The hosting city was Kortrijk - maybe a city you haven't heard of. It goes by the slogan 'we are creators' to emphasize its maker spirit.
Theme of the 2014 edition was 'Bring Innovation Home' and the whole setting was a big living room for 2800 attendees. Sofas and comfy chairs all around, lamp hoods everywhere and marginally ugly chamber plants too. Lunch was served in pots your mother would cook in, and coffee and candy was just available in cans and jars allover the place. Nice.
One of the main reasons for attending is the fabulous line-up of speakers. While there were three cancellations, the 'backup speakers' were in no way less than the originals. Above is a visual illustration of the talk of the opening speaker Guy Kawasaki with a number of tips on the art of innovation. (An ex-Apple icon, so there were lots of Microsoft bashing jokes in his bit. Example: Nobody uses Windows voluntarily.). Most of the speakers are there also to promote their books, and Guy Kawasaki's book is Enchantment. But I also discovered the beautiful newspaper blackout poems by Austin Kleon (and his book Steal like an Artist), how magicians like Marco Tempest create illusions by being early adopters of technology, how designer Daan Roosegaarde reinvents landscapes such as the 'clever motorway', or the fundamental questions an enterpreneur like Ricardo Semler asks... Also I discovered that Steven Levitt, the author of Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics was actually terrible at math and consequently decided to build a career out of challenges that were to embracing for others to tackle.
Since I'm a bit of a quote collector, here are quotes I noted down along the conference - in order but I forgot who said what... (for which I'm sorry but one of my main take-aways of this conference is that there might not be such a thing as an original idea... Or as Austin Kleon would say: steal like an artist!)
- Innovation is the realization of inspiration.
- Make meaning. That's not the same as making money. If you make meaning, the money will follow.
- When people give advice, they are really talking to themselves in the past.
- Innovation happens slower than we think. This means we can glimps into the future.
- The winning companies will be the ones that are the best connected.
- Customers do know what they want.
- Magicians are early adopters of technology.
- Success is far more random than we believe. Experiments and luck will become as important as strategy.
- Everyone has access to logic.
- All innovative ideas are obvious after the fact.
- Pay attention to surprise.
- Why can you not tickle yourself?
- Yes, but ...
- Creative Confidence = Natural Ability + the Courage to Act
- Budgets are how corporations express love.
- (about the new generation) The fact that they can work with a tablet, is because you gave them one...
- We had two people in the HR department and thank God one of them retired.
- We are all suffering from Idea Surplus Disorder.
- People who practise mindfulness think 4% faster, with 30% less errors and generate more ideas.
In a few days I'll post what I remember one week after the event...
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