Introduction
In any room where people are gathered to discuss a subject, the audience is often the expert. We find ways of recording this expertise.
The eight minute book and book in a day are two similar products developed and refined by Brian Lewis and Pontefract Press. Both are excellent ways with which to record an event, or do qualitative research.
The eight minute book is ideal for larger groups, such as delegates at a conference. The book can be delivered, in electronic form, to the delegates as soon as half a day after the event, as with Renaissance Perspectives, below.
Alternatively, the text can be kept, edited and expanded on to produce a book. Typically, an eight minute book produced in a single session of 100 delegates will run to 20,000 words. Oh What A Night! for the AfCL, below, was produced in this way.
Below are some examples of recent work.
Renaissance Perspectives
Cultural Industries Quarter Agency in partnership with
New Start magazine
Renaissance Perspectives was produced for Cultural Industries Quarter Agency in partnership with New Start magazine. The eight minute book was produced in a single morning session by delegates of the Regen Month '06 event "Whose Renaissance is it anyway?", and delivered back to the conference at 4pm the same day. It was also emailed to delegates in PDF format.
Oh What a Night!
The Work of the Academy for Community Leadership
"The Academy has given me the opportunity to rediscover the things I believe are important, and the knowledge that these things are worth speaking up for. I have also heard other people's stories. It doesn't matter if they are good stories, happy stories, sad stories or troubled stories. All are important and all came from people who know deep down that they have something worth fighting for.
It is organisations like the Academy that give people opportunities to be heard, and to find or re-find the confidence to speak."
Oh What a Night! was produced for the Academy for Community Leadership in April 2008. The text was gathered in a two hour evening session at a celebration of the Academy's work at Cuttler's Hall, Sheffield. The following week the 100 page book went to print, a permanent record of the night, and more importantly, a record of the Academy's success, as told by it's students.
Oh What a Night! tells the stories of learners at the Academy for Community Leadership in Barnsley, celebrating the hard work of those involved and the benefits brought to their communities.
