Energy Efficiency at the LM HQ

Today we began the last of several steps to improve the energy usage for heating and cooling at the Local Motors HQ.

To begin, for summer improvements, we have installed a panel which divides areas of the high loft in the shop so that the conditioned air remains in the area where we need it and not in the area we don't. Similarly we included the addition of "solar vents" to remove the top layer of hot air.

Next for upcoming winter improvements, we have incorporated a number of changes that either forcibly push the heated air down where we need it or work through a ventilated system of return vents and supply.

In both cases, we have made the capital investment to improve the environmental footprint in/of our little office today. Even though it is basically a wash for us, all of the future tenants certainly will recognize the changes and will see the benefit in their bottom line.

Here's a picture of Dave and Christopher hard at work making this vision come true!

We will certainly bring on more updates as they appear.

Big Week starting up at LM

To begin with, we will welcome home our very own Ariel Ferreira Cronk from her honeymoon. Her valuable contribution was SORELY missed during her absence, and we are very excited to have her back.

Similarly important is the main event on Tuesday, the announcement of our Miami Motors competition. This lucky and talented winner will have bested 50 other competitors from across the world and been subjected to a thorough vetting from a robust and deeply insightful community. One thing is certain: this competition was our toughest yet, and there are many designs which could easily be called "top of the heap". Though one will win, congratulations to all of the participants for a job well done, and we look forward to awarding the prize to the winner.

Finally, this week represents the start of work for another LM Team member: Christopher Rhoades. A licensed NASA driver, spec-Miata pilot, car enthusiast, accomplished photographer, fluent Japanese speaker, and super young man, Christopher is a welcome addition to the team who will be interning at LM over the summer. We are lucky to have him, and expect to hear good things about him from the dugout as he takes the field.

Among our daily rhythm of exciting tasks and projects, these three additional events make for an especially interesting start to our week.

More on 2D to 3D Modelling (Part 2 of 2)

Back by popular demand. The program is CATIA (more precisely it is the capability of ISD, ICEM Shape Design). Both are Dassault products. This clip shows the "completion" or at least the first full outer surface of where we started yesterday. There is obviously still a great deal of work to be done in this example project but it gives a good idea.

We have looked very carefully at the usage of this suite in our body creation, and will certainly incorporate some or all of the functionality.

Ever wondered how a 2D drawing goes into 3D

Here is a fantastic Youtube video (sadly with no sound) that shows an experienced user of a 3D program overlaying lines, curves, and parametric surfaces (ie 3D graphed surfaces) in order to take a drawing and turn it into a model.

This is about as simple and pure as it gets in taking a design and beginning to build it. Such tools did not exist just a few years ago, and the fact that they are available to small businesses is nothing short of amazing.

Enjoy! We certainly do.

Miami Motors Voting ends tonight! 2359 EDT Wareham, MA Time (-4UTC)

Since many of you read this blog with your morning coffee from Hawaii east to Paris, by the time you are reading this, the voting will be over. However, for those of you from Eastern Europe east to New Zealand, you might be reading this before the deadline.

Wherever you may be and whatever your participation, the Miami Motors Competition is currently open for voting, and the Voting Ends:

1800 Honolulu, June 24
2100 San Francisco, June 24
0600 Paris, June 25
0930 Mumbai, June 25
1400 Sydney, June 25

Just a couple of hours left to cast your vote and make comments on the 51 fantastic entries in the Local Motors - Miami Road Racer Competition.







This competition increased 150% in terms of entries over the last, and the rate of comments has been staggering. Encourage your friends to vote and to comment. Each person will need to create a brief profile, but this is no different than the cost to be on Facebook or any other Web Community today.

See you in Miami for one more night, then get ready for us to announce the winner on 1 July...oh yes...and get ready for the next competition. It is already on the site. Curious?

Local Motors - Drive the Design.

A Great Team Pulling Hard on a Mission

I need to take a post to talk a little about the team you have pulling for you in building a next generation American Car company, because from stem to stern they are a phenomenal group.

Today's work is a great case in point, so I thought I would illuminate the goings on.

In the front office, the web team of Charles and Priyanka, led by Tim, were training on and implementing object oriented programming while beginning the code for 7 new pages on the site. At the same time, they were writing data-mining engines to analyze our customer profiles, and preparing for the upload of our next competition using increased functionality.

