Mark Howe was the final speaker of the day, and his presentation ‘Breaking the Zettabyte Barrier’ highlighted the potential of sharing information and data, finding it online and how this can benefit organisations and consumers.

Mark presented the ‘four B’s': Be Social; Be Mobile; Be Commercial; and Be Good with Data, which formed the structure for his talk.

He begain by explaining that a quarter of all social interaction now takes place online, that 20% of all tweets have a brand name in them and that nearly all organisations now engage online because virtually everything is now available on the internet. He then linked this to freedom of information and the Government’s specific policy on transparency, drawing attention to the fact that with the latest technology one can even check what a council is doing whilst simultaneously watching television.

Mark stressed how rapid the achievement of mobile telecommunication technology has been, and research findings which show that most mobile searches are based on local issues, demonstrating that importance of proximity. He explained that companies must now optimise their mobile internet technology because of the growing proportion of online activity conducted on mobiles. He expressed that it is crucial that businesses recognise this and keep pace consumer behaviour; something which is ever more important to consider from a commercial perspective due to the growing volume of transactions and of goods bought online.

Mark referred to a case study of how shifting patient behaviour in the health sector can reduce treatment costs. For example, people are increasingly looking online for health information but not necessarily finding information appropriate to their needs. He explained that by driving digital knowledge, in terms of directing people to the right websites, time and money can be saved by reducing potentially costly visits to GPs.

Another key tenant of using digital technology is ensuring not only that people access your site, but that they are also converted to the brand while they are there.

Finally, Mark outlined Google’s own commitment to transparency: ‘Google Dashboard’ is a privacy centre which shows users all the data Google holds about them and allows users to change it accordingly.

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