Another DesignThinkers Vancouver is in the books! It was two full days of inspiration and connection. This year’s conference theme was ‘Out of Office’.
Dalit Shalom’s opening talk (titled Out of Office, Into Yourself) was especially inspiring to me. Early on in her presentation, she asked the audience to turn to a stranger sitting near us and introduce ourselves by not talking about our jobs.
Later, Dalit prompted us to turn to the same stranger/new acquaintance and talk about something that we find fulfilling outside of work.
We often think of fulfillment as completing something, but what if we flipped that around?
Fulfillment → start of creative work
Finally, she asked us to answer: What is one thing we can start doing this week to bring us closer to feeling fulfilled?
The quote she left us with was from Fred Rogers: “It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are.”
On day 2, I picked up a copy of Brave Creative Human by Diana Varma and got to chat with her briefly as she signed it. (I found a photo of me making a weird face while talking to her, although I have no idea what I was reacting to – it was a very nice and brief convo!)
She was also giving away buttons and packs of up-cycled materials for zines. I had done Diana’s Lego Letterpress workshop a couple years ago – her workshops are always really fun.
The workshop I signed up for this conference was for creating an exquisite corpse collaborative zine, led by Thomas Hull. Everyone at the table worked on one spread, then passed it over to our neighbour to our left. In total, there were three full spreads in the zines. We ran out of time to finish the covers, so I completed those at home.
This year, I skipped the roundtable discussions and most of the vendor booths. The great thing about having the two-day pass is I can also stream from home to best fit my schedule. I would recommend attending, especially if you are a solopreneur like myself. The talks, workshops, and roundtables are always inspiring and fun. As creatives, we should all remember to set aside ‘Out of Office’ time.
