It’s been a fortnight since my three whirlwind days at Club Med in Athens, where I was extremely privileged to be invited back for my 3rd trip to Stream: WPP”s annual “unconference”. Now that the dust has settled and I’ve collected my thoughts, I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of them with you.

A gathering of about 250 people from the WPP group, their clients and a few outsiders like myself, Stream is one of the most intense intellectual bombardments you could ever hope to receive. In fact, last year it was rated as the top event at the Leading Industry Event awards.

As an invite only event, the quality of attendees is exceptionally high and I can honestly say that I was humbled by the people I met. Not only were they unbelievably bright, but it seems extreme intellect for the most part brings extreme humility, and that makes for a learning experience second to none. Everyone was so eager to share and learn and I think I can safely say that for most attendees, Stream will be a life altering experience.
 
The event is run like your typical unconference, where the attendees create the agenda, and this resulted in some amazing sessions. From sperm to magic and everything marketing and tech related in between, this was one event where you were guaranteed to leave utterly exhausted, but packed with ideas. My most memorable sessions were Rory’s, Martin’s and Maria’s (see below), but I also got a real kick out of “Why would anyone Tweet about shampoo?” and the mobile session by Scott Seaborn from Ogilvy. Both really interesting and insightful.
 

I also had the good fortune of getting my name on the big board in time and delivered a session entitled: Crowdsourcing Creative Ideas: An exciting future or an evil demise.

Given that I was competing for attention with eight other discussions (one of which was on China and the Internet which I’m really bummed I had to miss), I think I had a pretty good turnout. After the intro's, I kicked off the hour long session with a brief overview of crowdsourcing, its past (did you know that the first Oxford Dictionary was crowdsourced?), present and potential future. I then opened up the debate to discuss where it is all going and how it’s going to affect agencies. To say it was a hot debate would be an understatement; I don’t think I went to another session which was as feisty. The great thing about it was that the room was filled with real geniuses and the debate was conduected in an open and respectful way.
 
I learnt so much from my session that on the feedback form, when asked what session I found most informative, I had to say it was my own. Not at all because of what I had to say (that was quite boring), but because of the insights and perspectives from the people in the audience. I was really lucky to have some pretty big players attend my discussion and the resultant conversation was stimulating to say the least. It made me realise once again that we are on to something really cool with Idea Bounty, and long may it continue.

My two favourite quotes from my session:
 
“Agencies complaining about crowdsourcing is like prostitutes complaining about people having consensual sex”. By far the most eloquent summary of the situation that I’ve heard to date.
 
“Viral marketing is just crowdsourced media”. An incredibly sharp observation which really helps frame the situation for current media agencies.
 
Both of these quotes came from the same adman who runs one of the biggest agencies in the world (due to the off the record nature of Stream, I can’t attribute the quotes to him directly, although I suspect he wouldn’t give a hoot if I did).
 
Finally I have to say that for me, Stream is more about the people and the side chats than the sessions themselves, so I think it’s worth mentioning/thanking a few of the people I met who made an impact on me:

• Brent Shahim: Brent runs Aqua Online, arguably South Africa’s most successful digital agency and now a WPP company who I really look up to. I got to know Brent at Stream last year and the guy doesn’t fail to impress me. He is so bright and yet so down to earth, I learn something from him every time we engage.

• Rory Sutherland: For me the best speaker of the event, Rory is a true polymath (although he would never admit it, because he’s “just a classisist” or as his Twitter profile says, he’s the “fat bloke at Ogilvy”) and an exceptional speaker matching cunning insight with hilarity like few others can achieve – it seems like Rory has read every book that has ever been written. With his doddering Britishness, suspenders and linen jacket, Rory is about as unassuming as a bacon butty, but when he opens his mouth, you could hear a pin drop in the room. Whilst I had heard his name before, I first came across Rory when I watched a video of his presentation at last year’s Ogilvy Verge conference. Apart from his insights, I loved his humour. At one point he ventured into the topic of post-flight-flatulence. As he put it, it’s something everyone gets, but no one talks about. I love a man who is unashamed to be brutally honest and funny to boot. Seriously if you can get an opportunity to engage with Rory, seize it with both hands, you won’t regret it.

• Sir Martin Sorrell aka Uncle Marty by many of the WPP employees. His Wikipedia entry should say it all, but I have to confess that I have a slight bromance going on with Martin (although he probably has no idea who I am...). In 20 odd years, the man has grown WPP from a shelf company, to the largest advertising and communications group in the world – a pretty staggering achievement. For years I have admired Martin, not as a marketer (because he isn’t), but as a business genius. His annual Stream talk was as gripping as the last 2 years and I can only dream that they invite me back to listen to it again next year. (Martin on the miniscule chance that you’re tracking your name and reading this, my deepest thanks for bringing me back to Greece, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it).

• Maria Sipka – an Aussie living in Barcelona, despite having followed her on Twitter a few weeks back, she wasn’t at all what I expected. As I said to her over lunch, her session on Social Media groups didn’t teach me anything new, but it made me think about the problem/opportunity in a completely different way. For that I am very grateful.

• JP Maheu – Currently the Chief Digital Officer at Ogilvy in the US, I only got to chat to JP briefly over dinner, but I’m not sure he realised how much I drew from it. JP was the CEO of Razorfish when they hit the skids during the dotcom bust and the war stories he has about getting it back on track were really inspiring for a young agency upstart.

• Gordon Torr – A real onion of a man. I have to be honest, I got to know Gordon because I thought he was a cool guy. By the end of the weekend I realised that beneath this completely unassuming exterior was a man with some remarkable achievements under his belt. His Ignite presentation on the first night was an absolute cracker and I have just ordered a copy of his book.

That’s it for this year. Thanks again to WPP for inviting me to yet another terrific few days in Greece. Stream was thoroughly well organised, incredibly entertaining and just downright enlightening.  

Also check out:

• Stream - The Highlights Package