PSFK Conference Speaker Interview: Rob Walker

Rob Walker will be one of the speakers at our upcoming PSFK Conference 2010, taking place on April 9th. Rob is the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, and his New York Times column “Consumed” offers a unique view of consumption, design and marketing. Recently, Rob has been involved with the Significant Objects project, which examines the nature of value, giving fictional history to mundane thrift store items through invented narratives about each object’s story.

PSFK talked with Rob recently to see what he’s been up to lately.

What are you working on right now?

My Times Magazine column, Consumed, has been on break for a couple of months, but returns March 28, so I’m working on that — and thinking through some ways we’re hoping to add new dimensions and ideas to the column and its approach. I’ve also been working on some longer stories for the magazine, which has been a lot of fun, since in recent years I haven’t had as much time to do longer pieces. I’d love for that kind of work to be a bigger part of my 2010. Meanwhile, Significant Objects is now in its third “Volume,” publishing stories and auctioning objects, raising money for Girls Write Now. This time around we’re collaborating with Electric Literature and The Believer, among others, and we have some pretty good narrative stunts in the works. And maybe a surprise or two that I’ll reveal at the conference itself. And I’m playing around with a couple of book ideas, and a new project or two for the second half of the year.

What has been the most interesting response or reaction to your project?

Apart from the basic fact that it actually succeeded — that people read the stories and buy the objects and so on, which we certainly weren’t sure of when we started, and which continues to delight me on a daily basis — I’ve been really intrigued by the number of people who want to write for the project. We still recruit most of our writers, because for us part of the fun is working with people whose writing we know and admire. But almost from the beginning we’ve had folks volunteering to write because they just like the concept and want to participate in that way. Maybe this isn’t surprising, in retrospect, but we didn’t count on it. We’ve definitely worked with plenty of volunteers, and we’ve had contests to open it up more, we started a group on Fictionaut. It’s added a whole other dimension that we hadn’t counted on, but that’s really gratifying. Some days I think that if we really wanted to boost the project’s money-making potential, we should set it up where people have to bid to write a story!

What projects, people or ideas are currently inspiring your thinking these days?

I’m the worst at this question, because the truth is that when I’m trying to convince myself that this or that unlikely-sounding idea is worth pursuing and working at because you never know, it just might work out, I tend to think about things that impressed me a great deal in the past and that I think still endure as examples of really unlikely but really high quality projects or ideas or creations. So I mean things like Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise,” Laurie Anderson’s “United States Live,” things that had a big personal impact on me, and that still leave me wondering, “How did they pull that off? How did they make that happen?” That “enduring” factor is really important to me, I don’t want to be “inspired “by something that’s got a lot of buzz right now but that I won’t care about or even remember in a year. There are lots of opportunities to get things done in new ways these days, and I  pay attention to them, and I’m really impressed by something like Kickstarter and the stuff people do as a result of its existence. But “inspiration” can be a really fleeting feeling, so I try to remind myself of what has held up (for me) over the long term and end up getting distracted by all the fun things going on on any given day. I don’t know if any of that made sense. I told you I’m the worst at this question.

What developing trend, idea or technology makes you most excited or hopeful for the future?

Hmmm, well, frankly, I’m often pretty worried about the future! But I guess maybe the aspect of the way that technology has, broadly, evolved that I think has been pretty great is the way it’s allowed far-flung talent and creativity to get more notice. I resist the idea that technology makes people more creative or “lets them” express themselves and so on, but I do think it increases potential visibility. There have always been people doing cool creative stuff outside the usual geographic zones, but now it’s easier for those people to get noticed. On a personal level — and I guess Significant Objects is a reflection of this — I’m very interested in what unexpected opportunities might open up, or be created, for writers and writing. It’s fascinating to see how that’s all playing out and, depending the day, sometimes it actually leaves me feeling hopeful. We’ll see!

Thanks Rob!

Rob will be speaking at the PSFK Conference 2010 – a Gathering for our Future. Come listen to likeminds as they share their ideas to make things better on stage and off. Find out more about the full line of of speakers at the PSFK Conference 2010 here.