By Becci Ford

Things to take away from Silicon Beached 2016

Today I got to experience Silicon Beached for the first time, thanks to the generosity of the lovely Matt Desmier. 

I didn’t know what to expect to be honest – and at 6:30am this morning when I woke up on the grumpy side of the bed, I was a bit doubtful about whether or not it would be an event worth missing a day of work for.

Luckily it prove to be more valuable than I could have imagined. 

We got to watch some incredible female speakers – without it being labelled a ‘special all female event’ and instead we got the chance to just sit and be inspired by these ladies stories, the work they do and what they find interesting. 

So for those of Coup who sadly missed the event and for anybody else who may be interested here are some of the golden nuggets that I took away from today:

1) Brands are made by humans – for humans. So make sure you talk like a human to the consumer. Not like a cyborg alien from planet Sellyoushite.

2) People without live TV for 4 days get lost and confused and end up staring at blank tellys looking miserable, and mourning the loss of Geordie Shore. Wouldn’t it be great if they mourned the loss of your content for your brand instead? 

3) Only 11% of creative directors (in the world) are female and this needs to change.

4) Telling women that they should be empowered or need empowerment does not make them feel empowered (myself included) whats needed instead is inspiration and a platform to see the great work women do.

5) A focus on customer experience means that social media is owned by the consumer and not you. 

6) Hug your haters and they’ll become your greatest allies.

7) (This ones my favourite!) Don’t set goals – instead make decisions that you would be prepared to die for. Decisions are a road that defines you. Make them and you’ll hit your goals anyway!

8) Life is short so make sure you work somewhere awesome!

9) Just ask and be memorable… Matt Desmier told me that to get people to speak he puts on his loudest floral suit and goes to conferences. There he finds who he would love to speak and mentions the possibility to them – before sending them an email later reminding them of his suit. So far in 5 years only 3 people have turned him down. 

10) Be true to yourself and do stuff with a purpose. 

11) Life is short so work somewhere awesome! And if you can’t find a place to work that fits – build something of your own.

and finally…

12) My god those chocolate brownies were delicious!