Interesting North and Marcus' talk

I went to Interesting North on Saturday. There is much I can say, but there's little need when you'll be able to see the videos and stuff in due course. In any case, other people are reporting already, here too.

I really liked it though. The speakers were excellent and it reminded me how important it is for planning type peopl to collect interestingness - the day was full of all sorts of stuff that will come in handy some day.

 

I liked the fact this was full of more techy and arty people, there really weren't too many planning types, which was a good thing. I also liked the fact that people were there because they were interested, rather than wanting to be around the cool kids. There was a distinct lack of smugness and posturing to the day.

The only talk I'll quickly touch upon was Marcus. He was brilliant, as you would expect, but not how you'd expect. You'll know he has too much imagination and simple need to DO stuff to be contained in a single blog, which leaves the web littered with his projects and personas. They're hard to keep up with and sometimes confusing, but you always know Marcus will be up to something. And most of us expected a talk around this stuff.

 

But he didn't do that. He talked about a deeply personal time in his life when he thought he was going mad. It was incredibly brave to do that in front of all those people and it just worked. There isn't enough stuff in this world that makes you feel something, there are not enough storytellers, there are not enough people willing to talk about stuff that actually matters.

Marcus reminded us all that we were at an event full of people too clever for their own good, and that the bollocks we all do is irrelevant next to real stories about real people. He reminded us all that good writing should be treasured and people who can perform their works, rather than just read them out should be treasured too.

Marcus, we salute you.

Comments

[Marcus]

Thank you NP. I was worried that it would go down like a bucket of sick.

[Rob Mortimer]

Seconded.

[toto]

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