These are the kind of questions is that comes up a lot in our Business School when we are talking to students and companies. This article explores the idea of Native app vs Responsive websites. Do you really need your own app? Quite often, companies ask for an app, but actually, Read more…
There is no doubt that the explosion of online services, e-commerce, smartphones and super fast connections have opened up a world of opportunities for people and companies. With great power though, comes great responsibility. The threat of cyber-crime is rising at an alarming rate creating chaos for unprepared companies and major inconvenience for customers. This article explores some key things to look for to improve cyber safety and reducing the possibility of a cyber-attack on your business. (more…)
Today in our Postgraduate, Digital Innovation class at Salford Business School, we were investigating innovative ways to visualise data. The class are also formulating and pitching their own digital innovation ideas, which we hope they may be able to enter into one of our innovation competitions later in the year. Read more…
This article explores social media analysis tools using the wealth of social media data of people’s interactions online for both academic and market researchers. This post comes from my PhD research on Netnography and Salford City FC and forms part of a recent contribution to our new book Digital Marketing: A Read more…
This research focuses on a new era for Salford City Football Club (SCFC). In the 2014/15 season, when SCFC were in the 8th tier of English football, they were taken over by ex-Manchester United players the Class of 92. The new era heralds an unusual case of a non-league football team having such high profile owners with reported ambitions to turn SCFC into a ‘digital football club’ (Conn, 2014). (more…)
There is no doubt that the explosion of online services, e-commerce, smartphones and super fast connections have opened up a world of opportunities for people and companies. With great power though, comes great responsibility. The threat of cyber-crime is rising at an alarming rate creating chaos for unprepared companies and major inconvenience for customers. We explore a recent high profile example and some practical solutions for cyber safety and reducing the possibility of a cyber-attack on your business. (more…)
The digital fitness sector is growing. The market for apps is expected to grow 10 times from $2.4 billion in 2013 to £26 billion by 2017 and this is just the start. All the major manufacturers of hardware and software such as Intel and Apple and some of the major social media platforms like Facebook are furiously working away to get ahead in rise of the business of digital fitness or ‘mHealth’.
But why is this business so lucrative and what does the future hold? With the massive explosion of smartphones and apps, people are not only becoming more connected, but also, more conscious about their own health and well-being. This is coupled with the growth of people using social media to connect with each other locally and globally. (more…)
I’ve been reading a number of papers about football brands, digital and social capital recently. A great study I hadn’t previously seen is called Football Supporters and Football Team Brands: A study in consumer brand loyalty (Richardson and O’Dwyer, 2003). This focuses on Irish football fan support for English football clubs. It’s a topic that I’m particularly interested in and in particular the role that digital media plays in maintaining relationships with fans who may be local, or in this case, further afield. (more…)
I was recently interviewed by a journalist for an article in the Independent on “The Powerhouse of the North – Connecting students to business is just one of the ways management schools are improving the area’s prospects“. It’s a topic close to my heart, so I wanted to reflect more on this including:
Boarding the ferry at Kennacraig
It was partly the words of Jim Morrison, but mainly the Whisky Lounge that led us up to the Island of Islay in Scotland. We had taken our vans to a wet and windy Beacons Festival 2014 last year and it is there we had properly discovered the delights of Whisky. The Whisky Lounge was set up in order to educate the world about the “water of life” and the how best to drink it. They ran several events at Beacons Festival and had an amazing set up complete with Chesterfield chairs and settees and a whole lot of top quality whisky. We enjoyed it so much, we attended several of their talks over the course of the weekend. (more…)