See it??  Right there!

The posters got dropped off to all the venues yesterday but I haven’t been to Detour yet this week.  I hadn’t seen this until Marie (of Nat & Marie fame) told me she saw it.  Good lookin’ out, Marie!

My name is bigger than Facebook’s!  And two over from the Maple Leafs!!

Come see my Social Media Week session tomorrow night!

What are you doing next weekend?

Well if you know what’s happening, you’ll go with me down to Toronto’s historic Distillery District for the Lexus Live event.  Thanks to our peeps at NotableTV.com for the heads up on this notable Toronto event.

This event takes over the Distillery District from Friday to Sunday. Check it out:

• Get in and try out the new Lexus CT 200h (first dedicated hybrid in the luxury compact class), and get a look at the Lexus Targa GS 450h race car
• Live radio broadcasting on-site – ChumFM/Virgin
• Most exciting for me, a free music mini-festival performances by The Stills (Friday 7:00-8:00pm), Lily Frost (Sat 12:00-1:00pm), The Midway State (Sat 5:00pm-6:00pm), and Paper Lions (Sun 3:00-4:00pm)

What’s that I heard?  Free music?  Complimentary refreshments?  Try out next year’s hottest car?  Sounds good to me!

I’ll be there vlogging on the Friday and either the Saturday or Sunday.  Follow me on Twitter to stay in touch.

For full details, check out the event page on NotableTV.com

I have been thinking about doing a blog post about the kind of job I am interested in, so HAPPO Day seems like a good time to do it.

The Question in the title of this post – “What is it that you do?” – is one that I am asked by almost everyone who has followed me on Twitter, taken a look at my blog, watched some of my videos, read my comics, seen me perform, and come away from it with their head spinning.

Yes, I have my creative vision expressed in many different arenas but my singular talent is making things pizzazzy…

…And I want to help make your things pizzazzy.

Some people think that my style is in-your-face, but anyone who knows me and gets what I’m about knows that it’s sincere. What I do is I take a flair for the visual, an eye for talent, and an assessment of what you’re doing right already, and I mix them together to create something fun and marketable. Or as I explain in one of my rap songs: “I take something old and something new and I turn it into something timeless.”

I guess you could say that what I’m best at is Brand Development. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re established and you want to take it to the next level, you can tell me where you want to go, and I can tell you what details you need to have in place and what marks you need to hit in order to get there, and whatever else goes on around that is either a bonus or doesn’t matter.

Here are some case studies:

I’ve worked with a lot of bands, but I want to single out The Golden Dogs because I’ve done a lot of different things for different bands, and done all of them for The Golden Dogs. I helped them add an additional level of theatricality to their image and stage presenation (costuming, props, stage dressing, even song selection) and developed the concept for their CD release party and major live showcases (paying attention to every detail of the experience from the time someone walks in the door, not just what’s on the stage). Within the year, they had a major label deal with distribution through Universal Music, were signed to the biggest booking agency in North America, and the next year they were touring Canada and the U.S. with multi-platinum acts.

Canada’s longest-running comedy/variety TV show, Ed’s Night Party, was stuck in a creative rut and wanted to re-invigorate the brand. I came up with the idea to do a spin-off comic book, re-do the show’s website and visual identity around it, use that as the vehicle to market the show and characters to the comics & pop culture fandom crowd, and use blogging and Social Media to bring people into the world of the show. That got them a whole new following, the show went on to greater heights in the ratings domestically, and expanded to the US on G4TV and RipeTV.

Right now I’m working with Princess Superstar. We’ve only just started working together, but with her track record and brand recognition, there is huge opportunity to do some really cool stuff with social media and online content distribution.

(If you want to know more about the strategies involved in the above examples, email me – seanward.net AT gmail.com – I’d love to get into it with you.)

These are just a few examples of the kind of advice I give to people all the time, and the things that I love to help people with.

There’s only so much room here so I haven’t been able to get into as much detail as I would like, let alone talk about my own projects, building a brand literally from a street corner hustle into a TV development deal.

In all of these cases, I predicted how things were going to go. I told them what marks to hit to reach their goals, and that reality manifested in proportion to how much of my advice they took. And in instances where they didn’t take my advice, what happened was exactly what I warned them would happen when I explained why the benchmarks we set were so important. This is what I do; I figure out how to position you as a superstar, create or modify the product so that it backs up the talk, and get the conversation about it happening.

Despite my reputation as a shameless self-promoter, I don’t feel like I’m good at selling myself. I try to stay a bit humble, keep busy, and make fun stuff. I keep busy making comics and planning shows and cooking up marketing schemes, and these sorts of opportunities have flowed naturally from the people I meet and scenes I encounter (God bless the Internet and Social Media!) I’ve always struggled with how to articulate what it is that I do, what I’m good at, and why people should hire me, but for this #happo post I figured now is the time to put it all on the table.

If you read this, I hope you’ll get in touch.  I would love to hear about what what you’ve got on the go, what you’re up to, and where you want to go with it. And maybe I can help you build a platform on which your inner superstar will shine…

seanward.net (at) gmail (dot) com

twitter: @seanward

facebook: seanwardsuperparty

This week in the new Super Party – the funkiest, flashiest, and flyest comics on the web – it’s Barnaby Bunny’s First Major League At-Bat.  It’s a brutal twist ending, but it’s got a lesson about being committed to your art.  This one is for the heads.

Click here to check out this week’s Super Party comics!

It’s Benny Bunny at the Olympics!  But this is Super Party comics so you know this can’t end well…

See the Insanity for yourself at
☆ seanwardsuperparty.com ☆

In this week’s SUPER PARTY: Banquo Burger is a business rock star.  Too bad that some people would take advantage of that!  Banquo Burger is recruited as an assassin?  Read it and see!

Read it now at www.seanwardsuperparty.com

I made a new business card to hand out at Social Media Week.

I decided early on that I wanted it to be a square. A square would stand out at a glance, and a square composition always insinuates an album cover for me. With that in mind, I ran with the idea of a record cover, going for a minimalist and iconic look. I’ve always been interested in personal branding (any other cartoonists sell autographed photos alongside their comic books?), and incorporating personality into marketing comics the way they do for music and actors. We are entertainers, after all.

Even though it’s light on information, everything necessary is there: my website URL, and my Twitter username. No one attending something called Social Media Week needs anything more than that, and it’s from those two channels that I direct attention out to Super Party, my Facebook, or whatever else I think is interesting.

When I got the cards, I was delighted. It’s something about the paper that they’re printed on – they feel like they’re made out of thin plastic.

So if you’re out and about in Toronto this week, ask me for one of these and I can keep you company at your desk every day!

Oh no!  Benny is in trouble now!

Click here to see what’s happening
in the new SUPER PARTY

It’s a special gift for the hometown fans!

it’s An Electric Christmas Freak-Out!

Featuring Music and Comedy with

• La Casa Muerte
• Barry Taylor
• Raymi Lauren
• Sadie May Crash
• plus special surprises
• hosted by yours truly, Sean Ward!

This event is free to attend with a CASH donation to the Daily Bread Food Bank.  Everyone kind of forgets about the Daily Bread Food Bank after Thankgiving, but kids need something to eat more than they need new toys.  The daily Bread Food Bank did pretty well this year for food donations, but came up way short on their cash donations so we’re going to help them out.

Come get your pre-Christmas party on!  Monday, December 21 at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto!

Walking along Haight Street in San Francisco a couple of days before the show, guess what I saw in the window of Amoeba Music! In fact, Rand had done a pretty good job of getting that poster up in what seemed like every store on the strip!