COVID-19 Tech Trends To Watch with James McCann, ClearStory

Interview with James McCann, Founder and CEO ClearStory International

What is your own background briefly?

I’m a former PR Manager for Web Summit and its sister event in Hong Kong, RISE. While working for Web Summit, it was my job to attract top tier media to events and generate positive media coverage. I have always had a passion for Irish politics and before Web Summit, I had just come off the back of an unsuccessful local election campaign.

After failing to get elected I changed direction and started work as Campaign Manager for an Australian startup in Dublin, One Big Switch. I also served in the Defence Forces for a number of years and worked for a period in Financial Services.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

Not exactly. I didn’t go to university after school as I chose to go straight into the Defence Forces at 17. I came out without any formal qualifications which left me at a bit of a disadvantage. I actually began my communications career at 22, setting up a local community organisation and campaigning on local issues. Following lots of research, I taught myself how to write press releases and how to campaign.

During that period, I was working in insurance as an administrator. While I enjoyed my role I really wanted a degree so I went back to college part time. Fuelling my passion for politics, I decided to run for the local elections in 2014 and leveraged what I had learned over the years to generate some publicity. Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly enough and I didn’t get elected. I was unemployed for a period after that but, luckily for me I managed to secure an opportunity as a Campaign Manager with a startup. That was my first paid communications gig.

While there, I saw an advertisement for Web Summit for their media team. I didn’t think I’d have the experience but gave it a shot and got the job. It was a great learning curve and opened my eyes to working and operating internationally. I got to meet and hang out with senior business leaders, journalists and celebrities and I finally felt comfortable in my own skin.

While there I began to see the potential for a business that could help early stage companies with their PR. After toying with the idea, I realised I’d little to lose by going all in and left to establish ClearStory. Using my last paycheck, I started working out of a library on my own and have grown the business from there.

How was the last 12 months? What were your big wins?

We’re less than 3 years old as a business and the last 12 months have been a real rollercoaster as we’ve started to grow significantly. We’ve added 7 new people to the team bringing us to 12. Despite the COVID-19 situation, I would hope that we’ll be in a position, once the worst is behind us, to push on again.

We’ve learned a lot about the markets we operate in. We were in Bahrain this time last year managing the PR for a tech conference there. Although it was an incredibly tough campaign, it gave us an opportunity to test our capabilities as a team and we’ve made massive strides since. We also spent a lot of time in Asia late last year to build up a presence and a client book there which is paying significant dividends. We’re planning to do the same in North America later this year.

What would you have done differently?

Unfortunately, my affliction in life is that I only seem to learn from my mistakes so I would have done a lot differently over the last 12 months. Having said that, it’s helped with the learning curve as a first time founder. I consider it like turbulence. The first time you do anything, you might as well factor in a ‘f**k up’ allowance because you won’t get it right the first time anyway. You can’t anticipate the consequence of every decision or happenings in a business but you can adapt, be honest with yourself and act quickly to steady the ship if needed.

Why did you get involved with the tech trends report – what are your key observations?

We chose to produce our COVID-19 Tech Trend report on the basis that what we are going through is historic in both its nature and effect. Communications professionals and business owners may never see another period like this again and we wanted to produce a report that showcased the impact COVID-19 is having on tech trends across the world and highlight how quickly brands can find themselves in the spotlight once a crisis hits.

Our findings were interesting. Remote Working was a topic that received regular coverage in Ireland, averaging approximately 20 pieces per week until the COVID-19 crisis. Since then, at its peak in the middle of March, Remote Working surged more than 1,600% before dropping back to 300% above average by the beginning of April. Video Conferencing and calling received almost no attention in the run up to the COVID-19 crisis but has since seen interest grow to more than 140 pieces on a weekly basis and rising as awareness of platforms like Zoom and Houseparty continue to climb.

While Virtual Events and conferences have received some interest with several companies pivoting, it has not generated significant traction to date. Remote Learning and Edtech have seen a surge as schools and colleges have made the transition from teaching from home while E-commerce and online shopping has remained steady in interest throughout the crisis.

Surprisingly for Ireland, the Gig Economy and the impact of COVID-19 on the sector has barely factored in coverage so far.

Do you think the current online first / digital trends will continue post corona? If so which ones?

We’re planning to publish a follow on report in December to analyse the post COVID-19 effect but it’s hard to judge at the moment. I think we’re past the peak of interest around many trends but I do think interest around remote working and related technologies will continue to increase in the foreseeable future.

Will we see changes in mobile payments for example?

I think it’s fair to say we’ll see wider mention of a cashless society post COVID-19. It has forced previously passive consumers of all demographics to start adapting out of necessity rather than desire.

How can people find out more about you personally & your work?

You can find me on twitter @jimmymccann01 or connect with me on Linkedin here. We publish all of our reports on our website www.clearstoryinternational.com

We've released our preliminary report on tech trends during the #COVID19 pandemic. Take a look at how quickly some technologies came into focus at the link below: https://t.co/EqH2sh8ypG

— James McCann (@JimmyMcCann01) April 21, 2020

Who and where do you get inspiration from?

My late father would certainly be an inspiration for me. He taught me a lot about people. Professionally, it’s a bit left of field but General George Patton, the famous American WW2 commander has always been someone I have admired. I read military history as a kid and I was always a fan of his ‘always attack’ mentality. It’s an attitude that’s helped me through many challenges personally and professionally. L’audace, l’audace, toujour l’audace.

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Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 30,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking