Russell Davies

interesting speakers

This is quite a daunting moment for me. This is where I find out whether my definition of interesting matches with yours. I think some people were expecting a conference about digital marketing or something. But as you'll see, Interesting2007 is not going to be that. If anyone wants a refund just let me know, and that's fine, I believe Eventbrite is fully able to cope. And I hope someone will take your place.

I should also point out that this is not a definitive list of speakers. Partly because I've not finished rounding up speakers yet, partly because not everyone's got back to me with a rough idea of title and partly because I'm convinced that I've asked some people to speak and then forgotten to email them again. So if you think I've asked you to speak and then not followed-up then a) please let me know and b) I'm sorry.

Anyway, here, in alphabetical order are the speakers thus far lined up and confirmed for the conference.

And could I say that I'm massively grateful to everyone that's agreed to speak at this thing. I think it's going to completely bloody fascinating. And, hopefully, after you see the list of stuff you'll agree.

These are the people doing the shorter things - 3-5 minutes. (And in some cases verging on 10). A high level of technical difficulty but often the most rewarding bits.

Adrian Gunn Wilson will talk about how to split a log with an axe. (He warns us that this will include gory pictures.)

Andrew Hovells - will give us a talk entitled - 'Doing something well (or I'm useless at football so I swim)'.

Diego Rodriguez is going to talk about Unabashed Gearhead Gnarlyness. (I can't quite believe he's coming all the way over for this, but he says he is, so I'm very chuffed about that.)

Emma Holloway - will talk about 'Ideal Homes? Designing the British Mobile Home'.

Matthew d'Ancona will talk about 'something like: From Citizen Kane to YouTube.'

Phil Gyford will talk about 'something to do with acting'.

Seb Palmer is going to talk about how the world looks to a skateboarder.

Sophie Dollar - will talk about a haphephobic French fruit painter. With a couple of slides.

Tim Milne - is going to talk about the magic of printing.

Tom Lewis Reynier will talk about knots.

Tommi Brem will give a 3 minute talk currently entitled: 'People have no trouble imagining infinity. They have trouble imagining finiteness.' Though he promises a shorter title in due course.

These are the people doing the longer things; 15-20 minutes, so a bit of room for them to stretch out but you're still comfortable in the knowledge that if they're not doing it for you, you're never more than 20 minutes away from something else.

Anne Ward will talk about something like 'how the web is reclaiming niceness.'

Chris Heathcote will be speaking and cooking about EBCB for the 21st century, and probably launching forkbot.

Dave Funkypancake will show photos and talk about something probably including various bollards.

Deborah Khan will give us 'why do we listen?'

Fiona Romeo will talk about the museum visitor as performer, based on her experiences putting together The Science Of Spying at the Science Museum.

Grant McCracken hasn't decided what to talk about yet, but I'm hoping to persuade him to tell us of his experiences going on Oprah.

Jack Schulze is planning to talk about comics and pictures that know they're being looked at.

Jennifer Lyon Bell will talk about 'what makes a sex film sexy' using her own experience as an erotic director. She may be accompanied by Jeffre Jackson.

Matt Jones will be talking about 'The Vernacular of the Spectacular': a wünderkammerkaze ride round the (possible) future(s) of bits, cities, rocks, robots and shoes.

Rebecca Northam is going to talk about Ibsen or The Muppets, or possibly both.

Richard Wilson is going to talk about how TV gets made, and show us a rather splendid personal project. But since he's got the first show of a new programme going out the next day, he might not make it.

Tom Armitage is going to talk about pipes and tubes. He might use this to talk about the joy of infrastructure at large. He is finding it hard to resist calling this talk "A Series of Tubes", but he's just about holding up.

And that's the list so far. As you'll see it's a lot to pack in, and I might have to delicate conversations with a few people about shaving off some minutes, but I think we can make it all work.

I have more people to prevail upon, to persuade them to contribute. We will also have musical and video guests. And some small-scale fun surprises. More announcements on all that to come.

