DLD 2013

When the smartest man in the world walks into your office with a bad idea, you should probably fund it. - Brad Horowitz talking about Peter Thiel and PayPal at #dld13

DLD13

DLD, a global conference about digital innovation, science and culture, brought together over 150 speakers and 800 attendees from all over the world. My first DLD, I was impressed by the quality of the attendees, the variety of the discussions, and the interesting things that people were working on around the world. Definitely a must-attend.

Data

Across the conference, the biggest theme I picked up on was data.

Befitting a European conference, where the EU laws around the collection, use, and transparency of data use are more stringent than the US, everyone was talking about data, privacy, and how to use it properly. Thankfully the phrase “big data” was only mentioned a couple times, but the theme of data came up in many sessions.

In nearly every conversation I have with a startup these days there’s inevitably a point where they say “and we’ll capture all this valuable data that we’ll be able to monetize”, without any real idea of how they’ll be able to monetize it. Throughout DLD, the conversation went beyond that, and really focused on how to use data. Additionally, execs from LinkedIn, Cisco, Amazon and more all talked about the issues of transparency with consumers about how their data is collected and used. In a world where embeddable and wearable devices are capturing significant attention and venture funding, and when advertisers, retailers, and nearly every type of business is thinking about how best to use data to tailor their product and marketing efforts, it’s an issue that is not going away.

Also see Six Takeaways from DLD 2013, by Sloane Davidson and Susan McPherson.

More photos on Flickr at DLD13.