Philly - TOON swag.

I went to Philadelphia. It was awesome. While I was there I met some of my Twitter friends.

Pic by the Cavanaugh's bartender.

I couldn't resist doing a little toon swag.

#UsGuys connection Jeff Belonger kindly organized the meetup - he runs MyPhillyAlive, a great resource if you want to find out what's going on in Philadelphia. Jeff updates it regularly and his passion for the city is infectious.

Jeff is fairly gregarious and tends to move around a lot.

Stealth photo by The Artistic Dork, AKA Mike.

But Gigi posed beautifully. She may have been frozen in terror, but it didn't show. I know the wondrous Gigi Peterkin from the Montreal #140Conf. She had me and The Huz doubled over with her witty repartee so seeing her again was a bonus.

Keep your eye on Gigi, for she's up to some amazing stuff, and is set to speak at the upcoming PodCamp.

And Mike Meulstee - also known as The Artistic Dork. Actually meeting/hugging Mike in person was one of the highlights of my trip.

We've been friends for a few years now - there's some people you just like to hang out with on Twitter and he's one of them - we finally got to meet IRL. Mike specializes in custom design and illustration for the web, he has an impressive portfolio and is also a kickass DrawSomething player.

I did lots of other stuff in Philadelphia, and I'll tell you about it later. But for now, please be satisfied with this:

Gonna fly now...tourists do crazy things right?

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I Draw YOU - @susanborst

After tweeting via #UsGuys for a little over a year, I finally met @susanborst IRL; we were both speakers at the #140conf in Montreal this May.

A consummate social-media professional, Susan is a world-class combination of intelligence, beauty, and humor. She's a high-level critical thinker and a leader of thoughts. Also, she enjoys a nice cool glass of Chardonnay. It goes without saying that she is a fan of my work. Oh...did I just say it? Oh well!

Sometimes I just gotta draw the people that I meet.

And now please fill in the thought balloon: what do "Thought Leaders" think about?

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The Animation of Empathy.

Sometimes I like to geek out with social media people. Yesterday I spoke at the "State Of Now" 140 Conference here in Montreal, or #140MTL. So here's ten minutes of me talking about "The Animation of Empathy" wherein I use my drawings to get the audience to do funny deeply meaningful things.



The 140Conf series was created by Jeff Pulver and they typically attract gatherings of inspirational speakers from across the planet. Montreal's 140 was no exception; produced by Mila Araujo from Ogilvy & Ogilvy Insurance (the main event sponsor), the speaker lineup she curated was nothing less than spectacular. I was actually nervous...I hope it doesn't show.

If you're interested in social media for marketing, charitable causes, business management, human resources, or just want to be inspired, you can check out the videos here. The hi-lights for me personally were the humorous and direct Jeanine Morber's "what do I want to share, who do I want to reach and where are they?"; the impressive Deb Weinstein "social media is 24/7" and what companies should not do in a crisis; and Ted Curtin's disarming "courage to be humble" where he quotes Mr. Rogers' philosophy of 'deep and simple' to describe the importance of authenticity in one's online voice. Beautiful.

Oh and the all new SeeSaw app was launched at the conference, which is a new way of viewing and saving twitter convos and images - it's mesmerizing.

I met (and hugged) some amazing people at this event and I can't wait for the next one.

Also? BEWARE OF RAGING ZOMBIE TEDDY BEARS.

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#bewbLUV - A message of love and hope.

The #bewbluv hashtag was started on Twitter by the well loved Brandie McCallum AKA @lttlewys - who bravely underwent surgery for breast cancer this morning. Her story is here on her blog.

But it has become so much more than just a hashtag - it's a message of love, hope and friendship, fueled by the power of social media. You may have noticed some avatars popping up with Venus de Milo in the Twitterverse and a #bewbluv Twibbon as well. Feel free to grab them and use them to tweet the hashtag for breast cancer awareness and support.

These days  it seems that cancer is all around us. One thing is clear - we need each other.

The Internet has got your back Brandie!

