Date: Tue 21st September, 2010
Venue: The Lowry Centre, Salford, M50 3AZ
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There was a real buzz in the room at this year’s Business of Media Summit. In a top-floor room at the Lowry, overlooking Peel’s Media City development, 100 of the region’s creative entrepreneurs and professionals gathered to share a morning of presentations, debate and, of course, Twitter. At its height, Insider’s #insidermedia tag attracted more than 140 messages from around the room, and right across the region as followers engaged with a charged and important debate.
The day started with Ed Shedd, global head of media at Deloitte, giving a whistle stop tour of media trends across the globe and in the UK. What was interesting, and not widely reported, is that traditional forms of media such as newspapers and television still dominate people’s consumption habits, even in a world were digital gizmos crave our attention on a daily basis.
Ian Merricks from investment group White Horse Capital, who specialises in the technology, media and telecoms sector gave the audience a lesson in business funding, picking out some important factors to consider when trying to raise money. “Investors are increasingly looking at backing tangible assets such as intellectual property and its protection,” he said. “There is also a move towards recurring or contractual income seen through subscriptions or software as a service models.”
Cindy Simmons was next, who is the new head of the Manchester Publicity Association, or MPA as it is now known. The organisation, which recently held its re-launch event is aiming to be representative of the city’s communications industry. She said that more needed to be done for the large base of small agencies in the sector – such as advice on financing and moving to the next level. There was also the point that many of our skilled young talent is drawn down to London, something that is a constant source of debate in this magazine.
In a one-to-one interview with Insider’s Michael Taylor entrepreneur and investor Philip Coen said creative business leaders and funders needed to understand each other for the sector to flourish. "What we see today are increasing levels of creativity in the region," he said. "There are good propositions on offer but the difficulty lies in translating those for the financial community."
Coen, who is chief operating officer of music industry conference In the City, cited the early days of Google, which took time to develop from an idea to a fully working model. “You have to a take a leap of faith sometimes,” he said. “It is possible the financial community doesn’t understand the breadth of the opportunity.”
The central session of the day comprised four businesses pitching their vision to a group of expert panellists including Catherine Houghton from LDC; David Edmundson-Bird from Manchester Metropolitan University, Ian Merricks from White Horse Capital and Deloitte’s Paul Lupton.
Simon Sinclair, creative director at Waggledance, outlined his plans for this fledgling advertising agency; Al Mackin, managing director at theEword, told the audience why sharing knowledge was the future of his search engine optimisation business; Tracey Bell, managing director at Scream Management said her dream was to open a full-time performing arts school in Manchester; and Tony Foggett, chief executive at Code Computerlove, said his business was sitting in a perfect storm.
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