Farther across the front office, Tim was also collaborating with our design head, Ben, on a contract hire that Ben had just arranged to alleviate some graphic design pressure he was facing in order to free up his time to direct car design both within our competition and in our build process. At this same time, Ben was collaborating with the engineers, Dave, Mike and Dan, on both the guidelines for the next competition that he had developed, and the raw market analysis data that Dan had been parsing.

In between those collaborations, Dave and Mike were preparing for a day of intense training in a new visualization suite called Rapidform that will give them the ability to manipulate more accurately and to use better the point cloud data captured by our scanning equipment. At the same time, Dan was working on the underpinnings of refined forecast data to improve our business model assumptions. Additionally, Dave, has been researching the use of our partner 6 axis mill to shape our body work, while Mike has been carefully blogging about the results of their week long trip to Los Angeles where they saw a full slate of potential partners and offerings in the body production business.

Karin put in a herculean half-day at the shop managing the payroll, coordinating with Dan to improve our financial forecasting, leading the hiring process for a new permanent hire we are hoping to bring on this summer, while juggling the mundane but critical direction of our new business card graphics.

Additionally, at this same time, two of our outside advisors have been working overtime to study our latest progress and to recommend certain business process patents that we might be in a position to pursue. This advisory effort has been continuing while our board members have been nimbly reacting to strategic options that have presented themselves in the course of the last month.

Somewhat outside of the office, our community was even pulling hard by congratulating Ari on her wedding this weekend and wishing her well on her honeymoon. She this design created just for them. It is the magical gift of a thoughtful and talented community member, Aurelien Francois:





(Just Married in "Elvira", Aurelien Francois)

Though the emails she has been sending to the office from a sandy beach say otherwise, we have encouraged and implored her to take some time to enjoy herself and forget about all that we are doing for a week. I know it is a challenge for her.

Just another day in Local Motors, and I thought you would want to know. Rarely have I worked with such a high-performing team, and I am so proud to have been here to watch as they have come together to bind their vision and insight to this mission.

Selection of Competition Winners - Demystifying the Black Box

Because we are in the midst of a voting period after the submission deadline has passed on a Competition at Local Motors, we have received a greater than average number of queries about our method for selecting a winner.

From the Competition Guidelines everyone can read that Local Motors in its sole discretion chooses the winner but that we take into consideration votes, comments, etc. in doing so. In all correspondence on this subject, we have made it clear that we let the opinion of the community lead our decision more than any other factor. That is a core belief of ours.

I was rereading the PSA (Peugeot) design competition rules this weekend and realized how very opaque and centralized its decision process was. This opacity is central to most design competitions, who rely upon the safety of a "black box" process. In such processes, there is no mechanism for feedback, and the community is only asked for its input at one stage of the competition, if at all. This is no way to treat a community of valuable participants and enthusiasts, and it got me to thinking about our own disclosure and the impact of the community in our selection of a winner.

Of course, the limiting factor of any "anatomical" disclosure is that it permits "gamers" to set the odds unfairly in their favor. To protect legitimacy, therefore, we always maintain discretion of enough of the details of our analysis engine so as not to allow hijacking of a competition's results.

Nonetheless, I felt that we could and we ought to provide more detail on how our team goes about making a decision on a competition winner. In summary, we subject the voting of the community to a methodical analysis to help us determine a winner and to remain consistent from one competition to the next.










Looking inside the Black Box, (www.lakewoodconferences.com)


In more detail, we subject every participant to an analytical engine so that we can analyze the effect of his/her vote on the community, process, creation, and sale of our vehicles. Said another way, we carefully analyze and account for each person who makes a vote based on a range of factors critical to our business. We never attempt to adjust, edit, alter, or change the actual vote that someone casts for a design.

Each of these following "user" factors cause us to react to the way we think about a user's preference and therefore influence our choice of competition winners: Whether or not one is -

a winner of an LM competition
a buyer of an LM vehicle or product
a user who is "local" to the competition region
a dedicated commenter/critiquer
willing to vote someone's work up to the Design Wall or is someone on the Design Wall oneself
a visitor to a physical LM location
offering unique submissions to the site (Information about oneself, profile pics, checkups, build pics, entries, avatars, etc)
etc.

Though this list is not exhaustive, it gives a good sense of the type of factors we watch carefully.

