Red Bull give real glimpse into impossible

The nature of my role at Atlassian, is that I'm fortunate to attend my fair share of conferences, events, forums and general get togethers. As you can imagine, the calibre of each one is different, and exists on a scale, from the "OK, but dated" to the "damn good".

In early June, I attended the Red Bull Glimpses event in LA, and I realised that there was a whole new scale. Different rules, parameters and a wholly different experience. No sponsors or vendors. No business development or pitching. No early bird ticket sales or group discounts. Every attendee was personally invited and attended free. No speaker fees and negotiations. Every speaker was hand picked and spoke for free. And you know how many speaker slots they saved for Red Bull leaders to get product mentions in? None...yeah, it was confusing.

Who, Where, What and Why?

Short version. I met Dr Andy Walshe at a Virgin event in London last year. His talk on High Performance and Elite Sports, blew my mind. We ate steak, drank wine, and I developed a man crush. We stayed in contact since, and shared ideas. Free. Coz sharing is caring right?

Andy worked with his team to curate the entire event. It's rude to call it a conference, because it wasn't. The idea was to take a glimpses into what could be, and the day was loosely structured around Human 2.0, Humans 2.0 and Humanity 2.0. It sounds cheesy, but it was an experience. One which personally invited people who would be comfortable being uncomfortable...every attendee had 2 things in common, and everything else about them was different:

1. They had a trusted relationship with Andy and his team
2. They had a deep curiosity for what others see as impossible

When I say it wasn't a conference, the easiest thing to do would be to explain how the event started. You see, the first topic was "Innovation and the edge of possible". It had been an early start and the coffee hadn't kicked in yet. I knew the slides we'd get on cheesy quotes, a 2x2 matrix of markets/products, and some shit on disruption. I'd delivered in 50 times myself. But not at Glimpses. As we ate our breakfast in a lush field in Saddle Creek Vineyard, we were asked to put our ear plugs in for the first time. My interest was peaked.

Don't say it...DO IT!

Setting the tone for the entire experience, the innovation presentation was more of a demonstration and less of a presentation. Cue stage right, and the arrival of Richard Browning from Gravity, who I'd shared a beer with at the welcome event the night before, and who'd explained "I've got a few pre-performance nerves".

My reaction went as follows:

• Shit, that guy looks like he's gonna fly
• Shit, he's flying
• That is amazing. What a great way to demonstrate innovation (idea is < 18 months old!)
• Wow, this is a strong start. This is gonna be amazing.
• Shit, I'm on after lunch. I'm not that good.
• Shit, he's flying
• Repeat

So I could tell you about the amazing speakers such as Dr David Bach mediating a conversation with Dr Vivienne Ming, Dr Amy Kruse and Moran Cerf on Neuroplasticity, with examples such as injecting fabricated smells to alter dreams and cures for smoking, as well as developments in treatment for dementia. Or Dr Brian Pierce from DARPA on our need to command the art of Wisdom in the "advancement" of "Homo et Machina". Or a personal favourite when RC Buford (San Antonio Spurs) and Assia Grazioli-Venier (Juventus) traded stories on the importance of values and culture, when building a sustainable sports team.

Real Lessons

You may have realised that this was a different day. Instead of raving about the hours of amazing and provocative content, there is a better meta level lesson that I've learnt here.

STOP CONFIRMING:

It was 2 or 3 days later when something was niggling at me and I suddenly realised what had happened. When I self select at conferences, or break out sessions, I go to topics that might help me with a problem I have, or a topic I'm passionate about. On face value, there is nothing wrong with that. Except that the 'job to be done' for me at conferences is to learn NEW things. Confirmation bias had crept in. What happened at the Glimpses event with the hand crafted and curated content, and everyone sitting through the same day but having a different experience, is that I got very subtly forced to sit in sessions I wouldn't normally have sat through. But why?

Really simple, and very complex. No-one got an agenda before the day. Trust was implicit from the get go. There was no concept of value for money, or desire for transactions. No "top 3 take aways" that dumb down a topic. Just lots of exploration, dreaming, challenge and provocation.

I learnt just how much I don't know, and I'm OK with that. It was a great humble reminder, and I'll use it for good, not for evil.

AUTHENTICITY COUNTS:

On the event App, you could pick 3 "dates" for the break times. The app gave you a pre-agreed meeting point and time, and you got to hang out with your date. When I first saw it, I rolled my eyes. I thought it was camembert level cheesy. Then I had my 3 dates, and the penny dropped. Instead of mindless superficial chit-chat, I built 3 genuine and authentic connections. As the day progressed, those people connected me with others, and I connected them too. Network effect. I left with very few business cards, but with several amazing connections.

I dated Lars Rikse (Red Bull Head of Strategy and Special Projects), Joe Takai (BCG Digital Ventures) and Matt Chadder (CEO Instinct Labs). Matt's talk on "the 9 Bugs of Humans 0.1" was hilarious, scary and very true!

GO BROAD AND STRETCH:

The entire experience was an exploration and stretched my mental muscle on a regular basis. Whilst there were seemingly obvious analogies like that of sports teams to business teams, there were plenty of highly divergent exercises that just worked.

We were fortunate to have 3 of the Creative Directors from Cirque Du Soleil, who had us hugging, crying, laughing, and expressing our emotional side with each other. We had Dr Sarah Jane Pell sharing the hommage between art and science. Dr Adam Zaretsky, the mad professor showing the combination of creating art using science, with the opening gambit of "we're all mutants".

A few weeks on, I'm still learning from this experience. Probably the biggest thing that I've realised since, is how crazy fortunate I am to get access to experiences like that. That, and I'm worried about the next event I go to...how can they possibly compete.

Every session was sketched for us. This is mine.

Take time out to glimpse into your possible. It's scary, but fun.