Life is has been a bit hectic over the last couple of weeks, with three conferences, a new sponsor, and a new logo for ORD amongst other things….
So in the past 2 weeks I’ve been at The Specialist Media Show (hosting a roundtable), The Open Mobile Summit (As a guest of Nokia), and M-Publishing (hosting another round table).
It’s been really interesting to see the differences with 3 events in such close proximity. The Specialist Media Show launched this year with the first event in Peterborough, attracting a lot of print publishers who have an enormous amount of knowledge in their specialist areas, but are generally still a bit nervous about digital, and intrigued but curious about mobile.
It was really good to chat to a lot of people who have the passion and knowledge of global niche subjects to result in successful digital businesses, and I think the conference helped a few of them find a stronger resolve to drive ahead with digital.
The next day’s Open Mobile Summit was a world apart as it provides a platform for a lot of senior people and big names in mobile – unfortunately I could only attend for one day, but there were definitely a number of brilliant talks and panel discussions. I went from being the only person checking in on Fourquare in Peterborough to sitting near the founder of Gowalla in 24 hours! And it was good to chat more to the Nokia team and find out more about what they have planned – they’re definitely not standing still..
And then came M-Publishing – which as a mobile event concentrating on publishing was extremely focused, pretty fast-moving, and very valuable to anyone producing text/video/audio content and hoping to mobilise and monetise it. Really interesting talks and debates, and a lot of fairly honest and open discussion about what has worked and what might not have succeeded in the mobile space.
I think the main thing out of all of this is that a growing number of people in traditional content are starting to get their heads around digital. I might have spent 5-10 years complaining about how reluctant they were, and there’s still a massive way to go for many of them, but I really do think they’re starting to change – possibly inspired the most by the lure of the iPhone/iPad/iTunes route. And it’s going to push digital companies to innovate even faster, which is going to be interesting.
You may notice a lovely animated banner on here and 140char.com – Bullguard, and their internet security products, which is not only good from a ‘I won’t go bankrupt paying for hosting’ point of view, but also extremely timely given the recent PHP exploit which infected major hosting companies, the rise of malicious software on Facebook, and a whole host of other things which are making digital security incredibly important.
And last, but definitely not least – if you head over to Online Race Driver, the great new guide to online racing I run in conjunction with some fellow virtual petrolheads, you should spot a fantastic new logo on the site. It was done by the fantastic designers at Jigowatt, and they did a fantastic job of referencing classic motorsport logos/colours, and then producing something which works in the different ways needed for a digital logo. (Disclosure – many of the team are former colleagues, and friends, of mine).
They do pretty much everything, but are particularly good with WordPress, which could well come in handy!
Plus, a new map pack came out for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is still the most addictive videogame experience I’ve had in a long time. Fatherhood is still a surprising and amazing thing which delights me on a daily basis. And there’s still the part of my day spent working at an innovative and fast-moving radio and digital business.
But I have some more cunning plans….
