Slightly cart before the horse I know, what with no date announcement.
Looking for speakers for Birmingham Fail Camp 2010.
What sort of things are we looking for?
Whatever you want to talk about. If it relates to failure and you don’t mind sharing it, we’ll be interested, attentive and supportive. You’ll get ten minutes to present and then there’ll be some Q&A, feedback, discussion. (As Jon correctly pointed out in the comments section- single people talking would be a presentation, a panel requires more than one person. More than happy to have suggestions from a small group of people to have a panel discussion)
What to talk about?
Here’s some thoughts I’ve had around what I’d talk about if I were giving a talk.
“Ben’s Bad Hair Days”- I’d give a presentation showing that I’ve not always had a grade 2 buzz cut and groovy glasses & confess my bad hair/bad glasses combinations.
or I’d give this talk, a little more serious but fun still.
“The days the dreams changed”- Growing up I always wanted to do two jobs. Be a teacher or run a theatre company. They were my dream jobs, I’ve worked in both of my dream jobs. I no longer have either of those jobs, but that’s ok.
You might want to talk about your latest online failure, DIY failure, parenting failure. You might want to talk about your biggest failure, most public failure, or funniest failure. Maybe you’d like to challenge our perceptions of failure, demonstrate a failure to us or just spend 10 minutes educating the room about the most famous failures in history.
This really is open to you – the event has the capacity to be both serious and fun, moving and uplifting. Make us laugh, make us cry, make us think!
You’ll make the event, not us. This is your event. And that, gentle reader, is the best thing about all of this!
Email benjaminbrum [at] gmail dot com with the subject “Fail Camp” to get involved.
Posted in: Curating conversations.
Tagged: 2010 · conversation · curating · event · failcamp · failure
National Treasure Charlie Brooker has a new comedy panel show on National Treasure Radio 4. They celebrate “one of Britain’s favourite subject- failure”.
One for me then.
It’s a game of competitive ineptitude, the aim of which is to come up with the wrongest answer to each question. In this episode, the guests joining him to try and out-wrong each other with their ideas and stories are comedians David Mitchell & Rufus Hound and presenter Victoria Coren.
In this show the panel’s worst holiday experiences, the internet and Anthea Turner all come under the ‘wrong’ spotlight – as well as the guests’ best ideas for the worst new reality TV show. Will anyone beat Rufus Hound’s pitch – the primetime reality show Blaze Of Granny?
Catch up with it on the BBC I-player. Thank you BBC, two of my favourite things on one of my favourite places.
Posted in: Inspirational Nonsense.
Tagged: bbc · charlie brooker · failure · radio 4 · so wrong it's right
Hello there, sorry for the silence.
I could make something pithy and intelligent sounding about the reason behind the silence. Taking time to reflect etc. Truth is it’’s my own mini-failure. I didn’t save the admin address anywhere and didn’t want to admit I’d got something wrong.
So we’re back. Planning is going ahead for the event (hoping to announce an exact date soon) and looking forward to sharing failure with you.
Posted in: Planning stuff.
Tagged: ben · failure
Sep 17th, 2009
by Pete Ashton.
I, as in Pete Ashton, am pulling out of doing FailCamp. My reasons, for what they’re worth, are on my blog but suffice to say it’s nothing to do with the event and all to do with me.
We’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm for this happening – Screen West Midlands in particular have offered support, both financial and in kind – and Ben is still very much on board. So if you like the FailCamp notion and want to be one of the people who makes it happen the opportunity is there.
It occurs to me we don’t have a central contact point for this thing but Ben’s manning the FailCamp Twitter and you can contact me though the usual channels. I might not be able to run FailCamp but I’m more that happy to help it happen.
Here’s to failure!
Posted in: Planning stuff.
Aug 26th, 2009
by Pete Ashton.
Thomas Edison proves to be a bit of goldmine for fail-related quotes. Here’s a few:
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.
And his most famous, of which there are many variations:
- I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Results! I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.
- We have only found 586 ways that won’t work and won’t have to be tried again. Soon, we will find one that does.
- I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.
- If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
- Failed? — why we haven’t failed, we only know the thousands of ways that won’t work.
