Tripping my brains out at The Do Lectures

Two weekends ago, I attended The DO Lectures on a farm near Cardigan Bay in Wales, without doubt the best event I’ve ever been a part of. Eighty delegates and 20 speakers. Living in tents.

If I had stopped the car on the way home, I’d have had an outside chance of capturing the high. But since I waited, the long, busy, crazy intervening work weeks have chased a lot of the mojo away. So this is me trying to capture a few stray bits that have survived, so that you’ll book a place next year.

(No, this was not about marketing, much less B2B marketing but it was still a super-relevant experience for me and I know it would be for you too).

Here goes.

New words

Groundrush – the feeling of the ground rushing up to meet you as something big approaches (like the ground if you’re a parachutist or a big event if you’re an organiser) and you’re not ready. Dave Hieatt, the founder of the DO Lectures used this in his opening remarks.  I think I can use this.

Peackle – A pickled pea. Mentioned by Jack Adair-Bevan of the Ethicurean, a wonderful-sounding-restaurant-garden-of-Eden kind of thing in the enchanted-sounding Barley Wood Walled Garden near Bristol.

Stuffication – The state of being suffocated by our stuff, coined by James Wallman, who thinks we’d be better off suffocating ourselves with experiences. (I didn’t buy it, but it’s a cool word).

Quake Book – Ryan Holiday used this to describe a book that makes a huge impact on your life. His was The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Soundbites

To give you an idea of the kind of speakers we heard from (Authors, makers, starter-uppers, nuclear submarine captains. Usual thing.)…

“This is a happy wine.”
James from the Ethicurean quoting Fergus Henderson

“When you’ve got nothing but an idea and raw passion, you’d be amazed what you can get people to do for you.”
Matt Lane from Beer Bods

“These facts are dubiously sourced, so don’t look them up.”
Tom Coleman, The 25-Mile Supper Club

“To start anything, you need an idea and a bit of cheek. To scale it up, you need more ideas, more cheek and some funding.”
Matt Lane from Beer Bods

“Leather George sacked his job.”
Ben Edmonds of Blok Knives telling the story of a friend who quit his shitty job to do what he loves.

“The world needs more efficiency nerds.”
Steve Evans of the Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing — and a world-class efficiency nerd.

“If you want to sell more of something, put a little hat on it.”
Dan Germain, Innocent Drinks

“The problem was not that I gave a bad order; the problem was that I was the one giving orders.”
David Marquet, ex-Commander of a nuclear submarine and author of Turn The Ship Around.

“What I eat determines how I feel. How I feel determines my outlook on the world.”
Anna Jones, author of A Modern Way to Eat

“It was bothering me, so I did some research.”
C.J. Bowry, explaining how her desire to not waste her kid’s shoes led her to start Sal’s Shoes, a remarkable charity.

“It’s a clusterfuck of mental… mentalness!”
Some guy who hijacked the mic on the last day and went on a jaw-dropping diatribe about… everything bad

“…haunted by the unfulfilled ambitions of so many mothers and grandmothers.”
Miranda West, founder of The Do Book Company, quoting a founder of Random House (I think).

Things I literally and figuratively took away

• That System Stupidity can be solved not just by technology innovation but my re-thinking business models and the underlying ‘logic of value exchange’ that they reflect. (Thanks Steve Evans for this — and the amazing examples of it, including River Simple cars).
• That businesses with a strong ‘Why’ behind them will always run circles around those with a weak one.
• That strong communities are often based on shared experiences. All Beer Bods customers get their new beer-of-the-month at the exact same time, so they can get online and taste together. How cool is that?
• That getting up at 6am for a run on a muddy estuary even though you don’t run isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds – though I will probably never do it again.
• A 60-yeard old sourdough starter from Hobbs House Bakery. We made doughnuts. On a fire.
• A deep respect for Émir Hickey and Ciara Judge, two (of three) Irish schoolgirls who discovered a way to use bacteria to speed up crop growth — and won the Google Prize for their work. They spoke charmingly and eloquently, without slides or notes, about their discovery and the subsequent, totally deserved brouhaha. I can’t kow-tow deeply enough.
• A hitherto undiscovered need for a McNair Shirt and a pair of Hiut Denim Jeans.  (Stuffication my arse).
• A song stuck in my head – Fail for You by Luke Sital-Singh who played for us on Saturday night.
• That Seaweed Gin shares the punitive qualities of normal gin. Which I strongly suspected but had to find out for myself.
• A new acronym to balance out FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – I call mine FOBI, Fear of Being Included.
• That New York City can be captured in lino cuts – Hannah Cousins and her amazing work proved it.
• That pizza dough should be sourdough – as proven by Graham and Kate, the nice folks at Bertha’s Pizza, who rocked up in a Range Rover with a wood oven inside. I had one with cherries and pancetta and blue cheese (see below) and I will spend my remaining days trying to replicate it.
• That Southwest Wales is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Which is good because you will get lost there.

That David and Claire Hieatt know how to create something special. The whole event is soaked with soul and smarts and energy and love and great food and funny people and beautiful spaces and wonderful music and amazing beer…  This is what happens when you put everything you’ve got into something without knowing – or particularly worrying about – what may come out the other end. And when the ‘you’ pursuing this strategy has a probably dangerously large heart.

Photo by Nick Hand