that cannot be separated from the art itself.

I heard an interesting thing a couple months ago in a TED talk. The web as we know it is only about 5,000 days old. It is still in its infancy. The technology that makes the web has, since it’s inception, grown in capability by probably a factor of about 1,000.

Remember the old 14.4 kbps modems? My connection at home is about 6MBps. This is about 400 times faster.

The iPhone in my pocket is a faster web browsing and computing device than the first computer that my family bought for my sister when she went to college, back in 1996.

I think that it is safe to say that we haven’t yet reached a plateau in the technology that hosts, supports, and uses the web. In another ten years, this article may look like it is written about stone-age technology.

From the users perspective, this is how the internet works: she turns on her computer, fires up her web browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, or Explorer). She enters a URL into the address bar of her browser, and up pops the website. This is something we are all familiar with.

Usually what shows up is some HTML, and maybe some javascript and flash, which the web browser receives and interprets, and displays the results in the web browser.

On both ends of this experience, computers are running software (or code). The server runs code to determine what exactly to send to the user, and the user’s computer runs code to interpret the information it gets from the server into an audio/visual display.

When the user moves their mouse, scrolls down, or clicks on something, either the user’s computer runs more code, or the server is sent a request for more stuff. This could be a video, audio, or something similar, or it may be a link to another page in the website, or a whole other website all together.

In other words, the user is continuously giving the server information and instructions, and the server is continuously running code and sending the results back to the user.

The background was a necessary foundation to look at the various aspects of web art.

I would like to discuss what is unique about the medium of the web. Different mediums are defined by what is unique to each, not what is similar in each.

I brainstormed the following characteristics of the web:

  • The web is programmable
  • The web is made up of networks and connections
  • websites use is nonlinear
  • Users interact with the website
  • Time can be partially controlled (or not)
  • Presentation varies from viewer to viewer

I am going to dig in depth into each of these characteristics in the posts that follow later in the week.

Before I discuss these potential characteristics of web art, I’m going to talk about some of the questions that come up about the art itself. What actually is a work of art on the web? I will explore that question in the next post.

I also have to send an acknowledgment to my good friend Tiven; we had a conversation about this not too long ago that prompted and added to a lot of these thoughts.

Tiven is a fantastic, and award winning composer, and the best friend a man could have. You can find his home on the internet here:

TivenWeinstock.com

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San Diego Comic-Con 2009

July 28th, 2009 by Sean

I spent the last week in San Diego for Comic-Con.

It was a fantastic time. Here’s the full story.

Tuesday

I got in about noon Tuesday, and walked to our place. My friend Scott found an awesome place. It was a huge open loft, three beds, a pull out bed, and some couches. It was 2 blocks from the convention center, and just incredible. It had a full kitchen, and Ralph’s super market was two blocks away. I went for a jog to check out the convention center, and got to see the massive trucks unloading huge crates of stuff at the back of the convention center.

Scott showed up that afternoon, and was equally wowed by the place. We threw back a couple beers, then headed over to the Padres stadium, met up with Pants (Brian C from Comic Geek Speak), and headed in to the game. We had great seats on the field level back up above the home dugout.

That ballpark in San Diego is a great park. It feels new and a nice place to sit for an evening. One corner of the stadium at the left field is built into an old historic building of some sort, very cool. I think pretty much any stadium seems great when compared to Oakland coliseum though.

I didn’t watch that much of the game though, since I was talking with Scott and Pants most of the time about comics and whatnot. Ralph joined us after a few innings as well, which made a great group to hang out with.

After the game Scott and I headed back to our apartment, sat around a bit and threw back some beers. Drinking beer was a prominent activity throughout the entire weekend.

The weather in San Diego was fantastic. I realized this when I was sitting outside on our patio at night, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and wasn’t cold at all. Some of the best times of the convention happened late at night, sitting around talking comics with my apartment mates.

