Geek In Disguise

I just wrote an email to Herb Kim and the team at Codeworks to congratulate them on a fantastic event last week in Newcastle. I sincerely hope it was the first of many Thinking Digital events.

As I said to Herb in my email, in over 10 years at Microsoft that was one of the most professional and enjoyable events I’ve been involved in. The venue was first class, the speaker line-up probably the best in the UK this year and the whole thing just felt like a family event – everyone was accessible and there was great energy. Sure there were things that could have been better (food/power) but these are just teething issues. The key for me was the range and quality of speakers. Where else would you see

• Greg Dyke– ex DG of the BBC in a remarkably candid interview
• Dan Lyons – aka Fake Steve Jobs
• Tara Hunt – the lovely missrogue herself
• Carl Honore – Mr Slow
• Jessica Flannery – of Kiva
• Aubrey de Grey
• Dan Pink
• Doug Richard  - he of the Dragons Den
• Matt Locke – Channel 4 new media guru
• Sean Phelan – the man who got bought by Microsoft
• Helen Fisher – digital orgasms?
• Caspar Berry – he trained Daniel Craig to play poker. seriously.
• Jonathan Harris – wow. wow.

thanks too to Ian Forrester for recording and posting all of these so quickly. You can also see my talk though the event video will likely be more useful as you’ll get to see the demos which are way more interesting than simply listening to me jabber on.

When the dates for Thinking Digital are announced next year they’ll go straight in to my diary. I’d recommend you do the same and if you can, try to bag a speaking slot (Hugh, Scoble etc).