Lessons From The Beach

If you weren't lolling around on Twitter on either Thursday or Friday last week, then you may have missed our running commentary of Silicon Beach 2013 (#Silicon2013).

In which case, you would have missed the quirky and futuristic thinking that was being thrown at our brains over the course of the day.

Today, then, we thought it would be a good idea (for both you and us) to recap what we'd learnt and summarise the best bits we took away from the entire experience...

@Laurajaybee highlighted the importance of personalisation in driving digital strategies, and demonstrated how it can save customers time and money.

We met a real-life futurologist named Mark (@optimistontour) who after sharing brain-frying perspectives about what may be coming - including the chance to live forever - used the tea-break to convince our digital storyteller, Fleurie, that she was living in the Matrix (as if she wasn't confused enough already).

We also met The World Brain - an incredibly creepy online robot, whose purpose was to remind young people about the dangers of sharing data online, thanks @Jasondaponte.

We were given some lessons in love in reaction to data that revealed apparently just 1 in 5 brands are getting it right.

@willsh detailed why now more than ever it's about making things people want, rather than making people want things, whilst @davebirss highlighted the importance of feeding our creative brains rather than occupying them, begging the question do we know the difference?

Just like that, the day was done and it was time to head home for some much needed reflection time and wine before we returned for more the following day.

Indeed, day two was just as inspiring, minus Matt Desmier's mint green tennis shorts.

We resonated with the words of Steve Earl from Zeno, who reminded us all that great stories have the power to last forever.

The highly engaging @jonburkhart of Tennessee discussed the impact of newsjacking with a Twitter challenge to create the funniest apology tweet using either #SorryMatt or #SorryJo. Kudos to @TobyPestridge who took it upon himself to create his own viral Twitter trend for the day:

"Wow, #igotthenote reached 24,822 accounts & received 33,979 impressions! Remember this when you're planning a "real" campaign! #silicon2013"

We were introduced to the fantastic Code Club - getting young people into coding from just age 9! While Patrick Bergel from Animal Systems spoke of Chirp, his revolutionary app teaching machines to sing - literally.

Andy Law, chairman of Fearlessly Frank, shared lessons learned from his many years in industry - an impactful session in which he captivated the audience with no more than his voice. He suggested we approach the internet like the 21-year-old it is and recognise that as it grows older, it will mature.

To finish off the day, Havas CEO, Russ Lidstone, expressed the necessity for us to move away from considering brands as nouns and recognise brands are verbs. A simple yet powerful message.

So, there you have it in a nutshell! A brilliant couple of days (including a fantastic goody bag) that we'll certainly be returning to next year.

What do you think? Tweet us @folkdigital