Get Digital

On Tuesday the 16th of April I attended the ‘Get Digital’ conference in DCU. The focus point of this conference was how modern firms are now incorporating cloud computing into their everyday tasks. I found this conference very interesting as cloud computing and other digital advances are key to every company’s success. Companies have to incorporate these new technologies in order to stay alive in their markets and keep up with modern trends. It was interesting to find out the effects digital improvements and developments have had on certain firms and it is fascinating to get an idea of the growing rate of the advancements.

Our First speaker was Martin Curley. He is the Director of Intel Labs in Europe. He focused primarily on the speed of the changes in computing. He used an interesting comparison saying that ‘if airline speed and technology grew as fast as computer technology then we could get from Dublin to New York in half a second.’ This really puts into perspective just how quickly and rapidly computers and their softwares are developing. Curley explained that some industries that have been established over a century ago have been re-architected in under a decade. He spoke of the Five Infrastructure Drivers. They are Big Data, Cloud Computing, Client Continuum, Cyber Physical/Systems and Security. Curley emphasised how cloud computing and innovation has lead to increased sustainability. He suggested that society is moving from being resource based to knowledge based. Curley conveyed that firms are changing their innovation styles and techniques. Firms are moving out of the lab and into more mobile innovation. Innovation is becoming more externally focused and firms are now concentrating on making profits through solving problems in society. People are generally more eco-friendly and ecologically aware these days than ever before and firms have to be extra cautious in terms of increasing energy efficiency. After all, ‘There is no planet B’ – Jose Maria. Curley concluded by saying that if we keep accelerating digitalisation in Europe new jobs and enterprises will be created and the future will look bright. Curley left us with a quotation from Alexandra Grahame Bell saying ‘Innovation starts from a vision.’ I really enjoyed Curley’s presentation as he gave hope and excitement to all of us to set up new enterprises and contribute to the future of technological and digital advancements. He suggested that digitalisation will always be growing and it is up to us to get involved!

The next speaker was Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev. He is the head of Research for St. Columbanus AG and finance Lecturer in TCD. He had a more economic outlook to cloud computing and other technological advancements. He summarised that the three main reasons for the growth of cloud computing are that it addresses the issue of scarcity and shortage of storage. It is secure and it is also portable which is a major advantage and necessity to modern users. He did however stress that we are not in a financial position to support the growth of cloud computing. He outlined that there are many factors required to incorporate the cloud into businesses and these factors are indeed costly. We need to upskill many workers in order for them to operate the cloud. This requires training and courses. We need to increase the inflow of talent and expertise into the country in order to help us build and development our technology and resources. We need to greatly increase the infrastructure of the country in order to support cloud computing. Along with these things, improvements in education, government services and offshore incentives are all required in order to make Ireland viable for cloud computing. So although cloud computing looks prosperous and will create more jobs, there are many changes and developments we need to address before any progress can be made. Dr. Gurdgiev’s outlook was negative yet realistic in terms of where Ireland stands compared to the rest of the world. I enjoyed his presentation as he gave a perspective on what Ireland needs to achieve in order to incorporate these digital changes. It’s clear our country needs a good bit of work but in my opinion, it will be worth the time, effort and cost in the end.

Our next speaker was Clare Dillion from Microsoft Ireland. Dillion is the leader in the development and platform group at Microsoft. Dillion emphasised that cloud computing is the fastest advancement in technology. She looked at how modern computing has changed over time and now computing is generally multi deviced, has a strong social and connection focus and is more natural. She feels that in the future, we will always be connected by the cloud. Key trends she outlined for the future are that computers will be everywhere and they will have an engaging experience.  I really liked Clare’s presentation as she really displayed how cloud computing is going to lead to cool, wonderful changes in the future. She showed a video on how future shopping experiences will all be online and much more convenient.

Our next speaker was Fergus Gloster from Marketo International. He emphasised that the current sales and marketing model is at best obsolete. The way people are buying has changed and marketing and sales techniques have to keep up with these trends. More and more are buying online so marketers have to focus their campaigns there. Gloster explained that due to developments of computers, sales people are losing their significance as most people now find information of the internet. This is an interesting way of proving how computers are adopting different roles. Although sales people may becoming obsolete, Gloster stressed that marketers are becoming more and more important and that computers have to lead to new and excessive windows of opportunites for marketers to produce different campaigns. Marketers should use social media and the internet as their main tools in order to earn their market share in this ever technologically growing environment.

