The Play Ethic

PK's LinkedIn column: Why Is Curation Fun? Because You Get To Talk To The Smartest People

Published on Linkedin, Jun 13, 2016

So my current hat - in a lifetime of oddly-shaped headwear, worn in the course of a long career in creativity - is curator. Specifically, my curatorship of Nesta’s FutureFest since 2012, this year focussing on the theme of Play. 

I could talk for hours about curation - how it’s like being an “editor of things” (rather than words), or how it’s one of the last places where the intellectual generalist can make an honest buck.

But let me focus on one aspect today - and that’s how a curator manages talent and expertise How do you engage a major name to appear at your event?

I’ve done not too badly over the years at FutureFest - we’ve had Edward Snowden, Vivienne Westwood, George Clinton, Owen Jones, Paul Mason, Lily Cole, Eric Drexler, Sir Martin Rees, Helena Kennedy, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Roberto Unger. This year, we have Brian Eno, DJ Spooky and Will Self already confirmed.

Each of them represents a particular story of access. But there are some common elements that I’ve identified about effective curation that may be of interest. 

What very much helps, in the FutureFest context, is that we make it clear to speakers that this isn’t your usual corporate or TED-style speaking event. We’re not charging 3-4K (£’s, $’s or Euros) per audience member - indeed we try to keep a day ticket to under £50. 

We’re also a public-good charity - so the point of any revenue generated is to pay all the expenditures of the event, not to make a profit. And the point of the event itself is to engage the public in seizing their future

All that rules out by default most of the major speakers agencies - whose rates are usually themselves, even per speaker, a large percentage of our overall budget! 

But what then gets ruled in is an appeal to the speakers’ or participants’ genuine intellectual or creative interest. Does the premise of this event appeal to you? Do you want to be with peers - not just on stage but before our fiercely sharp audiences - exploring the wide horizons of the mid-century?  

That’s where, as curator, I start to have the most fun. It’s the opportunity to make the case for your event to speakers who themselves contain the most amazing multitudes. 

To me it’s the most delicious opportunity. To read intensely into the CV or published works of a scientist or technologist, academic or artist, entrepreneur or activist - and find the strands in what they do that mesh most directly with your curated theme. 

This may seem obvious, but it’s so important to make the first email the best one possible. Not just carefully giving an account of your event’s major names and achievements so far. But also showing in a few short paragraphs that you understand accurately and intelligently - and are even inspired by - what they do. 

This is also important because, in the age of the in-box mail-trail, the integrity, commitment and comprehensiveness of your first offer is what sits at the bottom of every reply and chase-up. You don’t need to recapitulate your offer every time - the busyness of the major name, and the people around about them, can never be underestimated. 

Even after the name has been commissioned, I like to stick around in the “cc” of the subsequent mailing - people always have last minute queries, or want their keynote or panel brief sharpened or updated in the face of recent news stories. Whenever I can, I like to close the “human” deal, and mediate the panels or keynotes they deliver at the final event itself. 

And then the event happens in a heaving, pulsing rush of 48 hours - a year or more’s conversation and preparation gone like that. There’s the crude delight of everyone actually turning up on time - but also the richer pleasure of knowing you’ve helped every participant do their best to inspire, illuminate or instruct our audience. 

Whatever a “curator” is these days - and there are no doubt apologies to be sent to qualified art-historical curators from the likes of me - I love being one. It’s a gig that brings ideas to life, by dealing with the actual, unpredictable, interpretable humans that prosecute them.

As I place this curatorial hat back in the box - among all the rest in my creative career - I hope to be plucking it out again for many years more. 

Pat Kane has been curating FutureFest since 2012 - and this year (17-18 September, London’s Tobacco Docks) is in charge of its PLAY strand. Buy tickets for FutureFest here. For more on Pat Kane's creative consultancy, visit The Play Ethic. 

My LinkedIn column: Rehearsal Rooms - what musicians can teach orgs about innovation

My Linked In "Monday Play" column: 

In my byline for any business gig - whether consulting, keynoting,facilitating, research - I usually describe myself as "Musician, Writer"... and then it varies.

It's partly because it's true - my brother and I's 80s band Hue And Cry is still an active commercial concern (newstalgia or nowstalgia, take your pick).

But it's also because keeping these artistic practices in my life gives me a vital insight into how organisations in general can foster creativity and innovation.

