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Posted Under: Unconsumption
A friend of the site has asked that I tell you about Interesting New York, an event this coming Saturday, September 13. It lasts all day and as I understand it consists of a whole bunch of short presentations by a variety of people on a variety of subjects, selected for level of “interesting”ness. The supremely annoying site for this event is here; the less annoying rundown of presenters is here. A few other friends of Murketing turn out to be on that list — but enough about that.
The one that caught my attention is The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption. That would be Gaurav Mishra, who writes: “On March 23, I decided to go off consumption for a year to understand an increasingly important subculture whose members refuse to define their identity by buying things.” Here is Mishra’s blog — which turns out to be a book in progress. I was a little surprised to see the top post is about “How to market to consumers who define themselves by their anti-consumerism.”
So I suppose he’s the marketer who went off consumption … in order to become a better marketer? I’m not sure how I feel about that.
But … there’s some other interesting stuff in the blog, which I’ll have to examine more closely a little later, and if you live in New York and want to pay $35 to hear from him and the other presenters at this event, I’d be curious to hear what you think.
Interesting New York
Saturday, September 13, 2008
10:00AM to 6:00PM.
The Katie Murphy Amphitheater at FIT
7th Avenue at 27th Street (Building D), New York City
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the shoutout.
When I started writing the book/ blog, I wanted to focus on my own experiment and the lessons I learned through the year as a human being and as a marketer. However, over the last six months, I have come to believe that there’s a bigger book here — a book that shares the stories (both success and failures) of other people who have also tries to define their identities through means other than buying or owning things. I’m thinking of a book researched and written like Po Bronson’s ‘What Should I Do With My Life?’ or ‘Why Do I Love These people?’
So, I am at a crossroad — I know how I want to write this book but I don’t know if I am the right person to write that book and, specifically, if I can devote myself to 2-3 years of research, to finding 100 other misfits like myself, without a publisher and an advance. :-)