In conclusion, I thought that the conference was very beneficial and gave a good insight into what the future of cloud computing and other technology will bring!

Get Social

On the 16th of October, DCU welcomed some leading Social Media Strategists. All the guest speakers emphasised the importance of social media in the world of business today. Each speaker explained how social media has got them where they are today and how it has increased their publicity immensley. They also looked at how social interaction is a key factor in the success of a business. We had speakers from Edelman Trust Barometer, Storyful, Twitter, Electric Ireland, World Irish, Facebook, Google and IPG Brand. They all gave an insight into the social media aspects of their firms and how beneficial it is.

Our first speaker was Mark Cahalane the Managing Director from Edelman Europe. The Edelman Trust Barometer is a global institution. Mr. Cahalane conveyed how social interaction is clearly visible between organisations. He looked at the different levels of trust between organisations and the general public such as the government, businesses, the media and NGOs. He said that in 2011, Ireland was the most distrusted country. People are now looking to businesses rather than to the government as a licence to lead.

Our next speaker was Claire Wardle the Director of News Services from Storyful. She conveyed exactly how the social media is key when promoting an image. She explained how social networking will give you an identity online and will give you new opportunities. Ms. Wardle explained how a strong positive presence online is essential for meeting new people and keeping yourself ‘in the loop’. Although she mentioned many benefits, she stressed how you can never be too careful online and to be extremely cautious of what you post. She explained how careless posts and comments online have cost some people their jobs and reputation. Ms. Wardle suggested to keep your account settings private so only certain people can access your information.

Our third speaker was Jane White from Twitter. She stressed how twitter is essential to’ bring you closer’ to your customers. With 140,000,000 active users and 1,000,000,000 tweets everyday, twitter is at the centre of social media. It is growing very fast and is sure to be a significant part of every businesses marketing scheme in the future. Ms. White explained how twitter can be used as a personal interaction between businesses and customers. This would make customers feel more valued and would strengthen the bond. Businesses can personally respond to customers tweets. This is also a great way of getting feedback and opinions off customers about particular products and services.

Philip Kelly the Digital Marketing Executive from Electric Ireland was our next speaker. Mr. Kelly told us how social media has increased awareness of their firm. He said how Electric Ireland use the social media and social networking to promote certain campaigns and charity fundraisers. Electric Ireland has a presence on Boards.ie Twitter and Facebook and all of these interactions has increased publicity and created an image for Electric Ireland.  Mr. Kelly explained how beneficial this has been to interact and create relationships with customers. He also stressed how social media must not be abused and how taking up a customers newsfeed with constant tweets and posts would be disastrous. It is important to find a right balance so that customers feel valued and entertained but not annoyed with too much information.

Darragh Doyle the Community Manager from World Irish was our next speaker and he basically outlined the fun and creative side of social media. He emphasised how a positive, entertaining presence online will boost your reputation. His job is promoting irishness around the world and he does this by posting pictures and posts online. He explained that interacting online is very important when networking with other people. It gives you an identity and gets you noticed.

We then had a brief panel discussion of how social media is not only used when promoting businesses but it is also an important factor for campaigns. The social media had a key role in the Irish Presidential Elections. It jus goes to show the power of the media and how it is the main way of communication if today.

Cattherine Flynn from Facebook outlined four steps for businesses to carry out in order to connect and engage with their customers. Firstly, to build a Facebook page in order to market your business. Secondly she explained how it is important to connect with people with advertisements so your business is advertised too. She stressed how it is important to engage your audience with quality content and finally to influence the friends of your fans in order to boost your customer base.

Brian Herron a Community Manager from Google+ encouraged us to use our imagination online. He explained how no idea is absurd and that the online world is full of creativity. He explained how online interaction has improved elements such as customer service, marketing and public relations. His main message was to connect with your customers.

Finally, Eric Weaver from IPG Brand concluded the seminar as he emphasised how not only can social media connect you to your current fans and customers but it has the capablity to connect you to people in every corner of the world.

