I agree - competitiveness is holding us back to some degree. The traditional agency rivalries make it difficult for participants to really open up in such a forum. But that has to change as we can certainly accelerate our learning using each other’s experiences.

I’d be interested to see if we can break down some of these barriers in the next forum and hopefully the rest of the south-coast softies will join me.

Good to meet you finally too! Agreed, NMK did a good job to set it up, but it’s down to us as PRs to drive the conversation from there, which is the real challenge.

That ‘guardedness’ comment is really key, too, to carrying this forward. I think that broke down in the bar conversation afterwards (once you south-coast softies had gone!) but nonetheless, I share your view about the earlier discussion.

We aren’t used to that at NMK - digital agencies, creative agencies and developers are generally keen to share good practice. And that’s what our events and courses thrive on.

I had a good conversation with Lorna from Octopus afterwards and she agreed that this competitiveness is holding back the industry.

Hopefully, we can put on similar events more and more to break this down.