Mike Morrison speaks at the Digital X event at the ENMAX Centre on Sept. 28.

Local business owners and entrepreneurs took part in learning from top professionals about the evolving world of media and marketing.

Giving small businesses a chance to fight with the big dogs with social media and networking is something that keynote speaker Mike Morrison is passionate about.

Morrison was named by the Best of Calgary awards as the second most influential person on social media and his blog Mikes Bloggity Blog, was named the best blog. Morrison has been blogging for over 12 years and worked many years in media before that.

In his presentation, Morrison explained how building up an online presence takes a lot more work than most people seem to believe.

“Social media is actually really slow because as we are now getting so used to it, we are choosing people who to follow based on if we like the same content, if we can trust them and if can we respect them,” said Morrison.

The blogger and twitter personality has found success through creating content that he enjoys and what he believes his viewers will enjoy. Never forgetting to be personal and honest with his content, Morrison reminded people that being truthful with your content is how you build long term followers.

“Just being truthful is the biggest component to being successful and surrounding yourself with people who love and support you will benefit anyone in social media,” said Morrison.

Instructor at the Lethbridge College for the Digital Communication and Media program, Kris Hodgson presented at the event his collection of information on 360-degree video storytelling and virtual reality.

Showing observers how the two new formats are a transformative way for journalism in understanding the world and environments that people aren’t used to being in.

“Once you put on a virtual reality headset, it transports you right into the midst of a scene and that is incredibly powerful… to have us understand global events that we maybe feel extremely disconnected to from being half way around the world,” said Hodgson.

News organizations such as the New York Times and Vice have been using 360-degree video to tell a more impactful story for people to experience. Hodgson sees the benefits of complete environment story telling but warns about the long term impact it could have on people.

Crystal DeCnodder speaking at the Digital X event about Artificial intelligence on Spetember 28, 2017

“We have television that has already desensitized us and so the danger could be if you show something extremely violent in 360 degrees its incredibly more powerful and you don’t want people to have to recover from something that you thought would create a bigger impact,” said Hodgson.

Presenter at Digital X, Crystal DeCnodder is the Vice President for Full Blast Creative, launched SocialBulls.ca and has worked with emerging business groups with media.

DeCnodder brought up another new technology to help businesses connect on a faster and on a more personal level with their customers using artificial intelligence.

“Chat-bots are the new way for businesses to connect with their customers immediately and plan a future interaction without having to live on a computer,” said DeCnodder.

Artificial intelligence has been growing says DeCnodder and has been passing tests every day to see if the computers are just as empathetic and realistic as humans.

From new technologies and underlining basics to never forget, Digital X provided people with new opportunities to expand their businesses in marketing and presentation.