This year’s Talking Tech for Team Chambers was a much-needed and long-awaited flagship event! As our first face-to-face event since 2020, the pre-planning was centred on a cautious and considered approach working alongside government guidelines, but key for us was an event that visitors would feel welcomed and comfortable.

Over the past eighteen months the Norfolk business community have had to embark on, and experience many different tech journeys and this year’s theme for Talking Tech focussed on future-proofing and growing businesses.

With over 90 delegates attending, and nine speakers covering sales and growth, HR, innovation and change and customer experience - our interactive panel co.nversations got to the heart of how tech could impact and improve their businesses.  

Our Co-Hosts for the event were Nathan Lomax, Co-Founder of Quickfire Digital and Tim Robinson, Chief Operating Officer at Tech East

Ben Taylor, Chief Technical Officer at Rainbird Technologies, was our first guest speaker talking on Sales and Growth. Ben’s talk focussed on Analysis vs Automation – the data science is there, so use it, but always be explainable.

To launch our first interactive panel discussion we had C-J Green, Founder of Brave Goose. C-J was the first of three speakers talking about business-led innovation and change, and posed the question, ‘what’s the real need, the real purpose?’ Start with who needs it, and don’t make decisions in a vacuum – find your hidden influencers and use them to embrace tech, and most importantly, train them.

Second on our panel was Matthew Martin, Founder of Immersive Studios. Matthew said, ‘Don’t be afraid of tech, and crucially, take your time, you don’t have to make quick decisions, but when you do decide, don’t procrastinate because you’ll need to take action. ‘Look at other businesses, other sectors – what are they doing?’ 

Kurt Frary, Deputy Director of Information Management and Technology at Norfolk County Council was our third panellist. Kurt talked of the importance of the way a team adopts tech. ‘How do your people react to your tech? Your staff will be happy if the tech is working for them – rubbish tech makes life rubbish’.

‘Find your advocates for change within your business, find them and set them free’.

Following the break, Mark Donaldson, of Roveel took to the stage and spoke on the importance of insights, and how by incorporating more data into your business you will make better decisions. The use of analytics must take a fundamental role, valuable data is all around you. 

During the break The Space was full of buzz and chatter as the morning topics were discussed, and smiles all round as people finally got to enjoy a face-to-face event.

Our next speaker Hannah Keyes, Head of Client Services at Footprint Digital had the audience on their feet as a lively, loud and interactive session followed! Hannah showed a series of examples of the most effective website design and digital marketing. With guests on a timed, well-known countdown to make their decisions, she artfully explained how innovations in tech help increase sales, growth and reach. ‘Measure it, test it’ – with an agenda of aesthetic vs engagement it was an insightful and interesting session.

Our next two speakers Judy Randon, Customer Experience Specialist at insight and Phil Budd, Business Growth Specialist formed our interactive customer experience and sustainable business growth panel. Key points from the discussion were ‘Customer experience is a science, and yes, bring tech - but don’t lose sight of the fundamentals. It’s about real people, and in training the right people you empower them to use the tech. All feedback is data, you have to personalise any experience your customer has, and don’t wait for problems – if you use chatbots, you must treat your customers like human beings.  

Our final and Keynote Speaker Alistair Murphy, Engineer with Group Lotus brought with him the most photographed guest on stage – the Team GB bike.

Alistair spoke of the seventy years Lotus has been transforming design and tech from within Lotus’ Norfolk headquarters at Hethel, and their presence within the UK. He shared the incredible co.llaborations, their strategic direction and the advances they are achieving with revolutionising their product range, transforming their business and how they are delivering results every year with Vision 80. From the Emira launch to the Olympic Gold winning Team GB bike – sharing the success that tech has brought to Norfolk it was a fitting close to our long awaited Talking Tech event.   

We would like to give a big thank you to our sponsor, Breakwater IT, without their support events like Talking Tech would not be possible. Also, a big thank you goes to our exhibitors; BraveGoose,101 Website Apps & Email Marketing, Norfolk County Council, Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor, Clark St James and Eastern Voice & Data.

Thanks to everyone who attended too, we look forward to 2022 Talking Tech!