Wednesday

Wednesday is Preview Night at SDCC, but it is really just another day of the convention. There is really nothing “preview” about it. I got to the convention center about half an hour after badge pickup started. The line was long, and it took a while to get through. The funny thing was that the line for pros and press was much longer than for attendees. They had hundreds of folks working the line for regular attendees, but only a dozen or so working the line for press and professionals. I was attending the show as press for my Only The Valiant Podcast.

Wednesday was all about convention exclusives for me. I went around to a few booths and bought exclusive toys and statues only available at SDCC. My plan was to work Wednesday night to get stuff I could sell on ebay, and help pay for my trip down. Mission accomplished. There was a fiasco getting the Green Lantern Blackest Night figure, but I eventually got the first of the five figures. I wouldn’t be so lucky with the rest, as I figured out Thursday.

The best part of Preview Night was meeting up with everyone afterwards. We had a nice meet up at the Tilted Kilt for food and beer. About 15 or so folks showed up, we got our drink on, talked about preview night, and what we were looking forward to. I recorded the first OTV Comic-Con Episode, which was great fun.

The meet up at the Tilted Kilt was a beginning of a theme throughout the convention, the best times are not the convention, not the panels, not the dealers, but spending time with people and friends. Conventions are a chance to get together with friends, meet new people, strengthen those ties, and hang out. The convention itself plays a small role in the overall experience, and is just the thing that brings us all to the same place at the same time.

Thursday

Thursday started out as a very frustrating day.

I woke up at 6am, and this was after staying at the Tilted Kilt till midnight the night before, and headed to the convention center to get in line. I wanted to get the exclusive Blackest Night Green Lantern figures, since I could make a few hundred dollars – at least – by buying them at the show and selling them on ebay. There were no more than 200 people in line in front of me, and I waited about three hours to get in. Went straight to the booth, and no luck.

The line was already wrapped around the booth twice, and was starting along a walkway. They gave out tickets to the first part of the line, and then announced that there would be a raffle for tickets later in the day in a large pavilion. After not getting a ticket that morning, I went back to the apartment, got cleaned up, had some breakfast, then headed to the pavilion to enter the drawing. No luck. I gave up. My capitalistic plan to rake in a considerable profit was shattered.

In a way this was nice, because I was able to just not worry about lines for the rest of the show. I wandered around the small press areas that afternoon, met Steve Bryant of Athena Voltaire fame, and checked stuff out. After the morning of ridiculous lines, I wasn’t up for much.

I did walk around a few dealer booths and browse, and got one pretty darn cool book. My buddy Dave got me a book, The Ten Cent Plague, for my birthday. It is about the comic book scare of the late 40s and 50s, which revolved around the fact that people, mostly people who didn’t read any comics, thought that comic books were contributing to juvenile delinquency, and were a stain on our society.

Crime SuspenStories #23

Crime SuspenStories #23

I brought that book with me to San Diego to be my reading material for the week, and it inspired me to look for some old crime and horror comics from that era. I found a copy of Crime SuspenStories #23 at one particular dealer booth, and had to get it.

This comic was one of the pieces of evidence in the Senate hearings on comics as a cause of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s. The cover of this is quite out there. Yes, he is choking her to death with a tire iron. I like this comic because it has historical importance.

The fallout from those senate hearings, and from the hysteria over comics in general caused the American comic book industry to make a drastic turn, and the result is that comic books are considered by most people to be silly stories about super heroes in spandex. Comics have only recently been viewed differently, not as a genre of entertainment, but as a medium of entertainment, which can contain many different genres, for people of all ages.

So anyhow, this comic is very cool. I’m glad I picked it up.

Thursday evening was the All-Stars of Comics Podcasting panel. There was a panelist each from iFanboy, Comic Geek Speak, Indie Spinner Rack, Comics News Insider, The Comic Book Page, and Comic Timing. The panel itself wasn’t too fantastic, there wasn’t too much information that came out, but it was a great chance for everybody in the podcasting arena to get together and congregate.

After the panel a group of us went to Rock Bottom Brewery, and took over a little area of the upstairs bar. Dinner was good, and I got a chance to meet Bob from the Comic Book Page, and Ian from Comic Timing. We got to discuss podcasting in general, and the specifics of comic book podcasting. Other podcasters had interesting points of view, and I got a few ideas about how to make my show better, just through the conversations I had.

