Chance favours the connected mind

Though frequented by the grey haired, book festivals stimulate creative thinking and help cultivate good judgement. But they are overlooked by the majority who work in the business of innovation and creativity.

‘I’m looking for a lady with grey hair!’, shouted the man with a grey beard to several hundred grey haired audience members in the auditorium.

We all laughed, knowingly.

At last week’s festival there was a noticeable skew to older attendees. This is hardly a surprise as this demographic is likely to have more time to attend such events and more disposable income to spend on books.

Let’s be clear: I have nothing against the grey-haired. At forty-eight, my own follicles proudly contribute to that colour palette. But it did concern me to see so few from the business, marketing, tech and creative industries. Industries known to have a younger employee base.?

Age aside, no-one in my networks told me they were attending nor did I see anyone sharing posts about the event.

Far from being staid and conservative, these events offer easy access to exciting, contemporary thinking, just without the faddish slogans to pique the interest of the business world.

Like many of us, over the years I’ve attended several industry conferences. These have been both here in New Zealand and abroad. South by South West (SXSW) in Austin, Texas has been a particular highlight. Tech, art, entertainment, marketing and advertising all collide in downtown Austin over three to four days of intense panels and speaker events.

Access to these events are at the discretion of one’s employer - they are costly in time, money and aviation fuel. Thankfully we have an equivalent scene here with the excellent Semi-Permanent and TEDx Auckland.?

Yet the Auckland Writers’ Festival remains overlooked despite offering an accessible and diverse range of authors who come to discuss their work, at a fraction of the cost it takes to attend the highest profile industry conferences.

A book festival delivers genuine benefits, all of which are essential to cultivating critical thinking and good judgement.?

Unlike industry-run events with their narrower focus and obsession with the latest trends, festivals offer incomparably diverse content. They are deliberately curated to cover eclectic interests. Over the course of a single day you can encounter discussions on technology, philosophy, leadership, history, economics, art and literature.?

Writers are deep experts in their field. Thoughtful, articulate, passionate and committed, they are animated by genuinely big ideas about the world we live in and who we are as people. They tend not to be successful if they characterise people in the short-hand of business and marketing.

Writers and artists tend not to be in the employ of big tech. Of course authors want to sell their books, but they lack the ‘industrial-scale’ bias that comes with speakers from corporations. With the latter, audiences can end up receiving a view of the world that inevitably favours corporate objectives.?

The title of this piece - ‘chance favours the connected mind’ - comes from the science and innovation writer Stephen Johnson who wrote among many things about the role of serendipity and connection. Core to any innovation process is not only allowing for chance but actively inviting it in. Book festivals with their rich programmes prove effective at sparking random inspiration or delivering unexpected provocation.

Given these clear benefits, the absence of younger participants should be concerning. In their quest for workplace skills and immediate returns, young professionals risk over-focusing their fields of vision, ignoring a broader range of subject matter stimulus.?

Apophenia is the term for making connections between seemingly unrelated topics. There’s arguably no better place to practice this than at a book festival. So if you’re trying to encourage creative thinking in your business, consider steering teams towards a book festival. Encourage them to attend, to share their experiences and finds with others.

Grey hairs there may be, but also plenty for the grey matter.?