Post Digital

One of my speaking gigs of late was at Post Digital down in Birmingham. It was an excellent one-day event put on by the guys at Mudlark to celebrate the launch of their company. It was great to catch up with some old (as in ones I’ve met before, not aged ones) faces, and to meet some I’ve long been an admirer of.

On the train back I decided that I should approach my conference write-ups differently, mainly because then I’d maybe get them actually written and published, rather than languishing on my to-do list. So, from now on I’m not going to try to explain all that happened. Instead I’ll pick one or two moments that really resonated with me, or that gave me real food for thought.

The thing that interested me most at Post Digital was something that Dan Heaf from 4ip said in his talk. He was arguing that British companies and individuals should be more ambitious when pitching for funding, so they can achieve more impact. Ask for a million pounds, then you might get half-a-million. If you ask for tens of thousands then you’ll be perceived as a small company, and treated as such; and the same is true if you act like a company that will have real impact and ask for an order of magnitude more.

But the really interesting question was one that Dan thought 4ip should be asking the companies it’s looking to fund. Rather than “how much money do you need?”, what would happen if they asked “what would you do with a million pounds in funding?”

That’s a profound change in focus, and a really thought-provoking question. What would you do with a million pounds of funding? I’m not sure what my answer would be, but I’d like to explore it further.