Remember that these factors have NO BEARING on the designer submitting the work nor the design itself, they merely refer to the site user who is voting and commenting on those designs. We make no determination of the value or rank of any design on the site until the community has had the full opportunity to state their preferences.

This allows designers of all backgrounds, skills, and approaches to be judged equally and without bias by the community, and it allows all types of users to cast their vote and feel appreciated whether or not they are designers, builders, buyers, enthusiasts, or simply fleeting users of the community. More than anything we care that you engage.

Come one, come all and participate. We care that you are here, and we care what you think. Now it is your turn to effect directly the future of automotive offerings in your Local area. Local Motors - Drive the Design.

Hang time - and not the Celtics style!

(www.hoopsking.com)


Two days ago we had the longest "hang-time" on average per visit across 24hrs - longer than we had ever before. 13mins and 40 seconds per visitor. This means that ON AVERAGE people who came to the site stayed on for 13 mins and 40 seconds. If you want to count out 13mins and 40 seconds in a "one onethousand" count you will certainly get fatigued.

Wow, it is humbling to see the grass-roots influence on the site take hold.

Some thoughts on voting and community

(pro.corbis.com)


Wow, after two days of intense competition entries, we now have 51 solid competition entries for Miami Motors. The voting lasts through June 24th, so cast your votes and make your comments known. Given that this is an intense time for thought and consideration of design, I wanted to offer some thoughts.

In short Local Motors is all about community. Community of like-minded enthusiasts from all over the car world. We are here for our community, and without them we would be nothing.

Given that we have placed such a premium on this interaction, I would like to point out a few trends that we have observed from where we sit watching the interaction.

1) People are respectful and very interested in the design to be found on the site. Lesson: The internet in web 2.0 is not anonymous, and you must treat people as you would treat a good neighbor.
2) Some people are better than others at personally spreading the word of their design entries and bringing in friends and family to support them. While there is nothing wrong with this, in fact we encourage those folks to come and vote, we would like to see these friends and family vote with an eye not toward how to help their friend rack up points, but rather toward what they themselves would spend money on to buy. Lesson: Vote on what you like in your heart.
3) Many entrants have done an incredible job of soliciting the community for feedback along the entire length of the competition, and their works are far more refined for that effort. Lesson: Use checkup.
4) Some entrants shared no ideas with anyone, and simply lobbed in their designs at the last minute. These tend to be less well prepared entries. Lesson: Don't use checkup at your own peril.
5) Many entrants have written to the community in one form or another announcing their own submission for competition, but in the same breath, they exhort people to come and to vote for everyone. Lesson: Want the best feedback for everyone.
6) Some entrants have voted only for themselves and not for anyone else. This is really, in my opinion, the worst thing on our community because it is all take and no give. For those few of you who might be guilty of this, take a moment to look at some other design and vote....better yet and more valuable, MAKE COMMENTS. These comments go directly to the designer and they are an amazing piece of feedback for a designer to recieve. Lesson: Provide the best feedback for everyone and they will do the same for you.

So how to vote? There are many schools of thought on this, and here is mine.

a) Pick a center for your "curve" and call that a "3". This "center" should be one designer who provided a good design, who spoke to the competition inspiration, and who has provided interactive community feedback for others.
b) then adjust off of there. For example - AND THESE ARE JUST SUGGESTIONS:
>Good design, not based on the competition, good community member = 2
>Good design, not based on the competition, non-participating community member = 1
>Poor design, not based on the competition, non-participating community member = 0
.....and on the upside, you probably get the picture......
>Good design, fantastic inspiration based on the competition, solid community member = 4
>Class-leading design, fantastic inspiration based on the competition, solid community member =5
......and, of course, regardless of the score you choose to give, if you can see yourself opening your wallet (regardless of whether you know the designer or not) and forking over a sizeable amount of cash for a vehicle, then click "I Want It".

Whatever personal method you choose, be consistent and you will be doing the best job possible for the designers. And last of all, MAKE COMMENTS. Comments (especially those with visual additions) are the food that we all live on. Give some to get some. The nice thing here is that it is easy to do. Don't listen to anyone else, listen to your head and your heart and make comments on how you feel about a design. I guarantee it will be appreciated.

