Nick Kewney

I thought I would follow up on my trip to Italy. The purpose of the trip was primarily business, but Pam Turner and I managed to add on a few days at the beginning to take in the sights of Milan, visit Lake Guarda and a drive to Mantova.

After leaving the car with at valet parking, it was a relatively short journey and despite a fairly long delay we eventually arrived at Milan Malpensa at 9:00pm, three hours later than expected.  The Italians are known for their attention to detail and fashion sense; even the Easyjet staff definitely looked more stylish than their UK based counterparts.

There were some adventurous times during our 5-day stay.  We braved the hectic Italian motorways and took a few wrong turns along the way (sometimes TomTom is rubbish) but eventually arrived in one piece at the Air Hotel Linate. Unfortunately the delay meant all that was left at the hotel restaurant was limited fare. Certainly more unfortunate was the nightclub situated beneath our rooms. The bassline of dodgy Italian techno reverberated through the floor and kept us both awake until 3.30am. After a day of soaking in the sights of Milan and Lake Garda, we arrived at our hotel in Pergognaga (Hotel Ristorante Novecento) where we were greeted with the glowing Italian welcome we'd come to expect. [/caption] From a business point of view, the trip was a successful one.

The hospitality was amazing and we were given a full tour of the production facility before starting work.  After two long days, the other visitors went home and Pam and I spent a final night in Suzzara before heading back to the airport on Wednesday morning. One thing I learned from queuing at the airport is that Italian people do NOT know how to form a line.  It is the strangest thing.  The people are great, but if you leave any space between you and the people around you someone will come in and stand in front of you. Anyway, I’m sure I could go on and on about stuff we did on the trip but I’m sure you have other more interesting things to do :) [gallery]

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I represented Grow Live at the Wireless and Mobile Trade Event on 17-18 July 2007 with Targeting Innovation. It was my first time exhibiting at a trade event so I really didn't know what to expect.

I landed in Toronto at 11:50pm last night, and checked into the hotel. The conference kicked off today at 8:30am, when I arrived at the Metro centre and signed in as an exhibitor. The Glasgow City Council stand was pretty impressive – probably the biggest in terms of floor space in the main hall. Grow Live had a 1 metre stand in a fairly good location, in between M Computers and Ecosse Systems.

I scoped out 4 keynotes I wanted to attend and made all but one due to talking with a lead. The one I missed was Fingertipware which was a shame because I wanted to have a look a direct competitor’s approach – I visited their stand afterwards though.

The most important thing I took from this exposure is that we’re bang on the right track, and focus is coming off how the technology is implemented (i.e. WiMax, WiFi, GSM) and more on the applications themselves. Additionally, the importance of LBS (Location Based Software) was skirted over. There's a window of opportunity here as so many people got excited when I mentioned the geotagging feature due in GL 2008.1.

I have to say that the atmosphere in the hall was slightly intimidating at first. Americans / Canadians are much more ‘up front’ and the conference had a completely different feel to anything I’ve ever experienced in the UK. People come up to you and say things like ‘So what makes you special’ or ‘Show me what it can do’. Met some good contacts at the event including:

• A mobile & wireless consultant who sits on the board of International Mobile Communications committee.
• The president of a software engineering firm who has a potential lead for us and asked about referral fees. Will call when I get back.
• A trade associate for the British Consulate in Toronto. He can help us push out press releases and publicity and help us with our international trade relations

In the evening, a group of us went for a meal then on to The REX Jazz Club with a few people from Targetting Innovation. We watched some jazz and then moved onto an outdoor terrace bar with an arial view of the entire city.

They went to some club but I decided to head back to the hotel.

I then had two days off during which I visited Niagra falls with Irene from Targeting Innovation. Overall a great (but knackering) couple of days in Canada.

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