#getdigital

April 30, 2017Uncategorizedmakethingshappen2016 Leave a comment

digital mind Welcome back to my third and sadly, my final blog! On the 11th of April, the final DICE seminar was held in the helix. Leading up to #GetDigital2017 I was expecting something similar to the previous two conferences where we listened to experts in their field and tried to take in as much of the information and advice available to us. Three incredibly successful businessmen gave up their precious time to inform us, the business people of tomorrow(hopefully), about their journeys to success and most importantly the huge role that “getting digital” had on their success. I listened to three interesting speakers each with their own outlook on how the workplace is becoming more technologically advanced, and ‘digital.’ This conference was rather different to the two previous conferences I attended. There were only three speakers so it lasted just under two hours, compared to the usual six speakers for nearly four hours.

Getting digital refers to how companies obtain electronic technology to generate, store and process data to become more efficient and more controlled (Rouse, 2005).

Digital technology is everywhere these days, including in business, not so long ago, money was a tangible item but now you’ll find that only 9% of money is physical cash in modern civilisation. This makes for more efficient business, it’s faster, safer and easier to do business now than ever before. The rate that technology is advancing is extraordinary, and it is vital that we learn to incorporate it into the business world and use it as effectively as possible.

The three speakers – Dr. Johnny Walker, David Erixon and Alistair Croll –stressed the importance of the digital revolution that is happening right in front of our eyes.

Dr. Johnny Walker

johnny walker

“Engage, Embrace, Empower”

The first speaker of the day was Dr. Johnny Walker. He is an interventional Radiologist and Nuclear Physician. He is the CEO and founder of Jinga Life. Johnny was the Founder and driver of Global Diagnostics, an international Tele-radiology enterprise which successfully disrupted medical diagnostics around the clock, around the world. Dr. Walker is Australian but currently resides in Dublin, and is working at the Hermitage Medical Clinic in west Dublin. The atmosphere in the room lifted as Johnny began his short and snappy presentation as his Australian accent, along with an incredible speed of speaking, forced the crowd to sit up and listen intently attentively to what he had to say. The focus of Johnny’s talk was on the “future of health.”

Johnny began his speech by telling us of his journey to get to where he is today, spending time all over the world helping people. He reflected on the start of his career. He spent a huge amount of time in outback Australia which inspired him greatly. He went on to stress the urgent need to redesign the health systems so that the pregnant mothers in Western Australia had access to the medical treatment that they needed. To combat this issue, Dr. Walker came up with the Telemedicine Network. He was doing ultrasounds on pregnant women, to investigate the condition of their babies.

“Engage, Embrace, Empower” – Dr.Walker wants patients to engage, be embraced and be empowered. Simple on the shelf technology would allow this to be possible. These technologies are cloud-based, personalized, secured, mobile and available in anywhere in the world 24/7. Dr.Walker really emphasised how getting digital in this day and age is vital for in the health care system. He really opened my eyes up to how technologies are advancing and the benefits these technologies could have on regulating our health

David Erixon

David Erixon is the head of Digital and Customer Innovation at Ulster Bank. He talked about the future of money. Erixon informed us that banking is changing due to technology developments such as cloud technology and Application program interface (API). These changes can be seen in the Sweden, where only 2% of transactions in the country are done with the physical money. In the near future, digital money will be the norm and physical currency will be obsolete. The arrival of Apple Pay to Ireland is a push towards a cashless economy. Money is changing because of advancing technology and also society’s view on the banking system. To transform the banking system, technology and regulations are required, and this will create open banking.

Apps such as 22seven control a person’s money and finance. It is an app that shows people clearly everything financial: money, investments, loans, bank balances and rewards from retailers. It then creates a personalized budget giving insights about how you’re spending your money. It clearly shows inflows and outflows.

Banks are currently at a crossroad, they need to see technology as an opportunity, not a threat. Because of this, Ulster bank have decided to embrace the advancing technology and adapt to it which can be seen in their Hackathon events and mobile banking apps.

While researching the things Mr Erixon talked about I came across this fascinating video about technology replacing money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPgd7Hj3ABQ

Alistair Croll

Alistair Croll’s presentation ended the day on a very interesting note. He is an author, public speaker and lecturer of Data Science and Critical Thinking at Harvard Business School. He really opened up my eyes to all the digital changes that are happening and have happened in recent years. I really enjoyed his talk. His rather original title – “Horses, Tea, Steam and Perfume” really grasped my attention. Croll explained to us how we can change our society through innovation. He discussed this through the non-traditional way, Discontinuity, as he believed technology is not very interesting.

