BBN Academy 2011 – ‘the best ever’

My first BBN Academy, and what an incredible experience! In his closing remarks Rob Morrice claimed it was "the best BBN event ever", which I totally believe but I am also sure that Richard Brelet and Polly Draganova will have accepted this as a challenge to create something bigger and better next year.

The true essence of BBN's international network was highlighted as members from the US, Canada, UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Dubai and Hong Kong gathered at the fabulous La Finca El Bosque in Madrid. In the beautiful surroundings of the Spanish countryside, our hosts made sure that we got a cultural experience to savour, from the fantastic food and wine to the excellent tapas and flamenco evening that brought the Academy to a close.

There was a lot of eating, and perhaps on occasion a slight over-indulgence in wine, which fuelled two intense days of learning about the BBN toolkit - BAM, TECS and the Big Long Idea - delivered by some of the best minds in the network. World leading processes that undoubtedly position BBN and its member companies as global leaders in B2B marketing communications, we were also lucky enough to have Rick Stoner from Bader Rutter share some extremely interesting insight into social media strategy, a taster of Gordon Brown's Brain Juice creativity training, a demonstration of a really neat digital sales app developed by Dennis Elfstrom of A plus M and a master class in pitching to win from Ian Ord.

While all this was going on, we also found some time to get to work on the development of BBN's PR offering…so watch this space!

I was sad to leave La Finca El Bosque, but I have come home completely inspired and truly motivated. I've made some fantastic friends and even learned a little bit of flamenco for myself! It was an absolute privilege to be part of it all - here's to BBN Academy 2012!