Last year I went to Paradigms in Marrakech, and it was epic. This year, Kirsten made it, and we joined the speaker roster (!!). And yes, if you saw my stories, you know it was on a private island in Croatia. Gorge. Paradigms is, for all intents and purposes, a B2B conference. But it’s anything but. From the very first email to the massively varied and inspiring talks to the sunset cruise sendoff, every detail is considered. What struck me is that when an event is executed at this level, it removes the burden of thinking, so you’re just in awe. And that awe lets you connect with people on another level. We walked away with dozens of takeaways, as you’ll see below, but even better, we walked away with loads of new friends. There’s no higher praise. If you’re running a conference, giving a talk, or building a B2B brand, you'll find plenty of lessons here. This episode is sponsored by Herman Miller. They’re not affiliated with Frontify, which kindly flew us out and hosted us as speakers, but they did not sponsor this pod (maybe one day!). All thoughts are our own. As always. Enjoy! Hit the links to skip to the bits you fancy ROGER DUDLER // FRONTIFY 01:47 — PUT YOURSELF IN THE BACKGROUND // Yes, we ambushed Roger at the afterparty, and he kindly agreed to chat with us at 8am. We talk about how Paradigms came to be, why its approach is nothing to do with sales, why scaling it isn’t the goal, and why the best networking is not networking. And of course we talk about how you top a private island and why you need your own Becky. “Bring your people, put yourself in the background because it’s not about you.” THE EXPERIENCE 15:42 — IN AWE // The location changes every year, the curation is incredible, and the swag game is supreme. JAY CURLEY // BEN & JERRY’S 21:11 — BRAVERY IS A DISCIPLINE // Jay didn’t get up there and say, look at our work, you should do it too. He said you as a brand, a company, a human can do this too. “Bravery is a discipline, not a stunt.” MAX OTTIGNON // RAGGED EDGE 26:27 — SAY THE WORD // Our industry is having a crisis of confidence. Everyone wants a rebrand. But nobody’s allowed to call it one. Backlash be damned, though. The numbers are what you should watch. Brand success is measured in years, not days. “We’ve been substituting creativity for clicks.” “No one gets passionately angry about something they are indifferent to.” TOSH HALL // JKR 31:51 — THE A24 MOVIE OF TALKS // There’s no way to summarize this talk. It wasn’t a presentation on being creative. It was a performance that made the experience of making the work come to life. Weird, funny, and stuck in everyone’s memory. A little lesson in having a perspective. SHANE HAGERTY & AUSTIN MCKENNA // YETI 34:11 — ANATOMY OF A LIGHTNING STRIKE // Yeti is now bigger than Patagonia. In only 21 years. This brand has been doing storytelling and “brand shows” since well before they were cool. Our takeaway: Figure out your positioning, then make the right content for it. NU GOTEH // ROOM FOR MAGIC 39:34 — THE COST OF TASTE // If you listened to our pod together, you know we love Nu. His talks are also impossible to summarize, but he gave us the wisest take on the popular topic of taste. “The cost of taste is accountability.” “The cost of community is inconvenience.” SETTING THE STAGE 44:07 — MOON SET // More on the details of the actual event. From Alex Bec of It’s Nice That, the host with the most. (We’d hire him any day.) Dinner with a side of moon setting and stargazing. Morning yoga with Vish Kapoor, who set us up for success in the most serene way possible. He later closed his talk by leading the whole group in breathwork. Love. BRIAN COLLINS & ALEX ATHANASIOU // COLLINS 46:11 — BRAND AS HOST // Yes, there were legendary references that inspired the crowd, but these two delivered the provocation of the day that everyone repeated: brands today should be hosts. We love it so much I changed the intro of our talk to mention it. “Nobody falls in love with a brand framework.” ELIZABETH AZEN ANDIA // WSJ 48:18 — MORTADELLA // At dinner, we had at least 10 conversations about Christoph Hänsli’s Mortadella book that appeared in Elizabeth’s weird and wonderful talk. Elizabeth reflected on the conditions it takes to make good work, with very cool references that belong on an episode of Figma’s Source Material. “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in.” (David Bowie, via Elizabeth) CHRIS NOTT & CONNIE WEMYSS // STUDIO DRAMA 48:46 — THE SANS-DEMIC // Friends of the pod, and true talents, Studio Drama got up and reminded us about the brand asset most are sleeping on: fonts. How much of your brand is made up of logo appearances? 12%. Product? 18%. Photography? 25% Type? 28%. Think about that. “We may have democratized communication but we also standardized it along the way.” DAVID RAGER // NASA 49:05 — NASA MADE US CRY // David could have just shown the work, and we’d have been impressed. Instead he shared how NASA makes the incomprehensible incredibly human. The entire amphitheater shed tears. It was a lesson for others at the frontier today. There were so many quotable moments, but we wrote none down. We were too busy wiping our tears. BIGGER LESSONS 50:41 — DO, BE, OR FEEL SOMETHING // Paradigms has some of the most creative and forward-thinking humans. Here’s what the best talks had in common: * They used humor. * They balanced a great presentation format with the human delivering it. * They inspired the audience to do, be, or feel something. * They were edited, with a tight focus. * They were clearly having fun. * They asked, does the audience care, or just me? IN CLOSING 51:30 — AND DOLPHINS // We deliberately didn’t spend much time on our talk, which included a little preview of our new Age of Authorship talk. It was humbling to be in this line up to say the least. And we got lots of very kind words about it as the event came to a close. Boats were sailed, dolphins were spotted, and we all floated around in the world’s happiest recreation of the scene from Titanic. The night ended. The memories have not. Massive thanks to Roger, Digge, Becky, and the whole Frontify team for having us. It sold out this year. Make sure you’re following for a jump on next year. We’ll see you there. That’s all, folx. ABOUT Chris and Kirsten are the founders of IN GOOD CO, a consultancy that ignites challenger brands with fearless positioning. Chris writes a weekly newsletter for +17K subscribers that shares the best-of-the-best on culture, trends, marketing, etc. What she’s dropping to friends on Slack or finding useful in meetings with brands | Follow her on Substack Get full access to GOOD THINKING at ingoodco.substack.com/subscribe