When we got home from the brewery, I set up my recording equipment, and Jay and I recorded an episode with our apartment mate, Scott. We talked about the convention, and we then talked about Resolution Comics, which is a small comic publisher that Scott has started with his business partner, Brian (who couldn’t make it to San Diego). It was fun to talk about what it takes to start publishing books, and hear about the challenges and the rewards involved.

Friday

Friday was the day I set aside for going through dealer boxes and buying some back issues for my collection. I found some good Green Lantern books at a decent price, and picked them up.

I wasn’t planning on making any big purchases this year, but as I walked by the Metropolis Comics booth, I noticed a few copies of Showcase #22.

Showcase #22

Showcase #22

Showcase #22 is the first appearance of Green Lantern in the Silver Age. There was an earlier character named Green Lantern in the 40’s, but he was an entirely different character. The Green Lantern that most people know, and who will be the character in the upcoming Green Lantern movie, is the character that was first introduced in Showcase #22.

This book has been pretty hot, because Green Lantern has been gaining in popularity. The upcoming movie is also pushing the value of this book up as more and more people are looking for it, me included.

I started buying silver age Green Lantern books a couple years ago [The silver age refers to comics published in the very late 50s and throughout the 60s]. My goal is to get all of the Green Lantern books between his first appearance up through Green Lantern #75. Before this weekend, the earliest issue I had was Green Lantern #2. Issue #2 is his fifth appearance, since was in Showcase #22, 23, and 24 before he got his own title.

So I was walking along, and saw a couple copies of this book at the Metropolis booth. I hadn’t seen any other dealers with this book at the convention, and had heard that it was selling for dealers very quickly. I asked to see them, and centered in on one that looked nice, and was within my price range. It took some thought, because this would blow through my entire spending budget for this one book, but I finally decided to get it.

This book is what I have most wanted since I started buying Green Lantern books, and is the highlight of my collection.

Only Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash are more important DC characters, and I am very happy I finally got a copy of this book.

After the show, a bunch of folks I know from the Valiant Fans forum got together for a couple poker games. Money was made, money was lost, and a good time was had. After the games we recorded a podcast episode, but it came out not so great. It’s up, but I won’t link to it. It was late, we were tired, it happens.

Saturday

I slept in Saturday, and didn’t rush off to the show. After Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday, I had already had a very full convention. It didn’t feel like I had two more days of convention to go to.

Eventually I headed over, and decided to walk around the artists and illustrator’s tables. I found a sketchbook by Terry Dodson, who I saw earlier in the day signing at his booth. I bought the sketchbook, and decided to talk to Terry. I asked him to sign the sketch book, which was from his French book Songes. He signed the book, and as we were talking, drew a small sketch on the inside cover.

Songes Sketchbook

Songes Sketchbook

The artwork for this book is amazing. His illustrations look like modern art nouveau. He has drawn a lot of mainstream superhero comics, like Wonder Woman and X-Men, but the work he does for the less mainstream and foreign books blows his mainstream work away.

It was even more exciting to talk to him about his art career. He was in engineering school, and took art classes on the side. He was planning going into industrial design, but instead left school to work in comics full time during his senior year, and never finished his engineering degree.

His story was similar – but opposite – of my own. I was in art school, and eventually got into engineering. I let engineering kill my pursuit of art, and I have lately been working to course correct and find my artistic soul again. I was able to tell him that he made the right decision to pursue art instead of engineering.

Meeting and talking to Terry Dodson made me want to sit down with a sketch book and do nothing but draw and draw and draw until I am as good, or better, than him. I have been struggling to find the time to dedicate to art, because I am finding that I need to create art and illustrations, just to make the world make more sense (as strange as that sounds). Though I only had the time for a quick 10-minute conversation with him, it was very inspiring.