(I'm going to add this list to the wiki and will update it as people get added, come up with a better title or decide to chicken out. And I'll post significant updates here. Check out the attendees page, by the way, there are going to be some dead interesting people in the audience too. If you're coming, why not add yourself to the list?)

I'm staggered and delighted that 300 of you bought tickets without the first clue about who's going to speak at this thing. So I really hope this list excites you. It excites me and I'm going to love listening to all these people. I hope you feel the same.

from the other side

A good man has given up his blogging corporeality for a good cause. The least we can all do is visit and pay our respects.

where has all the planning gone?

It's gone here, the job postings, the campaign articles, and the write-ups of presentations I do will be over there. The randomness will continue here.

oh lay your hands

One of the depressing things about getting old is all the bounce leaks out of you. I look at Arthur, he's packed with bounce, he falls over and springs back up like he's got neoprene skin. I fall over and I have to lie there for a week counting my fractures and trying to remember whether we've made a will.

So, after I'd done my bit at the wildfire conference I managed to fall down a couple of steps and twist, strain or bruise my ankle so that today it's stolen and painful, despite my concerted programme of RICEing (Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation - Dr Internet told me what to do.) I wouldn't normally bother you with this except that in a week's time I'm supposed to be doing the Coast To Coast walk and I'm really looking forward to it and I don't want to miss out because of a stupid slip down a step.

So I'm going to resort to Wayne Rooney / Sun newspaper style tactics and ask you all to lay your hands on the screen and send the healing power of the blogosphere through the internet tubes to my ankle. I will install some sort of vibes reader to manage the inveitable spikes in good will and will update you on healing feelings via twitter. I thank you.

beta tees and LBVs

The Little Big Voice website is up as a record of the other weekend down in Wales. It's lovely.

The handwritten notes on the frontpage are a really nice touch.

Lots of people seemed to like the 'always in beta' badges I handed out while I was there and Dave suggested they might make some up as t-shirts which would be splendid. Before I nudge him about that (because I'd like one) does anyone else want one? Not sure how much they'd be, but any interest in principle?

school of the web news

The School Of The Web is too good an idea to die just because I don't want to do it anymore. So I'm passing it on to some good people to actually do it properly. Opinionated Rob's going to do May's assignment. Then Northern Planner's going to have a go (I just can't bring myself to call him Andrew) they, along with Carol (who's offered to turn her planningblog url over to a group blog with this as an element) are the new faculty.

I will get back to all the people who sent Starbuck's stuff asap. Apologies to them.

I feel like I'm shedding skins, it's rather pleasant.

ticket news

UPDATE: I'm sorry, we're sold out again.

100 extra tickets are on sale now. Still £20. These tickets are known as Die-Hards. Speaker details will be this time next week. Sorry if that seems to be the wrong order. Refunds will be available if you don't like the line-up but I'm sure you will. Sponsors are being incredibly generous and I'll have more details on that soon too.

I've also put a wiki at interesting2007.pbwiki.com. The password is interesting. There's not much there yet but this will be the central repository for everything you'll need to know about things like Lunch (bring your own) and Name Badges (there'll be no name badges). All the useful details will be there. But, in the meantime, if you're coming and you'd like to add yourself to the attendee list it might be a good way to let others know you'll be there, arrange meeting-up, lifts etc.

Ben and TDC are also doing more things I don't understand with the logo.

between the towers

Because I've always wanted to, I'm going to walk the Coast To Coast walk in May. (Well, most of it.) And I'm doing some little walks about town to get in practise, and because I like the odd bits of London you find it you devise a walking scheme that takes you away from the usual routes. (And because, as was pointed out to my this week, these pointless/pointful walks seem like prototypical unproduct.)

Today's jaunt was a round-trip from the BT Tower to Tower Bridge and back again, North side of the river first, South side second. There's a little flickr set here.

It was a good walk, served up some of the randomness one associates with walking in London, but it was a bit on the beaten track. Not as meandering as previous excursions such as anti-clockwise around the congestion zone, BT Tower to Gherkin, all the way up the Edgware Road or from The Sark to The Dome.

