Thanks to Danny Hope et al for arranging UX Brighton and putting on some inspiring speakers.
Excellent decision to move the keynote speaker Rory Sutherland to the end, I certainly walked away from the conference with my head spinning with new ideas and bounded with confidence that we are getting it right here at Caplin.
Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy : Clouds and Clocks
Eloquently delivered with a touch of comedy had the audience tipping forward so not to miss a word and throwing themselves backwards with serious belly laughs. The key message – give someone a big budget and they will come up with an expensive solution. Society has this perception that expensive is more important but Rory points out that focusing on the details can lead to spectacular results but this is almost always missed in our search for the next big thing.
He talked about the dangers of “Clock Thinking” (Picture notes here , thanks to @almacaw) where senior management are comfortable with numbers, spreadsheets, profit and predictability whereby “Cloud Thinking” is a little fuzzy, unpredictable but can deliver spectacular results if you just go with it. He quotes “we should all be looking for Black Swan moments” I personally call them “Golden Nuggets”. Those things that arise from immersing yourself in the discovery phase of a project instead of leaping into solution mode.
Rory recommends reading Obliquity by John Kay
If you want to hear and see some of the examples that Rory spoke about you can find him on Ted talking about changing perception. The Shreddies example is unbelievable! Well worth the 16 minutes of investment.
For the sake of keeping blogs short, tomorrow I will cover more from the conference.