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Shampoo samples - teeth or scissors?

Shampoo tastes bleah, but how many people keep a pair of scissors in the shower?

My #Usguys friend Jeanine Morber suggested this as a possible packaging solution.

Teeth or scissors?

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#UsGUYS in Montreal.

You know when things just click? The #UsGuys gang are a fast-paced Twitter stream of social medi-oids. This weekend, I got to meet some of them in real life!

Radio personality @997Dave was headed from Vancouver Island to Montreal. Seizing the day, SEO dude @Josepf and self-proclaimed Interloper @JennyHerner decided to come on up from Philadelphia and St. Louis respectively. Their plan? To début their jointly written beat poem, a tribute to Ginsberg's The Howl, for Dave, fellow Montrealer @MilasPage, and myself.

But Dave bailed on the dinner!

Somehow we managed to have too much fun. I brought my Wacom and drew right there at the dinner. Josepf attempted to make out with a parrot, and it tried to eat him. Jenny joined me in being demure and petite! Ok, she was much better at demure than I, but still...! The poem blew my mind. And Mila graciously organized this event and made everyone feel welcome. She also took the best photos including these.

Josepf did lose his head at one point....

...but I replaced it.

And here we are in the Carré St. Louis after lunch the next day - synergy and a fountain of ideas, (yet somehow still Dave-less).

I'm breathlessly impressed with the entire event. My face hurts from laughing and smiling so much. The conversation was truly sublime and seamelssly interwoven with tweets from #UsGuys following our antics online.

What are you thoughts on meeting people from the internet?

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Chocolate AND Chippendales.

"You should draw me with a chocolate smeared face surrounded by two (not one but two!) hott guys! Preferably naked. Or not. But they must be hott."

This was @EllieM72's inspired  Second Prize winning entry in The Most EPIC Contest Evar. Originally these dudes were starkers (all danglies tastefully hidden though). But when Ellie first saw the art, she had a sudden realization.

"Oh dang it. Was gonna order mugs but how do I explain two naked guys to my girls?? :( crap"

So I covered them up with a cliché. Which only makes this drawing all the more amusing.

Don't you love watching bicycles go backwards?

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About KLOUT.

So I'm on Twitter and I often see tweets with the word "KLOUT" in them. It's always "KLOUT this", and "KLOUT that", and "I'm so worried such-and-such will affect my KLOUT score" and stuff. And I'm like, what is this KLOUT thing everyone is talking about?!?

Now when I want answers* to my questions, I ask my Twitter following. And if it's social media related, I hashtag #UsGuys. All you need to know about #UsGuys right now is that they are remarkable and they like male strippers and, uh... cake.
*not necessarily the right answers, but that's what makes it fun.

So my tweet went something like this:

A very helpful #UsGuys tweep named @barrypeters suggested I go look at @SeanMcGinnis' vlog post about The Problem With Klout. So off I go, tarum tarum tarum. I watch the video, I read the post and I learn that people who check their KLOUT 'score' always change the way they behave online afterwards. They go from being genuine, to being oh-so-influential. Which then supposedly somehow renders the KLOUT score meaningless.

Do I now know what the heck KLOUT is?

No! I do not!

Being essentially curious, I just go to the dang KLOUT site and sign in... You're curious too, huh? You want to click on it to find out how you score don't you? Haha.

I see this:

I'm like, what? My "score" is 66 and they say that's "high"? Hmmmm. 66 is not high people, 100 is high. Am I wrong? Okay 66 out of what? It doesn't say and I'm too impatient to dig.

Then I read this:

What? I'm a thought leader? Cool!

But then, my eyes fall on this:

So apparently I'm really influential on the subjects of Cinderella, Hello Kitty and Renee Zellweger. Three things about which I'm fairly certain I've never discussed anything online or IRL ever. Well ok maybe I did say something about Hello Kitty one time on Facebook. But still.

What does it mean???

I dunno. All I care about is that it made me laugh out loud to draw this:

Oh yeah, I did notice that these two buttons are all over the KLOUT website.