Discontinuities are defined as: Unpredictable, unforeseen, natural or man-made sudden change, consequence, event, or force that confounds or disrupts earlier expectations or estimates. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discontinuity.html)

He talked about agriculture and how it has changed in recent years. 100 years ago, 70% of North America was used for agriculture, now less than 1% is. In the 1800’s 3% lived in urban areas and now 75% live in urban areas in North America. This shows how technology is advancing.

Croll made a point of three things in his talk:

Big changes sneak up on us
We optimize the current worldview
Necessary innovations aren’t obvious

March 3, 2017Uncategorizedmakethingshappen2016 Leave a comment

Get social 2017- DICE BLOG

“We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media,the question is how well we DO it” – Eric Qualman(American author of Socialnomics)

On Tuesday the 14^th of February, myself and hundreds of other students gathered in the Helix for our second conference of the year for our DICE (Digital Innovation Creativity and Enterprise) module. Initially, I wasn’t too impressed to be spending Valentine’s Day at a conference, but thankfully, it did turn out to be worthwhile in the end. The focus of this conference was social media, and how businesses use it. Each and every speaker at the Get started conference added to my knowledge of the topic, each of them being informative and inspirational in different ways.

smm

Social media is defined as the “online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration and cultivation among interconnected people” (Tuten and Solomon 2015) Social media has been around since the mid 90’s but has become a lot more prevalent in the last decade. With 1.59 billion people on Facebook, 400 million on Instagram and 350 million on Twitter; social media is taking over. It is growing continuously and it has begun to take over many areas of our lives, particularly in regards to young people. The internet and social media has drastically transformed the world we live in today. This rapid growth of the social media age has created both opportunities and problems in businesses throughout the world. We live in a world that is constantly connected and it only makes sense that companies reach out to consumers via social media. As Managing Director of mCordis, Paul Berney put it, “We are living in the age of the connected individual”

“Irish firms are second biggest users of social media in the EU, where about 64%, of those employing 10 people and above, use the likes of twitter and Facebook” (The Irish Times) This shows that Ireland is on the right track.

Charles Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” theory applies to businesses in regards to social media. The companies which learn to adapt to social media will thrive, and those who do not will suffer. Social media has without a doubt revolutionised business models and it has changed the way companies carry out their marketing strategies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–s2sfm9JkI While researching this topic I found this helpful video. It outlines the steps that can be taken to use social media marketing correctly.

Paul Hayes

“People remember how you make them feel, not what you say to them”

Paul Hayes was the MC on the day. He is a successful businessman who is the CEO and founder of Beachut PR. Beachut PR is a company which is “built to service the needs of the fastest growing tech players.” Paul was very comical throughout the conference and he spoke with great confidence. He stressed the importance of great content. He said that as entrepreneurs we need to resist the temptation to talk about ourselves and spend more time talking about our impact on the world. “Speak not of yourself, but of your impact on the world” Before introducing us to our first speaker, he said something that really struck me. “People remember how you make them feel, not what you say to them”

Matthew Weil

The first speaker was Matthew Weil, the product leader at VoiceSage. VoiceSage is a company that delivers “transformational interactive customer communications solutions that streamline and add value to high-volume contact activities” VoiceSage allows companies to take part in costumer engaging solutions by streamlining and adding value to their high volume of data.” Matthew Weil was extremely engaging and gave the impression he knew exactly what he was talking about He began his speech by talking about the “conversational economy” we live in today. Matthew discussed the different functions of different social medias to a business. He spoke about Facebook and Twitter, two platforms that we are very familiar with. He talked about how businesses can use these social networking platforms successfully. He then went on to compare the likes of Twitter and Facebook to Weibo. Weibo is a Chinese social networking site that is monitored by the government. The government is essentially deciding what the people see and therefore influencing the market greatly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E08ngF1MWk

He gave me great insight into how influential social media truly can be and the importance of social media marketing to companies. Companies who learn to adapt to these new platforms are the ones that will succeed.

Here is an interesting video I came across about Building Your Action Plan for Social Media Marketing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyM4ORg452g

Anne Marie Boyhan

“Create, Collaborate, Curate.”

