I was right. My wife was wrong. Plus OTHER lessons learned from the Dublin IP and R & D Summit...

Yesterday I attended my first ‘in person’ conference in 3 years, the Dublin IP and R & D Summit in the Convention Centre in Dublin City Centre.

Here’s some highlights:

1. It was unanimously decided at a round table discussion that I could, in fact, pull off the yellow glasses look. We all, therefore, agreed that my wife, Orla Conroy, was wrong about the glasses and that I don’t, in fact, look ridiculous with them on. This, clearly was the most important learning and biggest take-away from the event;

1. I met a champion Irish Dancer who has travelled the world with Riverdance since 2015. And yes I know this is actually number 2 but the formatting in the Linkedin Article editor will not let me change it!);
2. I met a man who spent TWELVE years in college. Twelve. I, like a fool, left after 4. What was I thinking? He was also definitely not groomed by Brad Pitt;
3. I met a barrister who convinced me that I should go to the bar when my kids are all grown up because he has a devil at the moment who is 70! Out-Standing;
4. I met a woman who is a champion barbershop quartet singer!
5. I finally had a good chat with one of the ‘good guys’, Joe Doyle from Enterprise Ireland whose passion, energy and enthusiasm for what he does is a sight to behold;
6. I learned that some people call S.M.Es (S-M-Eeees) SMEEEEs. This, clearly, is weird and should be discouraged!
7. I learned more about chess and chess analogies than I thought possible. There’s a reason it’s called the Queens Gambit and not the King’s Gambit, you know;
8. I discovered that I wasn’t the only person who had a crisis of conscious when asked (as a warm up “getting to know you” question in a group interview for a traineeship) what my favourite movie was. I said Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (he said Rush Hour 2) and almost all the other interview candidates said arty farty movies we had never heard of. Neither of us got the job. Arthur Cox, are you still doing those group interviews and asking about favourite movies? If so, I humbly submit you should hire then people who actually say their favourite movies. We turned out ok;
9. You have a great view of my old offices from the convention centre, but when that office was built, it was just about the only building there. It was easier to get a pint in the Ferryman back then.
10. I had a really interesting chat about product design and the differences between people who think like designers when it comes to problem solving and, well, the rest of us.?It reminded me that I wished I could draw and that maybe I will finally pay the money and sign up for Ingrid Lil’s class!
11. I learned that I’m not the only blockchain sceptic when it comes to its usefulness in the IP world;
12. I learned that I'm also not the only one on the fence about the rush to trade mark everything in the entire world for NFTs;
13. I learned that cleaning beer lines is BIG business and there’s a lot of IP involved in it;
14. I learned (well, I already knew) that people generally don’t like lawyers and see us as a nuisance that get in their way and slow things down unnecessarily;
15. I learned that Skynet is coming, and that AI is huge, inevitable and scary/exciting in probably equal measure;
16. I learned that it is possible to serve very nice/fancy food in very cheap and nasty looking boxes that look like they might contain hospital food in the 1980s, but that it is equally difficult to cut medium beef with a plastic knife as you might expect. I also learned that I'm a messier eater than other IP professionals;
17. I re-confirmed my view that all Patent Agents are science nerds:

It was a lovely sunny day and lovely to be back out in the real world doing 'normal' things. The conference itself was very informative, the venue was fantastic. There's definitely room for improvement, and I'll be emailing the organisers with my 'great thoughts' on how that could possibly be achieved.

All in all a great day out!