Digi Cluster - Mark McDermott on Reimagining Internal Communications

Digi-Cluster is the digital meet-up for agency owners across Watford and Hertfordshire, enabling the networking of like-minded people with industry experts. This week’s event began in the business lounge at West Herts College, where flowing drinks and great conversation immediately sparked connections. There was an excitable presence too, in anticipation of the evening’s primary event: fantastic guest speaker Mark McDermott, CEO of ScreenCloud. Let’s talk some more about how the night unfolded…

Introductions

At the beginning of the event, Bolland & Co’s CEO, Josh Bolland, welcomed the room and gave a bit of background about how Digi-Cluster came into existence. He introduced our brilliant sponsors, Nimbus Hosting, and then kicked off the 90 second pitches.

90 Second Pitches

First up was Jess Gregson, Subsector.
Jess spoke primarily about the N2D Method. It’s a prioritisation tool that you can use with your clients. It gives agencies and consultants increased confidence and structure for discovery and decision making with their clients. We found this really interesting and it was great to get such a fresh perspective on this unique business tool.

Next to take to the stage was Damon Segal, Emotio.
As Managing Director of Emotio Design Group, and Director of DNA Digital and IMRSIV, Damon helps businesses and clients get the most out of their online presence by delivering their digital vision through innovation, technology, content and education.

Last but by no means least was Andrew Merrifield, Max-e-Biz Ltd.
Andrew is a qualified Automotive Engineer, with extensive experience in marketing and dealer development, specifically aftersales and used cars, before moving into Digital Marketing in 2006. Andrew’s current focus is providing sales lead generation solutions (that actually work) for clients in multiple sectors- B2C & B2B.

Next Up…

Syd Nadim, CEO of Clock, began his introduction with a video of a letter being hand written using an AI-powered robot. This was a fantastic display for the audience who seemed to be really interested by such futuristic technology.

For a special issue of The Drum, dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI), personalised covers had been created for 1,000 of their readers using the robot. The Sharpie-scrawled covers featured the handwriting of computer scientist John McCarthy, who died in 2011. He is recognised for his seminal role in the development of intelligent machines, and is fondly remembered as ‘the father of AI’.

Syd brought an example of one of the special issues and passed it around for everyone to take a look. The detail was amazing and you could still smell the scent of a sharpie – absolutely incredible!

The Main Event

Preceded by all of our excellent speakers, Syd then went ahead and introduced our central speaker, Mark McDermott.

Mark is the CEO of digital signage SaaS platform ScreenCloud. Founded in 2015, the business now serves over 6000 customers, with a market spanning from retail to internal communications.

ScreenCloud was born out of Codegent, a digital agency and product studio Mark started with co-founders David and Luke in 2004. Over that time Codegent developed and exited several initiatives: Thin Martian (digital consultancy), Kizzu (educational apps for children), Tepilo (online estate agency) and Twilert (social media monitoring).

Prior to this involvement, Mark worked as Project Director for the London agency, Reading Room, and also did some PwC Consulting as a CRM IT consultant.

Mark discussed how internal communications can be re-imagined and transitioned from an agency to a product company. The response to Mark’s talk was excellent and the audience was almost as excitable as we were! Keep your eyes peeled for more information from Mark in the future…

Grubs up!

With pizza all round, guests had some time to network and have a couple more drinks. Spirits were high, and some folk even headed off to Bar Bodega to continue conversations. Another really brilliant event!

A few people and businesses to thank…

To all of the amazing 90 second pitches
To our wonderful speaker, Mark McDermott
To Rod Wynne Powell for taking lots of great photographs
And once again to our fabulous sponsors Nimbus Hosting
Thank you!

Next event details

Date: Thursday 25th July 2019
Time: 18:30 – 21:30
Location: West Herts College, Hempstead Road, Watford, WD17 3EZ
Link to tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digi-cluster-hertfordshire-a-meetup-for-digital-agency-owners-in-herts-july-2019-tickets-52481735283

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