This week a new conference was born in our local Brighton. Titled ‘Curio‘ it is focused all around content and curiosity. Hosted by Brilliant Noise alumni Lauren Pope and current BN strategist Lou Whitfield they brought together a range of speakers each with a story to inspire and intrigue.Opening the day was Sophie Coley of Propellernet. Discussing the psychology behind search and what she calls ‘search listening’. Flipping the view round from what people are searching for to the people doing the searching. In her own words “what we type into Google’s anonymous white box is so much more than just words; it’s our inner thoughts, feelings and fears and it says a lot about who we are – not just what we want to buy”.Next up was Josh Boyd of Brandwatch speaking on the Lush campaign ‘anti-spy cops’ and how to survive a boycott. Taking us through the aspects of why the campaign was successful, why it survived the backlash and the factors that go into planning a controversial campaign.Finally before the first break of the day was Claudia Knowles of Breast Cancer Care talking about their new BECCA app. The app uses content and personal stories to help people move forward after breast cancer. The stories proved to be the most powerful element of the app helping people share their experiences and find solace in their diagnosis.After a short break we resumed with Anjali Ramachandran of Storythings. Discussing her work around the concept of ‘identity’ and the stories behind it. Talking about her work around disappearing languages and a new collaborative project to increase engagement and impact for publicly-funded science journalism.Following Anjali was Darshan Sanghrajka founder of social innovation studio, Super Being Labs. He ran us through his most recent online and book project titled – Being Mankind. Darshan described the project as “diverse stories from positive role models, we want to inspire young boys and men to grow into kind and confident humans, who break gender stereotypes and strive for equality.”.We then heard from Tanya Byrne, an award winning author and journalist. She shared her inspiring story of how she coped through grief and rediscovered her curiosity along the way.These stories culminated to create an incredibly inspiring, thoughtful conference and a roaring success for the conferences first incarnation. Brilliant Noise were proud to be sponsors of the event and are already looking forward to the next.
