Technology Revolution: The Future of Now

The buzz: Millennials are here. Retailers, watch out. Tom Julian, Doneger Group: "Millennials have become the most racially diverse, most educated, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat generation to date. They have impacted shopping/commerce, the work environment, social media platforms, and lifestyle behavior around technology." Greg Girard, IDC: "Savvy retailers are evolving and melding digital and physical omnichannel assets to engage millennials, the vanguard of a pervasive digital persona touching nearly every aspect of 21st century life. Retailers that don't will soon be 'out of fashion'." Frida Wollweber, Cucuka: "Retailers be alert, millennials' expectations are high! Offer your finger, they will take your hand. Listen, don't talk. Gain their trust and they will treat you well." Li Gong, SAP: "Fashionista millennials say, 'I don't want to see products on a model or mannequin. I want to see how other girls wear them'." Hear Fashion Retailer Alert: Delight Millennials or Die! – Part 1

Today's buzz: Diversity. Inclusion now covers race, age, gender, religion, impairments, skills, viewpoints and more. How will it benefit your company? The experts speak. Paul Albert, Albert Investments: "Outstanding women directors I know would rather see the primary emphasis on their qualifications to contribute, with their label as a woman irrelevant to their board nomination." Nola Masterson, Science Futures Management: "The pressure to fit in or 'lean in', as the current crowd likes to quote, is a problem for a well-run board." Brian Barnier, ValueBridge: "Too often, risk management does more to put blinders on than take them off. Board diversity can help take blinders off to more easily see risk in the business." Nicole McCabe, SAP: "It's not about whether a diverse board will positively impact the business. It's whether that board can be inclusive enough to take advantage of the business benefits." Join us for Board and Workforce Diversity: Enterprise Risks, Opportunities, Rewards.

Today's buzz: Insurance industry. Do you gnash your teeth every time you deal with insurers? Do they even know the meaning of 'customer experience'? The experts speak. Mark Breading, Strategy Meets Action: "The insurance industry is in the midst of a long transition from paper to digital, affecting every part of the business, but especially the customer experience." Nathan Golia, Insurance & Technology: "I had the good providence to stumble upon a plan of the city council. A construction plan of epic proportions. We're calling it a freeway. Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Smooth, safe, fast. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past." (Judge Doom, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988 film). Kathy Ann Hutson, IBM: "Customer-centered innovation is key to growth in the changing insurance marketplace." Bob Cummings, SAP: "There is no path. A path only forms when you walk." (Chinese proverb) Join us for The Digital Insurer: Opportunities with Customer Centricity Trends.

Today's buzz: Corporate innovation. How often are your organization's decision-makers really right? If not often enough, and their typical excuses wag a finger at your data – too much, too fast, too big, or just 'bad' – then take a closer look at the analytics tools they're using. The experts speak. Elizabeth Hedstrom Henlin, TBR: "No matter where you are in your BI adoption journey, there has never been a better market to be a buyer of new technologies – especially within business intelligence and analytics." Mark Lenke, CSC: "We are no closer to the answer if we cannot discover the right question, and the question after the question is the one to focus on. Leveraging a Big Data and analytics approach creates a flow of information that spawns new thoughts and analysis." Puneet Suppal, SAP: "Newer forms of innovation are cropping up, some inspired by age-old practices from around the world. Rethink how to invest in the future." Join us for Corporate Evolution: Investing in Analytics.

Today's buzz: CMO. Who's calling your marketing shots today – your MBA'ed CMO or hyper-vocal/social/mobile customers? A pop quiz to help you answer. Is your CMO (a) listening and responding to social sentiment? (b) a champion of memorable experiences with your legions of brand-owners? (c) using analytics to pull signals from your big and small data? Pencils down. Before deciding whether to hug your CMO or post their job, listen to the experts: Jonathan Becher, SAP: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." (Albert Einstein or William Bruce Cameron, "Informal Sociology") Steve Carlotti, Cambridge Group, "Listening and reacting is what is required today, and that's a lot harder than the planning and acting that was required yesterday." Allen Bonde, Digital Clarity: "In B2B, it's critical for CMOs to emphasize thought leadership and selling big ideas versus simply selling products." Join us for The New CMO in the Age of Customer Experience.

