DMA North Council Round up â June 2015

On Thursday 11th of June, the DMA North council met in Leeds. This was the first meeting chaired by myself, so we thought we would create a brief post to let our members and those in the north into what actually happens in the DMA North Council.

The council typically talks about industry updates within the first 10-15 minutes, this month topics covered updates on the DMA’s white paper for Guidelines for call centres dealing with vulnerable consumers, also the news that Apple was launching their new streaming service to rival spotify, and that Whistl is ending it’s home delivery service. Amongst the wider industry news there was more discussion closer to home regarding the merger of the DMA and IDM.

The council also thought that the recent events in the North had been a great success. The joint 'In search of the perfect customer journey' event held in Manchester with CIM proved popular, where the audience heard from industry experts including HSBC, Google, ITV and Papa John’s.

Another big night out in Manchester was this years DMA North Ball held at The National Football Museum in Manchester. The night featured a talk from Wayne Hemingway on how he started Red or Dead, with an insight to the passion needed to succeed, followed by a three course meal and dancing. The council is already starting to plan next years social and questions raised at the meeting included whether we should make it less formal and drop the black tie next year? Three course meal or nibbles? And of course the venue. Any suggestions very welcome please email Georgina Lippa.

The ball discussion followed a quick overview of upcoming events details of which can be found at the events area of the DMA website.

We then covered council planning, hubs, content structure and membership to finish the meeting. As usual the meeting went on to a few drinks in the bar to continue networking and discuss other interesting topics. A few of us also then went on to an evening of pizza and drinks at the Local Digital Garage with Google, a start up and education hub in the centre of Leeds.

If you’d like to be involved with the DMA North Council, we’d love to hear from you. Please enquire by sending an email to Georgina Lippa.