Idea Festival 2012 Takeaways.
I spent this past weekend as a guest of the Idea Festival, a 10 year-old meeting of great ideas, world-class thinkers and performers in Louisville, KY. I spoke at the event in 2006, when it was much smaller and concepts like "social media" (my topic) were new. This fall, I, along with Cariwyl Hebert of Salon97 and writer Jeff Rider and co-founder of Longform, Max Linsky were invited to cover the festival on social media channels. Though guests of the festival, our coverage was, by mutual agreement, editorially independent.
Here were my takeaways.
- Little Bets. Venture Capitalist Peter Sims spoke of the chief ideas in his new book "Little Bets: How Breakthrough Idea Emerge from Small Discoveries," namely how in both business and creativity, success comes from many small risks you can afford to lose and not minimizing the possibility of error. Examples Sims cited include The Onion headline process (600 written for 12 selected), stand-up comedy (hundreds of hours of lousy material and bad sets in putting together, say a 90 minute HBO special), Beethoven (who made hundreds of notes, and false starts before completing most of his pieces) and Pixar (which was originally a hardware company with an idea of making computer-animated films and no idea how to get there.
While nothing Mr. Sims said was revolutionary, the idea is one creative people need to constantly remember: Fear of failing is failure. Trying, no matter how badly, is a little bet towards a tangible future. And just as Pixar had no idea how to become Pixar, without the attempt, however silly and pointless it felt at the time, they never would have been.
- Cynthia Lowen, producer of the documentary Bully, silenced the entire room with the story of her documentary about bullying and the three clips she showed. No, the conference did not screen the movie and should have, especially since its next screenings and DVD/streaming release are nowhere to be found on the film's website.
- Food. A Louisvillian reported to us that his city has the most new restaurants per capita in the US. I haven't found the statistic he cited but at the conference's Taste of Innovation (held at the legendary Churchill Downs) 30 of Louisville chefs and restauranteurs were at full tilt. And I don't even drink bourbon or care for Kentucky Hot Browns.
- Grimanesa Amoros: A Peruvian artist who came to Louisville and the Idea Festival through the organization Creative Capital, Amoros creates site-specific light and glass installations, inspired my the movement of water and bubbles from Lake Titicaca in her home country.
- Shakespeare Behind Bars. An incredible organization that has, for two decades, been putting on plays in the Kentucky prison system. Actors have a 3% rate of recitivism after completing the program. The national average is 65%.
- Do not miss Dr. Richard Kogan if he performs/lectures in a town near you. A Harvard psychiatrist/concert pianist, his presentations are a thrilling combination of music and insight into the creative mind.
More importantly though, Ms. Lowen's film and companion book back up their advocacy with fact: Bullying is a measurable, horrible drain on our economy, our culture and the very upward process of humanity. A complicated, interconnected world like ours here in the 21st century needs working together and collaboration not I'll-take-mine-and-screw-you-thank-you individualism. A culture intolerant to difference (and this is at all levels. Lowen and her team found that most schools with a bullying problem have a bullying culture at the administrative level) is a culture slowly committing suicide.
Advocacy minus fact is just screaming into the wind. The team behind Bully does better.
We were only in town for a few days but I had at least 3 meals (St. Charles Exchange, Proof on Main and The Mayan Cafe) that would rival anything I've eaten in in better known foodie towns like Portland or Austin. Who knew?
This one, from a Madrid gallery showing is my favorite.
Though Cariwyl and Jeff and I were talking about taking a trip around the world so see all of them in the flesh. Or glass.
We got to hear speakers from both the Kentucky prison system, administrators of the program and the inmate/actors themselves. And there was a documentary made about the program in 2005 available on Netflix streaming.
TL;DR version:
Go to the friggin Idea Festival next year Sept. 24-28. It's affordable (an all-access pass is $450 for 4 days), different, and still at a managable size where you don't spend most of your effort figuring out how to get a seat, have lunch and find your friends. And we'd like to come back and would love to spend some time with you.
Endnote: Videos from this year's Idea Festival will be available soon. I'll be sure to post my favorites.
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