28.04.08
Interesting 2008

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By the time last year’s Interesting 2007 conference had actually happened, we wished we’d gone. So this year, in a calculated effort to physically ensure a ticket, johnson banks’ creative director Michael Johnson will be speaking at Interesting 2008.

In case you don’t know about Interesting, it was set up by über-planner/blogger Russell Davies with the main pre-requisite that speakers should talk about something, well, interesting (and that they should speak for a maximum of 20 minutes, TED-style).

So there’s no theme as such, no ‘media sponsor’, no corporate tent, just 300 like-minded people in the Conway Hall at the end of June. As Russell himself says, ‘There'll be no goodie bags, no tiny food on lovely plates, no KPIs and no 'take-aways'. It's highly likely that there'll be awkward pauses when something goes wrong and if any of it is useful in any way to your career then we'll have failed.’

Sounds great doesn’t it?

Apparently one of last year’s stars was a guy who delivered a short speech about knots. And someone else demonstrated how to play a saw (we think). If you want to see what you missed, here’s a list of last year’s speakers, and for a full list of this year’s speakers keep an eye on Russell’s blog (he’s still working on the final line-up).

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As for content, well in a weak moment Michael suggested that there might be a way to explore the history of graphic design and guitar music by showing slides and playing guitar at the same time. This was indeed deemed interesting, but how to pull it off without seeming like a less funny Bill Bailey with a penchant for kerning will be quite a challenge.

As regards tickets for the event (on Saturday 21st June), it seemed to sell out in a matter of hours on Friday morning, so getting a ticket might be a case of keeping an eye on this page or finding someone who has one and extorting it out of them (in an interesting way, of course).

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