Talks as leisure

The other day a friend emailed me to say 'Here's the Gen Z version of your Interesting thing'. And he linked to Lost Property. It looks brilliant. I'm going to the next one on October 4th.

It made me realise that maybe there's a thing going on. There's also, for instance, Pints of Knowledge and Brewing Minds. And I bet there are a ton of others.

I'm sure all this will end up in lots of trend decks. You can see why - postpandemic yearning for physical co-presence. Post-digital desire for small, bounded communities. Respect for authentic enthusiasm and expertise.

And there's also a logistical ease now. More venues have decent screens and PAs, And even if you need to rent all the gear it's smaller, better and cheaper than ever.

And, of course, many, many people are now used to, and are good at, presenting/doing a talk/whatever we call it now. It's just a thing that people do at work/school/etc.

BUT I'm not entirely convinced it's that new.

When Interesting started there was also Book Camp, The Story, Playful, The Design of Understanding, Design Engaged, Lift, Reboot, FooCamp and a load of others. And all the other Interestings. Our influences were more corporate, or unconferences, or tech things, but that's just what was available. Lots of them, inevitably, ran out of steam, which is fair enough. Or faded in the face of the monetising video-monster of TED.

I suspect the newer things are taking inspiration from different places. (Run clubs, maybe?) And I like how they don't seem to feel the need to be too 'official'. They're more social, less technological, less male.

If you enjoy Interesting I'm sure you'll enjoy these. I'm going to try and go to as many as I can. And will keep a list here.

Maybe see you there.