Local and Bimmer see eye to eye (Wink Wink)

Well it is official, the fifth person has now sent me a copy of the GINA concept saying that they thought of us at Local Motors when they saw this. I was a little dubious about the connection until I listened to Chris Bangle himself describe the theory behind GINA.






(BMW GINA Light Concept, static.wallpaper.com)


Listen to him yourself:



"What is the skin of a car for anyway?...In reality the aspects of crash and stiffness and ride handling can be handled in a space frame type vehicle entirely without the skin, and therefore to go away from a metal skin and to have a skin that offers different capabilities."

You said it Chris, and a HUGE thank you to the community who knew enough about us to see the connection. Go Local!

A European's take on American Cars - Local Inspiration for a Globetrotter

In the latest issue of Architectural Digest, my father turned me onto a fascinating article about Nicola Bulgari, the scion of the Jewelry business giant, and his car collection. When I first picked up the magazine, I thought for sure that I knew what I was getting into: this Mille Miglia winner, that Lambo, this Bertone design, that ode to Venus by Giorgetto G., and so on, but wait! No! I could not have been more mistaken. One sentence into the article and I realized the point was quite different. (Photography by Timothy White)








Bulgari has painstakingly accumulated a collection of almost entirely American cars to celebrate the great history of the US automotive industry. Here in one quote from the article, the basic point is displayed:

In the ultimate comment about what he feels is unjustified, and unjust, European automotive snobbery, Bulgari has even filled a garage with 80 American cars in the center of Rome, his hometown. “In Europe, there’s an attitude toward American cars, and this collection shows that that arrogance is wrong. Let’s not fantasize about European cars. Even the mom-and-pop American production cars, the cheapest ones, had great style, and they were so reliable.” (Text by Joseph Giovannini)

(Photography by Timothy White)


So Bulgari loves American. Cool. I am pleased to see an industry and a nation which has taken SO MUCH bashing recently, get a little chuffing - from an italian fashion mogul, no less. I encourage you to read the article if for nothing else to feel the passion of Bulgari. Wow.

This article got me stoked all over again about the core mission of Local Motors as a company which aggregates and collaborates design and makes vehicles suited to a Local market. We are drawing a global audience from over 100 countries and are having a ball focusing on designing and building for Local markets. Cars are about affiliation and inspiration: SoCal, Miami, America, Italy and so much more. Bravo for Bulgari collecting his passion and welcome to all you newcomers who are just beginning to see the passion and dedication of Local inspiration from a Global team of enthusiasts.









(Photography by Timothy White)









(Photography by Timothy White)

Open HOUSE!!

On Saturday at the Factory Five World Headquarters, the world's leading kit car manufacturer, there was held an event that was a site to behold for any car enthusiast. It was the 11th annual Factory Five Open House and Cruise-in for all of the company's customers. From 7am onward, a parade of GTMs, Daytona's, "Cobra" Roadsters, Daytona Spyders, Challenge Series cars, arrived to catch a glimpse and nod heads to friends and competitors and even a take a peak at the upcoming Hot Rod concept. Thousands of customers and hundreds of cars.

Many of the Local Motors team were in attendance taking careful notes and engaging with this amazing community. White and blue collar, men and women, old and young, knowledgeable and neophyte, married and not, family or couples, everyone was welcome, and everyone could see themselves in such exciting products. This is the definition of community. The Company President, Dave Smith, has often asked me what I think about their community and if there is any lesson from the LM community that he might be able to "apply" to FFR's group. After a day like this, all I can say is,"we have a lot to learn from the camaraderie and learning that FFR owners share with each other." For them, their car is a way of life, a medium, a language with which to express individuality. Some day the LM owners and enthusiasts will pick up where the FFR group has shown us the way and share pictures of events just such as this.

Please enjoy, I hope the pictures do the event justice. It was a visual delight.

Auto Insurance Part 2

Two Month ago, on April 8, I posted the first post about our quest to secure insurance for our startup business.

During that post, I detailed the frustrating and capricious nature of underwriters who do not actually look deeply into credits and risks and who write policies based on the fiction of a name or an industry title.






(Greedy Smurf, www.bluebuddies.com)


I also pledged to overcome this blockade.

Two months later we are now finally covered by A-rated insurers and have all of the coverage that we desired at a reasonable price. While I thank the underwriters, the real thanks goes to our new agent who bent over BACKWARDS to find the right insurer and to work with them personally to help them to understand the risk that we represented, and those risks that we did NOT represent.

