So, here are my key takeaways from the last two-and-a-bit days.
Opening keynote speaker, General Colin Powell showed me that great leaders are often people who have humility and who see themselves as responsible for giving their 'followers' a sense of purpose and the tools to get the job done. I also liked his story about the leader dealing with the leader's problems and trusting his followers to deal with theirs.
The executive viewpoint panel on how leaders innovate, optimise and transform their organisations showed how important data and analytics are in making fact-based decisions, as Dr. Goodnight said 'it's time to start thinking of your data as a strategic asset'.
The CMOs discussing the New Era of Customer Experience surmised that these new channels present both challenges and opportunities but that they must be Integrated into the rest of the business; customers still want you to treat them like people and preference is important, whether in B2C or B2B.
In the first of 4 parallel sessions on risk and compliance, I heard about the huge hurdles many businesses, not just financial services firms, will face as the Dodd-Frank Act comes into force and they need to engage early. Also that, onerous as it is, it presents opportunities for those willing to step up to the challenge.
Talking about ‘Big Data’, Renee Nocker of SAS led a panel who examined practical issues in dealing with big data. I was particularly interested in the opportunities for bottom-up innovation that comes about as an organisation addresses the big data challenge and on how VSTI is thinking about relevance to contextualise search.
In his presentation, Jack Maguire scared the heck out of me about the state of education, especially in STEM subjects. The evidence he presented showed that there is clearly a link between income inequality and the well-being of a society. That said, he is developing the capabilities that will allow us to address this challenge - if we chose to.
Scott Hudgins of Walt Disney Company shared with his audience Disney's passion for knowing their customers and building trust; as a result, they can be more relevant and valuable to their customers and the performance of their marketing is a testament to their success in turning their vision into reality.
One of my favourite authors - Jim Collins – then addressed the conference about some of the key themes from his latest book ‘Great by Choice’. The one word I kept hearing was 'discipline' and that greatness is a function of the choices you make, not the environment
Keith Collins' panel 'Answers in Minutes' convinced me that 'Big Data' is an opportunity to be grasped, not a challenge to be feared and how it is now possible to complete huge analytical procedures within even very pressing decision cycles.
Vijay Govindarajan spoke passionately about 'Strategy being about leadership in the future', I was struck by how he described the different skills and processes needed for operational teams and for innovation teams and the importance of managing the relationship between the two.
My colleague John Bastone led a roundtable discussion on the 3 Be’s of Marketing and what came out of his session was that there is still a lot to learn about the role of social marketing in the mix.
Finally, merging Art and Science in Marketing was the subject of Amartya Bhattacharjy's roundtable and we found here was that bringing art and science together presents significant challenges to many organisations because it is so dependant upon communications between disciplines.
So now, I am going to return to my office and ponder on all that I have heard over these last two days. As a strategist, I am always thinking about the best ways to deliver the future in ways which benefit my customers and my business and I have now got some great ideas to consider.
