David Robertson

So, I’ve established that I’m angry about panel discussions. I'm definitely not the first and I won't be the last. But I'm asking you, now, to help me kill* (positive spin edit: go beyond) them. Get your gripes out. Talk about it. Demand better. Here are some reasons why: Attendees are passive and powerless. Most have one choice: listen or not listen. Some get to ask a single question. They ignore attendees’ collective expertise. If people bother to go to an event, they proba

I’m angry. I’m in a new city, a new flat, with a new job and no friends. I went to an event called Re-creating Communities, run by Melbourne Conversations. Free, in the incredible Deakin Edge in Federation Square. The 150-strong audience were a demographic mix and I’m sure they were a clever and interesting bunch. A like-minded temporary community, if you will. I didn’t talk to anyone. It was a panel discussion. It meandered down short tangents, skated across the surface of d

"Peace and happiness were not a reward to be earned, but a state to be maintained with toil and grief." - Poul Anderson, Un-Man When I first read that line, squirrelled away in a sci-fi anthology from the 1980's, it hit me hard. It speaks deeply to the contrast between humanity's evolutionary history - how we've developed for millions of years - and the massive, fractious civilisation that surrounds us. Then I thought further ahead and realised something more personally relev

The line sweated and shuffled beneath sweeping curves of the UAE pavilion at the 2015 World Fair, the city of Milan distantly visible through the summer heat haze. My water bottle ran out just as I reached the front of the queue. Fitting. The show we'd waited for was as grandiose as the pavilion's design. I witnessed a story of a little girl transported through time from the back of her family's huge SUV. She experienced the heritage of her nation as it happened to her grandm

"The experience starts when you first hear about it, and only ends when you stop thinking and talking about it." -Coney In a week, I'll be at an event in Melbourne titled 'Is Sustainability Dead?'. With the ethos of the world's loveliest playmakers in my head, I've been thinking hard about the question. Green Steps, a program from the Monash Sustainability Institute, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. It was designed in 2000 to bridge university to the workplace and equip s

I used to be part of a secret cabal, and I'm about to blow the lid on it. But first, some context. One year ago I was surviving my fifth London winter. The countdown to my biggest ever project, You Have Been Upgraded, was on. My to-do list spanned multiple A4 pages and I flicked between reviewing contracts, feeding back on theatrical scripts and editing press releases. I didn't take breaks. I was being pulled in a thousand directions at once. It was thrilling, difficult, and