Uber-musician Dave Stewart closed out the YIBC event in the UK last week.
He talked about creativity, the future of media and marketing. He works for brands such as Nokia, developing what he calls "weapons of mass entertainment." He's also brilliant.
Like myself, he had two lectures on Friday: Bridlington and Harrogate. During his morning gig at Bridlington, he invited the seven hundred in attendance to help him write a chorus for a song that would represent the conference. He asked them to shout out single lines that captured what they'd learned so far. One of them yelled, "feed your mind good stuff!" and another screamed "and you'll be future-proof." <These two lyrics were part of my lecture that opened that AM (Mojo Rising: A plan for unbreakable confidence.>
He pulled two people from the audience to lead sing, then got everyone else involved clapping and singing the refrain. Fun!
Then Stewart rode a helicopter to Harrogate for the closing session @ that event. He asked that crowd of one thousand to help him write the verse. They chimed in lyrics based on John Cleese's pre-lunch lecture on creativity. Along the way, Stewart's audio-tech whiz was capturing and editing everything in Pro Tools.
At the end of his second lecture, Stewart had a song – created by the audience. He explained that this is the nature of social media, and we all need to embrace this new form of mass-generated content to thrive in the future. Sweet idea, and a masterful execution of connecting with your audience and getting them involved in the talk. Nick Morgan would be proud!
One audience member uploaded the song, played live, on his mobile phone:
I'll eventually get my hands on a cleaner version and post it here and Twitter about it. If you aren't following me on Twitter, click here to start.
