[Cannes Lions] Technology rules Cannes

The techies will continue to change our world. I'm more convinced of this than ever from my time here at Cannes.

Sorry to say, it's not the creative talent or marketers who are setting the agenda here. Sure there are cool ideas, but it's the geeks who have created and will create more and more tools, unlocking a world of free and flowing communication and importantly captivating consumer attention.

The media-savvy Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, confirmed this. He exuded power and confidence as the paparazzi snapped away and Fortune fired off live questions at him. Later at the Cannes Awards, Ballmer was named Media Person of the Year? Yes, indeed.

Earlier on, I listened with keen interest to the HP and RG/A team talk about cloud computing. Coming from a magazine publishing background I marvelled at MagCloud. This enables wannabe publishers to publishing virtually without the usual financial risks of magazine publishing and the revenue model is on demand. So the only real costs to the publisher is the content generation - the rest is sitting in the cloud, only activated and printed on demand when a consumer buys the title.

It's really exciting for small niche publishers and even larger publishers who are testing new products. More importantly, it puts the power in the hands of the individual and no longer in the hands of printers, distributors or retailers.

I've spent a good deal of my time with digital media strategists and tech-savvy people and they are all saying the same thing. Technology will continue to set the agenda and we will have to constantly try to work out how we effectively join the ride.

Don't forget to follow my live tweeting from Cannes!