Technology: do we know what’s coming next?
I spent last Thursday at the “Next in Tech” Conference held in South West London.
Aimed specifically at business owners, the purpose of the conference was to help business owners understand more about the relationship between their business and the internet.
The conference also provided a glimpse into the future, to what we as business owners can expect from technology in the months and years ahead.
The reality is that technology is changing and advancing at an incredible rate.
The graphic below shows what happens on the internet in any given 60 second period.
So, every 60 seconds: there are over 854,000 Facebook log-ons; 4.1 million video views on You Tube; 156 million emails are sent – every 60 seconds! And of course, what we are seeing is an increase year-on-year:
But what’s more interesting, is what this means for us as business owners:
- For instance, it has been suggested that email is dead, but not according to these statistics – email is still thriving and indeed more emails are being sent this year than last year. As a result, one of the questions for us as business owners: do we have a strategic email marketing campaign? If not, we should.
- Or what about You Tube – last year there were 2.78 million video views on You Tube every 60 seconds. This year it’s 4.1 million. That begs the question, are we using video as part of our business activity to provide information, educate our clients and prospects, to market our services and get our message across? If not, why not?
- Facebook is getting more log-on’s than last year, Google’s getting more searches, more people are sending tweets.
Clearly as business owners, we can’t do everything but we need to be doing something. And putting up a website and hoping people find it is not the answer.
Our clients, customers, leads and prospects are all online; doing more Google searches, watching more content on You Tube, spending more time on Facebook.
As business owners we need to look at ways we can connect with them, and do it in ways that are more effective, relevant and helpful; providing them with the information they want.
For me, I’ve decided to start with video – I’m going to start recording a series of short videos to supplement my blog and to help get my message out there. I’ll let you know how I get on.
There was much else covered at the conference, not least GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which comes into effect in the UK from 25th May 2018. It will have implications for anyone who handles customer information and data – in other words every business in the UK.
It’s not complicated, but it will require some thought about how we handle data and what preparations we’ll need to make in readiness for next May. I’ll revisit GDPR in a future blog.
The other big innovation coming down the track is something called blockchain technology. Essentially, blockchain technology is about decentralisation and a global computer network that will operate on a user-to-user (or peer-to-peer) basis. It will have a huge impact on how we transact in business.
We listened to David Siegel who is one of the world’s authorities on blockchain technology and he explained some of the implications for the world of business.
If you want to know more, here’s a link to a video where David gives in to more of the detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYDrkAMD2k
Blockchain is going to impact banking, insurance, healthcare, logistics – in fact there is no industry which will not be impacted in some way.
So, the video is definitely worth a listen. Enjoy!
