Conference News: What I learned this week – July 22

NEXT New Event: Bloomberg BNA, an arm of Bloomberg which provides solutions to legal, tax, and compliance professionals, has launch a new event series called NEXT/Washington D.C. which will take place from 14 – 18 November. The event’s daily editorial anchor will be an executive lunch briefing examining the focus areas that organizations must consider based on the results of the upcoming US presidential election. Focus areas will include: Work, Tech, Sustainable Business, Law and Government. Bloomberg BNA plans to hold the conference once every 4 years (after each election). A website and additional information will be available soon.

Mobile Association Collaboration: GSMA, the association behind Mobile World Congress – one of the largest global events focused on the mobile ecosystem, and CTIA, the association behind Super Mobility Week – the best-known mobile conference in the US, have announced that they are joining forces to create an all new event next year. Mobile World Congress Americas will take place from 12 – 14 September 2017 in San Francisco.  While they are still in the early stages of planning, the organizations have announced that they plan on attracting 30,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors to the inaugural event.

Making an Impact: D&AD Impact is a new awards program established by D&AD and Advertising Week. The idea behind the awards is to “celebrate the power of creativity to stimulate positive change, in a world that desperately needs all creative people to turn their attention to ‘doing well by doing good’.” The program officially launched at the D&AD and Advertising Week Festival in April of this year but the inaugural judging and awards will take place during Advertising Week New York (26 – 30 September 2016). Another notable fact about D&AD Impact is that one of its goals is to reach beyond the advertising community, to include start-ups, social enterprises as well as tech and media companies.

Speaking Opportunity: The BRITE Conference returns to Columbia University from 6 – 7 March 2017, bringing together close to 600 attendees from business, marketing, technology, and media to “discuss how technology and innovation are transforming the ways that companies build and sustain great brands.” This event does not have a hard deadline by which speaker suggestions must be made, instead accepting ideas on a rolling basis. The conference organizers provide several sample topics that could potentially be of interest.  These include: how to monetize social media; the future of mobile for brand building; healthcare innovations and impact; customer experience and customer happiness; what’s next for the sharing economy; and the changing role of the CMO in the enterprise. If you have an idea for a session, you may submit it through the online form found here.

Lunchtime Learning: The goal of the 99U Conference is to shift the focus from idea generation to idea execution. Providing case study examples, speakers share insights and best practices for how to make ideas a reality. For two days, 99U brings together over a thousand creatives from different disciplines and mindsets who come to listen to a great lineup of speakers and to get excited about the next steps, whatever they may be. Check out some of the best sessions from previous 99U conferences here.

Coming Up Next: From 26 – 28 July, StampedeCon will take place in St. Louis. Self-described as the Midwest’s Premier Big Data event, the agenda will showcase new ways to innovate with big data and data science. The Mobile Ventures Summit, will convene leading brands in New York on 28 July to discuss the opportunities that mobile offers.  This event is by-invitation-only and closed to agencies and press. Variety’s PURPOSE: The Family Entertainment & Faith-Based Summit will happen at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on 29 July, featuring speakers from companies such as WE TV, AMC Theaters and PBS.