Martech World Forum, London, looking back
When I fly into London, I always do four things.
- I make sure to take a flight from my nearby airport, Rotterdam.
- Once on board, I’ll have a gin & tonic (no, not in the morning, you animals!).
- I listen to the entire album of Breakbeat Era’s Ultra Obscene, an album I bought back in London when it was released in 1999, a true classic.
- When the tires hit the tarmac, I’ll jump on the DLR and head into town.
Hold your horses, don’t go shouting “classic OCD”! It’s a ritual I picked when working as Head of Analytics at Thomas Cook, supporting the head office in their migration from Adobe Analytics to Google Analytics, where I would travel to London every week.
This time round, on my way to the Martech World Forum to host an on-stage interview with James Schlesinger, things were different. Tube strike (data on impact). As much as I found myself challenged by where I was going, I support the workers in their cause. Uber prices were off the charts by the time I landed, and only got worse after I took this screenshot (rates went 3x easily). But I digress…
I got to the event the day before it started. I did end up having some drinks and bites to eat with some great minds in the industry, like Gareth Chilton, Neill Brookman, my guest James Schlesinger, and Amaan Kulatunga (who told me how to pronounce Aampe, call me if you want to know 😉), before the main event kicked off.
But as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I’d share those instead of forcing you to read an entire novel of my experience at and insights of the Martech World Forum London. I took photos of slides I personally found interesting. I am a big fan of learning people’s real-world experiences, and often frameworks, too. I managed to take a lot of photos, but not all of them. This in no way means other speakers’ content was less informative. I was most likely distracted.
Here we go 👇🏻
Credits where credits are due… the photo gallery above displays slides from speakers like Keanu Taylor, Małgorzata Marcinkowska, Gianfranco Cuzziol, Jaunita Draude, David Norris, Diana Comsa, Jean De Bressy, James Taylor, Silvia Sartori, and Rasmus Houlind.
The common theme, well, that at least feeds my confirmation bias, is that:
As much as AI is getting all the attention, it is the core principles in terms of human skills and cross-departmental collaboration, and technology, as in a strong foundation and centralized data, that are screaming to be taken care of.
The sooner the better, at least if you want to remain competitive. As much as AI has positively influenced my productivity and many others, it lives on what you feed it. And if you feed it a S*** (James Taylor told me this is Finance code for ‘shed’), you will be given S*** in return. So don’t go running down that rabbit hole just yet.
In the end, a week later, I can best describe my visit to London, to the Martech World Forum, as a Swedish smörgåsbord.
I came home invigorated by all the experiences some speakers shared, sympathetic to the concerns brands confided in me, and motivated to do better to help them. Listening to all the wonderful speakers, meeting many others outside of the event, and the stories from brands, from my peers, told me one thing. Change is taking place in Martech, and although I appreciate all the advances in technology, we are missing many of the basics. Poor foundations and a fragmented understanding are what need our attention now more than ever to help companies gain the most value from the technology at hand.
A warm thank you to The Martech Weekly crew, Juan, Keanu, Jacqueline, Adam, and Julia for inviting me to their event. Bringing these great minds of Martech together in London is a feat in itself, let alone having such a strong turnout during a tube strike.
Also, thank you being such wonderful people in real life, too: Gareth, James (2x), Diana, Hazem, Rasmus, Jomar, Teik, Adrian, Ana, Martha, Javier, Neill, Amaan, Georgina, and many many more.
Want to stay up to date on the real ife of Martech? Subscribe for free below 👇🏻
Member discussion