“Get Mobile” The second of four conferences that have to be attended took place in on the 11th of November in The Helix. I found the subject of this conference more interesting than the last as i found it more relatable being from a generation where we are becoming more and more reliant on our smartphones. I learned a lot about the importance of mobile marketing and applications which as a business student and as a consumer I found interesting. This conference made me consider just how fast technology is changing and how far we’ve come since the “blokia” of just 10 years ago.
Dr Theo Lynn, Digital Marketing Chairperson and lecturer here at Dublin City University opened the conference as he did the previous one, with an introduction into the world of mobile marketing. He surprised me with some startling statistics from the Irish Mobile Youth Report which made we wonder if the ever advancing mobile technology is a good thing after all!! He particularly grabbed my attention with the following statistics… Ownership of first mobile phones is getting younger with the average age dropping as low as 10 years old within the next two years!!! Another very informative statistic that i found particularly interesting as i found it to be true for me is that most of us have between 10-20 apps on our smartphone but 94% of us look at less than 10% of these. This made me think about the mobile app that i have to create for DICE and what i should do to make sure that the app will fall under the 10% margin of apps that people use instead of the 90% that are ignored!! (put in picture ect)
The next speaker of the day was Dr. Mark Hughes, Chief Technical Officer of Digifeye. This company has the ability to teach computers to recognize the characteristics of certain items such as clothes. Out of all the speakers I found Hughes to be the most exciting and impressive as this was the first time i was introduced to mobile devices being used in such a creative and productive way. He mentioned his app “Style-eyes” which specializes in mobile based image recognition. This app basically allows you to search for and buy items of clothing that you see on celebrities or even just ordinary people by finding the item or suggesting something similar. This side to mobile technology really excites me and i hope to learn more about this in the near future. After further research of this app i soon discover that “Style-eyes” has also impressively but unsurprisingly featured in many recognizable magazines such as Vogue and Forbes to name a few and is a worthy winner of numerous awards. Without a doubt Digifeye revolutionizes the personal shopper experience and are well on their way to achieved their aim to “convert browsers into buyers with a great UXP”. This type of technology made me consider the tremendous effect this has on retailers also and as this is a route I hope to take in the future I am excited to see what further developments will be made to this type of technology.
Dr. Cathal Gurrin, lecturer from the school of computing in Dublin City University was the next speaker to discuss mobile development and also life-logging -which is a very new concept for me also! Cathal spoke about how technology devices are getting less expensive every year and also shocked me by revealing that the iPhone 5 is 60000 times more powerful than the Apollo 11 machine that went to the moon…if that’s not a shocking fact then i don’t know what is… The then introduced us to “Wearables” which he believes will become the new mobile device category that will define this decade. He introduced Google Glass under this title, a device that i knew very little about before this conference but noticed how often it was mentioned through out the conference by the different speakers. Google Glass acts as a persons eyes and ears and creates a complete and accurate picture of an individuals life by taking pictures every 8 seconds and storing this information with the aim of having a detailed digital trace, thus creating a life-log. I personally question firstly the wear-ability of Google glass and secondly the necessity of it. Although I realize that this is a huge advancement in technology I don’t see the how the majority of people will actually benefit from it. Below I have left a a link to the Google Glass official website and you can find out more about what they do and decide for yourself if you think there beneficial and if you would wear them.
Eoin Cruise, Market Lead for Microsoft Ireland, was the next speaker to take to the stage to discuss “Getting Mobile” however in his own words this was more of a sales pitch than anything else but nonetheless I still found him very interesting and he did make some very valid points. He had previously worked with Nokia for 10 years before Microsoft’s acquisition of the company in 2011 had watched Nokia’s market share heavily decline since 2008/2009 until they only made up half a percentage of the market share this he believed was due to people wanting smartphones. The two companies have joined together and have made future plans to produce affordable smartphones with Microsoft features such as Windows and also Xbox. They plan on selling their smartphones at affordable rates of €50/€60 to establish the brand and build a loyal customer base before moving on to produce smartphones that will feature at the high-price end of the market. I think this is a very clever approach to establishing their brand and it will be interesting to see if it works out for them.
After a short break the fifth speaker Paul Davey who is the mobile leader for IBM in Ireland and currently leading the IBM/Apple collaboration took to the stage. He started by shocking the audience by showing us the first ever smartphone which IBM can take credit for. Looking at this image made me realize the extent of the transformation that smartphones have under taken. For those of you who don’t know IBM stands for International Business Machine and are responsible for the invention of ATM’S among many other machines. He showed us a video that introduced to us “Watson” technology, a potential game changer in the health care industry. “Watson” has the ability to examine medical journals, textbooks and online sources in just 17 seconds to help find suitable treatments for cancer!! This type of technology is extremely beneficial as it helps doctors eliminate unnecessary procedures and this saves the health industry millions of euro. I was quite frankly shocked that such technology exists and to show us just how clever this machine is I’m leaving a video below of this technology beating the best game show players in the US. Paul then told us about IBM and Apple joining together to solve problems and both bringing their own experience. Just 2 days before the conference they had announced their strategic relationship with Twitter. I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for these to companies and how there alliance will work out.
Alex Meisl was the last speaker of the day and had the hard task of trying to keep our attention for an hour and a half, which he did very well I have to say. Meisl is the Chairperson of companies Sponge and Wiforia. He co-founded Sponge in 2002, the UK’S longest established mobile agency which boasts clients such as Adidas, Coca Cola and McDonalds to name a few. He launched Wiforia earlier this year which focuses on in-store engagement through the use of WiFi. Alex started off with a few interesting but slightly worrying facts that shows peoples attitudes towards mobile phones nowadays- two thirds of adults would rather give up alcohol then their smart phone while more 5 year olds can work smartphones than tie their shoelaces. It was obvious for the outset how passionate he was about about the importance of companies having a good mobile strategy, sites and apps in place as this how to ensure good relationships promote a deeper engagement with consumers. Mobile advertising is expected it overtake newspaper advertising in the UK for the first time ever this year and if this is the case then I completely understand why mobile technologies is important for business. 4 in 10 shops will close in the next 5 years as consumers turn away from traditional stores in favor of online shopping. The business that will suffer are the ones that do not realize that the world is changing and don’t pay enough attention to digital advertising and sales. John Lewis’s department store is proof that money spent on consumer’s digital experience is money well spent! In the last 5 years John Lewis has increased their IT spend by 600% and as a result of this their sales have doubled to a whopping 16 billion! Overall I enjoyed this speaker the most and he managed to keep my attention throughout the whole hour and a half and I also found that I learned the most about the importance of digital marketing from him which I hope to put into practice during my future career in business.
I thoroughly enjoyed the “Get Mobile” conference and found all the information given highly beneficial. I learned a lot about this topic and the importance of mobile technology in the business world. The key message that I took away from this conference is that technology is moving at such a fast pace however it is necessary for businesses to keep up with it in order to remain competitive and successful.
dcudicestudentbs1 