No matter what the future holds, certainly in terms of technological advancement and the amazing speed that new and often wondrous innovations are introduced, remaining at the very core of business is ‘relationships’.
‘Business is all about relationships’.
That was one of the key sentences to emerge from the hugely popular ‘ConnectedBiz’ event organised by Enterprising Barnsley and held at The Civic on Wednesday.
It certainly had Lifetime trio Bill Bottomley (Communications Director), Andrew Lodge (Social Media Manager) and Victoria Oliver (Communications Manager) nodding their heads in approval.
It was uttered by one of the celebrated speakers, social media expert Linda Cheung, the co-founder of Cube Social, who talked about the networking possibilities of LinkedIn.
It was then re-affirmed by the charismatic, Barnsley-born Simon Biltcliffe, Managing Director of £37 million global print buying business Webmart, who arguably stole the show with a superb, inspirational presentation and talk (pictures below).
Simon, from Staincross, is also a committed speaker of Lifetime’s ‘Barnsley Businesses Inspiring Students’ project – and he certainly impressed the 150-200 local business people who converged on The Civic for the third Connected Business conference.
Says Simon: “Every day, I strive to make Webmart the world’s best print services agency. I am an odd, restless, impatient, malcontent soul in work – there are always better ways to do things! Self-discipline is the
“Knowing what they are is the easy bit; getting them done is less easy, but we improve every day, which makes us happy. That and people development. These are the be all and end all of any business. People development and the relationships we make. And technology makes the experience people have extensible and scalable.”
The aim of the conference was to help Barnsley businesses take advantage of digital and online opportunites – and it certainly stimulated plenty of interest!
Other top class speakers included the BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones (pictured below). He delivered the keynote speech – and began it wearing the latest Google glasses and a new smartphone!
He chatted about some of the latest online trends and digital innovations that he has reported on for the BBC – and reflected back over the years on the many changes in the technological and digital age.
Creative technologist Adrian McEwen explore how the Internet is increasingly escaping from behind screens and into the world. He looked at developments in the ‘Internet of Things’ and how all these new devices connect to each other to help individuals and businesses.
Acting as host was Greg Williams, the executive editor of Wired, who afterwards also delivered an excellent masterclass, ‘The Future of Storytelling’, which Lifetimers Bill and Andrew both attended.
Greg talked about the new ways that companies could ‘get their story out into the big, wide world’ and attract new clients and new business opportunites.
Linda Cheung and Mark Asquith of Barnsley-based DMSQD also held masterclasses on different subjects.
Once again thanks was issued to Enterprising Barnsley for organising the day, particularly Tracey Johnson, who was once again instrumental in pulling all the many different components together to ensure a very enjoyable, illuminating and informative event.
Roll on Connected Business 2015!