I spent the day at the Cape Town Alt Conference, brainchild of, and run concurrently in Johannesburg by, Paul Jacobson.
The lineup of excellent speakers notwithstanding, I think we got the most value out of the discussion and debate that happened during and between the actual sessions. We had a rather well-informed group of people, so it was great that the talks didn’t tread the usual social media avenues and end up preaching to the choir. In each session we had to deal with contentious points, lively debate and some sometimes difficult questions. This is the sort of thing that you want to have at a conference.
Thanks to Paul Jacobson for taking this on (and succeeding), Paul Cartmel for hosting us in Cape Town, Tim Shier, Shawn Jooste, Henk Kleynhans, David and Marc Perel and Gaby Rosario for providing food for thought and especially to everyone who came along and added to the conversation.
I must say, the Alt Conference was really cool, I’d have preferred to arrive earlier because the conversation during the speeches with the ‘live’ questions popping up was great.
Alt Conf was wicked, the NML sadly lacking sparletta cream soda, but much preffered the sherbets we had at the end.
The Conf actually raised more questions than answers for me
1) How can we use these great minds for something amazing?
2) How to reconcile integrity and authenticity with those 80′s business principles of sales at any cost?
3) How do so many computers get on one desk?
4) HTF does shaunjooste live tweet? I battle to speak.
Great stuff all round.