Ideas are amazing

My therapist says I am an ideas person. In my search for ideas stimulus I came across an ad for the also-festival.com in a freebie paper which is a festival with ideas that takes place every year in a field in Warwickshire and instead of bands (although there is some music) people come to hear speakers of ideas. The next one is June. I went on line and then discovered they have a London salon. www.salon-london.com
I went to their last event of the season.
I was INSPIRED! This was it.
I-Spy with Salon London.

Who’s Hacking Who?

Millennials, you’ll have to trust us, once upon a time it was as easy as having a quiet word with ‘lads’ in IT to stop anyone else looking at your email. But now that governments, law enforcers and tower blocks of professional criminals are all at it, it aint so easy. Of course we want to be protected in our cyberspace, but does digital state surveillance compromise our human rights and our freedom of speech? Maybe, says the Professor of Law at LSE Andrew Murray who has made this area his principal subject for research. He’ll be explaining how and why.

Eye-to-Eye Contact!

Make an entrance, command respect and loyalty, put down riots! RADA have made it their business to understand how best to use eye contact to affect others on the stage. Now they are coming to Salon London to help us learn the same skills to build rapport and to increase power and engagement in our own equally taxing social and work situations. This brand new session from RADA in Business’ Sheelagh McNamara will explain the tricks and the devices used in the actors’ studio for you to put to use in the boardroom or the bedroom. The choice is yours.

What’s at the Edge of the Internet?

The Internet was never designed with security in mind, which means it’s hard to guarantee our safety as we travel in cyberspace. Jamie Bartlett is the social media analyst for the think tank Demos and author of the acclaimed Dark Net. He has spent months at the farthest reaches of the ‘net to understand how those at the fringes of our digital world operate. In this session to close our series he will help us answer some very difficult questions. What’s out there? What do they want? And can we avoid being seen by them?
5th May at The Hospital Members’ Club, Covent Garden, 7pm start.

What did I love about it?
LOVE ONE. The clientele. My friend Dan (and one of the speakers) said they were dripping money. I liked it because we had nice chats in the queue for the toilets.

Man in a very nice jacket (according to Dan) who came alone, sat at our table and introduced himself confidently with a firm handshake (former Philosophy Politics and Economics from Warwick) has started hosting dinner parties where his mates discuss ‘ideas’. I asked him and myself
Would I get distracted by the food?
Would I identify one individual I especially wanted to talk to, rather than engage with the group?
He would have to know a lot about his subject to keep the conversation flowing.
He says he has to make sure they have a few glasses of wine first…..

LOVE TWO. The speakers. I love engaging speakers that don’t go on too long. Sheelagh is the sort of women that I would imagine my male detractors envisage when they go on at me about dying my hair and wearing make-up. The genetics were good, but she made the most of it – an understated elegance that I master only at weddings. Secretly I liked the last speaker best. As I get older I am attracted and inspired by the energy of youth. He jumped about stage and talked fluidly with humour and passion about this trans-humanist politician he followed round America. He posed pertinent thought provoking questions that fired me up. I was buzzing by the end.

One of the presenters sings an intro for each speaker. They are sort of Cressida Bonas types add 15-20 years. Dan described them as weird. I see them as niche and providing an interesting service.
They are an aged, more experienced, more connected version of curious people. www.curious-people.co.uk

Warning: There was a long queue at the bar because they do cocktails. Check it out.