Latest News

UK and Ireland conference is well received

Whilst I do not want to blow my own trumpet, this year’s UK and Ireland conference seemed to contain something for everyone. The presentations by new and existing members all helped to bring our firms closer together and improved the chances of business following between firms.

The keynote speech from Professor Heinz Wolff certainly got everyone thinking, not just about IT, but about the wider challenges of being in business. The feedback on most of the presentations was very favourable – the ‘disaster recovery’ presentation by Jeremy Highman had the highest overall score, of 4.3 out of 5, while talks by Dan Mitchell of Lifeline IT, Jo Edwards from JE Consulting, Nigel Redwood from e-know.net and Gary Turner of Xero all got an average rating of 4. We had two presentations which were not well-received, but it appeared this was due to the delivery rather than the content.

Beyond the formal conference sessions, there appeared to be a lot of networking between members, while the drinks reception and dinners seemed to ensure everybody went to bed in very good spirits – although from what I hear, some people were up so late, they may as well have gone straight to breakfast!

Looking forward to next year, I appreciate that there are things we can learn and aim to improve on. We were overwhelmed by our success in marketing, in that the space for sponsors and refreshments was very restricted – we were expecting about 60 delegates, and as anyone who attended will know, we had over 80 attending in the end. I’ve also had a lot of feedback about the intensity of Friday in particular – although this was caused by one presenter switching from Saturday to Friday at the last minute due to other commitments, I realise we need to space things out a bit better next year. However, the track structure seemed to work well and we’re looking to build on that in 2010.

From my point of view, it was great to see all of the UK and Ireland firms so well represented, and for the new members to be so openly welcomed by everybody. The attendance of so many international delegates gave a new dimension to the conference, which again is something I will be building on for the 2010 event. In addition to my thoughts, please read on for our new International Executive Director Thierry Delvaux’s views on the event.

Paul Winder