You never know what to expect from a brand-organised conference. A little bit of hard sell, a whole lot of soft sell, maybe some interesting speakers, possibly nice people, undoubtedly decent catering and an ok sort of venue. That’s pretty much the best case scenario.

NYK Europe, the new social media intelligence conference from Brandwatch delivered on all those fronts. And probably more. It was nice to spend time with lots of other people deeply interested in social media analytics and consumer marketing insights (yes, leaving the rest of you FREE to party on without us)!

Here are five things I learned:

1. The key to meaningful innovation is empathy – Clara Gaggero and her magician husband Adrian Westaway designed the only phone manual ever to be put on display at MOMA. After observing elderly people struggling to un-box and set up new mobile phones, they made two hard-bound books which the sim card and phone could be placed into, creating a fun, interactive process with packaging, gadget and instruction all blended into one. Such a cool, simple idea.

2. Some nice lines to use about working with influencers: “Influence is contextual. It’s not absolute. It’s not a commodity. Influence is an eye-dropper: diffusion not infection. It’s all about planting a seed”. Thanks Dr Paul Siegel! Influencer marketing is still so misunderstood – good to be reminded it’s all about relationship-building (a la old school PR) not sledge hammers.

3. “Social for good” is something we can all be working towards: it’s all about using social data to solve read world problems. Yes, thanks Edward Crook (research manager, Brandwatch) – let’s have some more of that!

4. A 25 year old man can be a global figurehead for challenging gender stereotypes. Liam Hackett has been working with Brandwatch to research misogynistic language online and see how it impacts on men as well as women. Their first report was published in January. More collaborative work is coming. Liam’s agency worked with Lynx on a new tone of voice – as revealed in the aftershave’s latest campaign, Find Your Magic.

5. Mark Zuckerberg may have come to the party late, but he really knows what he’s doing with virtual reality. I hadn’t seen this latest video but its clear that the marriage between Oculus’ technology and Facebook’s 1 billion strong marketplace is frighteningly powerful. Meanwhile, if Twitter doesn’t innovate fast, we could all be deleting our accounts. Just two stories I heard on NYK’s savvy audience grapevine.

Thanks for having me, Brandwatch! Look forward to the next one.