“Take a risk and keep testing, because what works today won’t work tomorrow, but what worked yesterday may work again.” Amrita Sahasrabudhe, Strategic Marketing Leader at PetSmart, said this in 2014 and since then PWC have released figures of data growth at 50% on last year with 571 websites being created every minute and 300 billion emails sent every day! Not only is the digital age here but it’s taking over.
Dr Johnny walker – CEO and founder of Jinga Life
An interventional radiologist and nucleur physisist, Johnny spent his younger years travelling around western Australia where he provided the remote aboriginal communities with mobile ultrasounds out of his truck. This was Johnny’s first thought at this new way of practising medicine and since then he has been preaching and designing telemedicine, which uses IT to provide clinical health services from a distance cutting out both long hospital ques as well as vital time spent travelling to hospitals. Through the use of online platforms such as Jinga Life. This exciting new venture is designed to keep the whole family healthy without the constant worry of something being wrong, they do this by providing the resources, knowledge and connectivity needed to keep the entire family fit and well 24 hours a day 7 days a week!
To date Jinga Life has 2700 clinicans along with 145k patients. While we have seen Digital takeover in areas such as banking and shopping, this could be the platform that turns medicine digital also. While I myslef would be hesitant towards the idea of this online consultation, it has been tested quite intensivly and so I feel it is a step in the right direction. My only concern with this would be that it could commercialise healthcare more than it already is. Below is the link to Johnny’s lecture where he describes how he feels he can change the way we approach healthcare. Johnny’s lecture on digital healthcare.
David Erixon – Head of innovation at Ulster bank
“Anything that can be done in a connected way will be done in a connected” this was Davids opening remark as he began to describe Ulster banks latest Digital innovation. As a young man David knew the importance of being one step ahead of the competition, this opportunity soon came in 1994 when together with friends Daivid decided to set up a technilogical education firm, Hyper Island. This company was based on the presumption that as the world enters into the digital age, they will need to be educated on what lies ahead, this philosophy has guided the business to operate in seven different locations with over 70 staff allowing them to continually educate and inspire young minds capable of being tomorrows future. The following link from Hyper Island describes their philosphy, https://vimeo.com/7885122. From this David became an expert on all things digital, progressing his career in many aspects. David now sits on an advisory board in FightBall inc and is a crucial block in the digital wall at Ulster bank.
In my opinion Daivid craves exploring the unknown and 
with this how the digital age will impact the future. He has recently noticed a corrilation between scandinavian countries and the progressive rate of the public engaging in transactions by card. For example, in Sweden less than 20% of all transactions is done with money and 80% done with card. This corrilation suggests that the importance of real currency may be becoming obsolete and that paper money may soon come to an end. With 75% of irsh transactions being handled by cash we are a long way from a digital payment reality however as our economy and politics become as stable and constistent as the scandanaviens you never know, we could be saying goodbye to heavy wallets soon!
Alistair Croll – Public speaker in lean analytics
“Innovation is key” Alistair described this as the most important thing to take from the entire seminar, as while coming up with an idea is great coming up with the platform to sell that idea and others like it is what will set you apart. Having co-founded Startupfest, an interactive 3 day event in Montreal Canada, Alistair has a keen awareness for innovation and where it will come from. Taking us back through the ages Alistair took us to 1894 where the rise of horse manure in London became something of a crisis, the 50,000 horses in the city needed to transport both people and goods were leaving their mark on the coutries capital quite literally. After a world summit on the matter, there were no clear solutions to the problem with many thinking the problem would never be dealth with. However, one hundred years later to the year in 1994 the world wide web was i
nvented and the start of the digital age had begun. While in 1894 there was an international crisis that coudln’t be solved, a year later the car was patented by George Selden who began to mass produce, reducing this crisis to a small spec in the memory of those affected. This is what the future has instore for us now, as practical problems arise it will be advances in technology that will save us, offering new solutions to all issues deemed impractical. I agree with Alistair in many ways, most importantly with Innovation. While we continue to look for new ways of improving our society in both a practical sense as well as a recreational sense i feel like it will be our strides in technology and digital innovation that will get us closer to that goal. I’ll finish up with a quote from Mr.Croll himself “Progression in innovation inspires change”.
