◌ Intimate, yet spacious.
◌ Illustrious, but unpretentious.
◌ Awesome, but not awe-striking
(is “awe-striking” a word…and if it’s hyphenated, is it just two words trying to pass themselves off as a single?).

Anyway, it would have brought the price down significantly, allowing us to make it as accessible as possible (we’ve wanted to stay true to the idea that the only barrier to attending, aside from a limited number of seats, would be attendees’ level of curiosity).

Sadly the venue’s not worked out so we’re back on the search for an appropriate venue and are speaking with a few alternatives.

Given this, it’s likely that it will be held in August (like IS3…so there is a sort of chronological symetry).

We’ll keep you posted when there’s news.

Gregg

Some are from people who’d like to speak. Others are suggestions from people who know of someone with a different take on the world, or have done something different.

If that sounds familiar and you’d like to nominate a speaker, please click here to download a topic form. If you don’t have all the information, just the broad brushstrokes, don’t worry. Send it in anyway as there’s lots of time before we need more detail.

Viva ideas!

It was a great night, with a great group of nominees (would love to see all these folks at the next IS!).  As FBi co-runs the SMACs, its a pity they can’t be nominated. The not-for-profit station is a real engine to making Sydney a more wonderful place – with a crew that’s full of heart and committed to boosting the good stuff. And of course, Time Out’s been great at making that good stuff easy to find.

Dan Ilic of Hungry Beast fame was the very game MC.

So, you’re probably thinking WHO WON, ALREADY?! The Marrickville collective running the Red Rattler, that’s who.

Being nominated was huge and it was great to have been in the company of such a worthy field.  Others in our category (Best Collective) included Even Books, Trust Fun and the Imperial Panda Festival. Check them out. They all look set to do interesting stuff in 2010.

Gregg

We’d love your support. It involves just a few mouse clicks and voters are entered in a draw for some great stuff.

Just hit the SMAC logo, below, to vote and get more info. Interesting South appears at the bottom of the page…

Thanks again,
All the best
Sarah Garnett
Founder
The Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library

As a result around $1,500 was split between 3 charities – The Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library, Mission Australia’s early learning initiatives and Kiva.  All chosen because in different ways, they’re all about spreading ideas.

IS relies on it’s community to make things work – speakers (who do it for the love of their topic), organisers (who do it for the love of sharing ideas) and the audience (who pay in terms of time and ticket money) – so the note’s really to all these people.

A couple things worth mentioning -

One person talked about not having read the programme, but when Tim L asked the audience to tell the person sitting next to them what they were interested in (hearing speakers speak about), he found it a bit uncomfortable:

Him: “Um, so, what interests you?”

Her: “Oral Sex”

(He was unaware of Prof. Basil Donovan’s upcoming talk entitled, Oral sex is the new black).  Anyway, what an icebreaker.

Like many of the team pulling together IS3, I missed dinner so I grabbed a banana at the interval.  I have to admit I had an uncomfortable moment when I realised I was chatting to the good professor chomping on a banana.  Suddenly I felt a bit self-conscious. The thought popped into my head “Freud would have a field day.”

This is the third event and each time I’m struck by how different things engage different people.  The same talk will ring totally different bells with different people.

Check out Tim Longhurst’s quick run through on the speakers, as told through Google’s Street View.

Hats off to Charlie Perry for not just thinking about someone who has something to put on stage, but following through and sending in a nomination form for IS4 (Charlie – Please send me your contact details.  Remo gave me an extra IS T-Shirt and it’s yours).

Everyone knows of someone with a tale to tell.  It might be quirky.  It might be challenging.  It might be odd.  It might be fun.  There are few forums where the criteria for talks is so open.  So if you know of someone who’s got something engaging to say, please click on the link with the topic form, fill it out and send it in.

There’s nothing decided yet for IS4 (date? venue?), but nothing helps move things along quicker than a bucket of stories that need to be told.

Gregg

I’ll write up more a little later (I’m clearing the car out of extension chords, a bell, a few left over bananas and mugs…) but really wanted to mention Tim Buesing and Lukasz Karluk of Holler.  A number of people commented after the break on their clever work, which was on display in the bar area.  Facing their TV monitors you could be instantly transformed into Ziggy Stardust…or a have a digital set of street-smart headphones magically dropped on your head.  The work was called Face OFF and the guys have done lots of other stuff that meld people into technology.

But Patrick Hofmann’s right: why talk in words, when seeing stuff is so much better! Here’s a Vimeo link to some of their other work!
Gregg