Future of Business: When Connected Things Surpass Connected People

The buzz: “Products don’t define a brand, experiences do. Such is the reality of modern business, where people are connected to a constant flow of information and are defining brands based on what they experience and share.” (Judith Aquino, www.ttec.com). Big news: Experience matters! Your company needs to survive in today’s competitive marketplace in order to exist and thrive in tomorrow’s. How? Convert your customers into fans. Transform your products into obsessions and your brands into icons. Empower your employees to become your ambassadors. Any questions? The experts speak. Dr. Stefan Winkler, Opsis: “If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted” (H.R. Haldeman). JJ Delgado, Estrella de Galicia: “It is still Day 1” (Jeff Bezos, Amazon). Erica Lailhacar, SAP: “The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to” (Trinity to Neo, The Matrix). Join us for The New Face of Your Brand: Customer Experience!

The buzz: “Collaborations work best this way; when there's a mutual desire to see what the other side adds. You know that what you're making on your own has value but the sum is more than the parts and every part knows it” (Questlove). 17th century English poet John Donne wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Donne’s wisdom applies to people, countries, and your company. Collaborating with other businesses can help deliver unique innovations, define new markets, differentiate from the pack, bring new products to market. The experts speak. Marc Haberland, Clariba: “No pressure, no diamonds” (Thomas Carlyle). Camilla Dahlen, SAP: “Travel sparks our imagination, feeds our curiosity, and reminds us how much we all have in common” (Deborah Lloyd). Surendra Reddy, Quantiply: “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things” (Theodore Levitt). Join us for Future of Business: Collaborative Innovation.

Buzz of the day: “Just like your favorite video conferencing and collaboration tools, VR will save you time on travel, connect your regional offices and change the workplace as we know it—but with the experience of meeting in person still intact (www.pgi.com). We predict your company will conduct business primarily via virtual collaboration instead of face-to-face meetings. Electronic file shares instead of hard-copy documents. Virtual instead of physical currency. The bottom line: VR and AR technologies are scaling to speed companies like yours into this future business world! The experts speak. Steven Krause, DocuSign: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” (Alan Kay). Stefan Aubele, IT-Kompass GmbH: “Things are only impossible until they're not” (Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek). Ed Canney, IGerencia: “In God we trust. All others must bring data” (W. Edwards Deming). Join us for The Future of Business Is…Virtual!

The buzz: “Products don’t define a brand, experiences do. Such is the reality of modern business, where people are connected to a constant flow of information and are defining brands based on what they experience and share.” (Judith Aquino, www.ttec.com). Big news: Experience matters! Your company needs to survive in today’s competitive marketplace in order to exist and thrive in tomorrow’s. How? Convert your customers into fans. Transform your products into obsessions and your brands into icons. Empower your employees to become your ambassadors. Any questions? The experts speak. Dr. Stefan Winkler, Opsis: “If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted” (H.R. Haldeman). JJ Delgado, Estrella de Galicia: “It is still Day 1” (Jeff Bezos, Amazon). Erica Lailhacar, SAP: “The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to” (Trinity to Neo, The Matrix). Join us for The New Face of Your Brand: Customer Experience!

The buzz: One big happy family. Today’s workforce has four generations side-by-side for the first time ever. While the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers are still mostly in control, Gen X’ers and Millennials influence the day-to-day. But when you add the status-quo-disrupting Internet of Things, does it create an IoT Generation workforce gap separating these cohorts from the fifth wave of newbies expecting a fully-connected work day? The experts speak. Sherryanne Meyer, ASUG: “Dorothy: We’re not in Kansas anymore!” [Wizard of Oz). Mal Poulin, ANCILE: “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time” (Dante). Sharon Cook, hyperCision: “I grew up in a physical world, and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social” (Angela Ahrendts). David Dreyer, SAP: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Join us for Future of Business: IoT & The Next Generation Workforce.