Later in the day I met up with a friend who had introduced me to a guy working in the comics industry earlier in the weekend. We had set up lunch for Saturday, and I met up with them. We had a great discussion about comics, and talked about what fan sites and podcasts (like my OTV site) can do for the industry.

It was motivational, and gave me a lot of ideas of what I would like to do with my Only The Valiant website. I have ideas of how I can make it more than just a website for the podcast, but more of a community hub for comic book fans.

I walked away from that meeting ready to go to work to make OTV bigger and better.

After lunch, I rushed to get my recording equipment from the apartment. I wasn’t expecting lunch to go so long. I’m not complaining, since the conversations I had were great, I feel fortunate that I got to talk and network with folks for as long as I did.

Back to recording though, we were scheduled to record our big “live from the show” episode Saturday afternoon. I got home, packed up the equipment, and headed to the convention. I got a great space to set everything up in one of the lounge areas, and got to work plugging everything in.

A good bunch of people came to record with us, with people from the valiantfans board, thecomicforums, and a fan who found us on iTunes and started listening from there. We talked about the convention, people watching, and argued about which Valiant books were the best to give a new reader to try out. It was a fun episode to record, and it is up on the site now.

A couple of us headed back to the Tilted Kilt for dinner, and later in the night Scott and I went over to the Hyatt.

The Hyatt is where the after-hours action takes place in San Diego, at least as far as the convention goes. The bar is huge, and spilled out onto the patio out front of the hotel. Myself, Trevor, and Scott found Steve, Chris, and Jim with some other folks at the bar. I met a lot of people, and got to hang out with a lot of folks.

I ran into James Sime, the owner of Isotope comics here in San Francisco, quite possibly the greatest comic shop in the country. We said a quick hello.

I ran into some of the Geek Savant/Super Real crew, and got to hang out with them for a bit. Dave Dwonch and I brainstormed an idea for a comic book: How To Pick Up Chicks At Comic Book Conventions. Dave was a wingman extraordinaire for me at Wondercon earlier this year. He pulled some epic wingman duty while I was meeting a lovely lady at Kate O’Briens until late into the evening. Like most ideas from 1am at the bar, I have no idea if it will materialize, but Dave is a very talented comic creator, check out Space Time Condominium.

As Dave and I were talking, some poor kid comes up to us and started a conversation with us. He walked up and asked us, “so what do you do?” Dave jumped right in with his pitch about Pickup comics, and asked if this guy would buy it. This poor kid said he didn’t really read comics, and that’s whent eh situation erupted. Dave railed on this kid about why he was even here, and we poked at him about his direction in life, and what he wanted to accomplish.

I really don’t think he knew what he was getting in to when he walked up to us.

The bar eventually closed, and Scott and I went home. We had just gotten home when we both had the same thought at the same time: “want to drink a beer?” We stayed up an extra half-hour or hour or so, chatting about comics, the convention, and whatever else.

Saturday was a great day. I accomplished an incredible amount, from networking, to meeting people, to getting inspired to pour my energy into different work and projects. I wish every day of my life were as rich and satisfying as Saturday was.

Sunday

By the time Sunday rolled around, I had accomplished everything I needed to at the convention. I slept in again, and headed over to the convention in the late morning. I went to a panel, only my second of the weekend. It was How to Draw Star Wars with Katie Cook. Katie draws the Clone Wars online comic for the Star Wars site, and I have been a fan of hers for a few years. The panel was geared towards kids, and pencil and paper was handed out to everyone.

Katie would demonstrate how to draw different Star Wars characters, and the drawings were projected on a big screen, so everyone could follow along. The standout: Boba Fett in the Sarlac’s stomach juices, with a cute pet kitty floating next to him in an intertube. Every character she drew got a cute pet, even Darth Vader.

I walked around the convention floor for a while after that, made some final purchases. I found my friend John from New York, and got to hang out with him for a bit. I then finally made it back home.

Scott and I had invited folks over to our place for a post-convention cool down party. As far as I can remember, Pants, Trevor, Dave, Grant, Steve, Jim, and Chris showed up, plus another one of Dave’s friends whose name escapes me. Scott, Steve, Chris, Jim and I were talking about renting both units in the apartment building we rented for next year, so we could have one apartment to rule them all.

