(Rock Music)
- [Charli] Hello everyone!
And welcome to Chicago! I am here for How Design Live
which is a designn conference I am speaking at.
Very excited to be speaking at it,
I'm giving a talk about in house design and how to increase
your worth as an in house designer.
So, that's why I'm here, I just got off
my eight hour flight,
and I think its- what's the time in London?
Its nearly one am in London, so I'm feeling really tired,
but I think here- what's the time here?
Its nearly seven o'clock here so I do want to
try and stay awake a couple more hours to
make sure I'm not jet lagged because my talk is tomorrow.
I think I'm gonna unpack because its Monday right now and
I'm here till Saturday so I might as well settle in a bit,
and then find some food.
I can see a Mcdonalds out the window,
that I'm not gonna lie, is looking pretty tempting,
but I think I'll try Uber eats, something more
healthier than that.
Then I've got to get a little bit of work done,
there is just this one thing before tomorrow,
and then I think I will allow myself to hop into this
nice big bed over here and
watch some Netflix and fall asleep.
All right so I've made it to Tuesday.
I did pretty well last night.
I did practice my talk, did get some food,
and went to bed at a reasonable hour.
Woke up this morning about five am so that's not great,
but to be expected, you know, when your
traveling long distance.
This morning I basically have meetings all morning,
right up until noon and I'm just in like a five
minute gap between them right now.
I thought I'd update you.
Then I need to go and regesitar for the conference,
figure out where the room is where I have to go and like,
check my presentation is working and things like that,
before my talk at 3:45, 3:45 is when my talk is.
So, yeah.
Right now I'm feeling a bit anxious, not gonna lie,
it always happens on the day and the night before a talk-
also probably why I woke up at 5:00 am really.
I had a lot of like, anxiety dreams last night,
which is just usually how it
goes for me before public speaking.
I am looking forward to my talk,
I feel like I know it well and yeah,
I feel like its going to be good.
I know I'm delivering value with it so whatever happens,
I know I'm going to be okay with it.
I am however really glad that I'm speaking on
the first day of the conference,
because, I don't know, I don't want to wait around until
Thursday and, you know, feeling anxious like this.
So, yeah.
I've just been checking out the conference schedule actually
and seeing if there is anything-
any other talks that I'll attend here as well.
I haven't taken time off work for this,
so I don't really have the opputunity to go
a bunch of different stuff really,
just cause I have a lot of work to do,
but there is some interesting looking things,
so yeah, hopefully I will check some of
them out later in the week.
Anyway, for now, I'm sitting here at this hotel room desk,
with a half eaten bagel,
and taking my calls for the morning.
(pop music)
I'm all dressed up, ready to go speak,
so I thought I'd just show you my outfit.
I always like to wear something nice that I feel confident
in to speak on stage, which makes sense I suppose.
This is my silk shirt from Everlane,
and this is a skirt I got recently from Oliver Bonas.
Its nice and comfortable, and then I'm wearing it with
my boots because I gotta be me, you know?
I did my hair over the weekend,
so its looking nice and purple and matching to my lipstick.
Feeling good.
I'm about to go and figure out where I've
got to get my badge,
and do the test for like,
checking my presentation is working,
all those things that I said were stressing me out before.
Then I think there is like a, Speaker's Ready Room I think
they called it, which I guess is like the green room.
So I'm hoping that I can go and check stuff out and then
just hang out in there until my talk,
instead of coming back to my hotel room and
then going back over again.
So yeah, I'm packing my shit up now and
getting ready to go over.
I feel like I still have no concept of how many people
are at this conference and how many people are
gonna come to my talk.
My talk is happening at the same time as
Assistion by Dave Milman who is the host of Design Matters,
very popular podcast, I'm sure all of you have heard it.
I'm flattered, because, to be honest, I would really
like to go to her session.
Its about emotions and feelings
and, you know, I love that shit.
So yeah, I feel like that might hurt the attendance of my
session a lttle bit, but hey, even if its just
one person there who I can help it'll matter,
and it'll be good.
(hip hop music)
This place is like a fricking maze!
I have no idea where I'm headed.
(Hip hop music)
Well I found my way there eventually,
turns out I did a whole unnecessary loop.
So, yeah.
