A couple weeks ago I made my way down to Shoreditch Studios for It’s Nice That’s inaugural conference, Future:Content. As a big fan of the site I was excited about the day, although I didn’t really know what was in store. The only piece of information attendees were given prior to the event was this one liner:

A one-day event looking at how we engage with, present, and define content across a number of platforms.

However, after taking one look at the line up I was confident that an interesting, insightful and thought-provoking day was ahead of me.

Here’s what I have managed to piece together from the notes I made. There was so much good stuff I know I have missed a lot, mainly because I was listening rather than writing, nevertheless here’s what went down:

Anna Gerber & Britt Iverson- Visual Editions
“At a time of chaos it’s a good time to do something crazy”

First up were Anna and Britt from publishing company Visual Editions. As well as publishing beautiful and physically interesting books (in their spare time!!) they also had some really interesting ideas about books and the role they are going to play in the future.

They believe that by allowing people to read in new and completely different ways it opens up the book format to new and undiscovered opportunities. To Visual Editions books are a medium that are there to be played with, they want to push the boundaries of how we tell stories and give books a new lease of life.

Visual Editions were the first speakers of the day to emphasize the importance of physical objects to human beings. There will always be books because people enjoy physicality and like having a physical experience.

Essentially what Visual Editions set out to prove is that if you produce a piece of content that is visually exciting people will react to it. In their minds visuals are as big as the story being told.

Their practice and ideology is summed up perfectly by their latest release, Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer. A beautiful, physical, experiential novel that is well worth checking out.

Russell Davies – Ogilvy & Mather and RIG
“After being digitalized things are going to find ways to physicalize again.”

Next up was Russell Davies’ very entertaining presentation. Following on from Visual Editions Russell again brought up the importance of objects and giving people an experience. He believes that there is an emotional attachment to physicality inbuilt in every person and it’s not going to go away.

The future of content and media, in Russell’s opinion, is to reintroduce physicality into it. People see technology as precious and not to be interfered with. This is wrong. By taking digital technology, playing with it and placing it inside objects it creates a new and even more engaging physical experience.

Russell then went on to talk about future content being audience led. Giving people a platform to create their own content, he gave the example of his newspaper venture, The Newspaper Club. The company have access to newspaper printing presses and open it up to the public, so anyone can make a newspaper about anything!

He finished on saying that businesses are being out thought by people creating content as a hobby. An interesting thought, how do companies credibly incorporate these individuals into what they do?

Sanky – D&AD
“Anything you think of now… anything… you will be able to do it in the next 5 years.”

Sanky covered a lot ground in a very short amount of time… he began by saying that the communications industry is currently in a flux. Everyone has started to do everything and therefore perspective has been lost on what is actually interesting and relevant.

He was concerned about the reactionary environment we are currently in, brands and agencies are doing what they think they should be doing, forgetting that the content they are producing should be beautiful and valuable.

He then went on to talk about how the best way to design something is to really understand the content within. He gave the example of Agencytwofifteen’s work on the latest Halo game as a way of design by content… check out the video above to see what Sanky was talking about.

Sanky’s final thought was about the future of content, which, in his mind, revolved around building experiences that truly resonate, rather than designing things for the sake of it.

Francesca Panetta – The Guardian and The Hackney Podcast
“Its more important to create things you want to make rather than being forced through time constraints.”

Francesca was very inspiring to listen to, not only does she look after all of the Gurdian’s audio content, she also pretty much produces the Hackney Podcast by herself.

Speaking from a purely audio point of view it was interesting to hear about how the podcast is still an undefined format. There is no set time limit for a podcast; there is no set content guidelines… you can basically do what you want. However, if you want to get noticed in a sea of content you have to be bold, distinctive and original.

Speaking about the Hackney Podcast specifically Francesca spoke of her dedication to creating good content. She doesn’t put anything out unless she thinks it is good enough… something she believed to be extremely important.

It’s better to take the time to put something out that you’re happy with rather than rushing it to meet deadlines.

Morgwn Rimel & Cathy Haynes – The School of Life
“Give yourself time to play.”

If I attempted to try and explain what exactly The School of Life is this may turn into the longest blog of all time. I encourage you to check out their website though, they really are doing things differently.

