I feel very fortunate to have attended the second Like Minds conference in Exeter and had the opportunity to absorb some top class thinking from people who came from all over the World. In my little corner of the UK came some great thinkers and doers in the world of Social Media/Business/Communications.

After attending the first conference and by following the excellent Like Minds Blog site I was very clear on what I expected to get. I expected the conference to be ‘high-minded’ – with a title People-2-People you wouldn’t expect it to be a workshop on how to use Twitter. Equally, looking at the roster of speakers I didn’t expect it to be about Devon businesses – even though there were plenty of local small business tidbits in there. Like Minds delivered what I expected – I thoroughly enjoyed absorbing the ideas and thoughts that were, by nearly every speaker, superbly delivered. I was surprised however at how entertaining at times the presentation were – more a kin to a concert or comedy show than a business conference! I loved it.

Like Minds 2010 Speakers - photo Benjamin Ellis

But best of all was the chance to network and have conversations with people right across business sectors and parts of the country (and the World). And this raises the question in my mind what will the legacy of Like Minds be to Exeter, Devon and the Westcountry? I have no doubt that Scott and Drew now have the opportunity to take Like Minds to a new level. (Maybe an international level – Like Minds USA perhaps?) I hope that it retains its Exeter connection in the future because I believe we need these water-shed events to inspire us. But what can we working here in our small businesses in the Westcountry hope to get from it?

I’ve already read some comments about how Like Minds didn’t provide useful information for small businesses like those found here in Devon. And on the face of it I can understand that – it didn’t specifically. But I knew that before I went – I believe that my job as a participant was to absorb the contents of Like Minds and re-hash and re-mix it into something that works for my business sector. (I intend to blog about these ideas soon.) But how can we ‘locals’ use these ideas to help benefit one another?

After the last Like Minds there was a tweetup called #tags in Exeter that I thought was brilliant and answers the question about Like Minds legacy. It was a simple two hour tweetup that local practitioners and businesses could attend but it had a bit of a structure that allowed people to share experiences and tips of how to use socialmedia/buisness/communications. Unfortunately it only happened once and although there were subsequent #tags tweetups (which is great) they were the more normal gatherings in a pub. And I feel that loses the opportunity for a more constructed and helpful event. The web site http://tagssocialmedia.co.uk/ stands sadly stuck in December 2009. I believe that for local business to benefit from Like Minds we need this type of event to take the world-class thinking captured at the conference and remix it (I love Jonathan Akwue use of remix in his speech) so that it is relevant and useful to our practices.

I think the legacy from Like Minds could be great for the city of Exeter and for businesses in and around the area but we need to work at it and put a structure forward so that we can build those people 2 people connections that the conference talked about. And for my part I’m not just saying that someone else should do this I offer my help in achieving it but I’d love to know what other local practitioners and business people think? What is the Like Minds local legacy?

Thanks to Benjamin Ellis for the photo.