- What:
The Festival is all about collaboration, about looking for those unlikely connections that can provide inspiration and catalyse breakthrough thinking and actions.
- Who: Social Innovation Exchange, Nesta, Glasgow Caledonian University and many other partners.
- When: 7 > 9 October 2015
- Where: Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Project information
Story
Bringing together different communities around a variety of subjects and themes that matter to citizens of Glasgow can provide a space where familiar challenges can be reframed. The Unusual Suspects is a chance to shake up the chemistry; a space to challenge our assumptions. This has been done by bring- ing in outside voices and experiences from around the world, but also by repositioning some existing relationships.
Beneficiaries & Stakeholders:
With 20 events across the city and 35 different contributing organisations it certainly made Glasgow Unusual! Over 600 people engaged with the Festival in some way.
Insights & Conclusions:
There are a few key ingredients:
• Collaboration is key: All events are collaborations of organisations who work in either the same sector, or similar ways, but who did not know each other before the festival.
• Facilitating serendipity through real time connecting: It is important to provide as many way to connect people in between events, so whether it’s the Festival HQ, run at Snook Café, or through real time twitter match-making, we attempt to make unusual connections at every possible at every moment.
• A city-wide experience: The decentralized approach of the festival is not only reflected in the organization of events, but also in the event venues. Each Festival event is hosted in a different part of the city, often in the organization of the session hosts, which gives participants even more of a flavour of the diversity of work.
Links
http://theunusualsuspectsfestival.com
Contact information
http://theunusualsuspectsfestival.com