Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Even people who are unconvinced of Twitter’s value in business must see see how the backchannel has changed conferences forever. The audience has an active role. Searchable archives and communities of attendees are created. People who aren’t at the event can easily follow along. And tweets and retweets zoom in on the natural sound bites.

I tested the latter by collecting tweets from the recent WPP Digital Stream unconference. Sir Martin Sorrell’s talk is one of the highlights of the annual event. It gets media coverage of course, but here are some of the audience take-aways recorded (not in order) via the hashtag #stream10:

You won’t find a #stream10 @ Mckinsey – we are a fun industry. SirM

Martin Sorrell on stage #stream10 suggesting the application of technology and data analytics to our core services…

Sir Martin Sorrell says – a lack of a technology strategy is holding us back….

Sir Martin: Companies need chief technology officers and chief talents officers that are stars.

WPP strategy per Sir Martin Sorrell “New markets, New media and Customer Insights”

Sorrell: life is going to be a slog. We’re not going to see high levels of growth in western Europe and USA

Competition for the UK is the smaller nimble countries says Sir Martin

Sir Martin predicts that a major multinational company will move their HQ to Singapore sometime in the next 3 years

martin sorrell: “study singapore and try to learn from it.”

Old media bites back is the headline news from the yanks this year – SirM

Martin Sorrell: “The BBC – strongest online brand in the world, in my view”

RT @gavsky: Martin Sorrell: “I think Murdoch is bang on… Consumers have to pay for content that they want”

Google has created free flow of info at zero marginal cost. – Sir Martin #disintermediation

Sir Martin jokes this will get him in trouble but suggests 1 back office would be much more cost efficient for his big ad agencies

A very funny Sir Martin at #stream10

Not everyday do you get to hear Sir Martin Sorrell talk/chat casually #WPP