November 21, 2014

Global Reviews’ UK Digital Leaders Summit (#UKDLS)

By Paul Laughlin

IMG_2587This is a new event in the UK and one I attended yesterday, as a speaker on Behavioural Economics. It’s well worth digital leaders attending in future.

Right from the start things boded well as they had chosen a different and engaging venue. Bounce (121 Holborn, London) is the official ‘home of ping-pong’ and is literally the place where the game was invented in 1901. This gave guests the promise of a ping-pong championship after the event, as well as a more visually interesting location.

Another bonus was the approach taken by Global Reviews – for this to be a relaxed meeting of like-minded leaders across a number of verticals. There were no sponsors pushing their wares, no exhibition stands & no sales pitches. It really was a relaxed time to be challenged by other viewpoints and discuss what it might mean for your own business.

The day was divided up into three sections of panel debates (including attendees not speakers, which was a good approach) followed by keynote speakers. There was also a team exercise before and after lunch, to give plenty of outlet to those competitive urges. Compere and inquisitor of panels was the excellent Clare McDonnell of Radio 5 Live – a very likeable and effective facilitator.

A further bonus was the hiring of a graphic artist to visually capture (with flip charts & coloured markers) the main themes of each session – which made a much more amusing set of notes to review. Clive was later available for caricatures in between ping-pong bouts & was very good at those too. I’ll upload some of his most useful visualizations of key points when I get them. It could be a whole new genre of ‘conference cartoons’.

To give you a more bite-sized breakdown of my learning points from that day, I’m also going to innovate and just share the key tweets sent during the day (as inspiration struck):

How was that as means of writing up an event? Did it work for you?