Anne Marie Boyhan is the head of social at Bank of Ireland. She started out by telling us some striking facts to highlight the prevalence of social media today;

60% of 16-24 year olds are on Snapchat
74% of all media traffic will be video in 2017
2/3 of us log into Snapchat everyday

These statistics really opened my eyes to the number of people using social media on a regular basis. She said this was the main reason for BOI using snapchat and why the company are focusing greatly on completion rates and content within their posts to engage costumers. She spoke about the change Bank of Ireland has made to adapt to social media in the last few years. She stressed her belief that the 3 C’s are vital for any successful marketing campaign: “Create, collaborate, curate” She said that her aim is to create an emotional response and a memory in people. She talked about the importance of engaging with the community to increase returns. However, in a report by MIT they found that the returns from social media cannot always be measured in revenue but mostly in consumer behaviour. (Hoffman & Fodor 2010)

In particular, Bank of Ireland have taken advantage of Snap codes, she even went on to call them a “game changer.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrongtech/2017/02/02/10-things-you-should-be-doing-with-snapchat-snapcodes/#61424f74862b

Aisling Tobin

“Fear a bit less and live a bit more”

Up next was the brand manager at Jameson, Aisling Tobin. As previously talked about by Paul Hayes, Aisling Tobin talked about the importance of content. However, she added to this in saying that content would be nothing without engagement. “Content is king, engagement is queen”

Aisling was my favourite speaker on the day, she was light hearted, engaging and informative, although I may also be biased since I do love Jameson Whiskey. She spoke to us about how Jameson uses social media. She also told us they have sold and distributed over 6,000,000 cases so far this year.

Aisling gave us an example of Jameson’s marketing strategy by giving us a of the business’ upcoming campaign. “Sine Metu” Meaning ‘without fear’, the campaign encourages the ‘fear less, live more’ motto for all the connected Jameson customers. I think Sine Metu represents a change in Jameson. Aisling spoke about Jameson’s target market which they call LADS (Laidback Appreciators and Down-to-earth Souls.) Aisling discussed how LADS formed the basis for all decisions made regarding the product. Their new ginger and lime whiskey was created based solely on the tastes of LADS. This shows that Jameson really engage with customers, and create products they want.Sine Metu as well as Jameson’s frequent activity on social media such as twitter reinforces their new image, proving social media marketing opens a door full of new possibilities for existing brands.

Aisling told us her steps in how to succeed with social media marketing:

Quality Content – Content is king. Videos reign supreme & generally people respond more to subtitled videos
KPIs – set out objectives from the start, optimise as you go. Stay true to the brand
Rules of Engagement – their target market spends 24 hours a week online & 2 hours a day watching videos
Value Exchange – Research has found that their target market engages more when they receive rewards for loyalty
Be Destructive – Get involved and be true to the brand. For example, Jameson supports upcoming Rugby matches as that’s where their market lies

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the Get social conference. I felt that each speaker brought us something different., yet all emphasising the same main points. The topics covered were very intriguing and relevant as a social media user. Previously, I wasn’t aware of the importance of social media for businesses. Yes, I knew it played a role, but I had no clue about how important it is. The range of guests and personalities kept the event interesting, lively and fresh. The speakers really connected with the audience, through engaging story telling. They helped me to expand on the knowledge I had learned at the previous conference, Get started, and it has left me waiting apprehensively for what Get Digital has to bring us.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”- Gavin Walsh

November 24, 2016business, dice, enterprise, entrepreneurship, studentandrew keogh, business, cityswfit, commerce, conference, creativity, dcu, dublin, enterprise, entrepreneur, entreprenurship, foodcloud, getstarted, getstarted16, girlcrew, helix, icabbi, innovation, ireland, overcasthq, ryanacademy, ustartmakethingshappen2016 One comment

Conference 1: Get Started

On Tuesday the 8th of November I attended a conference in The Helix called Get Started. I had to attend the conference as part of one of my modules, DICE ( Digital Innovation,Creativity and Enterprise.) At 2pm, close to 500 hundred DCU business students were waiting apprehensively for the event to begin. Prior to the event, I didn’t know what to expect, but I begrudgingly went along because, well, quite frankly I didn’t have a choice. Once the event began my opinion changed drastically. Before the event I never really thought I could be an entrepreneur but seeing all of the seemingly normal entrepreneurs speaking, I started to think, why not?

(Source:http://startupowl.com/resources/before-you-start/understanding-entrepreneurship/ )

The conference was based on Entrepreneurship. To me, entrepreneurship means bringing an idea to reality, in the form of a successful business. Dictionary.com defines entrepreneurship as : “a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/entrepreneurship?s=t)

Here are some inspirational quotes to get started:(https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_inspirational.htm l)

(source:http://getstarted.marketinglab.ie/speakers/andrew-keogh/)

Our MC for the afternoon was Andrew Keogh, a member of The Ryan Academy. The Ryan Academy help entrepreneurs in early stages of their businesses through various workshops, and mentoring programs. They help people to transform ideas into sustainable businesses. Andrew Keogh told us the purpose of the conference was for us to gain understanding from award winning entrepreneurs and encourage enterprise. Andrew is an international speaker and speaker coach. He has almost twenty years experience in business coaching.He wanted to show us, as business students that being an entrepreneur can be a viable career choice.By the end of the conference I was completely convinced! He emphasized that the most important thing for entrepreneurs is to keep trying. He failed with his first business but he didn’t let that get in the way of his success and proceeded to set up various other companies. One thing in particular that really stuck with me is that he has been self employed since 1988 but he hasn’t “worked a day in (his) life” because he enjoys his job. I aspire to be able to say this about my job in the future.