I'm a player-with-microphones-and-laptops - and from this, much else in my life has flowed.

For example, in a conversation earlier this week, I was exploring my own direct experiences of what a creative space feels like, in order to inform how organisations might build their own.

A “rehearsal space”, or “writing room”, in my music experience, mixes together a number of modes of experience. You should expect a certain intensity to be brewed up there - people have signed up to a creative and exploratory process, with all the consequences that implies.

But it’s so important for that intensity to be well-facilitated - good soundsystem; comfortable conditions and furnishings; on-hand expertise and assistance if extra resources are needing (or things fail); the ability to record the moment accurately if something great arises.

And it’s also vital that there is, beyond the room, a “chill-out” space - somewhere you can take respite from the intensity, wander around, look at the skies/be under the skies, ingest whatever stimulant or restorative is required.

As well as the evidence of a great song or performance, I think the deep science of play theory can really help make the case for creative spaces in organisations.

It can give an evolutionary explanation of how play-zones helps complex organisms (like we social mammals) test their reactions to a challenging world, in a non-fatal, richly educative way.

This shouldn't be an “away-day” phenomenon - leaving the flawed workplace for a refreshing idyll in some location or residence, and then returning to it again with a brimming consciouness that rapidly depletes.

A creative zone should be a "ground of play". A place to test out our strategies at the heart of the savannah, or neighbourhood...or vibrant organisation.

Now, not every organisation is like the net-era start-up, unburdened by legacy or history. The Palo Alto wizards can make the entire workplace a "magic circle" of passionate and productive creativity.

But it may be that a decent "rehearsal space" can be wrested from the strict bottom-line (or top-line) imperatives of any organisation - if they think for a moment of what startling and world-changing creations can come from that space.

I just noticed Pharrell Williams' astonishment at the power of his "Happy" song in 2014. This wasn't just the theme of a blockbusting movie, but actually an inspiration to civic activists throughout the world (the Iranian ones were even arrested for their cavorting about). "Happy" will now be the theme tune for a UN global initiative on youth education.

Pharrell notes that he had 9 rejects for the song in that movie's scene before they got one they were, well, happy with (see him at work in the picture above). Now, there's the benefits of rehearsal!

* * *

Always happy (it's inescapable!) to hear your responses below. If you want to continue this conversation, please mail from LinkedIn, or at [email protected].

 

My LinkedIn column: Play and the Innovative Organisation

My LinkedIn Monday Play column:

Whether as individuals, communities, organisations or societies, humans need to play, in order to keep themselves adapting and responding to the challenges of life.

Regular experiences of play - if we understand play in its fullest sense - can maintain a reserve of optimism, energy and resourcefulness, even in the most demanding and pressured of circumstances.

In my various professional engagements around play - whether keynote, workshop or consultancy - I always begin the same way: by giving participants an account of play based in the latest, cross-disciplinary scholarship on its power and potential.

It’s certainly important to play in a play seminar! But I also feel it’s essential to show participants the science of how important and elemental play is for human flourishing.

From neuroscience to evolutionary biology to systems-theory, there is a general recognition that play - seen as a freely-chosen and joyful exploration of possible options - is vital to the progress and development of any organism (or organisation).

Whether in nature - or in the society and economy - we often accept solutions to problems that are in fact a surrender to convention, rather than the optimal outcome possible. Playful behaviour is a way of probing beyond the obvious endpoint, widening perspectives so that the next, higher peak can be scaled - and perhaps by circuitous means.

Most organisations are aware that they must devote time and resources to establishing a fertile relationship between creativity and innovation - the generation of ideas and insights, and then their application and roll-out in actual situations.

But our playful mammalian natures - life-long and inescapable - lurk at the base of any initiative of this kind. “Getting” play properly will help fuel and sustain programmes of creativity and innovation.

A play understanding makes managers aware of the evolved needs and urges that are raised, and met, by allowing possibility and imagination into the working environment. The challenge is not just to their colleagues - but often to the overall strategic intent and vision of the organisation.

My seminars combine a step-by-step exploration of the sciences and specialisms of play, with a range of carefully-chosen exercises - conceptual and conversational as well as sociable and physical. These are intended to make concrete each stage of our growing knowledge-base on the relations between play, playfulness, creativity and innovation.

* * *

All comments on this blog most welcome below!

And if you'd like to engage me further in this, please contact me from menu above.