Today's buzz: Technology startups. Some entrepreneurs soar to success right from the get-go. How? They simply deliver something the world really needs - and they do it uniquely well. Our in-the-trenches start-up experts share first-hand insights on vision, planning, brains, teams, funding and other challenges. Frantisek Vrabel, Semantic Visions: "I can think. I can wait. I can fast. (Herman Hesse, Siddhartha, Chap. 6) Rick Dutta, Nextvisionix: "We should not only use the brains we have, but all that we can borrow." (Woodrow Wilson) Dan Somers, Warwick Analytics: "Many entrepreneurs, particularly first-timers, believe that money is the answer to all their prayers and do whatever it takes to raise it." Kaustav Mitra, SAP: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw) Join us for Start-Up Insider: From What-if to Wow!

Today's buzz: Banking fraud. Show me the money! Earlier this year, a band of "cashiers" swiped prepaid debit cards at ATMs in NY City and 25 countries – and made off with $45 million in cash. The problem: they didn't own the cards or the money. What are we doing to detect emerging fraud patterns and stop these emboldened outlaws and their sophisticated cyber-criminal organizations before they dig even deeper into our pockets? The experts speak. Nuno Sebastiao, FeedZai: "Flash attacks are a new threat in the online world. Imagine a version of the ATM attacks a couple of months ago, but in real/time, distributed and targeting many online merchants." Prakash Santhana, Deloitte: "It is 10 p.m. Do you know where your credit card is shopping?" Eric Stine, SAP: "We're faced with an increasingly demanding legislative and regulatory environment - and a creative class of criminal that keeps getting smarter." Join us for more insights on Banking Fraud: Can Technology Outsmart the Bad Guys?

Reality check: Health matters. More than your job, social status, money, car, house. But health is elusive. So much so that 65 million U.S. caregivers provide weekly care to the ill, disabled, aged. How can technology help? The experts speak. Robert M. Miller, National Fragile X Foundation: "Technology will never replace the caring spirit, but technology can provide the necessary tools for caring to make a real difference in the lives of those with special needs." Louise W. Gane, MS, M.I.N.D. Institute: "Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries." (Corita Kent) Cheryl Pray, Els for Autism Foundation: "Autism: It's not game over. It's GAME ON!" Faheem Ahmed, SAP: "Social networks have already transformed how we find music, discover restaurants, compare prices, and plan vacations. Isn't it about time that we apply this technology to transform how we care for our loved ones?" Join us for People Who Need People: Caregiving Goes Social and Mobile.

Today's buzz: Mobility. The world loves mobile devices. One could say wireless is the new de rigeur accessory for every hat you wear: business, consumer, personal. Your company can't fight this trend, so you'd better know how to mobilize your workplace smartly and securely, and create loyalty-sustaining mobile customer engagement. The experts speak. Philippe Winthrop, VeliQ: "Dear MDM, we hardly knew you…." Sheryl Kingstone, Yankee Group: "It's not just about having an app for that -- it's about personalization strategies, mobilizing the customer journey; it's an entertainment/information/consumption hub. But consumers also are still looking for the basics of simplicity and convenience; many also seek personalization and the advantages of location, while wanting their privacy protected." JP Finnell, SAP: "Forget about the consumerization of IT. The real trend is the ITization of the consumer." Join us for more insights on Mobility Enablement: Getting Personal with Your Customer.

Today's buzz: The IT Brain. Whoosh! Faster benchmarks. Hybrid cloud computing. Big Data. Analytics for the whole company. Wait a sec. Even the most exciting new technology is doomed to fail unless your IT department assesses its challenges and opportunities to develop a viable strategy and bring back office to front office. Think about it. The experts speak. Ben Kepes, Diversity Limited: The organization of the future will look radically different from that which has gone before. IT departments face unrelenting pressure to innovate, deliver agility and stop being seen as the Department of No." Dr. Richard Goodwin, IBM: "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." (Woody Allen) Dale Young, IBM: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." (Newton's Third Law of Motion) Swen Conrad, SAP: "The digital storm: Take advantage of the opportunity or be blown away!" Join us for IT Professional Brain: Secret Sauce for Success.