Collision Theory - creative debates

The debates can get insular at times. You know them well.

" Hey Jane how, was TRO? I couldn't attempt the other future TV gathering, but the one before that, New News united was ok".

At some point you begin to get the impression we're all chasing the same rush. Yes we are and attending the same conferences.

"Not you again, I'd thought I'd see you here".

Some conferences have been fantastic. Others a lazy way of racking in cash. Yes so long as "Social Network" is in the title, we're all flock to find Jason's golden fleece.


Conference fatigue
The ones I have really liked, amusing more like it, were those in which a manager five months earlier was seated in the audience writing profusely, only to see them on the stand now as the expert.

Isn't commerce and capitalism great? That shouldn't denigrate the process and acquisition of knowledge from the genuine brain stormers, who bring many things to the table, even if it isn't the core idea.

Paxman may not be a tweeter and positively eschews all this hubadub, but you'd want him at your party. Nice brain, nice brain!

And less we forget we were all young once - I mean in mind - not to know the answers.

And I confessedly would be guilty of pulling the odd "I know what I was last summer"; I think we all have, walking into a conference.

But I have often maintained that the debates around journalism can get quite insular.

So to my point.

Collide or shrivel
Jude Kelly the artistic director the South Bank hosts an event next year called Collisions. It's a brilliant idea, but one which if you could replicate would set on fire the ideas about the ideas.

Poets, journalists, campaigners, artists, philosophers, musicians, dancers, travellers - all of whom have demonstrated over the years an understanding of their own environments and collided with wonderful effects on other disciplines.

There's no hierarchy, just a landscape fuelled by ideas about public bodies, their betterment, ideas around film - each collision yielding another idea, which might be done there on the spot.

And I'm looking forward as one of the attendees of documenting it through an online site and various assets. I'll share more about this and even how you might be able to contribute.

Tara