“Business is science not art”

(Source: http://www.ryanacademy.ie/what-we-do/ustart-student-accelerator/ )

Paddy Quinlan, the UStart Manager for the DCU Ryan Academy also spoke to us. He claimed that “Business is science, not art” This really made me think because I had always associated entrepreneurship with creativity, not strategy. He told us how most business start out with a minimum viable product, and later on go on to develop the mature product. He used the example a basic donut versus an iced donut. Paddy Quinlan stressed how hard work will get you so much further than a great idea.

“Differentiate yourself”

(Source: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/philippebrodeur)

(Source:https://www.linkedin.com/company/overcast-hq)

The first guest speaker was Philippe Brodeur, CEO & Founder at Overcast HQ. Before he came on stage, Andrew Keogh stated, “Overcast will be one of 40 companies in Ireland to change the world” This really sparked my interest and I was excited to hear what Overcast HQ was all about. Overcast is a company which allows video files to be managed with ease via the cloud. This company has been described as the Google Docs for video.

He spoke about the importance of differentiation, making yourself stand out. Employers want people who are special and have something unique to offer, and it is the same principal with business start ups. He told us that 10,000 International business students graduate every year. This made me think, how can I make myself stand out? I’m eager to start working on myself now so that I will have more to offer in the future.

(Source: http://www.picturequotes.com/business-success-quotes )

Philippe Brodeur began telling us a successful start up story of a site we all know and use daily, Youtube. He stressed that their success was similar to winning a lotto. Within 3 months they had around 120,000 daily visits to their site. This traction encouraged investment which allowed them to expand and build more servers. While YouTube was extremely lucky, the reality of successful start up business is hours on end of hard work and dedication .Philippe Brodeur used the example of YouTube to explain traction. Traction is evidence that there is a market for your product / business and that people have shown interest in it. Philip told us how he went out into the market and found a niche and tried to get funding, but without traction, getting investments proves to be extremely challenging.Traction is extremely important to attract investors. I learned that in order to get investment, you must already have the minimum viable product designed and set up in order to gain traction.

Although traction is extremely important, Brodeur went on to talk about the five elements of successful start up businesses:

I was extremely surprised when he told us the most important reason! Surely it’s the idea right? Actually, it’s the timing! He described how start up success is all about finding the gap in the market at the right time. Having the right idea ahead or behind the right time may result in failure.

In talking about the elements of a successful start up business I began to wonder, what makes a successful entrepreneur? According to entrepreneur.com the 7 traits of a successful entrepreneur are:

1.Tenacity

2.Passion

3.Tolerance of ambiguity

4.Vision

5.Self Belief

6.Flexibility

7.Rule Breaking

Philippe Brodeur stated “93%of marketers and publishers now work with video” This statistic really shocked me and made me realize how much business has changed in recent years, becoming more digital. The world is continuously changing, creating more space for entrepreneurship.

“Do things that others won’t”

The second speakers were Brian O’Rourke and Alan Farrelly, co-founders of CitySwifter. I found them to be extremely relatable as their business was so new and they became entrepreneurs straight out of college. It is crazy to think that Brian was in our shoes, as a business student only two years ago and now a successful entrepreneur! If he can do it, can’t we all? Both Brian and Alan encouraged us to believe in ourselves throughout their talk. They had the biggest impact on me personally since they were so young and had come so far in such a short time. It made me realize that if you really want something, hard work will get you there sooner or later.

Cityswifter is a new bus company that gets commuters from one place to another directly, using customizable routes. They saw an opportunity when there were bus strikes in September and October. I find it unbelievable that they had 15000 journey requests in just 6 days!

They confronted the issue of failure. It’s the fear of failure that discourages most people from becoming entrepreneurs. They taught us that failure is not something to be scared of, but instead should be thought of as a lesson. “Work harder after the no’s” “Use it as motivation” they exclaimed, which really made me think about the importance of optimism and persistence. They were rejected from the Ryan Academy before and they said it was “the best thing to ever happen to us” because they wouldn’t be where they are today without that motivation to prove them wrong and become successful.

