Interested

9 tips for making a better erotic film. What's so great about knots? The boring truth about getting television programs made. How Grant McCracken didn't relieve himself on the Oprah show. What's a tube? It was a strange and wonderful event on Saturday in Red Lion Square.

This lucky Penguin cleared out his Saturday diary to attend Interesting 2007—a hodge podge assembly of eclectic idea-rakers, albeit slightly random—did not disappoint in the least.  Put on by Russell Davies, a sort of 'god father' of planning, the conference brought together about 300 bloggers, marketers, planners, movers, shakers and tastemakers to present on things they are passionate about.

From about 11am until 6pm, a bright-looking audience was bombarded by 3 min, 10min and 20min presentations on a multitude of topics, each with their own, erm, flaveur. We laughed at an onslaught of clever jokes and kicked ourselves for not having thought of one brilliant and simple idea after another. The deluge to the brain was gluttonous and pleasantly painful.

Back in my early publishing days in Canada, I was first introduced to the little world of keener bloggers and generalist thinkers that after a time all seemed to know one another. I was always stuck by their passion and enthusiasm, and their ability to find the time to post twice a day on more than one blog, all the while holding a day job. Never had I imagined to be sitting in a heavily bunted English hall surrounded by 300 of them and so utterly wishing I was one of them. Perhaps now I am. I did get this t-shirt. The geekery too was another likely surprise, as the event both during and after was flickr'ed, blogged, wiki'd, twittered and vlogged. At last nights count there were 500+ photos already posted on flickr and possibly more blog posts now (177 to be exact).

My paltry contribution to the exchange amounted to about 25 bound proofs and advanced copies I had corralled from various publicity staff. They vanished in a haze of t-shirts and converse. As I watched one presentation after the other, I realised that there are countless projects going on here in Brick Lane that could easily be shared in this forum. Penguins are a passionate bunch, and the work we are doing right now is pretty kick a$$. While I did meet one small independent publisher in my row, I would have liked to have seen a greater presence of publishers, publicists and book marketers engaging this community. Not just to flog books, but to understand that these people are the future. The future of planning, branding, strategy and most of all ideas.

This time I was a witness. Next time I won't be.

Justin Renard, Marketing Officer

(Photo credit Bowbrick, flickr 17 June 2007)

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Comments

[James Bridle]

I consider myself a rather tall independent publisher actually, but it was nice to meet you too...

[Justin Renard]

Ha ha. Not meant to offend. I just meant to differentiate between you and say Bloomsbury.

[claire]

I didn't get a book. Sob sob.

[Justin]

Claire,

Send me an email with you address and I'll put a surprise one in the mail!

J