Thoughts and learnings from She Says Camp

A selection of thoughts, notes and scribbles from yesterday's She Says event. We headed along to Google Campus to witness and contribute to this year's event 'Where Actions and Ideas Collide.'

 

It wasn't the distinctly fewer suits+ties present that makes She Says a bit of a different day event; it was the fact that pretty much every person up on stage had something exciting, inviting an inspiring to share. Us in the audience were kept thinking and contributing, all day.

I've been to a fair few conferences in my time, (you know the ones where you catch people snoozing through the afternoon?) and I can fairly say that yesterday was the most friendly, open and inviting event I've been to in a very long time. Big thank you to the She Says team!

There was quite a bit of chatter after the event (and visible on Cath's tweet stream) about the female vs male audience proportions. The event was designed to put more, thought not entirely, females in the presentation and panel roles. This was a lovely change, but the presenters challenged themselves further; moving away from the powerpoint-and-read-it-off-the-screen style, to engaging storytelling, rolling visuals, live app demos, debates and music samples. that said, I did leave with a distinct desire for new shoes...

 

So what did I take from the day?

 

- There are amazing things that can be done by combining brain activity and movable fabrics.

- Future skills lie in fluid intelligence - spotting the patterns and trends in data.

- We all need a little more serendipity in our lives, it keeps us fresh and vibrant. Simply reassessing your twitter stream or your route to work gives you a little boost.

- Think while you make, make while you think … get prototyping, early. But make sure to have a hypothesis, or a project compass, otherwise you are just chucking suff around.

- Encourage deviant behaviour in your process, think physical, think about involving different types of storytellers.

- Consider the perspective of your audience; what do they want to engage with, where are their priorities, how often do these change and how do you adapt to these.

- Syncing yourself - we're concerned with having the latest version for your hardware, but what about ourselves? How often are we rebooting our own bodies and mental states?

- Your competition is not always as straightforward as your likely-closest competitor.

- Engagement is good, but transaction is better.

- From Pat Cadigan "We don't make a lot of money, but boy are we rich" Fill your life with what gives you pleasure, what makes you think, smile and laugh and it'll lead you on all sorts of adventures.

- We're creating something new, being disruptive, asking people to shift their behaviours - but how long will that last? What is the shelf life of disruption?

- Extreme Queuing, enough said. https://vimeo.com/10866741

- Selena Godden is wonderfully awesome. 

- I want to have a think about mentors again - because Mike was a brilliant addition to my thinking - and because I think it's immensley important to have an external sounding board.

- I really want to go back to Sweden.

- Being asked to break out of my comfort zone really brings out the rilled introvert in me.

- An idea only stays an idea if you don't have the belief in yourself to make something happen. Nothing will come of nothing. Take Action! Now!