I was lucky enough to be invited to the Google Partner Forum today. There were any number of great speakers, Stelios Haij-Ioannou, Niklas Zennstrom, Loic Le Meur, Martin Varsavsky, Michael Birch, Xochi Birch, Yat Siu etc but a couple stood out for me. Firstly Frederic Hauge, President of the Bellona Foundation . I haven't heard first hand the ideas behind 'Carbon Capture and Storage' before today. Thinking about ways not only to reduce our carbon emissions but actually how to make industries 'carbon negative'. Here is a guy that is thinking way beyond a solution to cut carbon emisions but actually presenting a solution that could actually utilise CO2 in process of finding further reserves of fossil fuels. Talk about thinking big!!
The other speaker I really enjoyed was Josh Spear. There were a noticeable amount of over 30's (I'm being generous as I'm including myself in this) in the crowd feverishly talking notes as he gave insight into the 'Digital Generation' and what is important to this demographic. To paraphrase the key points he talked about the ubiquity and connectedness to mobile devices and the lack of engagement with brands that "push" messages. The drive is towards "mass indviduality" and the wed enabling these "digital natives" to create their own identity, individuality and uniqueness (see Etsy as a good example of this).
Video's of some of the speakers including the keynote from Eric Schmidt can be found YouTube
]]>