For a full list of 2013′s Thinking Digital speakers, go here.
Here’s a quick story about Thinking Digital.
It was a few hours after the last event, and some of the speakers were plotting in a pub just over the river.
Programmer and comedian Tom Scott was dashing around the Eye of the Tyne bar, looking for a microphone. Canadian scientist Dr Jennifer Gardy had showed off her hand-drawn book of germs on stage earlier in the conference, and they’d started chatting afterwards about turning it into a video. So, naturally, they’d decided to get going with it right away.
Tom recorded Jennifer’s narration in a quiet room in the pub, and they even got New York musician and fellow conference performer Jessica Latshaw to improvise at the end.
What emerged was a musical version of the alphabet of germs.
That, I suppose, is what happens when you bring people together. And the Thinking Digital conference has been doing that for a few years now. When you collect people, you create stories. Like the one about the two people that got to know each other, and ended up getting married. And the one where a delegate found himself so inspired that he quit his job and pursued his passion.
And, yeah, the one about the international conference that grew up in Gateshead.
Thinking Digital started off in 2007, inspired by TED and organised by North East digital development group Codeworks. Over the years, it’s attracted speakers such as Heather Knight, Ken Segall and Jer Thorp. But it’s also dealt with the impact of a global economic crash, rode the wave of word-of-mouth, and even survived the demise of the organisation that created it.
When Codeworks effectively closed in the summer of 2012, its CEO Herb Kim was determined to keep the conference going. So he bought it himself and decided to run it as a not-for-profit private enterprise. But there was an initial doubt in his mind as to whether it should continue in the North East.
“I really struggled with it. I guess to some extent it was down to the fact it was being run as a standalone business. Even if it was not-for-profit, it still needed to make enough money that it could sustain itself.
“But I realised it would have robbed the heart from what Thinking Digital was for me. It was always meant to be – and I want to keep it as – something that’s really special for the North East. Moving to London might also have robbed Thinking Digital of some of its specialness. Part of it is that people in and out of the North East marvel that something of its quality can be supported here by local businesses and local organisations, in concert with businesses and organisations from outside. So for me, I’m committed to trying to build the long-term legacy of Thinking Digital in the North East, and I’m pretty confident that’s going to be achievable.”
Here’s the first encouraging sign. Even before announcing its cast-list, Thinking Digital has sold more than 250 tickets to The Sage on May 21 to 23. That speaks volumes about the confidence people have in the pedigree of speakers, who are selected through a combination of recommendation and worldwide conference scouting.
“People will read books about sporting heroes and military generals or a CEO of a company that’s completely different to whatever it is that they do, and we find the same thing here. If we have someone that comes and gives a talk about cancer research, people will find something about that work that will be relevant to them in some way or another, if nothing else just be inspired by the sheer brilliance and audacity of what these folks have done.”
The talks themselves range from the scientific to the idealistic. Last year’s speaker Sugata Mitra recently won the $1m TED prize to help him develop an online learning experience for Indian children called the School in the Cloud, while Sebastian Seung is still working toward mapping the human brain through collaborative game mechanics.
The proportion of people visiting from outside the North East has also gone from around a third in the first year to two-thirds last year, and Herb expects it to be close to three-quarters in 2013.
“It’s great that the single largest audience for Thinking Digital remains a North East audience, but that we’re also seeing more and more people coming from outside the region wanting to attend.
“What’s good about it is that it means that we’re getting future potential collaborators, employers, employees, contractors and the like coming into the region. We’re bringing fresh folks and fresh faces in.”
So are there still challenges to selling events in the North East to a wider audience?
“What I’ve always said is the physical distance between London and Edinburgh is further, but the psychological distance is actually much smaller, in the sense that Edinburgh is seen to be more socially acceptable. When you’re working for a London agency, getting your FD or MD to sign off on you going to Edinburgh is probably easier – quite frankly – than Newcastle. I’m sure at least some will say: ‘What on earth are you going there for?’. That’s still a battle we fight, which is why the coverage last year from people like The Next Web and the Metro helps fight that battle for us just a little bit, because then others think we’re coverage worthy too.”
Herb believes that Thinking Digital continues to attract interest because it is useful to people, beyond being a few days out of the office.
“We’re trying to bring in speakers and topics that we think will help stimulate big thinking; strategic thinking about one’s business, one’s organisation, one’s community and even one’s life, leading it a different way and into a different area.
“Those big ideas can be business ideas, ideas about better processes, about a different perspective. They can inspire you to connect with a different industry or a different group of people. Given the fact we’ve gone through a global financial crisis, and considering the austerity the North is going through, there’s no way we could have survived if people couldn’t defend Thinking Digital as more than just a few days of stimulation, as something that’s deep and practical in a different way than perhaps other conferences go about things.”
Herb is organising the conference this year with Elspeth Lawson, who produced the last three GameHorizons and all three DIBI conferences while at Codeworks. Herb wants its reputation to grow to the extent that it becomes an iconic North East event, “a Great North Run with regard to the digital, creative and the innovation sectors”.
“It doesn’t have to be about size or profit. It might be about increasing the quality of the speakers we get. We have some fantastic speakers already, but it would be great to get some of the absolutely world-class folks that might currently only attend and speak at a TED conference…
“Ultimately, my dream and vision is to make it the best it can possibly be. That’s my focus. I still think there’s plenty we can do to improve the experience, to improve the quality of the experience after the conference, and to make it a vital community.
“We want to make this a beacon of light in the North East, especially in some of these more cloudy days.”
Tickets for the conference are available to buy via the link. Conference pictures from 2012, by Leah Pattem.
For more on the lineup for this year, go to our gallery here. For Herb’s thoughts on entrepreneurship, going solo and the future of the conference, check out our Soundcloud set below.