I thought this seminar was extremely useful as it clearly emphasised how important and essential social interaction is to your business. It opened my eyes to different ways to promoting your business online and mostly how to portray and create a positive image of your brand and business.

Get Mobile

On the 4th of December, we had a ‘Get Mobile’ talk. The main message I got from this talk was that mobiles are an essential part of our lives. They have impacted our lives in ways we could never have imagined twenty years ago. People have become dependable on mobiles to the extent they feel lost without them. Mobiles have contributed hugely to the growth and development of society. They have advanced technology and have become a huge part of our day to day living. Our generation has grown up with mobiles so I can honestly confess I’d be completely lost without one!

Our first speaker was Dominic Muldoon from Púca. Púca is Ireland’s leading mobile marketing specialist. He outlined the growth of mobiles. He talked about the first telephone invented by Alexandra Graham Bell in 1876 and how that sole invention has changed our world. He outlined the development by producing figures that there is over 6.4billion mobile subscribers at the moment and that 74% of Ireland currently have smart phones. Muldoon talked about the advantages of SMS also. It is an instant way of communication and although there are multiple ways of communicating today, SMS is still very popular and doesn’t show signs of dying out. In his own words SMS is like the ‘glue that connects everything’. SMS has become an important tool for businesses to connect to their customers. It adds a personal touch and makes the customer feel more valued. SMS has also become a huge part of business competitions and advertising.

The next speaker was Eoin Cruise from Nokia. He explained how competitive the mobile market is. Nokia used to be the leading company for mobiles but now it is struggling in the market. The market has excelled rapidly and has become more and more advanced. Nokia has to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung who both own a huge share of the market. In order to stay alive in the market, Nokia had to combine with Microsoft in order to avail of new ideas and technology. Nokia’s newest mobile is the Lumnia 800. It is a very high tech mobile and it is proving to other competitors that they’re still in the game. It has a pureview camera which is the latest in camera technology. It also comes with a wireless charging pad which has never been done before. Nokia are trying hard to keep up with the current trends but also to keep on developing and coming up with new ideas. Cruise explained how apps are a huge part of the mobile culture today so apps are essential on all mobiles. There is almost an app for every task you can imagine.

Some of the Nokia phones through the ages

The next speaker was Patrick Ward from Windows Business Group, Microsoft. He discussed the new windows 8 tablet. He described it as a ‘personal’ user experience. Its main emphasis is connecting people. Like all the other competitiors in the market, Microsoft also have to keep developing their technology. Microsoft’s windows 8 tablet has features such as ‘live tiles’ ‘free music’ and a ‘sky drive’ with 7G free cloud storage. Once again Ward reinforced how technology has developed rapidly.

Louise Phelan from PayPal was the next speaker. She described how PayPal’s activity levels have soared in the last few years due to mobile advancements. She carried out research and apparently 40% of customers now buy online via mobile and 23million are using PayPal on mobile devices. She also did more research to disccover that 46% are buying digital goods, 37% are buyinh clothing and 35% are buying tickets and that 60% of people go to the store to buy, change their minds ans then buy online via mobile at a later date. She also looked are the disadvantages to using PayPal on the mobile. It may not be secure, people prefer to shop in person and the screen may be too small for some people. All in all, PayPal has proved to be very successful and like all mobile applications and technology, it is growing rapidly. She describes PayPal as ‘a wallet in the cloud.’

Next was the Panel Discussion. On the panel were some of the leading developers in mobile today. They discussed how mobile has changed from ‘gimmicks and games’ to proper business marketing strategies. It is the new way to communicate withe customers as it is on a highly personal level. They explained that Ireland has a lot of talent and knowledge to offer to the main comanpies in the mobile market, and that they have contributed to huge developments in mobile design. They main message the panel stressed was to inspire and influence us to try everything and not to be afraid to put an idea to the world.

Johnny Walker from Global Diagnostics was the final speaker and he explained how mobile has led to developments in healthcare too. He is a doctor and he described how he uses telemedicine networks in his work. New mobile technology has led to more easily accessed ultrascans. Walker says that the contribution mobile has made to his job has made him a ‘flying doctor’ as his tools are able to be stored on mobiles. No need for big bulky technology and equipment anymore.

The conclusion is that Mobile has contributed immensley to our society and has a bright future in the world of technology.