Good though. Good way to explore somewhere you thing you know.

coworking

What a good way to get a coworking project up and running.

big, rich and green

Here's the Campaign thing from last week:

I've spent a lot of the last year bouncing between digital agencies, regular agencies and brand-owners, watching how things are working and trying to help. And the first thing you notice is the different kind of ideas different businesses need to do good work. So if you'll forgive some typically plannerly word-flummery, I want to spend some time teasing out the difference between a Big Idea and a Rich Idea.

Big Ideas are what everyone in advertising and marketing seems to want all the time. The bigger the better. No-one ever really defines what this means, it just has to be big, but I always think of it as something like a High Concept Hollywood movie, something you can express in very few words and everyone will immediately 'get' like; "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are Twins". Big Ideas are supposed to be instant, loud and obvious once you hear them. And there's nothing inherently wrong with this, except a lot of Big Ideas end up feeling more like the famous Hollywood sign; big, bright and noticeable, but with nothing behind it. They're a bit thin, a bit insubstantial. This was OK when all a Big Idea had to support was three TV scripts and some print and posters, but its flatness really shows when the poor digital agency has to turn it into an extended, immersive, online experience, not just a silly game of whack-a-mole with the brand mascot.

Which is why, although it's just playing with words, I prefer to think about Rich Ideas. Richard Huntington describes this kind of idea as 'generous' meaning it's something that every agency and partner around the brand management table doesn't just 'get', they can immediately think of a dozen great ways to bring it to life in their particular medium. A Rich Idea might have instant appeal but it also has hidden depths, emotional resonance, inherent drama. If a Big Idea is like a high concept movie then a Rich Idea is like the premise for a soap opera or a series. It implies some development, some unfolding over time, some mystery. Those high concept movies didn't spawn a load of interesting sequels because they were so thin, the cinematic equivalents of one-liners, but a simple premise like the one for Buffy The Vampire Slayer - high-school as horror movie - conjours up an entire imaginary universe, one which its fans are still exploring. Give a good digital agency something like that to play with and they'll do something magical, give them the average advertising idea and they'll do a stupid flash game.

And, then, I realised that I missed one out a few weeks ago, and I've not scanned it. So here's the text, it's greenish:

If a group of alien anthropologists arrived from a distant planet and started to study advertising agencies what do you think they'd conclude about our purpose? I suspect they'd conclude that agencies are in the business of putting bits of polyboard in taxis and driving them around town. Or that maybe they exist as places for big, black cars to wait outside, engines idling. Or that they're machines for getting huge wodges of paper, putting very few words on them and binding them together so they can, again, be put in taxis and driven around town. I don't think they'd conclude that communications agencies are at the cutting edge of sustainable practise. And we're not are we? We're happy to do alarmingly dramatic and award-winning ads about green issues and carbon neutrality, we're less inclined to make sure all the computers are switched off in the evening.

And, frankly, all you hard-nosed business types could be forgiven for not caring less about my funny little morality parable if it wasn't for the fact that, just around the corner, your financial existence may depend upon your ability to get things switched off and your understanding of what kind of inks you're using in your Christmas cards. And it's all because of Marks and Spencer.

Their rather splendid Plan A initiative feels like a tipping point for sustainability practice in the UK. The other big retailers are bound to respond in some way. And then everyone else. Sustainable compliance will become a boardroom priority. Voluntary codes will be established and popularised. Government ones will swing in with the force of Health and Safety. And then this influence will swim up and down the supply chain; reaching to factories in China and posh restaurants in Soho. And then you'll really have to worry about it.

Because it's not going to be long for before most pitches will be accompanied by a Sustainability Compliance document and those nice procurement people will be poking around your photocopying room and visiting you at night to see how many lights you've got left on. That's probably the easy stuff to fix but I bet your production people have been trying to talk to you about your printers recently mentioning things like ISO 14001. Have you been listening? You probably should. You should probably do what they say. It might make your new business mailer a little more expensive but it'll keep you from falling off the list for all those big fabulous pitches. (For a quick, readable primer on printing issues you can go here: http://tinyurl.com/2hhc8c).