Gel Conference 2009 Recap

I had a terrific time speaking about my Skull-A-Day project at this year's Gel Conference in NYC. The best part of the event for me was getting to hear all of the other fantastic speakers and also meeting the attendees between sessions. Here are some highlights from the speaker's talks:

Scott Heiferman creator of MeetUp.com (which he described as a community organizing tool) talked about the future shifting from D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) to D.I.O. (Do It Ourselves). He said we need to turn more to each other and "make the hand that feeds us"!

Joan Sullivan, principal/founder of Bronx Academy of Letters, brought two of her students who were able to escape from their difficult lives in the South Bronx and get into good college thanks to her school.

Artist Zina Saunders said that metaphorical potholes in your road were a good thing since they forced you to take detours and give you a new perspective. I was particularly enamoured with her Overlooked New York portrait project.

Fred Kent, founder of Project for Public Spaces talked about the need for "authentic destinations" and creating community based on a "placemaking approach" rather than a top down design approach. Having public seating is often the key!

Graham Hill, founder of TreeHugger, showed a picture of a giant tomato with green lightning on it crushing an airplane as a mnemonic for his talk about reducing carbon footprints by tons (rather than pounds). The key: eat less meat, fly more efficiently, use green power.

Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, spoke just before me, so I don't have notes on her talk, but I do remember it being very informative and interesting!

Magician Jamy Ian Swiss talked about the importance of empathy in magic, explaining that it's actually the key to connecting with an audience, regardless of your profession.

Robin Nagle, the anthropologist-in-residence for the New York City sanitation department, gave an eye-opning talk about waste (NYC is always only 3 days away from a serious trash breakdown) and left us with the admonishon to say "thank you" the next time we see a sanitation person.

Filmmaker Risa Morimoto, shared a snippet of her incredible documentary Wings of Defeat, telling the true story of the WWII Kamikaze pilots (who were not actually volunteers as most people assume).

Design Author Steven Heller said, "Adolf Hitler was a logo" as part of his talk about fascist branding.

Musician Bruce Molsky, played several lovely & catchy folk tunes on his fiddles.

Author Bill Gurstelle talked about the importance of the "art of living dangerously." He said, "the only way to get better at risk-taking is to take risks" and left us with an image of a sea creature that lacking danger ends up eating its own brain as it grows up!

Barry Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project, said that eyewitness misidentification was the greatest cause of wrongful convictions. His organization helped exonerate Jerry Miller, who also spoke, after he spent 24 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

And professor Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, talked about the need for "virtue" in business. He defined this "practical wisdom" as "moral will" combined with "practical skill". And he decried rules, saying that we won't become skilled by following them. He also said there shoud be no more courses on ethics, that the only way to learn them was by living them.

I'll post a video of my own talk as soon as it's available.