As far as event planning goes, this one was a doozy. With so many factors at play – from international and local government guidelines – to navigating timezones with some late-night zoom calls – and team members dropping like flies with Covid nail-bitingly close to the big day. It was a logistical minefield.
But those obstacles are ultimately what made us all the more proud of making Leading Design New York 2022 a reality.
Our highlights include
There were many, many highlights. Too many to name. But if pushed, the unanimous answer from everyone involved would be the overwhelming reaction from the attendees. We kept it a relatively small affair in order to give people the space they needed to feel safe and to gently introduce ourselves back to in-person events. There was a real feeling of togetherness felt amongst both speakers and guests alike with some inspiring and insightful conversations being had.
An extra special mention needs to go out to some very talented people:
Firstly, Scott Berkun for his impressively fast typing skills live-blogging the whole event from his seat in the audience. Hats off to you Scott, you made our job very easy! You can read his summary of the talks here.
Secondly, Tutti Taygerly for not only delivering an excellent talk on day two, but for her brilliant sketch-notes throughout the conference.
And lastly to Jinjin Sun, a colleague of speaker Samantha Warren at Adobe, for these stunning illustrations – we were blown away by her talent:
During the post-event cocktails on day one, we were treated to a live recording of the Reconsidering podcast with very special guest @swissmiss – the founder of @creativemorning. The dynamic between the trio was mesmerising – true professionals at work!
You can now listen to this episode: Cultivating community and friendship with Tina Roth-Eisenberg
The theme for this year's conference was centred around re-connection. Having been apart for so long we explored the disconnect that we may have faced with our teams, across departments, at board level and importantly with ourselves – and how we can rebuild those connections. A full list of the lineup and their talk titles can be found here.
It didn't end there
Straight off the plane from New York, we then hosted the virtual leg of the conference. Two days of revisiting some of the conference talks and one day of workshops with panelists Jeremy Keith, Lisa Welchman and Julia Witney providing post-talk discussions.
One of the stand-out moments of the virtual was getting to see where in the world people were logged on and participating from live via our interactive Miro board.
It might all feel like a lifetime ago now, and we are still very much experiencing the post LDNY blues but we are processing the insightful feedback, re-living some of the wonderful conversations and putting pen to paper (or post-it note in our case) towards bringing you Leading Design LONDON. 2-3 Nov 2022
We are always eager to hear suggestions of what you would like to see, so if you have any ideas then tell us what you think and we'll put it to good use.