Blog

Westminster eForum held a seminar about education in IT on Wednesday 9 February and some of our development team managed to make it along. The event examined issues affecting the UK's IT industry. A major talking point was the UK's current IT shortages; of skills in the industry and of people pursuing IT as a career.

This week has also seen Social Media Week sparking off discussions across nine cities across the world. Hoop's social media team attended the 'Inspiring Entrepreneurs' event at the British Library's BIPC. The event focused on how businesses can harness the power of social media to reach new markets, rejuvenate marketing and enable deeper engagement with customers.

The panel featured BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and Mumsnet co-founder Justine Roberts, who were joined by Scottish entrepreneur Fraser Doherty (founder of Superjam) and Ian Hogarth from Songkick. All four shared stories of their successes (and failures) with social media and imparted some very useful advice for businesses looking to use social media tools. Business Zone published a live blog of the evening which you can read here.

Many busineeses stumble into the social sphere without really knowing how to make best use of the power of the network. If you're gingerly stepping out on the road to market, why not try Free Fridays and come in for a chat about social media?

Their words, not ours

The statement above is cut straight from the content of Digital Britain, the interim report from the DCMS on Britain’s digital future. It makes interesting reading and has implications for us all. To save you time, we’ve pulled out 10 top passages and published them below.

1. Ready

British consumers have a huge appetite for new digital services, with high levels of take-up of new networks and devices. This in turn creates a market environment which unlocks new commercial possibilities and encourages innovation in new content, services and applications.

2. Sitting ducks

These changes (in consumer habits) are challenging the economics of intermediaries of all kinds and more traditional types of content companies – publishers, the music industry, the newspaper industry and broadcasters – in particular.

3. New rules

When there is very widespread (contrarian) behaviour and social acceptability of such behaviour that is at odds with the rules, then the rules, the business models that the rules have underpinned and the behaviour itself may all need to change.

4. Reach

In the UK today over nine in ten households can get first generation broadband. Six in ten households have today already adopted it, a higher percentage than most other major economies.

5. Broadband everywhere

Several other countries are now moving to a universal service commitment for broadband. America, France, Australia and Finland have all announced plans for a universal guarantee.

6. Untapped potential

In the UK, an estimated 17 million people over the age of 15 are not using computers and the Internet. We need to build the awareness of the benefits of internet technology to enhance the life chances of all. Otherwise inequality in the use and application of digital technologies is potentially a significant new driver of social exclusion in the 21st century, which risks accelerating existing social divides and creating new ones.

7. User experience

We (the Govt) commit to ensure that public services online are designed for ease of use by the widest range of citizens, taking advantage of the widespread uptake of broadband to offer an improved customer experience and encourage the shift to online channels in delivery and service support.

8. Like, hello!

This country has the potential to become a leader. All the evidence is that effective deployment, understanding and use of digital technologies are crucial to every business’s competitiveness. For some it is transforming.

9. Bottom up

The simple message at the core of this interim report is that we cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century. Successful, emerging economies have already embraced this message. We must do likewise.

10. The Googlies

(We) need effectively to engage an entire generation growing up with the internet, multi-media formats and broadband. This starts with inspiring and innovative programmes and initiatives to engage a new generation of students and attract them into technology-inspired and creative careers.

Join the debate

Access the full report.

Cut the waste, don't just trim

Print less. Travel less. Buy less advertising. Buy better, buy smarter. Demand a return on your investment and live without for a while. Sack the agencies that aren't giving you up to the minute advice or are still selling proprietary systems.

Focus on customers

Internal or external, get to know what people want, need or can contribute to your business. Understand that open collaboration is the spirit of the age and a business strategy in itself.

Focus on content

You will hear it more and more over the coming year, so get ahead of the competition - produce better content. Content built around user interests, and sites built around content are the ones that will survive and thrive.

Sort out the user experience

Unless you are the only business in your field you are in competition. User experience is binary so if you don't give your site visitors what they want they will go elsewhere. And they won't come back. Take this opportunity to fix the things that annoy you and your customers.

Measure everything

Take control of your ROI. Spend money and effort where you get the best return. Stop doing things that send budget and resources down a black hole. If it's not working, change it.

Take advice

Unless your job is to keep on top of the changing media, communications and business landscape, chances are you won't have time to fit this in. This is a full time job. In fact it's many full time jobs. Hire the right people to advise you on User Insight, Online Marketing, User Experience Design, User Experience Branding, Web Development, Online PR and Social Media Strategy.

Being involved in education since Hoop began in the mid 90s, we’ve witnessed many changes in how it’s funded, organised, delivered, marketed and valued. But the changes of the last 10 years are chicken feed compared to those that lay ahead.

As it is in so many areas of our lives, so too is it in education - the web changes all the rules. The teaching and learning opportunities offered by connecting people and content across networks that ignore boundaries are literally endless. And new achievements are being reached every week - think Genome or Wiki and you’re in the right zone.

In an intriguing piece entitled Re-imagining Higher Education, Andy Polaine questions the role of buildings and architecture in education and asks whether we need them for teaching and learning when we can collaborate online?

Those of you who have, or know, children between about 7 and 17 will have witnessed their effortless and simultaneous communications: on myspace, msn, on their mobile. These future doctors, lawyers, footballers and traffic wardens truly are natives in a place where many of us are mere tourists. And so natural is it for them to be sharing, learning, entertaining and creating in this multi-channel way, that from now on, they will demand that this is facilitated - in school, at university and within a year or two, the workplace.

To add value for clients Hoop look for great ideas at the margins of thinking in this area. Some of the ideas explored there will be common place in a few years.

So if you are in the sector or you have kids, hold on to your hats, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!

And if you’re an employer in an organisation that has more than 25 people, get with now, or watch all the talent go work for someone else.

This theme is taken much further by some great people writing inspirational blogs. Recommended reading includes Euan Semple’s blog and Charles Leadbeater, whose brilliant insights on digital culture are not just informative and engaging, they are visionary and highly influential - www.charlesleadbeater.net