Get Creative

On the second of October 2012, we had our first guest speaker Nigel Newman. Mr. Newman described himself as an activist and a psychologist of creativity. He explained that his job was to inspire idea generation and he helps companies manage and implement new ideas. Throughout his speech he successfully engaged with the audience through creative thinking. He carried out various exercises to make us think ‘outside the box’ and to tax our imaginations. The whole objective of the talk was to enhance creativity and help  give us the primary tools to assist us in idea generation.

 He refered to ‘The Edward de Bono Foundation.’ This is a global organisation with 7.5 million users worldwide. Edward de Bono wrote a book called ‘The Mechanism of the Mind’ which Mr. Newman explains, gave him a good insight into psychology and creativity. Mr. Newman quoted that ‘ The excellence of the brain arises directly from its ability to make patterns.’ He explained that our need as humans to create patterns can prevent us from being creative so in order to see new things, we have to break out of our patterns and routines.

This picture was a task presented to us in order to make us think harder and with more creativity. The aim was to get both jockeys sitting on the horses without tearing the paper.

Mr. Newman described that it is a ‘habit of our minds’ to use fast, intuitive, automatic thinking instead of using a more rational, calculating way of thinking. He linked this comparison to one of his most treasured books called ‘Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind’ written by Daniel Kahermann. Mr. Newman stresses that we can learn a lot from this old fable. If we don’t rush our decisions and calculate our decisions, our decisions will be better and more creative. We can’t rush our imagination and we shouldn’t over think issues. The subtitle of this book is ‘ Why intelligence increases when you think less’. This book is very close to Mr. Newman’s heart as he carries it everywhere with him. As I enjoyed this fable a lot as a child I felt I could easily relate to Mr. Newman and his view of the book.

Mr. Newman introduced the concept of WYSIATI, meaning ‘What You See Is All There Is’ It creates the idea that what people know are called ‘known knows’, what people don’t know are called ‘unknown knows’ and what people are oblivious to are called ‘ unknown unknowns’ This concept conveys the fact that people tend to stick with what they know and what they’re familiar with and either ignore, judge or are unaware of many other things. Mr. Newman wants us to open our minds to new things in order to get ideas flowing and to increase intelligence.

Mr. Newman discussed the concept PMI also. This stands for ‘Plus Minis Interesting’. It is basically opening your mind to the pros and cons of every idea. It gets you to engage with the idea more and discover ideas you might not have thought of before. It deals with looking at positive things around ideas, negative things around ideas and most importantly it deals with interesting thoughts about ideas. Interesting thoughts would be questions and unusual consequences of particular ideas. In my opinion, this way of thinking really gets your creative juices flowing and leads you on to more ideas. As Mr. Newman stated no idea is ‘ridiculous’ or ‘stupid’ and that all ideas are valuable.

Mr. Newman discussed the theory of the famous Six Thinking Hats. He explained how the idea of the hats is a thinking activity and that each of the hats can be put on or taken off easily. Each hat represents a different way of thinking. If we apply each way of thinking to idea generation it will broaden our range of ideas and gives us different views about ideas. The white hat represents information and data. The red, emotion and intuition. The black, negativity and caution. The yellow, benefits and positivity. The green, possibilities and alternatives and the blue, overview and process. If we think with the different hats it will cover all aspects of how an idea may or may not work.

Mr. Newman quoted Albert Einstein when he said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’ ‘If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it’. This reinforces the idea that all ideas are valuable no matter how ludicrous it sounds. They all have potential when adjusted.

Finally Mr. Newman discussed how creativity improves problem solving and leads to fresh thinking. He says that we have to have a vision of looking at things in a different way in order to spot new ideas and develop them. He believes we can all train our minds to adopt a new way of thinking which will enhance our creativity. When developing ideas, Mr. Newman recommends the concept of The 3 R’s of Simplicity. Remove, Replace and Restructure. Remove ideas you feel aren’t going to work, replace them with new ideas and finally restructure you ideas to increase the delivery of value. Mr. Newman leaves us with a quote from Teraclitus which concludes his speech, ‘Expect the Unexpected.’ I felt the talk was very beneficial and really opened my mind to new ways of thinking and new concepts that I can implement into my idea generation process.

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