tent with not interacting with others around them, leaving them without the support and help needed to grow their businesses into global enterprises like we have popping up all over the country today. Having had seven influential business men and women in to talk about the importance of “getting social” I will show you how to effectively grow your business using social media allowing you to connect with
Firstly, we heard from Paul Hayes, CEO and founder of Beachhut PR who works with innovative and driven people in the venture backed tech start-up sector. Paul had clearly been around the block when it came to working with start-ups as he knew the steps to take to give your company the best chance of survival. Highlighting that it is better to create a market than join one Paul described many ways you can grab the attention of your audience in a discrete manner. While referencing your businesses past can create trust and stability, it is important to keep the focus on the future and demonstrate that you are as current and up to date as any other business out there. This is done by continuously modernising your company website and release weekly/monthly updates about what you are doing new in the coming period.
s has the best chance of appealing to customers desires. With Facebook and Twitter being two of the major platforms for businesses to reach out to its customers it is imperative that they have a strong podium to display their company. As of January second, it has been released that Facebook dominates the social media usage with 1.19billion active monthly users.
social at BOI, Anne Marie explained to us how her and her team engage with potential customers through a variety of online platforms each with a different appearance for a different target audience. The importance to come up with engaging content is vital in today’s competitive business environment. “Content is fire and social media is petrol” Anne Marie illuminated. With research showing that 74% of content this year will be video it is crucial to invest in your online presence as much as possible, you have to see these expenditures as investments not expenses because in the end of the day would you like to spend a couple of thousand euro on a poorly produced messy video with a few thousand views and minimum exposure or would you prefer to spend twenty thousand on a superb cinematic film being shared by sites all over the world attracting thousands of customers. I certainly know which choice I would make in that situation.
Jameson’s senior brand manager, Aisling could show us a completely different side of the card as she and her team at Jameson had just completed a new marketing campaign themselves, and so walked us through who they targeted, where they targeted and what platform they used to do it, easy right! This new campaign is aimed at laid-back and stress free customers, who primarily want to have a good time with friends. For this type of audience Aisling and the team came up with entertaining content that had nothing to do with their own brand but appealed to their audience keeping them with the brand. The following video was released over a year ago, and while the brand is not mentioned the viewer is engaged long enough for the viewer to generate a healthy image of the brand. 
Working with business’s all over the world Hugh Curran helps socially unaware companies to better their image online and indicates how they can get their content seen on a large scale. As he explained the purpose of an article header is to grab the attention of the audience and so should be something relevant and interesting typically do to with local news. Once you have the customer reading the article that is where your content should engage with them promoting your business. Keeping con
tent up to date and relevant is the key to getting consistant views, and with 65% of Irish business’s online today the competition is growing meaning it is more important than ever to grab the reader’s attention as well as engaging with them.
Co-founder and managing partner of the mobile marketing company mCordis, Pauls role is to educate business’s all over the world about the importance of mobile marketing. Having spoken at both public and private events in over 40 countries mCordis has delivered mobile marketing strategy and training to some of the world’s biggest brands including Adidas, Coca-Cola, The Home Depot, FedEx, Kraft, Pepsi, Pfizer, P&G and Unilever. We live in an age of continuous connectivity where micro moments make for a large customer base. As technology is progressing it is important to keep your marketing campaign up to date as much as possible by engaging with each aspect of potential customers. Pokemon go achieved an ultimate blend of both physical and digital platforms, allowing them to have the edge on competitors through their continuous development in digital marketing. Combinin
g physical, digital and sensorial aspects creates an emotional appeal to your company. A great example of this emotional appeal is in Starbucks, the physical appeal to Starbucks is the shop itself with the sound of current songs and the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans making up the sensorial aspect.
Our last speaker of the evening was VP of communication and marketing solutions at Xerox, Erik Weaver. As an accomplished marketing consultant Erik has worked with a variety of business’s, showing each the significance in developing their individual online profile. While we have come a long way in the last twenty years Erik believes we are only scraping the tip of the iceberg. The future is upon us. Advances in technology are opening new doors that we have never seen before. Among these possibilities lie drones, drones are already being tested to deliver packages in the UK by Amazon and in terms of using them for a business there are endless options, weather it be for advertising, delivery or communications, drones are the future and if companies decide to embrace that they have a real chance of developing a competitive edge on rival companies. While the concept has not been made 100% effective yet there is no doubt that it is only a matter of time before we see drones flying over head on a regular occurrence.
Looking back at all the speakers have said I can say without doubt that the digital age is well under way, with competition coming from all over the world it is vital that companies distinguish themselves from their rivals. Creating and maintaining an engaging social media presence is going to be what sets business’s apart in the coming years. Keeping your image as positive as possible in the eyes of your potential clients through clever and interesting pages across appropriate platforms and distinguishing between sites aimed at different client types. “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs.
Beginning entrepreneurship 