rogerneilson

Probably very few of you will remember the original BBC Series ‘Survivors’. The new version has just begun its second run of episodes. The plot is essentially a post apocalyptic recover one where following a plague the few left try to sort out the world. I don’t know how closely the rest of the new series will follow the original but there comes a point in the original series where there is a breakthrough in that a group of survivors who live in a locality are persuaded to set aside a day when they will gather at a local landmark and trade ideas, goods and skills. The beginning of a new civilisation. (Cue hopeful music)

Cut to me, Wednesday afternoon, tired, bedraggled, travel worn, 2 hours that morning looking at a bleak snow scape near Brixton as travel chaos scuppered my morning plans, ‘fresh’ from wandering the lanes of BETT looking for some reason for even being there…..

Its TedxOreanda and over the next 3 hours my whole view of BETT on transformed. The next two days (us northerners can’t do the full 4 days) I put into practice the new view.

No-one is quite sure of what the full costs of exhibiting at BETT is, figures are bandied around, and as you’d expect there is ‘commercial sensitivity’. There is a sense that the ‘big boys’ spend a fortune and of course they only do that because they are going – in one form or another – to get that back – the old adage ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’.  At times it can seem like what we witness are very slick snake oil salesmen who could be equally at home flogging anything else as well. I think this accounted for my extreme dissatisfaction on Wednesday as I  searched in vain, like so many other questors walking the lanes – for the ‘new’ thing. I was seeing BETT as a very glossy, almost obscene capitalist advertising splurge – are the rumours true that the carpets are brand new on the Monday and in  skips on the Sunday?

So, I sat with this unpleasant feeling about the whole ‘binge of BETT’ and listened to these fantastic stories at TedxOrenda and then the one came round about stopping worrying about the market….. so I put on my ‘augmented reality 3d glasses’ and lo and behold I am actually in a very bustling marketplace. Its a place where people come to trade, to sell, to exchange skills, to talk, to ponder, to pass the time of day.

Next two days at BETT were all about trading ideas, giving opinions, offering thoughts. Yes I did buy some stuff, but came away from the marketplace feeling I’d gained a lot of knowledge, and that I’d made a lot of connections.

Now the amount I spent and the contributions I made would not have even covered one of the tiny stands,  but if we are all doing that then probably there is a balance being achieved.

We need the marketplace, but lets not be awed by the sharks out there swimming, and lets remember they need us – and if they ‘gobble us all up’ then where are they going to go for their next meal?