Thank you therefore goes primarily to Bryan Dank and the team at Telemon insurance.









(www.supermanimagery.com)


One of the reason that I give little credit to the underwriters is that one of them is one of the VERY SAME companies who declined outright to write coverage when a previous broker approached them. This type of blatant change of opinion shows the limited willingness to look into a company from the point of view of the insurer without the guidance of an interested and committed agent.

Therefore, in sum, Local Motors is covered and ready to tackle the world of frivolous claims and unforeseen accidents.

New Team Member - Charles McKenzie

This week we have been joined by the newest team member, Charles.

On summer break from MIT, a small technical college in the heart of Cambridge MA :), Charles has joined us with a passion for coding. On his first couple of days he latched into our architecture, and now he is rapidly knocking out tasks. Whether it is in the back of the car on the way to work, on the train to Boston, or standing in line for lunch, Charles is always at work and solving problems. He is already coming up with unique solutions to tough problems, and we are all sharper for his being engaged in the team and the product.

Hailing from Albuquerque, NM, Charles is the son of an Air Force veteran and true to form, came to the office today wearing camouflaged trousers....a man after my own heart!

In his spare time, Charles codes his own websites, writes a blog, and even pens short stories. I hope we get to read one soon.

Welcome Charles, it is a pleasure to have you aboard.

Another day on the hunt for different car building materials

Today we had a fantastic day exploring the depths of carbon and glass
fiber composites.... Oh and the depths of the Colorado River....wow
great day, even if a little cold.

On the road again...

Tonight I am posting from the high altitude state of CO, where we are
on a business trip to meet some exceptional thinkers in car body
construction.

I can't say too much more lest I get ahead of myself, but I can tell
you that we did happen upon a western chili cook-off. Here is the
picture to prove it....

Stay tuned for more stories from the road. We are greatly looking
forward to tomorrow's meetings.

A new site to watch

(www.motorfoot.com)


"Thou Shalt Get On It" - Such is the slogan of a new website MotorFoot. Run by James Wilder. James found us on one of the design blogs he follows and wrote to me directly today. Here is a touch of what he had to say:

"I wrote a short blog entry on my blog called "The Open Platform Car".
Shortly after I wrote it, I found the Local Motors website via a
design blog I monitor. WOW! I was truly amazed that someone is
actually DOING what I've been dreaming about.

So, no long email here. Just a note to say you are connecting with
folks you might not expect to connect with."

James' site is dedicated to deliver American auto enthusiast content in Muscle, Rod, Custom and Industry news. I congratulate him on the well-crafted execution of such a site, and we should all wish him well. Check out the site here.

James, we will indeed get on it.

Surprise

Wow! As I wrote last night's post, I was expecting a ribbing from ya'll for my talking your ear off about "investment policies" and "cash management". Instead, I have received more emails with positive responses from readers in the community thanking me and asking more follow up questions on last night's blogs than almost any other post to date.....Let me just say again, "wow!" I never assumed that cash management was so cool.

Here's a little more depth on one idea. Think about why commercial paper or gov't bonds pay what they do....They are predicated on a yield curve...risk and maturity used to define rate. On the other hand, up to $100K in a bank account is relatively safe (due to FDIC/FSLIC), and many banks around the country pay rates that are a good bit higher than the implied risk. Why? Often it is because banks set their deposit rates as a business decision to "hire" money so that they can fill out the asset side of their balance sheet. For this reason, there often appear to be deals in things like the CD market. Try it out. You may find what I say is true, and 10 accounts of $100K each is safer than $1MM alone. That fact makes me sleep better at night.

Now as for the cars that I know every red-blooded LM lover dies for, here is another surprise....this just in on the community today:



Rockin! Make sure you manage your cash well enough so you can buy one of these!

Investment Policy for Local Motors

A note for today on a small but important facet of managing the Business of Local Motors. Have you ever wondered what happens to the cash in a business when it is sitting on the balance sheet during a time of growth. Liquidity is paramount so that capital can be quickly deployed to grow the business. This is especially true for a start up business such as ours.

So is the Local Motors' mattress the best place to hide the cash?