Our location and set up was really fantastic this year, and having the same thing, but even more so next year would be great. It would be this incredible congregation of creativity, ahanging out, and partying.

The location was great, the people were great, and I had a blast.

Back Home

I spent Monday packing up, figuring out how to transport all the stuff I purchased, and cleaning up the apartment a little. I’m glad I gave myself that extra day after the convention to wrap everything up.

My experience of comic book conventions is changing the more I go to them. I used to go to comic book conventions to walk around the dealer booth, buy some comics, and maybe get a book or two signed by a writer or artist. Comic book conventions were a chance to buy a lot of stuff, and that was about it.

The actual convention is now such a small part of my overall experience. The best times at this show were when I got to see old friends, make new friends, make new contacts, network with folks, shake hands, play poker, and raise beer glasses with folks.

This show was inspiring. It renewed my excitement about existing projects like Only The Valiant and my 101 Artwork, and got my me thinking about new projects. I am left ready to plow into everything and start creating. I have a few things in mind that resonate with me.

To everyone I met this weekend, thanks for making this convention great.

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Truck vs. Car, Round 2 (or, “yes, my truck is invincible”)

June 24th, 2009 by Sean

Last night was going moderately well. I got home to find out that my press pass for San Diego Comic-Con went through, and it was time to head over to another Super Tuesday Party at Janet’s place down in Redwood City.

I was driving through town, stopped at a red light. The light turned green, but a couple people in front of me had to make a left turn, and I was stuck stopped behind them.

It took me a second to figure out why my truck got shoved forward and what caused that big crunching sound.

“Oh, I got rear-ended”

I went for my glove box, got my insurance and registration info out. A couple guys who were walkign by at the time told the other driver to turn his car off, he was leaking radiator fluid.

I started to wonder just how bad it was gonna be.

When I got out of the cab, I couldn’t see the damage to the back of my truck, but as I walked back there, I saw the damage to the other driver’s car:

The other car had a bit of damage

Pretty mashed up.

I had resigned myself to having a jacked up rear end, and having to get some body work.

I got to the back of my truck, and saw…

Nothing. No damage. Hardly even a tiny scratch to the bumper.

Check it out:

My truck hardly had a scratch on the bumper

It was at this moment that I realised that my truck truly is invincible.

I also now see that there is another truck across the street in the photo, quietly watching, as if in solidarity with my truck. We salute you, brother.

This is the second accident this truck has been in where at first it appeared the damage was gonna be bad, and then… nothing. In both cases, the other cars couldn’t exactly say the same, and neither was my fault.

One occurrence is random chance. Two occurrences is a pattern, and my truck is showing a pattern of invincibility vs. cars.

[I may have to post up the story of the first time my truck encountered car and won, it was from before I started this blog]

Over all, I was surprised and relieved to see I didn’t have any damage.

Most of all, I am proud of my truck.

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Yeah, I know. This site is jacked

June 23rd, 2009 by Sean

The “Previous Entries” link doesn’t work.

The font and leading isn’t right.

Column width needs adjusting.

It’s a big mess of stuff with very little organization to it.

I’ve got a pretty design done in photoshop, I just haven’t had the time to chop it up and write the CSS.

When I look at this site today though, it disgusts me.

Uggg. I need to work on this. Soon. Looks like I have another busy weekend coming up.

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How To Memorize Anything

June 22nd, 2009 by Sean

How to Memorize Anything

I just spent a weekend memorizing a 400-page technical manual, then took a test on the material to get a professional certification for the material.

I aced it.

I get to put a bunch more letters after my name, Sean Neprud, P.E., LEED AP. The LEED AP is new. My list of letters is almost longer than my name now. It would be longer if I could put “kick ass” on there as well, but nobody will certify K-A. Yet.

