Anyone who works in events will understand why me (Kerry) and Chloe are very tired this morning! However, I must say we are rather pleased with ourselves…

Over 2 months of planning, 6 weeks of promoting and 1 day of printing, producing and organising led to one good Tech Talks!

(For those who haven’t been, Tech Talks is a technology themed event for small business to learn, network, and be inspired).

The first of our speakers was Jo Reid of Calvium who spoke to us about mobile phone apps. Jo gave us some great ideas about how we could go about having a mobile app for our business and of course, why.

Some tweets throughout Jo’s talks:

#techtalksbristol over 50% of uk now have smartphones! (@arthursoft)

Jo Reid @appfurnace talking about app games company RedWasp & their new gameow.ly/1HmVRA #TechTalksBristol (@DickieArmour)

#techtalksbristol excellent parallel between the liberating effect of the early PCs & now with smartphone apps. (@kevleighton)

#techtalksbristol Great to know Bristol is such a creative and technology hub!!! (@IanThorneBrown)

Up next was Fred George who came across from London to deliver his talk: Developer Anarchy.  He spoke about the organisation Forward, and their approach to management systems; which is, they have none. This one sparked a lot of intrigue!

Some tweets throughout Fred’s talks:

#techtalksbristol I am glad there is a development methodology that describes the way I work. Anarchy. (@JeremyBassett)

@fgeorge52 talking about ‘programmer anarchy’ at#TechTalksBristol – looks and sounds crazy! (@mattrowntree)

Programmer anarchy! Awesomeness!#techtalksbristol (@CVC_Wizard)

Loving Fred George’s passion for his developer anarchy!! #techtalksbristol (@DickieArmour)

Our final speaker, Geoff Roberts, gave an information-packed talk about the vast opportunities in data.

Some tweets throughout Geoff’s talks:

The greatest barrier to success is fear of failure! Like it! #techtalksbristol (@KevLeighton)

Geoff Roberts recommending NetBase for social search ow.ly/i/u5i3 #TechTalksBristol (@DickieArmour)

How to maximize revenue using the RFM model at#TechTalksBristol (@Mattrowntree)

And the tweets continued!

Sadly the venue needed us to vacate at 6 so networking was cut slightly short. Some ventured to the pub afterwards though, Chloe and I included (can we get away with claiming that as expenses…?).

If you wish to get involved in the next Tech Talks on the 25th April you can book your place now, the line-up is a little special…

Thanks to all that came to Tech Talks #2 we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did… And our under-eye bags are not in vain

The beginning

We’ve been an IT company since 2004, we embraced the Cloud in 2007  and we’ve been actively promoting the Cloud since March of 2011. Back in March we ran a quick Twitter poll, which found that 36% of respondents had not heard of Cloud Computing and upon speaking with some of the respondents, we understand that the majority of those who had heard of it, didn’t understand what it actually was.

In the middle

Cloud Computing has exploded into the news, and the workplace throughout 2011. We’ve heard good news about the number of businesses adopting and benefiting; exciting news when big companies like Amazon & Apple created their own Cloud and of course the bad news, such as Amazon’s EC2 going down in April.

We like to think that we’ve done our bit locally: we’ve had 3 events, posted over 30 blog articles and this year we’ve grown our team to support the education on the Cloud in Bristol.

Today

A Twitter poll this morning revealed that 91% of respondents had heard of the Cloud, and although only 27% were using it, a massive 75% said they would be considering it for 2012. Quite a difference in under a year!

The future

It has been said that 2011 has been the year of the Cloud. In our opinion 2011 has been the year of discovering the Cloud; sussing it out; testing the water. 2012 will be the year of adoption of the Cloud.

What does the future hold for the IT in your business?

According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter is currently having low level talks with Facebook and Google over the past month about both giants to acquire the micro-blogging giant Twitter.

The source which revealed to The Wall Street Journal said Twitter’s revenue of $45million last year, and valued Twitter between $8 and $10-billion, but added that the talks have “gone nowhere”.

The WSJ pointed out that a $10billion evaluation for Twitter is 200-times more than its last year’s revenue. Not only that but it is 100-times more than its estimated revenue of $100million-$110million for this year.

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According to eMarketer, a market research firm, Twitter is forecast to triple its ad revenue as companies use their platform for marketing. eMarketer claim that the ad revenue on Twitter could rise from $45million in 2010 to $150million for 2011.

The marketing firm claims that the social media company will make $140million from US advertising alone.

Twitter initially introduced an advertising programme back in April 2010; the advertising revenue is predicted to hit $250million by 2012.

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