Online Influence Conference

Andrew presented a keynote at the Online Influence conference in Wales on 7th May 2015. You can watch a replay of his talk above.

More details on the OI website, and you can read an interview with Andrew about his presentation and a view of the future here, as well as the BBC coverage of the event here.

The Online Influence Conference (Oi15) saw Google, Twitter, IBM, Adobe, Hootsuite and many more of the world’s biggest social tech companies return to Cardiff next May. If you’re interested in hearing directly from these giants of the social web, and want to learn how to maximise your digital, social and mobile marketing efforts you should definitely come along!

Below is an interview conducted in January 2014 with the Oi team.

1. So Andrew 2014 has been and gone what were the highlights for you? 2014 was my first year at IBM, after being the CEO of influence platform Kred, and running startups for 12 years so it was a real year of transition.  It was an amazing year as we won some truly groundbreaking  work with clients around the world, and recruited top talent such as Ben Kay (former head of social and digital strategy at EE) and Christophe Langlois from well respected blog VisibleBanking.com into the team. It was also the year for many, many chief executives to hear IBM’s point of view on social business, taking them beyond just social media and stretching their thinking.
2. What Social tech and digital trends do you anticipate coming to the fore this year? Social collaboration – that is organisations using social collaboration tools to communicate within an organisation will become more prevalent in 2015. The issue has been however that companies are stuck in the IT department with collaboration and are looking for a way to expand throughout the entire organisation.  This will only work with a culture change, and I am seeing clients request this from me on a daily basis.
3. What can we expect from IBM Social Business in 2015?Some amazing work from an amazing team! We’re developing a global capability with an “A team” of social business talent. We’re also winning work and talent against traditional agencies, so watch this space!
4.  What is the best part of your job? Seeing the smile on the faces of my clients when I explain how social business can rapidly enhance and grow their business, and making that phone call a candidates saying that I’d like then to join the team and become an IBMer.
5. Social technology has made Marketers jobs harder – discuss…Marketers have made the job of using social harder for themselves by keeping the function in the marketing team. I tell social teams that they won’t exist in a year unless they help get social out of the marketing team and embedded it across the whole of the company.  In the age of social data, the marketer’s job should be enhanced by technology. For example, IBM’s Watson technology can be used to analyse social data and identify new market segments.  The recent Twitter & IBM partnership means that business decisions will never be the same again, and this brings a wealth of new insights to marketers that they should embrace, not see as making the job harder.
6.  Could you give us a synopsis of your Oi15 keynote?Sure. No-one would argue that “social media” is starting to mature as a term used in everyday life. On a daily basis, the words Faebook, Whatsapp and Twitter are being used by people in the street. But what is next for social? How do we get social out of the marketing department and embedded into every part of the organisation? Companies are at risk of simply establishing “social switchboards”, taking us back to the 80s if they stay on the current trajectory.  We need to explain the benefits of plugging social into all parts of the organisation, from finance to HR, from product development to logistics.  Globally recognised social business thought leader Andrew Grill will explain in an entertaining and thought provoking way how companies can move from social media to social business.
7. Favourite film?
   Ronin. Great spy thriller with amazing car-chase scenes and cinematography that should have won an Oscar