This venue isn't my favorite,
its like a maze and very confusing,
but maybe that's just because I got lost getting here.
Anyway, I got a badge now and I went along to the keynote.
Now off to find my room that I'm going to be speaking in.
Its all about to happen.
(hip hop music)
So I'm back in my hotel room now,
its been a long day but a really good day.
My talk went well.
I definitely could have done better,
like, I don't know, there were just a lot of parts
of it that I wish I knew the talk better
because of the way that they had the setup.
I couldn't see my notes easily.
I much prefer when conferences have what's called a
confidence moniter at the front,
so that you can see your notes there at the bottom
of the stage to reference them,
but here I had my laptop plugged in Lecturn.
So, yeah, wasn't so easy to reference my notes,
I would have definitely felt more confident,
and I think I would have gotten my points across better
if I had had that,
but hey, still went well, there were a bunch of people who
lined up to talk to me afterwards,
which is always my favorite thing, like, I don't know,
just to think that people would spend time waiting in a line
just to thank me for the talk,
like that is a huge honor, and its definitely something that
I'd try to do after a conference talk if I really valued it,
cause I know how good it feels to be
on the receiving end basically.
So yeah, went well, a bunch of different people,
at least five that I think that I can count
said it was their favorite talk of the day.
I mean, granted, this is the first day of the conference,
there wasn't actually that many talks on today,
but still, I'm gonna take it, feels good,
I'm glad I gave them the value.
Like I said, I think earlier even if one person
got value from me it ought to be worth it.
So the fact that a bunch did is amazing!
And the room was packed too, it was so cool!
I don't know, I guess I just thought there was
so many options on to choose that people might not
come to mine,
but much of the seats were taken felt great.
After my talk, went to Akino, you saw a quick clip of that,
and then went to a drinks reception thing,
like the opening party which I didn't film any footage of,
but I had a great conversation there with Sphere who was
talking later on in the conference.
She has a YouTube channel as well, I'm gonna link her,
I'm sure I'm gonna get her in the vlog.
Eh not the point, we were just having a great conversation,
and I forgot that I was meant to be vlogging.
Story of my life.
So yeah, its been a good night, but now,
waiting in the bed behind me is some take out.
Got me some- like a rice bowl.
Its gonna be great, I'm gonna eat that, watch some Netflix
and chill out tonight.
Tomorrow I've got a lot of work to do,
but I also am hoping to maybe go to
a conference talk or two.
I'm also doing a speak coaching thing tomorrow which I'll
talk more about then, but yeah.
This tends to be what happens for me when
I'm speaking at a conference,
is that I haven't taken time off work to go to this.
I do have a little bit of work to do tomorrow though.
So yeah, I'm not sure quite how much actual conference
content I'm going to get to attend,
but I've checked out the schedule and marked a few things
that I ought to make sure I go to throughout this week.
So lets see if we can make that happen but for now,
it is Netflix o'clock and I'm looking forward to it.
Good morning, it is Wednesday.
I've been spending the morning just working
from my hotel room.
I've realized that I spent more than 24 hours inside,
like its been that long since I last went outside
since the conference is in the same center the
whole hotels in, and that's really all I did yesterday
was work, go do my talk,
and go to the drinks in the evening,
and, you know, hang out back here.
Today, I honestly don't know if it will be much different.
I'm working from my hotel room this morning,
then over lunch time I'm doing a speed coaching thing,
where there has been five people who have booked a
10 minute session and were just gonna chat about
an issue that they have,
a question that they want to ask me.
I actually don't know what people are
gonna wanna talk about, so, hopefully,
we'll be able to help them either way.
Then I got more work to do this afternoon,
and then there's one talk I want to go
to this afternoon too,
and tonight I might try an host a little meet up,
like, just say hey I'm at this bar if you want to come
and get some drinks.
I always worry about doing that because I'm afraid that
no one will turn up, or like,
maybe only one person will turn up,
and then I feel a lot a pressure to lead the
conversation and stuff, but yeah.
I've hosted a meet up once before, in New York,
and it went really well,
so we'll see, I don't know.
I definitely don't feel like I'm in Chicago yet tho,
that's kind of the sucky thing,
but honestly its the reality of traveling for work,
is that you don't get to see a lot of the place your in.