Some might think that a bank is the best. Up to $100K is safe in a single Federally insured bank account and bank money market accounts carry a better rate than nothing, at least with them there is almost certain liquidity. But liquidity is not the only concern. Safety is another, and rate of return is a third. Each of these concerns carrying a significant weight that must be managed.

For this reason, well managed start-ups must create an Investment Policy which guides the officers and directors in managing the cash for availability and growth commensurate with risk. Typically this policy defines investment in a well-diversified portfolio of fixed income securities while managing for return and relatively short weighted average maturities. This is exactly the type of policy that Local Motors has worked to institute.

I know that many of our community think precious little about the financial mechanics of running our business and are primarily focused on the vehicles we produce. Bravo for that focus; I am consumed by building great American cars. But as part of being so consumed it is important to share small details such as this aspect of cash management to show the inner workings of what makes an automotive team function fluidly and effectively.

Go Local!

Something WIKID this way comes

That is right folks, Dan Bogard, aka "WIKID" from the community has joined the ranks of the LM team as an intern.

Prior to joining Local, Dan was a test pilot for the Mars Exploration Development Team at Cape Canaveral. He speak 5 languages and has designed and built cars for the King of Denmark. Most recently he has taking to interior leather marquetry in Italy, and we are lucky to have him....

Hee Hee

Dan is acutally far more impressive. A decorated double major in Economics and Mechanical Engineering with honors from Carnegie Mellon, recipient of a Masters Degree in ME from U Mich, product development engineer at Daimler Chrysler for 4+ years, and currently attending Harvard Business School for his MBA......if all that were not enough, Dan, is a certified SCUBA rescue diver, and nice guy, and a lover of cars. I am not kidding here. These ARE his real credentials.

You have probably seen his sage and incisive comments under his nomme de guerre, Wikid, but we at Local Motors are even more blessed to receive his quick wit and sharp focus on behalf of making the company all that it promises and more.

So here's a picture of his sweet ride! Welcome Dan.

All things being equal, Americans will buy American

On Friday, May 23rd, Condé Nast printed an article written by Jay Leno which purported to tell American manufacturers how to win back sales lost to overseas manufacturers.






(Jay Leno in a Buick Roadmaster that is part of his collection, photo MSNBC, Jeff Minton)


Some of the argument's logic to win back market share in lower priced cars seems a little odd at first, but later on in the article, I see where it is coming from, and he is right on point. To use his words:

"I believe that, all things being equal, Americans will buy American. It just has to be as good as the competition; it doesn’t have to be better. The classic example is Harley-Davidson. Throughout the ’70s, the motorcycle maker had huge quality-control problems. Then Harley-Davidson said, “Look, let’s take our time. Let’s build fewer bikes. Let’s build them properly, so they don’t leak oil and they’ll run forever.” Harley-Davidson won back the market share it had lost, and it continues to dominate today....."

"The problem with what's happened over the past few decades is that you have a whole generation of kids who have no brand loyalty. They've grown up on Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Toyota. To lure them to the American brand, you’ve got to give them something exciting, something bold, something different."

Fewer Vehicles ......built properly .....that are exciting, bold, and different. That is a mantra to live by. The question is whether or not the current structure of the domestic manufacturers will allow them to behave in such a manner.

Leno points to vehicles like the Chevy Volt. It is true that such a vehicle is exciting, bold, and different, but "fewer" of them is unlikely to be the case. It has been reported through various sources that GM is planning to invest over $6Bn in the Chevy Volt. That number alone eclipses by 150% the investment that Toyota made in the Prius, and the boys from Tokyo have already run that little "hybrid-jobby" past the million mark, and fleet sales have only begun.

I think that the economy of scale inchoate in the large-overhead, large dealership, OEM way of doing business will make such exciting cars become ubiquitous instead of the stuff of small volume. So where does that leave Leno's prognostication. I do not believe it is wrong. I do think that this is the way the market is trending, I only think the other half of his prediction is more likely to come true first, and that is that the US manufacturers are going to shrink significantly before they find their groove and begin to grow again.

Oh and as for his last "little" point about the size of cars... we also couldn't agree more, "American buttocks are not getting any smaller" so we have to figure out how to give our buyers the size they demand. That is all part of the true "exciting, bold, and different" idea.

Bravo, Jay, for speaking out. Those at LM believe you have said the soothe.... how did you have time to study up on all this while you were working the Tonight Show?!