Always keen to expand our knowledge of all things digital, we headed down to The Convention Centre on Liverpool’s waterfront last week for the International Business Festival 2018. 

Now in it’s third year, the festival is made up of nine specialised days, jam-packed with conferences, guest speakers and hosted panels featuring local and international industry leaders.

We split ourselves between the Creative Industries hosted stages, the European Search Conference (which focused on all things digital marketing) and the Like Minds Create conference, where eight keynote speakers from the design industry shared their valuable insights.

Throughout the day, we discussed how startups with limited budgets but lots of imagination can disrupt the big players, the role of AI and the real meaning of SEO (Michelle Wilding, Head of SEO at The Telegraph says this is Search Experience Optimisation…)

 

After sharing the highlights of the day with the rest of team IGOO over a Happy Monday, we decided to pick 5 of our favourite take away points from the festival…

  1. In 2017, we searched ‘how’ more than anything else
  2. By 2020, 30% of all web browsing will be done without a screen as Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa grow at an unprecedented rate, says Dawn Anderson, Digital Marketing Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University
  3. Robyn Dooley from OH! and Catalyst predicted that mental health and personal wellbeing will become the most important factor for staff when choosing where to work. The panel discussed the benefits and disadvantages of large digital companies such as Google and Apple; providing onsite restaurants, recreation areas and big perks can create a positive environment but does it negatively skew the work/life balance that today’s workforce is craving?
  4. We were reminded of the importance of finding time to be creative; impending deadlines, pressure from projects and the process of delivering work can all make it challenging to keep creativity at the forefront on a daily basis
  5. Design is how something makes you feel – make sure you ‘see different, think different, do different,’ says Chris Moss, founder of Mav3rick