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Talk is not cheap...
Posted by: Ed Gillespie
Last night Henry and I went along to a training session in a battered Shoreditch warehouse to try our luck on the 'Talkaoke' table. The genius invention of the guys from 'The People Speak' the table is a funky, chat-show style hub, where a host conducts conversations from participants on whatever they want to talk about. Slightly disconcerting at first (well what would you want to share with a room ful of strangers?) folk soon warmed up and before we knew it four hours had slipped past, four of us had had a go at hosting the discussion from the middle of the table and we'd covered topics as wide-ranging as acid trips, circumcision, apartheid, credit crunch, our deepest fears, extreme BDSM, dancing without music and recording every last mundane minute of your whole life on digital video.
There's a strange power to having such eventually candid conversations with folk you've never met and a real strength I think to bouncing around ideas, opinions, thoughts and perceptions on any topic that comes to mind. There's only two rules - 'No singing' and 'No punch-ups', and a chat about our favourite songs nearly broke the first one last night, thankfully it was all far too good-humoured for us to fear breaking the second. To further embellish proceedings they also now do a live visualisation of conversation that's projected onto a wall above the table - enabling people to see the topic of chat or websites to be pulled up for further info on a hot issue. Last night involved some fairly shocking BDSM from a website called 'Hogtied' (not a Google for the faint-hearted) and a Wikipedia revelation about 'knimesis' - or the art of self-tickling!
I'm convinced Talkaoke has the potential to be a great tool in sustainability too. If the previous Defra research using focus groups to identify the most important/effective triggers to more sustainable behaviours is right - that the best method is to get people in a foucs group talking about it - then maybe Talkaoke can help us galvanise. There's another training session in October (see the website for details and you can also watch the footage of our training session from 24.9.08) so come and have a go on the 'Wheel of Spiel'
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The most fun I've had with my clothes on this year! All kinds of potential uses for engagement. And Ed was a natural in the donut of discussion.