New TMIG Event Announced #marketing #technology #cim #yam

I'm pleased to announce the next major gathering of the CIM Technology Marketing Interest Group has been confirmed for the 18th January 2012 in London.

 

Our inaugural event in January of this year was a huge success, attracting nearly 100 key people from the business of creating and marketing technology. You can watch highlights of the first event on the TMIG TV You Tube channel. This second event promises to offer further insights and inspiration.

 

The theme of our second event is how do tech marketers make sense of a non-linear world? Our main speaker is Alan Moore, author of 'No Straight Lines: making sense of our non-linear world'.

41tgj7kvhnl

Straight line marketing is out. Today's interactive networked world is about the massive flow of people, who are connecting, collaborating, organising and creating in a manner that has nothing much to do with a linear approach. But how do tech marketers achieve business and commercial success in this non-linear world? Alan will be revealing his 'no straight lines' perspective on innovation, communities and participatory culture to give your business the edge it needs.

 

In addition to Alan we will have a high quality panel of marketers working in the start up field, who are operating at the coal face of the 'no straight lines' scenario.

The first 30 tickets to the event are free, and you can find more information and booking instructions here.

Tagged CIM Marketing TMIG technology

Sorry desktop, after 20 years it's over!

I was reading this article in The Guardian by Charles Arthur that shows PC sales have peaked, with global PC shipments falling between 1.1% - 3% comparing Q1 2011 with Q1 2010. The decline in the US market is even more dramatic with falls of 6.1% - 10%. The only winners during the period have been Apple (+18.9) and Toshiba (+10.9%) compared to a fall of 24.9% for Acer who’s line of netbooks seems to have been particularly hit by the hype surrounding tablet form factors, and Dell down 12.1%. Six months ago I decided to go back to Apple after a 20-year break. I hadn’t used one since I was a product technician providing technical support for their initial range of PowerBook’s in the early 1990’s, like the PowerBook Duo. The catalyst for the switch was my nomadic working patterns. I travel a lot in my role, so the allure of the new MacBook Air was finally too much to resist. As well as the obvious beauty of the industrial design, the weight and size combination was the dealmaker for me. 
Media_httpwwwibegyour_ocbva
Initially I was running the Air and my desktop PC side by side. My PC was no slouch: 8Gb RAM, 3.6 Ghz Quad Core processor, 2Gb ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 graphic card, which cost me £2,000 about three years ago. It’s main role in life was a FPS gaming rig, and together we racked up over 500 hours on the virtual battlefields of the Call of Duty series. About 8 weeks ago the PC wouldn’t boot. After opening it up and checking all the obvious stuff, I took it into the local shop. Their diagnosis was the PSU had blown and taken out the motherboard. £450 repair bill. The guy on the phone was already warming up the all too familiar upgrade story. You know how this goes right? ”You know there are now much faster processors available now, and you know you we could get a better graphics card” – the list goes on… I just couldn’t face taking yet another jog on the PC upgrade treadmill. For the first time in 20 odd years of PC ownership, I didn’t automatically say “OK give me a call when its ready” I actually stopped and asked myself, do I really need to spend the money? I decided to see if I could survive without my big ass desktop. IDC refer to this as “good enough computing”  
Media_httpwwwibegyour_ixqih
I’m also now really driven by the desire to get more use out of my home cinema setup. Since I invested in a flat screen TV, home cinema AV amplifier and KEF speakers I’ve been really frustrated by the artificial divide between my “old” media – CD’s and Movies, and the new – my digital music, video’s and photo’s.     My home setup is now: So, here are my initial observations after switching from a dual laptop / desktop setup to flying solo with the laptop. Love:
  • Portability is a dream. Kind of obvious when using a laptop as your main machine, but still I hadn’t fully appreciated the flexibility of wandering around the house with my PRIMARY machine.  Previously my laptops have always been second-class citizens compared to the big old tower PC sitting in my home office. The MacBook is instant on. Outside the home it handles Wi-Fi connection and tear down amazingly well.
  • Airplay is awesome! I was an early adopter of Windows Media Centre, but Airplay / Apple TV is a million times better. I have now liberated my digital media from the confines of my old PC and can now enjoy the investment I made in a decent living room AV setup.
  • No more sync. This was the bane of my life, and now it has instantly disappeared. You never find yourself on the wrong machine with the wrong file.
  • No more environmental noise and heat. You would not believe how much heat and fan noise a top end gaming rig throws out, especially in a small room.
  • The sealed MacBook case suppresses the urge to tinker and upgrade!
  • Stuff now just works. It’s an easy jab, but the PC ecosystem needs constant configuration, tinkering and maintenance. Switching to Apple, it just works. Sure there are less customisation options, but I don’t have the time to mess about like I used to.
  • Similar to the point above, random crashes are a thing of the past. OS X is rock solid.
  • I’ve regained so much space, and probably extended the planets life for a few additional minutes due to the amount of cabling and power I now no longer need to run my desktop
  • Whilst I recognise I’m now locked into the Apple ecosystem, I have total mobile phone / computing synchronicity. Media syncs, and I can even use my iPhone to control my living room media experience through the Apple TV Remote App.
Hate:
  • My gaming has dropped to near zero. I just don’t have the horsepower to run top end FPS. We have a PS3 in the house but being a hardcore PC gamer for so long I’m struggling to retrain myself from a keyboard / mouse to a console controller.
  • My digital life is now at the mercy of Dropbox and my home server. After this week’s AWS outages should I be worried?
  • Don’t let the Mac fan boys fool you. I’ve come across a dozen or more situations where I could do far more with Windows and Windows software than I can with OS X and the preinstalled Apple software, even something like iPhoto sucks compared to basic Windows photo editing.
  • I know I’m getting increasingly locked into Apple ecosystem. I went PowerBook > 20 year gap. I’ve gone iPod > iPhone > iPhone 3GS > iPad > MacBook Air > Apple TV in less than three years.
Reflecting back over the past couple of months, the ditching of the desktop has been a positive experience. I’ve even managed to fill those lost gaming hours with other stuff. I guess my epiphany was similar to the switch from home landline phones to mobile phones. Why should your computing be tied to a physical location when it can follow you everywhere you go? As the research demonstrates, this trend is clearly a common one. Even though it took me 20 years to finally consign my desktop PC to history, a desktop was never even a conversation or consideration when my 11 year old needed a computer for school.
Tagged apple pc technology
Contributors
Connect...
My Projects
​