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.

Email benjaminbrum [at] gmail dot com with the subject “Fail Camp” to get involved.

Chronologically first is my semi-drunken ramblings on the subject from Sunday night, followed the next day by Ben’s announcement. These two constitute the beginning of it all and as such will probably bear little relation to how the event actually turns out. There’s some good action in the comments which is worth checking out.

Ben was on a roll and before I could get this blog sorted had posted two more posts. Two ideas for FAILcamp attempts to break the remit beyond social-bloody-media citing Cake Wrecks and suggesting an exhibition of objects and photographs. He then notes we’re not the first to have this idea which is great as it means we’re probably onto something.

But there’s still a lot to talk about in relation to social-bloody-media. David Wilcox at Social Reporter quickly latched onto the importance of sharing stories:

Working out just what sort of social network or other tool may help isn’t simple … it depends enormously on the situation, the people and many other factors. The answer to “what works?” is “it depends” … and that’s when the stories of what didn’t work are so useful.

Russell Tanner wrote a lovely post about his experiences with failure, specifically from his days as a fashion student:

The failures informed the successes. And sometimes, by happy accident, the failures were better than the original idea. Failure was also public – through regular open criticism by tutors (or routine humiliation in front of peers. which was nice. but did help teach me how to interrogate and criticise my ideas. or to argue for them).

I still fail on a daily basis. But I don’t share my failures so much. Or take time to properly reflect on them/learn from them. Partly due to pressures on my time, partly due to laziness/complacency. But mostly because it has somehow become the wrong thing to do.

And that’s why a celebration of failure is so exciting to me. Because it was my failures, & what they taught me, that fueled my creativity and made my work better then. And made me who I am now. And I want to celebrate that.

And I think we should fail and fail again. better. and more often.

So far that’s it. If you blog about FAILcamp and link to this site then we should pick up on it but feel free to leave a link in the comments below just in case.

A fair amount of initial chat about FAILcamp occured on Twitter, as you might imagine. You can track “failcamp” but since Twitter’s search database has capacity-induced FAIL I figured I’d rescue a few gems before they disappear.

@b3rn says s/he and @broccolinI “were knockin about this same idea last week.” Unforunately they’re in Australia so the chances of joining us as probably slim, but at least we’re hitting the right vibe.

Sixball sez: “genius idea. Not only would I definitely attend but I’d kill to do a talk.”

@russelltanner is not merely intrigued, he’s “*very* intrigued by idea of #failcamp”.

@simonjgray reckons FAILcamp “should be particularly useful for those of us who do trad creative work, too.” and later says “basically, the life & career of most performing artists is of the constant feeling of failure punctuated by the occasional win.”

@marksteadman gets the FIRST!!11!! badge for his “Surely the best way to delebrate #failcamp would be to turn up to the wrong venue?” We’re expecting this joke to be repeated at least 3767 times over the next 3 months.

@jasonhall is the Screen West Midlands beat combo says he’s “well up for a chat about #failcamp. Been wanting to do something like this for a while.” While I’m sure SWM can bring more to the table than mere sponsorship, etc it sure would help. Top stuff.

@ClareWhite said she was “Just about to suggest ‘failure champions’. I regret it already.” I think that’s a digital mentoring joke. But I could be wrong.

@siwhitehouse gets the SECOND!!11!!! badge with his high lary us pun: “Think you should have it spelt FIALCAMP.”

@daveharte suggests that “if you shifted #failcamp a week later you’d be alongside Hello Digital.” The notion of being on the Hello Digital fringe has been mooted but I’m not sure we’d want to be that close. A week gives enough distance to be independent but still close enough to be part of the party. Will consider and reconsider this.

FAILcampTO confuses momentarily with “The stunning DJ Barbi will be the FAILcamp musical ambassador for the evening! He/She with the most lumbering dance moves wins a prize.” Further investigation reveals a FAILcamp occurring in Toronto on July 9th which will bollocks up the Twitter hashtag for a bit. Thankfully we can limit the search to the UK assuming folk have got accurate location in their profiles. Hint.

@AndrewFK from Chester is “intrigued by #failcamp”. I’m intrigued as to why he’s wearing a DJ in his profile pic. But that’s just me.

@Jo_Ind cuts to the nub of the chase and asks “If #failcamp succeeds will that make it as wanky as the stuff it’s reacting against?” We shall see, Jo. We shall see.

That’s everything I considered noteworthy up to today. I’m sure there’ll be more. Just make sure you include the word “failcamp” (with or without the #) and we’ll pick up on it. We might fail to do anything with it but we’ll pick up on it.