The buzz: One big happy family. Today’s workforce has four generations side-by-side for the first time ever. While the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers are still mostly in control, Gen X’ers and Millennials influence the day-to-day. But when you add the status-quo-disrupting Internet of Things, does it create an IoT Generation workforce gap separating these cohorts from the fifth wave of newbies expecting a fully-connected work day? The experts speak. Sherryanne Meyer, ASUG: “Dorothy: We’re not in Kansas anymore!” [Wizard of Oz). Mal Poulin, ANCILE: “The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time” (Dante). Sharon Cook, hyperCision: “I grew up in a physical world, and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social” (Angela Ahrendts). David Dreyer, SAP: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Join us for Future of Business: IoT & The Next Generation Workforce.

The buzz: “3D printing is already shaking our age-old notions of what can and can’t be made.” (Hod Lipson) It may not be far in the future when a significant amount of the products manufactured today in the four walls of a factory are actually manufactured in a store, repair shop or even a home. How? Distributed Manufacturing leveraging 3D printing is pushing the bounds of the possible. Technology has already moved beyond 3D printed sugar cubes and pasta to building 3D printed cars and even prosthetic limb replacement. What is the timeline of scaling from toys to a real, productive business approach? And how do IoT and security figure into the mix? The experts speak. Alan Amling, UPS: “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” (John Wooden). Rick Smith, Fast Radius: “The future ain’t what it used to be” (Yogi Berra). Gil Perez, SAP: “I failed my way to success” (Thomas Edison). Join us for The Future of Distributed Manufacturing and 3D Printing.

The buzz: “You tell me that it’s evolution.” It’s the future of global business on steroids, a revolution right now that knows no borders. What is it? The Digital Transformation (DT) revolution. DT was set in motion with the first computer and has the same exponential growth curve as the Internet. As more people and devices join, DT gets stronger. Every industry, organization and structure will change and the transactional business world as we know it today will be fundamentally transformed. If you think DT doesn’t apply to you and your business, you’re in for a shock. The experts speak. Prof. Aaron Striegel, University of Notre Dame: “The Internet of Things will be bigger than the Internet” (John Chambers). Geoff Scott, ASUG: “Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window” (Steve Wozniak). Teri Kurtz, SAP: “If I had asked people what they had wanted, they would have said faster horses” (Henry Ford). Join us for Global Business on Steroids: The DT Revolution Is Real.

The buzz: Crystal ball. Yes, change is inevitable. But our unprecedented 'templosion' pace and scale -Edie Weiner- presents unique challenges for the future. What is the potential worldwide business impact of new and emerging paradigms, energy innovations, physical-digital boundary blurring, business decentralization? We’ve invited three futurists to our Game-Changers roundtable. Take notes! The experts speak. Frank Diana, TCS: 'Our world is entering a period of truly transformative change where many of us will be surprised by the scale and pace of developments we simply hadn’t anticipated' -Gerd Leonhard. Gray Scott, SeriousWonder.com: 'How could the process that gave rise to slugs and oak trees and fish produce a creature that can fly to the moon and invent the Internet and cross the ocean in boats?' -Steven Pinker. Doug Freud, SAP: 'Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one' -A Einstein. Join us for Three Futurists Walk onto A Bar: The Future of Business.

The buzz: I vant to be alone. -Garbo. Not! Did you hear the one about the major connectivity company that connected more 'new things to things' than 'new people to people'? As the Art of the Possible instantaneously connects innovative devices with people, processes and results, the lines between professional and personal blur more. Who is driving the IoT digital innovation bus – business, academia, government, individuals? Where is the bus heading? Are we ready to mass-adopt a fully digital world? The experts speak. Gary Nelson, SAP: 'There is no digital strategy anymore. Just strategy in a digital world' -Bud Caddell. Sharon Naidu, SAP: 'We are looking at a society increasingly dependent on machines, yet decreasingly capable of making or even using them effectively' -Douglas Rushkoff. Bill Newman, SAP: 'One thing I can tell you is you got to be free. Come together right now over me' -The Beatles. Join us for Future of Business: When Connected Things Surpass Connected People.