The atmosphere in the room at this year’s Digital City Festival was one of positivity for the future. Despite the tech industry recently experiencing high levels of redundancy and, like all sectors, having to navigate economic uncertainty and adapt to a post-covid world, the air was filled with excitement as innovation in the sector is rapidly evolving.
As a tech PR agency, we often attend industry events to ensure that we’re up to date with the latest advancements in the industry and we were lucky enough to have the Digital City Festival on our doorstep. Held right here in Manchester, which is fitting given our city’s rich history of innovation, we went along to hear from the experts and understand the latest challenges facing the sector.
We’ve summarised some of our key takeaways from the festival…
Emerging technologies
The tech landscape is constantly evolving, with new technology emerging all the time. Generative AI, Chat GTP and the metaverse seem to be the words on everyone’s lips at the moment, and there is fierce debate around how these technologies will embed within the industry, and beyond.
With innovation comes risk, but this should not be framed as a bad thing. As one of the panellists quite rightly pointed out, without taking risks in this industry you’d be about five years behind. It was interesting to hear the panel’s thoughts on what these new technologies mean beyond the confines of the tech arena. There is no doubt that there are further conversations to be had around the ethical considerations, but it was clear that everyone was in agreement that the convergence of these technologies and the organisations that manage them is key to their success. No tech business can take on everything themselves, so organisations must work together to progress. It’s also not just the tech departments in businesses that need to understand tech anymore – it impacts us all. We need to foster a culture and environment that is ready to adapt as these technologies become part of everyday life. Plus, it doesn’t matter how good these innovations are if our people and organisations aren’t set up to manage them…
The skills gap
The digital skills gap was also firmly on the agenda. We’ve heard a lot about the skills gap in recent months (and even wrote a blog about it here). It was clear from the conversation at the festival that new talent is definitely out there. Apprenticeships and tech bootcamps are bringing fresh young talent to the fore, but this talent needs access to mentorship and expertise if it is to flourish. The solutions discussed by the panel all provided food for thought for the room.
Whether this can be achieved by more government funding for businesses to be able to nurture those coming into entry-level roles, more support for women in the industry being able to return to, and remain in, their roles whilst balancing family commitments, or the big tech businesses investing more into creating mentorship roles, we’re sure that over the next few years this talent will thrive and evolve into the next generation of innovators.
Building a brand
We were pleased to find that a whole day of the event was dedicated to discussing a topic that we’re all too familiar with: the intersection of brand building, scaling, e-commerce and innovation in tech.
We know from our own experience that solid PR and marketing strategies are instrumental in the success of tech businesses. Topics up for discussion throughout the day included the importance of SEO and how digital PR can support this, making the most out of the content companies spend so much time and resource producing and the benefits of taking a multi-channel approach to advertising.
Whether organisations are wanting to make their brand stand out, drive sales or boost their engagement and customer retention, we understand that these needs can be met by having creative organic strategies in place. It’s great to see so much support for this within the sector and a genuine desire to deliver campaigns that make an impact.
Interested in hearing more? Get in touch via info@refresh.co.uk or check out our case studies here.