Gee. Any idea what that's all about...?

UPDATE! June 6, 2011:
Since posting this, my Klout score went up to 69. Which is a very auspicious number, I'm sure you'll agree. Was I doing anything different in my online behaviour?

You can make someone else smile by sharing.

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Stickie Nakedness AGAIN.

Part 3.

WARNING: Possibly more nudity. Maybe.

In the last post, I asked how one can tell if a stick figure is naked or not. I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off this one and go for it. The thing is, if the stick figure looks like this:

...then it's pretty much impossible to say. Why? Because there's no point of reference! There's nothing 'missing'!

Indulge me. If we dress the stick figure in ONLY a pair of pants, look what happens:

He's suddenly topless!

And if we dress him in ONLY a t-shirt...Voilà! Pants Optional!*

*Pants Optional Friday was all the Why is Daddy Crying's idea BTW.

Finally, if we dress our stick figure in NOTHING but stylish footwear, he is naked simply by virtue of the absence of the rest of his clothes.

Anyhow, after that last post there was some, uh, discussion on Twitter about the scale and relative sizes of certain stick men. So just to clear things up, I've done this character line-up. It's worth noting here that objects are actually larger than they appear in the mirror.

There's @jpJeremy, @WhyIsDaddyCryin, @JosephGier and me. I threw Pickle Weasel in for fun cuz @VlasicStork wanted to see him in a bow-tie and it tied in really nicely with the whole Chippendales thing. And @kathym425's suggestion of Uggs was genius for hawtness levels. 

Everyone has awesomely stylish footwear!! Yes, those are goldfish - blame @BetterHalfMommy. And crocs (@suzspetals' idea). With twine (that was me).

And so it goes that the dude has been naked everytime I've drawn him. Except for that one time when he's wearing a Snuggie.... or those Spiderman PJ's...

If you love those shoes, then go to Part 4.

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Naked STICK Figures.

Part 2.

WARNING: Some more nudity. Sort of.

Last we left them, the MAN Strippers were shakin' it to the dulcet tones of Tom Jones...

And so @WhyIsDaddyCryin crashes yet another of my blog posts. Pretty sure @jpJeremy and @JosephGier will like him once they figure out why he's crying and why he's always going on about Pants Optional Fridays on his side-splitter of a daddy-blog.

Shameless plug - go vote for "Why Is Daddy Crying?" and he'll be your best friend and invite you to dinner. You may end up locked in the basement for a few weeks but it'll prolly be worth it just for the great memories.

Is he #UsGuys material? Who knows! But let me ask you this - how can you tell if a stick figure is naked or not?  
Find out how in Part 3.

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OMG Look at the MAN Strippers!

Part 1.
WARNING: Some nudity.

This one's just too complicated to fully explain. Suffice it to say that it started with an innocent Twitter Striptease, and the next thing I knew, the Ladies were crying out for some man-flesh in a bow tie. I won't name names it was totally @EllieM72 and @rmalove.

Luckily some dudes just know when they're being voluntold.

Doing the hawt and sexy Chippendales thing we have @jpJeremy of Winding Staircase LLC on the left - I do believe he's blushing!  And grooving to Tom Jones dulcet tones we have @JosephGier AKA Joseph Grier on the right. He looks rather comfortable in the spotlight doesn't he?

Anyone from the #UsGuys stream gazing upon this awesome depiction of abs, pecs and footwear, should prolly just think of it as an exercise in barefaced keyword pimping, SEO fun & games, world class customer engagement, and ...oh yeah - "building community".

Either that or it's just plain silliness.

See Part 2.

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CAKE For #UsGuys

This one dude @StephenCaggiano said I was his "gift to #UsGuys". So then, of course I had to draw this. And if you wanna know what #UsGuys is all about, you should just go ask him.

Okay, I admit in reality My Cornwall Tan has faded to blinding white since the summer, but that wouldn't have been nearly as funny.

Don't tell me you wanted chocolate cake. I tried it and it just wasn't pretty.

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