The Digicom Ottawa conference held on March 21 have Algonquin students the chance to hear from successful entrepreneurs.
For some, like Yousuf Mohamed, a student, it was potentially life changing.
“I found yesterday’s event energizing,” said Mohamed. “It was nice to be around like -minded people.”
Mohamed is working on an app for food services, making the conference useful for achieving his goal of getting his application implemented at the school.
Mohamed said he discovered the importance of marketing his app, and integrating the marketing directly into the application he develops through the conference.
Erin Blaskie, a speaker, shared this marketing technique with the crowd.
“You are most likely marketing your business or product wrong,” said Blaskie. “It’s important to make your changes publically, don’t be afraid to be wrong, and don’t forget to adapt your business as you are relayed this feedback through social media and other mediums.”
Blaskie used the popular video game Destiny as an example; the marketing for the game began 5 years before it was released. The producers were able to adapt to a changing marketplace and Destiny had the best first day of any release in the history of video games.
The expert advice was something that attracted many students.
“I wanted to come to Digicom because the people who organized it graduated from the program I am in,” said Zander MacDonald, a student in the mobile and social media management program.
“Since grads from my program organized it, I knew all the topics covered would be useful in my field.”
Lina Bonapace, Macadamian’s Director of user experience Research brought one of the relevant topics up.
“Design is a product of collaboration,” said Bonapace. “It will win your customers over, so the collaboration is paramount.”
Organized by Grassroots Multimedia, a company founded by three Algonquin graduates, Ottawa’s first ever Digicom was said to have been a success.