A mini-Studio North contingent ventured to Liverpool earlier today to attend TedxLiverpool at the excellent FACT venue on Wood St in the city centre. The theme of this year’s event was ‘A Mobile Future’ and it had proved that popular beforehand that both the main event and a ’simulcast lounge’ downstairs had both sold out. It did not fail to deliver.

First up was Ian Wharton of software start-up Zolmo who as I already knew from a recent Northern Digitals/BLAB night is a superb speaker. In this environment, Ian was similarly entertaining and shared some of Zolmo’s finest moments with us, mainly their work producing apps for brand Jamie Oliver. As he departed the stage he left us with the inspirational last thought “In this industry, if you’re pissing a few people off, chances are, you’re doing something right”. Superb stuff.

If this was a tough act to follow then it needed the cool head of Stephen Mellish (Radical Company) to pick up the baton. Stephen’s talk was mainly future focussed, offering his thoughts on where mobile goes next or as he more appropriately suggested…the device with no name. With no stone unturned Stephen lent his thoughts to how ‘mobile devices’ could be practically used in every way from treating health conditions to voting live on political issues (who needs MPs he quipped).

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