We started with the basics like “What is Social Media” and expanded to “How to develop your campaign” and finished up with “How to talk to your audience” and tools for measurement of your campaign.

Rather than keep it all to ourselves (and the rest of the conference attendees), we thought we’d share it with you…after all, it’s the social thing to do! So here’s our presentation: “Build a larger audience with social media in the mix”

The session was well received at the conference, but we’d like to hear from you. Leave us any questions you have about social media or the presentation in the comments section.

Our first class is Object Design: Sketch and Illustration (Tumblr Blog) and is taught by our friend Craighton Berman of Gravity Tank. It’s a great class on object sketching and ideation. It’s been great to work the brain with some free-form thinking about product design and usability. The class goes beyond that with exercises on communicating your idea through various media and building concept visualization.

You may ask…how will this help your clients? Simply put, by going back to basics…forcing us to breakdown our thought process from an old perspective from our college days — one that isn’t worried about budgets, billable time and deadlines. Taking a back-to-basics approach helps to gather ideas in a loose thought environment and will spawn new solutions or designs for our clients.

With just 3 weeks under the belt, I can tell this is going to help bring new insights to all of the future Stalelife projects. Check out some sketches and work from the first few classes.

Some notes and sketches from class.

Developing muscle memory for circle drawing.

Exercise with objects in 2-point perspective.

For the second year in a row I will be attending the SXSW conference in Austin Texas. I collected a lot of information last year to help me make the most of what is a massive, sprawling, 10 day conference. I also met some great people last year, some of which I have kept in close contact with. In preparation for the big event this year, through an international collaboration with Nonimage and Armadillo Studios we have launched a definitive guide to absolutely everything related to the SXSW festival in Austin Texas.

We are pleased to announce the launch of SXSWisEASY.com.

Designed with simplicity in mind, SXSWisEASY provides straight up information for everything related to SXSW. It covers everything from essential elements of Austin TX to the Best Interactive Parties all they way to a list of the Social Do’s and Don’t of the Film Festival.

Essentially, everything you could possible need to know to prepare you for SXSW in one easy to read spot.

As a group we have also provided a break down of the best parties and best interactive sessions at the festival. Including our own take on why it’ll be worth sitting in on the session. A guideline to help you make the most of your time down there.

So please spread the word of SXSWisEASY, send it to anyone you know heading to Austin. Even start following the SXSWisEASY Twitter account for the latest updates and information.

A big thank you goes to our friends Andy and Connor for being great to work with. Thanks again guys.

“Wait, this slider isn’t working. I’m grabbing the art off the page. WTH?”

It would have been the bee’s knees to manipulate that sliding chart on the homepage, after all I was just there to get into our checking account. This was a nice distraction.

Except, I don’t want to click through, especially after you made me grab a slider that wasn’t. And I feel well within our right to think that, after all your button is all the way right and here in the English speaking world we always start in the upper left. Maybe I’m just dumb.

Next time I’ll click through.

Maybe.

Joe: “Kurt, check this out, someone dropped a wallet.”

Kurt: “No way, is there an ID?”

Sure enough, there was an ID. And money. And a gift card. Not to mention a dry cleaning receipt, a business card and a map. All of which pointed straight to Burger King.

See the wallet was a guerilla tactic for the new Reverse Pickpocket Campaign. We actually found The King’s wallet.

We laughed and looked for a camera (like the Whopper Freakout campaign), then tucked the wallet in our pockets to show the clients. It was a very apropos find.

Kudos to you, Crispin Porter + Bogusky for turning the dial a little farther. And if you were one of the 5,000 wallet-finders in Chicago, be happy that you got to be part of a great experiment. Spend that cash and gift cards, so more marketers will take advantage of alternative media.

Some iPhone images:

While few people the have amazing skills to keep us entertained AND educated, we’ve found that a little comedy can go a long way.

Like these presentation graphs from GraphJam.com, a part of the iCanHasCheezBurger family. They’re spot on, as far as graph design goes, and the content depicts facts and figures of well-known pop culture songs, TV shows, news and other items in mainstream culture.

Here is an example showing stats from a famous B-52’s song.

From GraphJam.com

Imagine playing Love Shack while showing this before you present the quarterly sales figures to the board. Or making a point about the need for product placement advertising with a graph that shows how the movie Office Space helped sell staplers. You’ll see your audience relax and come to ease with your presentation.

We’ve also found that the site is a great place to roam around if you’re suffering from creative block. Nothing beats humor to get you going.

Making it fun is the easiest way to recall the complex. So when you’re writing that code, start rapping like The Poetic Prophet.

Maybe that will make it more fun.

15 people took the day to celebrate a year of smart marketing and advertising with our crew. It was a good mixture of clients, cohorts and friends. We even saw a SOX 13-8 winner over the Pirates.

Good thing the SOX got that winning idea out of their system before the weekend Cubs series.

See you next year!

We met near the statue dedicated to the 2005 World Champs!

A new Stalelife tradition – wish organist Nancy Faust
a good game for good luck.

All eyes were on the board in the 3rd. Woot!

No doubt Kurt and Matt were discussing the finer points of editing video.
Matt’s recent creations all feature his newborn son, Rylan.

What a good looking crew. Missing a couple of folks from the
full roster in this one.

Stuck with driving duties…thanks, Sid!

We put it on the White Sox scoreboard, but here is
actual proof – our clients rock!

Look for a couple handsome fellas with a video camera in one hand and a beverage in the other.

On a serious note, we plan to interview our favorite session leaders and some industry insiders. When we see something we think will interest you, our clients and readers, we’ll be posting it.

More to come – the Fest starts Saturday.

It may seem like fun and games but we’ll be attending seminars, panel discussions and meeting with the brightest minds online. This year, we will be binging you daily posts from the festival and video interviews with speakers and attendees to share with you the latest findings and trends of the online world.

For this special Friday Factoid post, we’d like so show you a little tidbit that we found in this months issue of Fast Company about the SXSW festival through the years.

If you or someone you know will be attending the festival, we’d love to meet up. Please drop us a line so that we can set a date and time.

Well, today you can taste the wonderful delights that iHop has had all these years for National Pancake Day. But there’s a catch this year, a good one at that. When you head out to your local iHop to try a delicious Short Stack, iHop asks that you also make a donation for the Children’s Miracle Network.

So, head out with friends or family to your local iHop and help a great cause. The annual goal this year is $750,000, so please bring a warm heart and a hearty wallet.

We’ll be heading out after work, hope to see you there.