It’s dawn. A weak sun shines through the trees. The mist rises off a wide river as a group of bleary-eyed canoers paddle upstream. But this is no nature camp. Welcome to the Do Lectures, the ideas conference with a difference that attracts innovators from across the world to a remote forest camp in Wales.
Designers, 3D printing pioneers and software developers mix with farmers, salt makers and bakers in a unique cross-pollination between craft and cutting edge. With inspiring speakers giving “the talks of their lives” (in 20 minutes) and their videos available online, the Do Lectures is often compared to TED. But it is Woodstock to TED’s Wembley: there’s no stadium stage or cavernous auditoriums here and the ancient stone pub hosts as many important conversations as the lecture tent. The attendees share solar showers, long wooden dining tables, tents and yes, go canoeing before breakfast. All in an attempt to move beyond inspiration to collaboration – from talking to doing. At the end of the day it’s action that inspires David Hieatt, co-founder of the event. The Do Lectures are about closing the gap “between what we do and what we can do”, he explained above a howling Welsh wind. “We can all do more than we think we can.”
Laura Brunow Miner was the first Doer to take the stage at this year’s event (see film) with her philosophy of, “the more you give, the less you feel you need to take.” Laura should know – heralded as one of the most influential women in tech, she founded the groundbreaking online photography magazine Pictory, with wide format photographs organised into group essays. Laura wasn’t at the Do Lectures to talk about design though; she was there to share her experiences catalysing creative communities. Inspired by Foo camp, the annual American hacker event hosted by publisher O’Reilly Media, she has established Phoot camp, a creative retreat for photographers. Her aim is to “create stable communities of people with a shared passion”. Over a cup of tea on a blustery afternoon she talked of “the predictable and replicable joy of retreats. They will be a love-fest every time.” But these events aren’t only about fun, as Laura explained, “it started as a weird camping trip, but now these people are my colleagues.”
The Do Lectures is founded on a similar understanding of work. Acknowledging that professional relationships are personal ones. That our most significant work bonds are rarely forged in sterile conference halls, but in environments where we connect with others on a very human level: in this case baking bread, chatting in the shower queue, capsizing in canoes. Each night the buzz at dinner grew louder, as the group shared ideas over the long wooden tables, and new partnerships were born.
Catalysing creative communities on a human scale is what Kickstarter’s Perry Chen is all about. For the uninitiated, Kickstarter is a crowd-funding platform for creativity that has seen $95 million pledged since its launch in 2009. Take the example of singer Allison Weiss, who needed to raise $2000 to make her new EP. She broke that limit in just ten hours, eventually raising $7711. In return for pledging money to a particular project, supporters normally get a tangible return: a book, a song written for them, an arm-wrestle with an ex-convict. In addition to providing vital cash, Kickstarter also allows artists to build communities around their work, cutting out the financial gatekeepers and allowing Indie to flourish!
The spirit of Indie was very much alive in many of the Do Lectures – not Hollywood’s version of Indie (a brunette with a fringe and a boy with a leather bag, as Indie music business lifer, Richard King put it), but real independence – a kind of democratisation of making. Zach Hoeken Smith of Makerbot described how 3D printers could start a new industrial revolution, enabling the consumer to become the producer. Architect Indy Johar, part of the team behind the wiki-house, an open source online construction kit, spoke about the micro-many and the decentralisation of agency, while chef Arthur Potts Dawson described his project, the People’s Supermarket, which allows customers to take retail into their own hands.
Bringing together designers, entrepreneurs and hackers with artists, chefs and surfers highlighted another common strand between their fields: a “perennial curiosity” about the world. Speaker after speaker spoke of the importance of observation in their work. Surfer and photographer Mickey Smith hypnotised the audience with his visual poetry. In his film Dark Side of the Lens, he says, “I wanna see wave riding documented the way I see it in my head, and the way I feel it in the sea.”
The Do Lectures encourages both savouring the simplicity of craft and delighting in the potential of technology: the 3D printing pioneer and the master baker tearing up the barn dance floor together as metaphor (as well as entertainment). When asked what the secret ingredient was to creating such an open collaboration within a very diverse group, David Hieatt said “I’m not really sure! But I think it’s a combination of remoteness, the human scale, living together, poor broadband” – he paused – “and a candle-lit pub.”
The next Do Lectures take place April 25th-29th 2012.
Text: Ella Saltmarshe
Images Courtesy The Do Lectures
