The event showcased 6 innovative Pittsburgh based companies ranging from medical device makers, Body Media, to experience design firm, MAYA, to roboticists (who make stuff for parents and babies) 4moms.

There is something brewing in Pittsburgh. With it’s myriad universities, and its burgeoning medical, robotics, design, media, and technology sectors, new companies are coalescing and creating better products and services. The recipe for creativity in Pittsburgh combines “Hyper-intelligence with a blue collar work ethic,” according to Tim Fletcher of Daedalus.

Below are notes by Leah Silverman, Emily Marko, and myself, capturing different facets of the event.

Visual notes by Leah Silverman

Illustrated notes by Jonny Goldstein

Illustrated notes by Emily Marko

I had an indirect experience with Steve Jobs’ micromanager side when I was part of a recurring event at the Apple store in 2005 in SOHO. At this event people gave presentations about the (then) emerging phenomenon of video podcasting. The first time we did the event, one of the presenters showed a video that included some political commentary. The next time we came in, the manager nervously approached the presenters to make sure we weren’t showing anything overtly political. Apparently, some customer had complained to Apple and Steve personally called up the manager and reamed him out about it. I think it would have driven me nuts to work for a guy like that, but do respect his deep involvement in his company. He definitely sweated the details.

—-J

We’d love to introduce you to our baby girl, Josie! She was born yesterday in Pittsburgh. We have loved hanging out with her so far and are looking to wheelbarrows of fun with her. And since this is the Envizualize blog, I have included a little sketch.

Had a blast being part of Pecha Kucha Night Pittsburgh, Vol 8. I enjoyed everybody’s talks, and was honored to test out a new slideshow talk of my own on the packed-in audience.

Unfortunately I did not hand my camera off to someone to get a pic of myself rocking the mic. Anybody got a pic for me? If so, please send it to jonny(at)envizualize.com and I’ll add it to the set of images from that night.

Thanks to Assemble for hosting us and AIA and AIGA Pittsburgh for producing the event.

If you missed this one, come check me out this coming week, July 7, at 7:30 where I will be doing live illustration of peoples rants and raves about their neighborhoods, also at Assemble, 5125 Penn Ave in Pittsburgh.

1. Pecha Kucha Pittsburgh, Volume 8

Pecha Kucha is an event which happens in cities all over the world where people give 6 minute talks along with timed slides about whatever they want.

I will be giving a talk called “The War on Sugar” accompanied by my own hand-drawn illustrations. The talk is a thought experiment musing about what would happen if we banned sugar the way we banned a variety of other substances like cannabis, heroin, and methamphetamine. After all, sugar is very bad for us—over 71,000 people in the USA had diabetes listed as the cause of death in 2007. In the same year over 161,000 death certificates listed diabetes as a contributing factor, and surely over consumption of sugar was a contributor to many of those deaths. But would we want to criminalize consumption and production of sugar? Hmmm….Yes, okay, this is a thinly disguised indictment of the War on Drugs. For links to resources where you can learn more check here.

When: 8PM, Thursday, June 30

Where:
Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)
5125 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Map:

View Larger Map

Price: $5 at the door

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2. The Good, Bad, and Unique of Your Neighborhood, Illustrated

In this event, attendees will describe what makes their neighborhood great, not so great, and just plain distinctive as I render their descriptions as illustrations on the wall so everyone can see the stories unfold with pictorial accompaniment. This should be a great way to learn about different parts of Pittsburgh and meet some community minded folks.

When: 7:30 PM, Thursday, July 7.

Where: Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)

Where:
Assemble (Art and Tech Community Space)
5125 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Map:

View Larger Map

Price: Free!

The bigger the words, the more lists I was mentioned on with that exact phrase. Only exact matches count to determine the size of text. So mentions “graphic-facilitation” and “graphicfacilitation” will not combine to make a larger size.

In this version, I removed hyphens in the text, which led to a different variation. I think this one is more accurate than the one above.

(Length 3:39)
This version is a sped up version of me doing large scale notes of Chris Lehmann’s “School 2.0″ keynote at the 2011 Marylyand Society for Educational Technology Conference.

Download Link.


(Length 26:45) Part 1 of Chris Lehmann’s MSET 2011 Keynote “School 2.0″ accompanied by Jonny Goldstein’s visual notes.
Download Link

(Length 27:33) Part 2 of Chris Lehmann’s MSET 2011 Keynote “School 2.0″ ccompanied by Jonny Goldstein’s visual notes.

Download Link.