The real lesson from this story, however, is how I learned all of this material in 2 days. I studied from 9am to 5pm Saturday, with a 2-hour break, and from 8am to 6pm Sunday, with a 3-hour break. 400 pages of facts and information that I had to apply and interpret, memorized in 13 hours.

I want to go on record saying that I am not gifted at memorization. I am downright bad at it, in fact. Memorizing all of the vocabulary for Spanish was always the hardest part of class for me, and as far as forgetfulness goes, I recently forgot where I parked my truck, and had to walk up and down streets in my neighborhood to find it.

Now I will say (not so humbly) that I am gifted with smarts. I can figure stuff out, and know how to use information pretty easily, once I know it.

Knowing the information, and knowing it quickly, was the problem I faced.

My plan was to study for a week or two. That got cut down to a week. The time I was allotting to study got smaller and smaller as the test got nearer and nearer.

By the Friday before the Monday-morning exam, I planned to study for the whole weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday night. I got distracted on Friday though, and didn’t start till Saturday morning.

Why is memorization important?

Sometimes life requires memorization. It helps socially, with remembering names of people you meet. It helps in business and at work, with too many things to list. It even helps pass tests to become an Accredited Professional.

One frustrating thing about this particular exam I took is that it is closed book. They even made me turn my pockets inside out before entering the test room and filmed everybody in the room to make sure we didn’t cheat.

Of course, life isn’t closed book, and when using this information to plan the design of a LEED accredited building, like, for real, I will have the book as a reference.

I guess the folks that give out the certification want to make sure that Accredited Professionals are well versed in the LEED material.

I do know the material far better than if I could have just looked it up in a book during the exam. Name a random LEED credit, and I can list the requirements for that credit without referencing the manual.

This is due to my use of the Super Amazing Memorization Method™

How the SAMM™ was born

I developed my Super Amazing Memorization Method™ back when I was teaching a lot of workshops, and I would be in a room with 15 to 20 guys I had never met before, who had spent thousands of dollars to attend.

A little thing I have figured out about people: When we spend $2,000 for a weekend workshop, we want the people teaching us to remember our name.

Memorization is mighty important in this situation.

I’ve also used this method at networking parties, when I meet a bunch of folks, or even at the bars, when I hit on a group of 3 or 4 women, to remember all of their names.

I don’t get any letters after my name for that though.

So what is the Super Amazing Memorization Method™?

The process is simple

It is a very easy process. I’ll explain it with an example of learning a group of people’s names.

Someone introduces them self. You repeat their name to yourself.

Another person introduces themself, and you repeat their name to yourself.

Now here is the key:

After repeating the second person’s name, repeat the first person’s name, and the second person’s name.

After the third person introduces themself, repeat their name, then the names of all three people that introduced themself.

This is how, weekend after weekend, I memorized the names of 15-20 people in a seminar as they introduced themselves over a few minutes. By the end of introductions, I remembered everybody’s name.

The problem with traditional memorization is that as soon as we learn something new, it can very easily displace the old information. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at parties where I meet somebody, remember their name, but as soon as I meet another person and learn their name, I have forgotten the first person.

This memorization method reinforces the previous information every time we learn something new, and further pushes it into the long-term information storage in our minds.

Each new addition to a body of information is followed by a review of the entire body of information.

It amazes me how effective this is.

Last weekend, I used this method to memorize the LEED manual. The manual describes roughly 50 different ways that building design and construction can earn credits towards getting a certification by the Green Building Council.

Each one of these credits has very specific requirements, for example one credit requires that 10% of architectural materials, by cost, be recycled, with recycled defined as percentage, by weight, of post-consumer recycled material plus one-half of pre-consumer recycled material. Other credits reference standards with big, impossible to remember names like ASHRAE 90.1, CIBSE 10, and IPMVP volume III.

In other words, it was not simple stuff to memorize.

I learned all of this material with the same process that I used to memorize names. I started by learning the requirements of the first credit, and wrote it out on paper. Then I learned the requirements of the second credit.

Then I re-wrote the requirements of the first credit and the second credit.

I moved on to the third, learned it, then re-wrote all three. I repeated this on and on, until I had learned the meaning and requirements for approximately 50 credits.

