Event review: Horizon Scanning 2013

SLA Europe DigiComms

Anneli Carter, an SLA member and information and research specialist, kindly provides her thoughts on the SLA Europe Breakfast in December 2012.

After an association of many years the annual SLA Europe Breakfast and The Online Information Conference went their separate ways, presumably the date and venue change of the conference and exhibition prompted the revision of the status quo. I for one had never been tempted to make the early morning journey to West London in years gone by and as Online has become less relevant for many of us in the information community, I welcomed the fresh location.

The morning got away to a relaxed start at the new host Financial Times’ building on the south bank of the river. Breakfast goods a plenty and caffeine delivered in the form of multiple cups of tea and coffee helped the networking along. We had time to catch up with friends and colleagues before the formal part of the morning began. Thanks go to 7Side for generously sponsoring the food and beverages.

The speakers lined up for the panel were obviously chosen carefully, they each provided a unique perspective covering macro economic, political and information specific predictions for 2013 and beyond.

Robin Bew is Chief Economist and Editorial Director at the EIU the Economist’s data and analysis arm that the gathered crowd are more than familiar with, a highly respected individual and quite a coup for the SLA Breakfast! Robin concentrated on his thoughts about the Global economy and how it would fare in 2013, he promised not to bore us with numbers and graphs and indeed he did not. His talk was entertaining and peppered with humour. His message for the European economy was not so cheering though, his opinion is that Europe and the Euro will continue to struggle this year and recovery is still a long way ahead of us. The US he said will fare better in comparison to Europe but nothing to get too excited about. India and China will continue to grow but not at such an advanced pace as we have seen. He thought the big stories may come from smaller emerging economies that can now grow after periods of political instability such as Libya. Mongolia is to expect a massive economic boom due to new mining activities.

Ferdinando Giugliano editorial leader writer at our hosts the FT was next up. Ferdinando is also an economist by background. He explained to us that the FT do not in fact make their own economic forecast models but as journalists their job is to comment and make sense of how political policies might influence the economy. Ferdinando was a little more upbeat about the prospects for the UK and the whole of Europe, explaining that things can change quickly and confidence can be restored through the expected cooperation of the EU not to let the Euro fail.

Iain Simpson was billed as an “Information Futurist”, his career so far has spanned a number of industries and roles including project management, digital marketing and communications. He is currently intranet consultant to Norton Rose. He spoke to us of changes companies will have to make around internal information sharing and communication. He explained that millennials (an alternate term for Generation Y that I have to admit has passed me by – I’m guessing millennial was coined as these individuals will not have entered the world of work until the new millennium) their use of social media outside the workplace will increasingly require the workplace to catch up with them.

The morning was interesting, varied and very enjoyable. As with all SLA events, networking time is always generously scheduled, when you are between contracts as I am this opportunity can prove very valuable and helps those in my position keep in touch with the world of information professionals. I would encourage the SLA committee to maybe organise such breakfast events on a more regular basis, not least because I noticed a different make up in the attendees; it was my observation that there may have been some more senior business heads who for whatever reason are unable to regularly attend evening events. This would add value to the knowledge sharing and networking opportunities of business focused seminars and panels.

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