We just learned that we're headed to Denver in June 2010 to present at the HOW Design Conference. Well, I'm presenting and some of the team members are likely coming along to lob softball questions at me so I'll look intelligent during the Q&A. 

The session is one we've been working on for a couple years and finally decided to pitch.  It's titled "Three. Word. Taglines. (And other truly horrid branding ideas.)"   Here's the extract:

Branding stuff is easy, right? Just follow the time-tested rules and you’ll end up with a rock-solid brand that everyone loves. Okay, so perhaps that’s a bit optimistic. Tate Linden, Chief Creative of Stokefire and former brand manager for Fortune 500® companies, spent the last decade discovering exactly how wrong many of the myths and tenets of branding can be.Come see why the moment something is called “conventional wisdom” you should stop paying attention to it. He’ll debunk numerous branding myths from the need for consensus to the quest for perfection. And he’ll help experienced branders identify and eliminate the best-practices that are actually doing a job on us instead of helping us do our jobs.

I'm really looking forward to discussing some advanced techniques for getting around the most problematic client issues - such as gaining approval for daring and effective design, teaching clients how to evaluate our work, and perhaps most of all how to move away from decision by consensus and towards a model that actually adds value. 

I'm also going to be doing the Lunch with a Speaker option on the Sunday before the event.  Should be a lively conversation and a nice preview of the upcoming talk. 

(And what the heck is the title of the post referring to anyway?)