Oh, what a feeling!

This afternoon, Eric and I gave a talk at Toyota's national headquarters in Torrance. We were invited to speak in conjunction with Joe from InterTrend as part of the company campus' Asian-American month calendar.


To be honest, I expected a room full of suits who would be asking about accounting, marketing, and forecasting, but the crowd of maybe 50 people was extremely receptive and asked thoughtful questions. It turns out they were way more engaged (and engaging) than most college audiences we've had. Crap, the next picture is blurry!


I figured that employees at huge corporations like Toyota are forced to watch boring PowerPoint presentations all the time, filled with stats and other mumbo jumbo, so we kicked off our talk with the following slide.


Imagine each point sliding across the screen as it was introduced. Humor is a risky thing in talks of any kind, but the audience totally clicked. It probably didn't hurt that Eric and I prepared a totally new outline geared towards Asian America for this talk, so it was fresh for us, too. (We filled out the outline in our typical freestyle fashion.)


Beforehand, I joked that we probably wouldn't need Sharpies for this talk, but it turned out we were asked to sign some mags. That was pretty cool.


Afterwards, we ate at the Toyota cafeteria. Eric pointed out the burger station, and I got a veggie patty with avocados, grilled onions, swiss cheese, and jalepenos with a side of sweet potato fries. Not bad! There was a selection of nice desserts, too, which InterTrend ace Amy volunteered to help me eat.


Thanks to Ivan, Karen, and everyone at Toyota and InterTrend for an afternoon well spent. What the attendees will get out of it, I'm not sure. But giving these talks always makes me extra amped about my job.

Hm, Wendy's two-door GTI isn't the most convenient vehicle for hauling around a baby seat. Maybe it's time to look into a Matrix...