Prepress

Atex celebrates a successful TalkingPoint 2012

Tuesday 03. July 2012 - Following the huge success of the Atex Global Symposium last year, customers, partners, industry experts and employees, came together last week for Atex TalkingPoint 2012.

Held at Beaumont House, on the historic Beaumont Estate in Windsor from 25th to 27th June, the event was designed for those who are striving to shine and shape the future of media in 2012 and beyond.
Over 200 delegates from 100 companies across the globe enjoyed a two-day intensive technical and educational programme, and walked away with exciting new concepts for future business innovation.
Following a welcome reception and networking drinks on Monday evening, the event kicked-off with a session on Digital First, presented by Atex’s Peter Marsh, in which he examined the impact of a digital first strategy on media industry business models, the transformation of news and advertising products, and results to date.
Paul Lewis, Reporter of the Year and Special Projects Editor for the Guardian, then took to the stage to reveal how a digital-first open strategy is transforming the organisation’s news gathering strategy. Lewis, who gained 35,000 extra Twitter followers during the London riots last year, showed how journalists can harness modern technologies and new funding models for ‘collaborative reporting’. “So many world events are now live reported through Twitter, leaving behind a digital footprint. Twitter users provided a live news feed during the London riots – these users are actually doing journalism”.
Formula One expert Mark Gallagher was later welcomed on stage, a business and motivational speaker who gave a fascinating insight into topics ranging from teamwork to sport. Mark drew on the business lessons to be learned from Formula One on creating high performance teams and remaining competitive through investing in technology. “Being brave and working the pedals is no longer enough”, he said. “Drivers now have to grasp multi-platform, multimedia interfaces. Just as 25 years ago, newspapers could simply post copy to print, and now they must handle multimedia content across multiple platforms”.
Leading industry analysts Gartner and Forrester opened on Wednesday with a lively debate around content. Stephen Powers, Vice President, Research Director at Forrester, commented, “To me, content is still King, but people need to think about how it’s managed.” Mick MacComascaigh, Research Vice President at Gartner, argued that content is not enough. “The customer is King. It’s important to determine the right content experience for each persona. Media companies should take a cross-channel rather than multi-channel approach”.
Delegates were also offered the chance to consult with Atex’s technical experts in the ‘Clinic Corner’, and with a series of detailed product workshop sessions focusing on Advertising, Web CMS, Audience, Content and Tablet Publishing, there was plenty to satisfy every digital appetite!