Thanks to Fiona for the tip.
Posted in: Inspirational Nonsense.
Aug 5th, 2009
by Pete Ashton.
From an interview with Jim Coudal on Design Glut:
What’s next?
I don’t know what’s next! It’s kind of a joke, but we’re proudly “without business plan” in our 13th year. We’ve had a lot of things not work, and that’s OK too. If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into flames, that’s going to be exciting too. People always ask, “What is your greatest failure?” I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome!
via Gruber
Posted in: Inspirational Nonsense.
I’m experiencing my own personal fail by not knowing how to embed video on the blog.
Kate Bornstein speaking at reunion.
Kate Bornstein is a failure as man and as a woman.
She’s in her sixties and has been talking openly about her life as a trans person.
I studied some of her performance work and writings at university in my first year. She blew my mind. Imagine a boy from the Middle of Nowhere Wiltshire trying stuff out at university, discovering who I am, what the world is and then a lecturer plonks Kate Bornstein in front of me and says “Read”.
I like where she says
Kate talks the language of theatre which is something I’m very familiar with. One of the greatest lessons I was taught was how to die on stage and get used to it. I remember in my second year of my degree we performed in Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. I played the King of Poland but my character was killed fairly early on. I then switched coats and played someone else who was equally dispatched. I stood right up and popped on an eye patch, reversed my coat and became someone else who was quickly killed. I died around thirty times during the one play in various ways dispatched by various methods. Once I got over the initial discomfort of feeling “Gosh, I don’t get any character development” I got into the idea of just dying and from that I began to get over my fear of things going wrong on stage.
Posted in: Concept wrangling, Inspirational Nonsense.
Tagged: failure · kate bornstein · tranny · trans
One of out newest followers @weltim complained on his twitter stream about how negative his experience of Heathrow was.
I then wondered aloud about how rich a seam #Travelfail could be.
So begins the bidding war. We’re looking for the worst travel experience you’ve had personally. We’re trusting people (so don’t start making stuff up just to get a mention on the blog).
The bidding starts with @danslee and
“standing in a tinkle smelling layby outside Halesowen for an #Ashes lift which is stuckinatrafficjam”
I’ll be watching the comments & the hashtag and we’ll close bidding in one weeks time. I’d also be interested to hear your thoughts on what you learned from #travelfail.
(::UPDATE:: Lots of people asked me why I wasn’t adding my UN stories. Firstly an auctioneer doesn’t always bid on their own items. Plus coming in with the stories would be like having an opening bid of five pounds and then someone bidding “One Thousand Pounds”. It’s more fun this way. Honest)
Posted in: Concept wrangling.
Tagged: bidding · failing · failure · travelfail
Success is dangerous. One starts to copy oneself & copying oneself is more dangerous than copying others. This leads to sterility- Picasso (Tweeted by the Pet Shop Boys)
Posted in: Inspirational Nonsense.
Tagged: pet shop boys · picasso
No, not the one in Trafalgar Square, but the one in Centenary Square, Birmingham.
There used to be a statue called Forward by Raymond Mason that dominated the space. It was affectionately known as the jelly mould or the Lurpack statue. It was destroyed by arsonists n April 2003 and it’s never really been replaced.
Now, there’s just an awesome set of steps which are perfect for skateboarders to use. The fourth plinth in that London has had a bit of a fuss made about it and I’ve always pined for someone to make a bit of a fuss over the empty plinth in the city centre. If I’m ever walking down Broad Street towards the city I’ll imagine what the statue used to look like & feel a little sad when I see it’s no longer there. Yes, the statue was a bit ugly and it wasn’t 100% clear what it was about but it made a strong statement. It clearly had a strong impact on me as it’s left an imprint like the negative of a photograph on my soul.
I’d love to see something take that space. If it’s a direct ripping off of the fourth plinth project from London, great. But I’m fairly certain that the great minds of Birmingham could come up with something equally expressive of Birmingham for that space.
C’mon great minds, don’t let me down.
Posted in: Concept wrangling.
Tagged: birmingham · centenary square · empty plinth · failure · statue
