how to be interesting

While I was at the U of O I kept going on about how the core skill of any future creative business person will be 'being interesting'. People will employ and want to work with (and want to be with) interesting people.

And since I’d spent quite a lot of time telling them all the things they should stop doing I’d thought I’d try and teach something useful. Since I don't actually know anything useful I had to make something up. Which is below. It takes about 10 minutes to teach but it’ll take a lifetime for people to work out if it works or not, and by then I’ll be long gone. Ha!

I’ve based it on two assumptions:

The way to be interesting is to be interested. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.

Interesting people are good at sharing. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself.

The marvelous thing about tinterweb is that it’s got great tools for being interested and great tools for sharing. So I’ve used them a lot. It should, of course, be obvious that there are many other ways to be interesting. Some of them don't involve computers at all. These are just 10 things, and if you do them you’ll get more interesting. Or at the very least you’ll start practising the skills of being interesting.

It's sort of didactic, bossy even, but it's supposed to be instructional, rules you can follow. If you do them, and send me evidence that you’ve done them for three months, then I’ll send you a marvelous ‘I’m More Interesting Than I Was Three Months Ago’ certificate.

1. Take at least one picture everyday. Post it to flickr.

You should carry a camera with you. A phonecam will do. The act of carrying a camera, and always keeping an eye out for a picture to take changes the way you look at the world. It makes you notice more things. It keeps you tuned in.

Posting it to flickr (or other photosharing sites) means that you’re sharing it. It’s in public. This will make you think a little harder about what you shoot and it might draw you into conversation about your pictures.

2. Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week.

This is pretty easy. If you just did this much I’d be disapppointed. You should write more sentences. Or you should write one true sentence. But I suspect that you won’t be able to limit yourself to just one sentence, I suspect you’ll get bitten and want to do more.

It’s easy to knock blogging as a kind of journalism of the banal but in some ways that’s its strength. Bloggers don’t go out and investigate things (mostly) they’re not in exciting or glamorous places, they’re not given a story, they have to build one out of the everyday lives they lead. And this makes them good at noticing things, things that others might not have seen. And being a blogger, feeling the need to write about stuff makes you pay attention to more things, makes you go out and see more stuff, makes you carry a notebook, keeps you tuned in to the world.

3. Keep a scrapbook

I’ve talked about this before. It’s good. Do it.

4. Every week, read a magazine you’ve never read before

Interesting people are interested in all sorts of things. That means they explore all kinds of worlds, they go places they wouldn’t expect to like and work out what’s good and interesting there. An easy way to do this is with magazines. Specialist magazines let you explore the solar system of human activities from your armchair. Try it, it’s fantastic.

5. Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes, work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it.

Again, being interesting is about being interested. Interviewing is about making the other person the star; finding out what they know or think that’s interesting. Could be anyone, a friend, a colleague, a stranger, anyone. Find out what’s compelling about them. Interviewing stops you butting in too much and forces you to listen. Good thing to practice. (And it's worth noticing the people who are good at it.) Podcasting is sharing. Sharing is something you must get used to.

6. Collect something

It could be anything. It could be pictures of things. But become an expert in something unexpected and unregarded. Develop a passion. Learn how to communicate that to other people without scaring them off. Find the other few people who share your interest. Learn how to be useful in that community.

7. Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people’s conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully)

Take little dips in other people’s lives. Listen to their speech patterns and their concerns. Try and get them down on paper. (Don’t let them see. Try not to get beaten up.) Don’t force it, don’t hop from table to table in search of better eavesdropping, just bask in the conversations that come your way.

8. Every month write 50 words about one piece of visual art, one piece of writing, one piece of music and one piece of film or TV. Do other art forms if you can. Blog about it

If you want to work in a creative business (and before long most businesses will be creative businesses) you’ll have to get used to having a point of view on artistic stuff. Even if it’s not very artistic. You’ll have to be comfortable with expressing an opinion on things you don’t know how to make or do, like music or writing. You get better at that through practice. And through sharing what you’ve written.