They encouraged us as young students to stop talking about our ideas, however unrealistic we think they may be and “just do it”, “make it your life” and not fear failure. They made me come to terms with failure and come to a point where I know it is okay to fail, it happens to everyone and it is how we bring ourselves back up from this failure which is important, not the failure itself. I really liked how honest they were, they didn’t sugar coat entrepreneurship, they admitted it is hours on end of extremely hard work but they said the rewards are all worth it in the end.

They gave three pieces of helpful advice to us at the end of their talk:

Build your network: Go out, meet people, mix with people in other courses, it will come in handy in the future.
Know your competitors: Make sure you are aware of your competitors and always try to be one step ahead of them.
Just do it: This one is fairly self explanatory, just get out there out of your comfort zone and get on with it.

“How I built a tech business for free, without being a techie”

girlcrew-300-100gcc

(Source: http://www.girlcrew.com/ )

(Source: https://twitter.com/elvacarri )

A quirky woman called Elva Carri was the third speaker. Her talk was extremely engaging and uplifting, with her bubbly personality catching my attention. She never even intended to become an entrepreneur, it was “by accident”! Her talk was somewhat refreshing and light hearted after the previous speakers who were rather monotonous(yet interesting all the same) She is the founder of Girlcrew, an online female community that organises events all around the world.It is aimed at 25 to 40 year old women in urban areas. She came up with her idea while reading an article on the epidemic of loneliness in the New York Times. Although the article focused on elderly people, loneliness is a problem for everyone. In fact, it is scientifically proven to be a bigger problem for women than men. She described social networks as “not very social” which when you think about it is very true. How many of your Facebook friends are really your friends? She wanted to create something truly social. “Don’t just share experiences, create them” I think her idea is really interesting because it encourages interaction with new people.She mentions that you can’t convince people that they need your product if they don’t truly have a use for it. This app is a perfect example that all successful businesses stem from a problem, the bigger the problem the better the business as Brian and Alan from CitySwifter previously mentioned. She said the success of Girlcrew is thanks to four magic ingredients:

1.There was a need for it.

2.It appeared to be scalable.

3.It didn’t need her, the community ran it for her.

4.She could scale it for free.

What motivates you?

(Source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/samuelbeck121335.html )

(Source: http://www.novas.ie/foodcloud/)

(Source: http://trinitynews.ie/tag/iseult-ward/)

Isuelt Ward, founder of FoodCloud reminded us that not all businesses are about making profits. The amount of hard work she puts in for no money is truly inspiring. I admire her as she is truly empowering. Her business stemmed from her aspiration to see change in the world. The slogan of the company is “connecting those with too much food with those with too little.”

The amount of food wasted every day is horrifying. She told us that on average supermarkets waste the equivalent of 300 meals every week! This really sparked my interest and concerned me so I researched the issue of food wastage after the conference.Here is an interesting website I found which presents some horrendous facts about food wastage: http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/ Something needs to be done to improve this issue, and that is just what FoodCloud are doing! FoodCloud redistribute leftover food from supermarkets to charities in the UK and Ireland. According to their website( www./food.cloud ) , they have donated 5,106,000 meals! Did you know in the UK households throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drinks every year? (http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/node/2472)

The first thing that was said to us when we took our seats in the helix was “ would you consider becoming an entrepreneur?” My initial reaction was no! My thinking was why would I take such a big risk on the off chance that something might go right? I can safely say that after this conference, I think of entrepreneurship with a completely open mind. From hearing the speakers I have learned that it is a truly rewarding career and I would definitely consider it in the future. I can now admit it was definitely the fear of failure that put me off the idea of entrepreneurship before this conference. Here is an interesting article i came across while researching the topic of failure and the fear associated with it : http://www.pmcgregor.com/why-you-shouldnt-fear-failure/ The most important message i took from this article is that “fear is damaging”. I really feel that this mirrors the advice of many of the speakers. The main message I took away from the conference was not to fear failure and pursue your ideas no matter how much of a risk it is.

I found this video about overcoming the fear of failure to be extremely motivating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_8FmXQHa94

Overall, the Get Started 2016 conference was extremely empowering and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend and hear so many inspirational stories of start up businesses. I gained so much insight and knowledge into the entrepreneurial world. Every single speaker was captivating and inspiring.Most of all, I learned that to be a successful entrepreneur you must have courage and the ability to persevere.

First blog post

November 17, 2016Uncategorizedmakethingshappen2016 Leave a comment

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.