Category: Speaking

Had a great evening in Brighton delivering my Digital Shorts presentation on future trends, epiphenomenology and ‘magic’…The event was not without incident, but it was without projector and screen, meaning that I gave the presentation on a blackboard rustled up from the cafe downstairs.

Shows that ‘making do’ is the post-Web2.0 mantra 😉

Write-up on my blog.

I had a really great evening in Manchester last week, presenting the Digital Shorts evening.The evening was further notable since it was the first time I’ve had a live ‘twittering’ of a presentation (more details on my blog posting).

In the meantime here’s the slide deck, along with a reminder that I’ll be giving this presentation in Brighton on Wednesday 11 February.

On Thursday evening I spoke at the inaugural meeting of the eConsultancy ‘alumni’ network. This network is for people who’ve studied on the eConsultancy Masters programmes, or the Graduate Academy. I’ve been pleased to work with both of these groups and so it was a pleasure to see some familiar faces in the crowd (although it meant that I couldn’t reuse material!).Fortunately, I had some up-to-the-minute results on Christmas trading and trends, as well as the first outing of work I’m doing on data and epiphonomena. I’ll be giving these a further outing in the coming weeks in Manchester and Brighton.

In the meantime, slides from the evening are on my Slideshare account, or below:

ACSEL, now L’Association de l’économie Numérique, is France’s leading body representing eCommerce, multichannel and distance selling (Vente a Direct – VAD) working via digital channels (hence the name change to ‘numerique’).On Tuesday January 20th they held a conference on eCommerce and social media, with representatives from across Europe looking at the adoption and commercial aspects of SM.

It was a fascinating and very engaged session – some 380 turned up, against a registered level of 120! – and the good folk at Baker and McKenzie (in their wonderful venue) did well to cope – the presentations were filmed and streamed live to an overflow room.

You can see the presentations from Spain, Italy, Slovakia, France, Germany and a Scandinavian overview at the conference page.

My presentation is available on slideshare, embedded below:

Bazaarvoice’s Social Commerce Summit London

I was pleased to be asked to speak at Bazaarvoice’s Social Commerce Summit in London. A characterful, fun and engaging day, held at The Magic Circle’s premises near Euston.

The slides from the session are available on my SlideShare.

I was pleased to be invited to an ‘in conversation’ and Chairing session at The Walpole’s  Luxury eBusiness Forum, held at the RAC on 8 October.

The Walpole British Luxury

Some great speakers and an interesting and engaged delegate list. As ever, the real value was in the 1:1 conversations over coffee. The take-away for me is that in these difficult times there are opportunities for brands whose focus blends quality and service. At the higher price-points value is more important than price to the more affluent customer. Empty brand promises are exposed ruthlessly online so the opportunity for strong multichannel sales can be damaged by timid or inept online activity.

I was invited to speak at a breakfast briefing hosted by Clearwater Corporate Finance by Jackie Naghten on “What makes a successful online business”. The presentation was to a group of Clearwater’s clients and contacts in the private equity space – either investors, investment managers or entrepreneurs (pre- and post-funding). Given the short time and the knowledge of the audience I focused on what I see to be the fundamentals involved in appraising a business for investment or in running an online business with a ruthless focus on value and growth (or, in today’s challenging climate, value and surviving long enough to be able to realise that value!).The presentation covered:

• The retail context – continued growth in online, but no longer ‘free growth’ nor a ‘rising tide floating all boats’. We discussed changes in consumer buying patterns.
• “There’s no middle in eCommerce” – average, “OK” and ‘sufficient’ businesses have no place online
• Sustainable competitive positions: customer insight (if you know viscerally what your consumers want, you have a chance to survive where other companies would flounder); product (whether exclusive access or unique knowledge, presentation or pricing); and Operations (the best sausage machine). Unfortunately, there are now companies who excel in all areas, so the ‘no middle’ comment above is reinforced
• We considered the origin of ‘retail’ – slicing and dicing, retailoring and fitting to the customer, and draw from this an origin founded in service and closeness to the customer
• I emphasised that ecommerce lives as part of a multichannel world: even pure-play businesses have contact centres, logistics, sometimes print and increasingly consider shops…
• Service is fundamental to customer retention and profitability. We considered at a high level service issues from contact centres through delivery and returns and how failure in these areas is costly – and unnecessary.

It was a great session and my thanks again to Jackie and Clearwater for the invitation.

I was invited by the IAB to chair their ATE session on “Affiliate Marketing: Loyalty and Cashback” on Wednesday 24th.I know from my recent speaking on Affiliates that the changing landscape as a result of the rise of cashback sites has created some controversy and concern, and equally from a retail perspective there’re questions as to the relative tactical versus strategic aspects of cashback. There’s no denying the responsive, even pavlovian, effects on sales that cashback promotion can achieve – but the question is about brand value, who has the relationship with the customer and whether there’s “loyalty” to anything or anyone other than getting cash back and therefore habitually cheaper prices.

To put perspectives we had:

• Richard Yendall, Chairman, The Loyalty Association (speaking as a cashback affiliate, as well as for that association)
• Helen Southgate, Head of Affiliates, DGM (looking from an agency/network perspective at issues and considerations)
• Peter Wakim, Head of Business Development, Quidco (speaking for one of the most well-known and powerful of the cashback sites)
• Matt Bailey, Head of Affiliates, iLevel (asking questions from a merchant’s perspective, but also sharing research showing that cashback vs ‘normal’ affiliates’ performances are not as generally accepted).

Beer afterwards ensured that the questions continued well after the close of formal proceedings.

The IAB’s venue is a handy, well-appointed and nicely-sized one for these 50-person events and I hope that they’ll be doing more of them in future.

Details of the event, along with speaker presentations, are on the event page, while you can see their events programme here.

I was pleased to accept an invitation from Dr Julia Gaimster to address the Faculty at the London College of Fashion on the topic of the impact of ecommerce and recent internet developments in customers’ approaches to buying fashion. In an hour’s session on 19 September 2008 we covered competitive positioning in a digital age, rich media and aspects of customer behaviour.On an enrolment day, with the newer of the LCF’s 5000 students thronging the hallways and staircases, it was a visible and pertinent reminder of the ever-changing trends and faces in fashion and the need for the business, production, teaching, logistical and technological aspects of such an important industry to keep up with behaviour – as well as setting future trends.

It was a lively and fun session and I’m looking forward to future sessions with the wider team at LCF.

Promoting good practice in the management and support of aid personnel

People In Aid is an international network of development and humanitarian assistance agencies. People In Aid helps organisations whose goal is the relief of poverty and suffering to enhance the impact they make through better people management and support

Ian Jindal: People in Aid – Board presentation – 8 July, 2008

view presentation (tags: speaking board people in aid pia)