9. Make something

Do something with your hands. Create something from nothing. It could be knots, it could be whittling, Lego, cake or knitting. Take some time to get outside your head. Ideally, make something you have no idea how to do. Get something from Make and try it, assuming you’ll screw it up the first time. People love people who can make things. Making’s the new thinking. Share your things on the your blog, or, if you’re brilliant maybe you can share them on etsy.

10. Read:

Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte

All these books are good for their own reasons but they’re also good examples of people who are really interested in stuff that others think of as banal and who explain it in a way that makes you share their passion. That's good.

And that's it.

Anyone got any others?

Comments

[Noel]

Wow. Those three books. My fantasy mashup: I'd love to have, say, Scott McCloud create a comic-book (ahem: "graphic novel") narrative of the story of The Mezzanine, with detailed footnotes diagrammed by Edward Tufte.

Great meeting you in person on Saturday, Russell. See you next time in Portland.

[Tom Martin]

Here is another.... a speaker I heard once said it...

Listen with your toes.

Most of your suggestions involved sight or sound... that's only 2 out of 5 senses... listening with your toes lets you immerse yourself in the world... which leads to all kinds of interesting insights.

[Marcus Brown]

What about helping someone once a week?

[Luca Vergano]

I'd add "buy a new record every month from somebody you never heard before just because you like the cover or the name".

[Stan Lee]

I remember feeling like a fraud when I was asked to teach in the advertising degree at RMIT Uni in Melbourne.

I'd built my copywriting career on what felt like little more than an ability to know something about almost everything.

In essense I was an overpaid Trivial Pursuit player who also seemed to be able to use his useless trivial knowledge to produce ads.

I tried to instil this thirst for the seemingly insignificant into my students.

To borrow a phrase from the launch of the iPod Shuffle, I told them to randomise their lives.

To get off a stop earlier on the tram or bus. To listen to a different radio station everyday. To pick a book at random from the school library shelves.

My aim was to get them to broaden their minds and also their thinking.

Little did I know back then that I was helping to create a generation of creative generalists.

These kids have their graduate exhibition next week. I can't wait to see how they've turned out.

[andrew]

I was on a sales training course once (being in the marketing department we were required to know how hard the sales team worked, how tough their job was etc etc). Anyway the trainer said the way to appear interesting was to keep asking people questions about themselves, no matter how intrusive – first result is that they will never get tired of talking (and most of sales is just keeping the conversation going) and the second result is that you always leave them with the impression that you are the most fascinating person they have ever met.

It’s a bit manipulative, but most of the time it works.

[simon darwell-taylor]

Following on from Andrews point, I'm reminded of something I read about job interviews, according to some research the best interviewees are those who are able to get the interviewer to talk. The more they talk the more favourable they look upon the interviewee.

Anyway the original point I was going to make is that the enemy of interesting is apathy and routine. Edward DeBono likened the way the brain worked as water flowing over a rock, the more the water flowing along a particular route the more entrenched that route became, the same with thinking. So, breaking patterns is always a great thing to do, and very simple. I have about 20 variation on my way to work, all take the same amount of time, they’re just different. Forcing yourself to break routine can be very empowering. As can striking up conversations with strangers.

[Liz]

I'd add that sometimes just doing the opposite to what you usually do can be extremely eye-opening. Taken to extremes, it can be highly amusing too

[dan at innocent]

I think there's definitely a thing about talking to people who you don't usually talk to. Talking to my Granddad is more interesting than talking to my mates. I don't see him that much these days, but he thinks differently to me and my peers, so I always get something new aand/or unexpected.

Talking to strangers is good - I talked to man in a cafe last week and he ended up giving me good tips for selling our drinks in Germany (he was from Austria).

So, talk to the sort of person you don't usually talk to. Could be a stranger, could just be someone you've been avoiding or don't see very often. Talking is good.

[LV]

I want one of those certificates. See you in February.

[philip]

sit next to the grad/intern for a day. get them to take you out to the 'exciting' bit of London they've just found (even if it is Waxy O'Conners)talk to there mates. It does make you feel old BUT you learn loads. Plus they will value all the time your spending with them.

