WPP Stream

This was my first year WPP Stream; the conference famous for not actually being a conference, the ‘unconference’.

I would describe Stream more as a professional summer camp (this is a huge assumption on my part. I never did ‘camp’ growing up. I grew up in Essex. There was no camp). I am unsure on exact numbers, but I would say there were >300 participants this year. The format is certainly better than anything I have experienced before, more on why later.

Flying in straight from NY and arriving in the evening, I initially felt pretty disorientated. Whilst great efforts are made (and seriously, huge #props to Ella and team) to help you navigate Stream, it certainly embodies the spirit of ‘figure it out’. As a newbie to Stream, I was a little overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the sheer size and overwhelmed by everyone else seemingly knowing what the f*ck was going on whereas I clearly didn’t.

Before the absolutely brilliant parts of Stream, a few watch outs in the event you happen to be in my shoes one year:

• As an introvert and self confessed ‘world’s worst networker’, Stream can feel a little daunting
• Everyone seemed to a) either be a ‘Streamer’ (more on that to come) or b) knew other ‘Streamers’ very well
• There seems to be a cult following amongst those who attend each year; a certain familiarity amongst one another and (i’m sure) unintended cliques emerge as a result. Not the highschool type cliques, but more professional cliques. For those who are not blessed with amazing social skills it can be difficult to insert yourself early on
• Personally, I feel there should be more newbies here — to keep Stream fresh and diverse this feels important, this might be wrong on my part, I am not sure on the stats
• Whilst diversity was strong on some levels (see the amazing parts section), I did feel for the most part, there was a skew to the creatives and the commercial folk, sprinkled with a handful of entrepreneurs and those having a profound impact on humanity. I would recommend inviting more people from the Product & Tech community (people i’d associate myself with more). Maybe I am calling this wrong and that there were plenty of my ‘kind’ here and I just didn’t find them!

Now for the amazing parts of Stream:

• It was great to learn and listen from so many types of people I usually would not
• I was able to discover and think a little differently, owing to the nature and breadth of industries, verticals, agendas and interests on show here; it is easy to operate in a vacuum, this was a great opportunity to get my head up
• I love the unconventional nature of the Discussions (I even attempted one of my own). Informal, casual, thought provoking content that you genuinely would pay serious $ for at a traditional conference. And what’s more these discussions and themes can continue well into lunch, dinner, evening etc
• Key highlights of Discussions for me: learning from other leaders on how they’ve scaled companies, the struggles they faced and overcame; getting more into the weeds of Blockchain, tokens and ICOs and how this is impacting business, commerce and society; the hype and reality of Ai and finally learning what influencer marketing was!
• Seeing Sir Martin deliver an incredible 1 hour Q&A / fireside. The man has an unbelievable grasp of his business; global politics and economies; and the nuances of the macro and micro issues facing his customers and his people — to do this off the cuff and unscripted was seriously impressive
• Seeing a more human side to WPP and their leaders; it’s great to see them ‘stripped down’; less polished and buttoned up and exposing their own fears and insecurities
• Business development and partnership opportunities — once I overcame my considerable weaknesses in networking, I was able to connect with really interesting people whom I expect to continue a dialogue with and perhaps also develop interesting partnerships with too
• Meeting Nic Hodges at last — i’ve been stalking this guy online for some time, so was good to meet him at last.

What could be better?

• Move Stream to Slack pre and post event. I have taken the responsibility here of creating a Stream Slack group — I think this should be leveraged as means of enabling people to connect pre event
• Facilitate networking opportunities for those who do not find it easy; whether it be speed dating style / something more structured, I think this would shortcut the time it takes to build some fast connections
• Build more time for Ignite Talks from the likes of Sir Martin, Mark Read et al — personally I would have loved to have seen and heard more from them

Net net, if you get the opportunity to attend Stream, you definitely should.

We were asked to summarise Stream in 5 words. I forgot to do this on the day of check out. So here is mine:

Learning opportunity for the willing.