We really enjoyed sharing AdWords tips at the Google Ads workshop at Milton Park on Wednesday 20th September.

A big thankyou to Vale4Business for organising the workshop and inviting us to present. It was great to see so many delegates keen to get the most out of the Google AdWords tool for their businesses.

Here’s the second instalment of my notes from the AI and Robotics conference earlier this month. It summarises the talks from two excellent speakers:

• Stephen Metcalfe, an MP heavily involved with the government’s activities relating to science and technology
• Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO of Creative Virtual, a company that’s created chatbots for clients including HSBC, Verizon, Autodesk, E*TRADE, Lloyds Banking Group, Tesco and National Rail Enquiries

Google is getting increasingly serious about website security. For a few years now they have been gradually making it more attractive for websites to have an ‘SSL certificate’, which makes the transfer of data between a website and a person’s browser more secure.

On Thursday 14th September I attended the AIR Events conference in London. You can download the programme PDF here.

It was fascinating: good mix of speakers, well curated, well chaired, and with decent food. I took loads of notes and am aiming to reproduce the more legible ones for you. Here are the first two, Chris Corrado Group COO and CIO at the London Stock Exchange, and Pete Trainor from BIMA (British Interactive Media Association):

Businesses continue to face many challenges and the news is full of stories relating to security issues. It’s not just recent terrorist attacks; cybercrime and counterfeiting remain high on the list of ongoing threats.

This article, by Intellectual Property expert Jackie Maguire from Firm Advantage explains how the knowledge-based economy requires businesses to protect a wider base of assets than those kept under a traditional lock and key.

Thank you to South Oxfordshire District Council for organising yesterday’s workshop  at Milton Park. I can’t praise the team there highly enough. They promoted the workshop for us, booked the room, dealt with printing… the works.

And it went well; plenty of positive feedback as I understand it, we’re still to see the feedback forms, from around 25 delegates.

We’ve been carrying out a number of Facebook advertising campaigns recently, which have led to several interesting discussions with clients. We’ve found that some queries come up time and again, so this post addresses some of the common questions.

The sales results from the all-important Christmas period are in, and they reveal a very interesting picture emerging on our high streets and online.  Despite the gloom predicted by the Brexit vote, shoppers did not seem to be tightening their belts with sales up 1% in December  compared to the previous year.

Small Business Saturday is a national campaign to support, promote and inspire small business at grass roots level.

Held at locations across the UK, it aims to put small businesses in the national spotlight with the message ‘Small Business, Big Difference’.

Like many marketers, I‘m always interested in new technology and what is going to be the next ‘big thing’. And it was with this in mind that I visited the Technology for Marketing event at the end of September 2016.

One of the presentations that I listened to was not only packed with delegates, but left a lasting impression on me. It was all about SMS marketing or more simply, text message marketing.