I have dozens of pages of handwritten notes as proof.

I also passed the test and got new letters after my name, so maybe there is something to this.

The downside

There is a downside to this process: it is boring. When writing out the meaning of something for the 20th time, you will start to hate and despise writing it out.

I experienced that last weekend. There were times that I didn’t want to write down the previous 15 things I had memorized after learning the 16th.

I forced myself to do it though, and even though I was annoyed to be writing out that 1st item for the 15th time, it was worth it, because it helped me to add the 15th and 16th item to my overall knowledge, and it ensured that the previous 14 things I had learned stuck in my mind.

If you use this method, skipping a round of review is NOT allowed. It is tempting, but this shortcut will only damage the overall effectiveness of the process.

I did use shorthand, writing just a few words down that summarized each credit during the review. For example:

Materials and Resources Credit 4.1: 10% recycled material, by cost, does not include MEP, pre-consumer + 1/2 of post-consumer, use weight to figure partially recycled materials

Would get shortened to:

MR C4.1-10% recycled (post + 1/2 pre)

When using shorthand or abbreviations, the purpose was to remind myself that I knew the details, I just used the method to save some writing time (and reduce hand cramping).

The boring repetition of this process is the reason that it works so well though.

Learning in list format

For those of you that learn best by seeing things in a list, here is the Super Amazing Memorization Method™ in step by step format

  1. Learn the first piece of information, write it down or repeat it to yourself
  2. Learn the second piece of information, write it down or repeat it to yourself
  3. Write down or repeat the first piece of information, then the second
  4. Learn the third piece of information, write it down or repeat it
  5. Write out or repeat all three pieces of information you have learned so far
  6. For each subsequent piece of information you learn, write it down or repeat it to yourself, then follow it by writing it down or repeating every piece of information you have learned so far, including the most recent piece
  7. reap your rewards and riches

I learned it all the first time

How many times do you think somebody refers back to a previous section when memorizing information like this? How many times did you have to review part of a textbook in college to remember the material?

I paid attention during my memorization process, and I only looked back at previous sections 3 or 4 times to refresh my memory and understanding of that section.

That means that for 90-95% of the material, I learned and retained it all, accurately, the first time. Not bad for 50 different nuggets of information.

When I finished studying the manual, I made a note that I have never memorized so much information so quickly. It is boring, it is tedious, and it is effective.

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New York Comic-Con Fails Marketing 101

June 19th, 2009 by Sean

New York Comic-Con Fails Marketing 101

I pay attention to this kind of stuff, since I have a mind to start my own newsletter or two.

I went to the New York Comic Con last February, where, amongst other things, I met Jim Shooter and recorded an interview with the man. Good stuff.

It seems that attending NYCC puts you on the NYCC email list. The traffic from the list consists of notices of events taking place around New York, a kind of comic geek meet up.

This itself is a great idea, since one of the powers of a mailing list, and the internet in general, is to create and foster communities of like-minded people.

All my friends are pretty cool people. Not comic geeks at all. Sometimes, however, I do want to geek out and meet other people that share this hobby I love.

The internet has made that possible, and I have met a lot of folks that are part of communities that are started by the ease of communication that the internet allows.

Because of this, these kind of emails that create social oppurtunities, and foster communities, are great. I’m totally supportive.

Since I don’t live in New York, however, these emails are pretty useless to me, and just end up polluting my inbox.

I decided to unsubscribe from the newsletter, and found this note:

Leaving our list: NY Comin Con makes every effort to send you only information we believe you will find useful. We apologize if this information is no longer valuable to you. Please keep in mind that removal from our list is permanent. You will no longer be eligible for special offers and promotions. Still want to be removed? Please click on the link below and provide the information requested. Your request will be processed within 10 business days.

Punishing people for leaving a list is a great way to make people despise you and your services, and to drive away repeat customers.

In my case, this information is interesting, but not applicable to my life right now. I am presented with the option of either continuing to let this newsletter clutter up my inbox, or getting blacklisted from any services that may be offered on this list.