Essentially they are bringing ideas to the high street. They produce seminars, classes, trips and sermons revolving around a certain subject or idea. Most of the things they do involves expert understanding and trying to solve universal concerns. Everything they do is open to the public so anyone can get involved.

Morgwn emphasized the point that The School of Life focus is on genuine human needs. Locating them within their work rather than just trying to guess what people want and need.

Morgwn was then joined on stage by her colleague Cathy Haynes who repeated the idea that people crave experiences; they want to be immersed in things. Cathy also finished off by talking about how people had forgotten how to play – a basic human instinct. To truly innovate we need to encourage play rather than stifling it.

Deyan Sudjic – The Design Museum
“The sense of a physical shared experience attracts people.”

Deyan’s short and precise presentation started with him explaining that design sits on the edge of form and content. It is then the job of the designer to create content from form.

He then went on to echo the other speakers’ points by talking about experiences and objects. He spoke about how design goes past just being an object and how it should be part of the experience. There is a hunger for physical content and for it to be truly engaging.

He gave the example of the book to emphasize his point saying that the book has had to become more beautiful to survive. It has gone past being something disposable; books are now objects and people want to keep hold of them.

Adam Gee – Channel 4
“Twitter is like the Radio Times on a weeknight.”

Adam’s presentation revolved around the future of television and how he believed that getting people’s attention was the key to the future of media. This was universal though, for all broadcast content, not just programs. Advertising for example will become more imaginative, more targeted and more accountable to truly interest people.

Adam spoke a lot about how interaction in television had evolved, from voting, to interacting in shows, to now the very real possibility editorial control can be handed over to the viewer.

He gave the example of Seven Days, a recent Channel 4 programme that he worked on, and how virtual conversations on Twitter were influencing real life decisions and therefore the direction of the programme; something he could only see growing as TV progresses.

By allowing viewers to participate and collaborate it creates an emotional connection. A two-way conversation.

He named 2011 the year of one screen, with the internet soon to be built into TV with technology such as Google TV. This will turn TV into shared events; people have an urge to be in-sync… much like the old days when TV used to be a social event… the one screen system will re-socialize TV. Evidence of this can already be seen with the conversations happening on Twitter around television programs.

Phil Clandillon and Steve Millborne – Sony Music
“If your content is good and you know your audience it should do well.”

By far the most visually entertaining presentation of the day, Steve and Phil started with laser badgers and ended with a message that would have made any researcher smile.

Phil and Steve are a creative team at Sony and used the time to whizz through their impressive back catalogue of viral hits. Check out some of their work here and above; you have probably seen some of it before.

Their methodology was basic, but very effective. They used the research department at Sony to gain information about their audience, and then built their creative around it. Locating the areas where audiences interact is key to a successful campaign so innovate with what your audience uses.

They finished off by saying that as a creative team they don’t think outside the box, they just think inside the right box, where their audience is. Which as an employee of a co-creation agency was music to my ears!

Neville Brody – The Design Studio
“The decisions we make now will have effects on the next 20-30 years.”

The final speaker of the day was legendary designer Neville Brody. Fresh from the first round of the student protests, he had been in the action earlier in the day, Neville took a step back from content and looked at the creative industry as a whole.

He feared that future content will be severely damaged if the creative industries continue to be effected by cuts. He believed that young talents will not be nurtured and a lot of creative talent will go to waste. Finance will dictate who gets educated and therefore lots of potential will go under the radar.

He also believed that traditional skill sets are now losing their importance. To be able to get ahead in the world you need to be competent at several things, a quantity over quality problem.

Neville’s speech was rousing and he finished by showing some of the photos he had taken at the riots that day. It was a sombre and thought-provoking end to what had been a really interesting day.

It’s hard to really sum up all the information from the Future:Content; all the speakers came at the subject from a different angle.

The main themes that really came through were the fact that humans love to have physical experiences; they love to interact and they love to play. All the content we consume has gone digital, and in the opinion of the Future:Content speakers we are going to see this reverse where physical will meet digital to create some truly interesting, innovative content experiences.

Whether this will happen or not we will see… sounds good though, right?

Check out It’s Nice That here.