[zach]

look for tiny strands of text. especially interesting are the words that always go together but aren't quite idiom yet:

attitudes are changing

don't be nervous

lift and seperate (collected by Barbara Glauber in 1993.)

it's okay because you'll meet lots of nice new people.

I think these fragments work as samples from the cultural bloodstream. They are very good at evoking specific frames of reference as to what the speaker could be talking about (see also: Hemmingway's shortest story.). They're not too hard to find as long as you don't feel silly about obsessing over them.

Also, talk to your parents.

[Jarito]

As a music fiend I like the "buy a new album" idea. So to extend that I would also suggest to grab a weekly, pick a random show and just go. Even better-take a friend.

I use to very opposed to taking people to shows outside of their musical taste the same way Morpheus in the Matrix warns about unplugging people who aren't ready. However, I've come to enjoy the conversations we have afterwards because of their "outsider" perspective...as painful as they might be sometimes.

[Iain]

I absolutely love The Mezzanine. If you're a fan I'd recommend a book called American Purgatorio:

http://www.metacritic.com/books/authors/haskelljohn/americanpurgatorio

American Purgatorio is almost like a post-prozac version of the Mezzanine. The neuroses are just as evident, but they've been slightly morphed...

[Tom Guarriello]

If you liked McCloud's Understanding Comics I predict you'll love his latest: Making Comics.

[jazzing5uk]

on from what philip mention- pull up a chair and have a sandwich with the guy on a weeks work experience. listen to their take on the company, comments on work, it's effect on them, likes/don't likes, why this company, what's appealing, their passion & drive, spend 5mins looking at somethng they have produced, get back to them with thoughts, it's doesn't take a sec and will be so rewarding to the individual.

[mikej]

I have a weird fascination will travelling and seeing the different ways in which people do things in other countries.

I have travelled through US, UK, SE Asia, West and Eastern Europe. Seen the usual sites there.

But the most interesting things I remember come from sitting in coffee shops and watching how people do small things differently. I once watched a bunch of old french guys play boules for hours. Watching them interact and still have passion after all the years of playing together, was awesome. Then 6 years later I was in a small town in the Czech Republic and in a hostel bar there was a photo of the same french guys in the same park. I guess someone else also found it interesting

[Claus]

I wholeheartedly endorse the "listen to other people's conversations" tip. I've found reading a book (while listening) a really good way to avoid any risk of violence while you're eavesdropping. People automatically presume you've transported yourself to another location if you're reading.
And you kill two birds with one stone as far as doing what's on the list is concerned.

[Philipp Lenssen]

Just ordered The Mezzanine, thanks.

[Sarah]

Being interested is interesting! Yes! I like this sentiment, and heartily agree.

However. This list strikes me as pretty conformist-- add t-shirts to your list of things to write about in #8 and you've defined "10 things to do to be a hipster."

The list is skewed hard towards consumption and production of media, though, and I define "interesting" as more than "working in modern media," so maybe that's my problem.

Here is one thing I might add to the list, for balance.

Flirt with someone. You can flirt to make romance, make friends, do business, or something else. It's good practice for communication, perception, creativity, and courage. And you'll meet people-- that makes you more interesting.

[olivier blanchard]

Being funny doesn't hurt either.

Terrific post.

[jack]

I recently found a very interesting website:
http://alreadylinked.com/
There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.

[Made]

Do activities that everybody thinks it's a crazy thing to do.

Recently, I cycled half island in Singapore. Not once, but twice. When I shared this experience with a bunch of friends, and some of them didn't believe that I just did it. Actually, not a difficult thing to do, yet it's very fulfilling. And next time I meet a stranger, I can share this story with him.

[Jonathan Biddle]

What a wonderful post.

At the best job interview I ever went to, I asked the guy 'what are you looking for?' - he said 'interesting people, but more than that, interested people.' This stayed with me for many years, and it is nice to be reminded of it! Thanks.

[Jglaysher]

Learn to ride a big motorbike.