I’m unsubscribing from the list, because I don’t want this in my inbox.

I can only hope that whoever is running this list learns a thing or two about marketing and customer relations.

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Now I’m Pissed

June 12th, 2009 by Sean

I figured out where my 101 are going, and I am stuck at work. I’d rather be at home, carving up blocks, and firing up my printing press.

I made a bet with my buddy Dr. WordPress that I could finish my 101 pieces of art before he could finish his 101 articles.

(Actually, I was publically called out and challenged, and honor dictates that I must see the challenge)

I was hanging at his house one evening, talking about what we’re up to, as usual, and I told him about my plan to make 101 works of art. I woke up the next morning to find a post on WIAW that he will finish his 101 articles before I finish my 101 art thingies.

My 101 were already started, I had done the first run on 20 of them.

Then I hit a wall, and I had no idea what I was gonna do next. It finally hit me last night, and I figured out my vision for the series.

(I can’t explain it yet, it is better left seen than described)

Anyway, all I would like to be doing now is carving blocks and inking up plates, and I can’t. I’m stuck at work. This is stifling my creativity, and just annoying.

This is why I need to be self-employed, and create my own business, because this is not working for me.

Something to work towards.

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Overnight Change Takes A While

June 10th, 2009 by Sean

I confronted a harsh, harsh reality this morning. All the changes I am working to implement in my life may take a while.

I wasn’t expecting any of these things to happen overnight, but, well, I was kinda hoping.

This reminds me of something I heard on an Eben Pagan video (and I paraphrase), “what does everyone want? They want to go to bed fat, wake up thin, go to bed poor, wake up rich, go to bed single, and wake up with a gorgeous person next to them, and they don’t want to do any work to make it happen”.

I’m need to back up my story now. I have started a new workout this week, combining body weight exercises (squats, pushups, etc) with sprints. Essentially, I am giving High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) a shot.

I have being doing this every day this week, and this Wednesday morning I stepped on the scale after showering up after my run.

I was a bit pissed off that I didn’t lose 10 pounds in the last two and a half days. In fact, I hadn’t lost any weight. What the hell? I have been working hard, I am sore, my foot hurts, I have been eating this healthy food instead of frozen pizzas. My metabolism should be supercharged and have burnt off all the fat by now. What gives?

I was a little crushed. It may sound stupid, but this seriously was a blow. I started to think all those devilish thoughts like, “I can’t do this”, and “I’m no good”, and “I’ll never accomplish anything”. This is all the usual crap that goes on in my head that never gets me anywhere.

Somehow, I made it out of this. I think it was a simple thought that saved me, which was, “all this crap I’m thinking does nothing to help me kick ass.”

(I am giving this whole kicking ass thing a shot)

I got up, walked over to the white board on my bulletin wall, and wrote:

KICKING ASS WON’T

HAPPEN OVERNIGHT

Once it was written out for me, in plain site, it made a little more sense.

Progress is made up of many small, incremental steps, not one giant step that takes place instantly, and magically changes everything. This, to me, is the hardest part about any game plan that involves change. This is the greatest enemy of progress, and the greatest resistance to change.

Keeping this in mind, I looked at my morning in a new light. I made one of the many steps along the way to this change. The changes I am working towards will happen if I keep this up. It is just a matter of time.

I’ll make that step again tomorrow, and Friday, and over the weekend too. I’ve got plenty of time, in fact, time is the one thing I have the most of.

The trick is in choosing how to spend that time.

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adWords To Live By

June 5th, 2009 by Sean

Sean’s all grown up today.

My first adWords advertisement is live on the internet.

My add shows up in a search for "valiant comics" (click to enlarge)

I got a $50 AdWords credit from some service I used on the internet, and I figured I would see if it was worth it to see if they would do anything to increase listenership to my Only The Valiant podcast. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but is cool to do a Google search for “valiant comics” and see my ad come up.

It was very easy to set up and use, and with the preponderance of adword credits available out there, why not? It might help your website too.

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