the BIG idea speeches

Along with 300+ other marketers, I attended BCAMA Vision Conference this week in Vancouver, BC. The theme was to discover your next big idea. Lots of inspiration! Highlights for me were speeches by Jim Carroll, Richard Bartrem, VP West Jet and Brian Scudamore, CEO 1-800-Got-Junk.

Futurist Jim Carroll started his presentation with a cool text/sms poll (poll everwhere) asking the audience when they think the economic recovery will happen. No surprise the majority said 1-2 years. He’s a great speaker and talked about innovation and the necessity for a relentless focus on growth and continuous improvement. Here’s a quote from his website:

"Forget about the concept of innovation as simply involving the design of cool new products. In the high-velocity economy, where faster is the new fast, it's your ability to adapt, change, and evolve, through a constant flood of new ideas, that will define your potential for success." (From the opening chapter of Jim's newest book, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast) http://www.jimcarroll.com/keynotes.htm

Richard Bartrem, VP Culture and Communications WestJet, talked about the culture of care and how important using the right language is. WestJet gets it for sure!

People vs. Employees / Promises vs. Policies / Lead vs. Supervise / Guests vs. Passengers

Entrepreneur, Brian Scudamore, CEO and founder of 1-800-Got-Junk didn’t use PowerPoint (yeah!) and engaged us with his story about the journey through starting a business and growing it to $100M biz. I loved their “can you imagine” wall for employees. Such a great way to get employees engaged in the vision and dream. He recommends reading the book emyth so will have to check it out.

The last session, fireside chat style, with Yahoo Canada’s GM Kerry Munro, Professor & Author Ken Wong, Social Media Group’s CEO Maggie Fox and GREY Canada’s creative VP Clare Meridew, was full of interesting comments about marketing, social media and recessions. Ken Wong said many brilliant things, since he is a Professor, but one comment that stuck out for me is "Companies that continued spending through the recession grew at 200% post recession. Those that cut grew only 19%." [research from 1980-85 recession]

All in all an interesting conference. Thanks BCAMA.