Do Lectures

I have been working on a new idea for the Do Lectures I Dent all summer and the website has been an invaluable tool in gaining the right sense of what the Do Lectures are about. I found myself engaging it more than I normally would during research. Watching a few of the talks, reading the comments made by people who have been to them in the past and people who are going this year. I even found myself reading the things people have written on the blog part of the site as well as the links provided by people on twitter.

http://blog.thedolectures.co.uk/2010/08/hello-is-a-four-letter-word/

this is an entry to the blog where somebody is encouraging people to step away from the isolation of walking through the streets with our headphones in, purposely or subconsciously blocking out the world around us and instead, saying hello to the people we pass in street in an effort to mend the 'fractured' societies we live in.

This has actually made me consider conducting a social experiment whereby I walk around saying 'hello' to complete strangers, gauging their reactions, perhaps indulging in some conversation. Can it be done? Part of me thinks that it would be a disaster. I would look like a lunatic who says hello to the wrong person or offends someone in someway. Then there is the other part of me that thinks if I went about this in a less scientific way and just did it everyday, I could be pleasantly surprised at how friendly some people actually are. That would be my 'little do'.



This was something that caught my attention on the twitter feeds on the Do Lectures website. I think it is a really good concept that merges contemporary communication and technology in a traditional way.