Hopefully tomorrow and frieday we'll get to see some more
cause my work mate Tyler is coming to Chicago and
were going to hang out and he's going to show me some things
because he use to live here, so he knows all the good spots.
But yeah, its gonna be another day of working and
probably being inside.
(guitar music)
Speed coaching is done, this is Christine,
she was my last coachie, and tutor.
She has a channel of her own so we talked about YouTube.
- [Christine] We talked about YouTube,
it was great, Charli's amazing, we all love her.
So much good advice.
- Are you enjoying the conference?
- I really am.
Lots of good truth nuggets, truth bombs,
that hit you right here.
- Yeah it does.
All right, I'm gonna get some lunch now I guess.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Okay, so I'm outside for the first time in like,
a day and a half.
My work mate Tyler convenced me that I should probably leave
the hotel today and at least go work
from a coffee shop or something.
So he's given me one to go to called Spoken Bird,
so I'm just walking there now.
(hip hop music)
That was such a lovely break.
I got some work done, and now I'm heading back
for one last talk of the day.
I'm actually going to scoop out the competition.
I'm gonna go to the talk by the
Director of brand design Maljim,
talking about their rebrand, and the process behind it,
and the cool quirky illustrative stuff they're doing now.
So yeah, it should be interesting.
(hip hop music)
Last night was really fun!
I wondered if I would end up sitting by myself
or maybe if just one person would show up or whatever,
but I think there was like,
I don't know, I can't remember off the top of my head,
but there was a good number of people there,
so it was really exciting.
People just kept showing up throughout the night as well,
I ended up staying there till about nine o'clock then
I completely crashed because jet leg, yeah.
It was super fun though, really glad that I did.
Today I am not doing anything to do with the conference.
I think that I am kinda done with the conference for now.
I'm about to try and navigate Chicago public transport
to head to north of the river,
meet up with my roommate Tyler, were going to spend the day
co-working together, getting lunch together,
and then go on a boat tour this evening
which I'm very excited about.
The weather, well, its getting better.
There was lower clouds earlier this morning and I think
it was raining this morning too,
but I feel like its gonna be a good day.
A little bit gray, but overall good.
(hiphop music)
Look who I'm with!
If you don't know this guy, this is Tyler,
he's my work mate, showing me the sites.
(hip hop music)
All right, we're in the Cat Cade,
which is a cat rescue and lounge thing.
Tyler's made a friend.
This was started my Chris Chriteriz who is an author
I've known about for a long time.
We collaberated on a project back when I was doing
my t-shirt company, like seven, eight years ago,
something like that.
So I've always wanted to come and visit this in Chicago,
and Tyler very kindly agreed to come with me.
Now were just hanging out with some cats.
(hip hop music)
I don't know if you can hear me but I'm inside of
Lou Malnatis, one of the famous
Chicago deep dish pizza places.
I tried Tio Vano's last time I was here so
I thought I should try this one this time.
On my own tonight I had dinner with Tyler and
his wife and some of their friends last night,
which was super fun.
We went out for drinks afterwards.
I don't think I talked about the architecture yet though,
super great also, highly recommend if you come to Chicago.
So yeah, tonight is my last night in Chicago
so I'm taking myself out for dinner.
Then I guess I'm gonna go back to the hotel and pack
because I got to fly out tomorrow morning.
(hip hop music)
I'm not quite sure how all of this
fit into my suitcase originally.
That's gonna be what I have to sort out next.
I wanted to show you two purchases I made today.
One is this sweatshirt here, it says Cat Cade.
Its quite large, its gonna be super cozy
for my working form home days.
I thought about maybe cropping it off but I don't know,
its kind of nice being nice and long, so yeah.
Wanted to support and get a memory I guess.
The second thing that I got is this print here
of the Chicago skyline.
I don't like buying souvenirs I guess,
but I'm hand collecting prints for my print wall.
So this one seems like a good fit.
I need to go and research the artist.
I know its a screen print but yeah,
I want to fin out more about them.
I thought the skyline was fitting since Tyler and I
did the architecture tour, and I saw a lot of
the buildings and stuff that are shown on here,
so yeah, that was cool.
(hip hop music)