Things we learnt at #TEDC14

I was lucky enough to attend this years Litmus conference in Boston, ‘Merica and to represent team Action Rocket.

It was awesome. The Litmus guys know how to do stuff right. It was pretty much constant contact, either listening to brilliant talks from some of the finest minds in email or chatting with other attendees about our common interest: Email.

There was so much going on that its all a bit of a blur now but here were some of the highlights for me:

• Meeting people. Getting to connect in real life with likeminded people is absolutely invaluable, worth the ticket alone.
• The Litmus staff were a highlight all by themselves. They exuded energy and were both entertaining and informative throughout. I bet they are knackered now.
• Kevin got everyone bouncing with an incredibly motivating summing up for email people to step up to the challenge and keep moving forward – think “Father to murdered son speech” from Gladiator and you got the level of attention garnered from the room (I actually looked around nervously a few times during this to see if anyone was going start a riot, I was ready).
• Hackers chatting email on stage, felt like I was watching my favourite stars talk about their latest work on Rickie Lake or something.
• Speed dating sessions were a brilliant idea and a huge success. I literally high-fived someone after we solved her email problem.
  
• In the same vein – live optimisation was such a winner. Interesting to see how many mobile emails there were. Is it responsive? yes it is! (of course it is)
• Hearing loads of interest about the hybrid coding approach  and the look on peoples faces when we say “yes we can” to gmail app.
• The noise everyone made when the pixel art emails were shown on the big screen.
• The other noise everyone made when “email standards” was mentioned.
• The swagtastic swag and goodies including the much coveted Litmus pillows
• Settling of the GIF/JIF debate once and for all.
• Seeing Paul Airy going through some of the testing he’s been doing with typography in email (i.e. every designers bae).
• Brian Graves talking Mobile was a great “state of the nation” style talk, mobile becoming the new baseline.
• Hearing the founders of Litmus describe its humble origins was incredibly interesting and quite frankly, it was inspiring too.
• Jon Foreman’s silky smooth delivery and for outing the Obama send more email campaign. He also had slides featuring cats with laser shooting eyes. His T-shirt alone was a highlight.
• Finding out more about some awesome tools like Builder, Checklist and Canvas, and chatting to fellow email designers about our own, Taxi for Email.

It was a fantastic experience and a very busy few days. I also got to have a look around the Litmus office, every bit as cool as you would expect. With any luck, we’ll be back next year! Thank you Litmus!