Conference News: What I learned this week – June 15, 2018

Emergence of an Entertainment Event: Parks Associates recently announced that they are adding a new event to their lineup. The inaugural Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV, and Digital Media conference will take place from 10-12 December at the Marina del Rey Marriott in Marina del Rey, California. Parks Associates expects approximately 200 attendees from the entertainment industry, including content creators, distributors, and technology providers for television, film, and streaming media. The agenda will cover OTT services, the value of content, and best strategies for building successful video services for today’s connected consumers. As their flagship Connections conference continues to focus more and more on connected home technology, it was clear that Parks Associates’ needed a separate event to cover the content and distribution models related to entertainment. Read more about the new conference here.

Black Hat in ChiTown: The Black Hat Trainings offer deeply technical, hands-on courses on topics ranging from broader offensive security to the latest in penetration testing, infrastructure hacking, mobile application security, analyzing automotive electrical systems, etc. They often take place alongside the Black Hat Conferences in the US, Europe and Asia.  For the first time, Black Hat Trainings are being offered in Chicago on 22 – 23 October. If you are interested in developing technical skills through hands-on courses taught by industry experts, read more here.

Speaking Opportunity: The J.D. Power’s Automotive Marketing Roundtable has opened its call for presenters (CFP) for the 2018 conference which will be held from 23 – 24 October in Las Vegas. According to the conference organizers, this two-day event “brings together speakers from both inside and out of the automotive industry inspiring the most creative and strategic minds in auto.”  This year’s event will be designed to give attendees a better understanding of what organizations need to do to become experts in “the customer experience journey through digital transformation.” There are a number of session types and topics of interest so be sure to review the submission guidelines before submitting speaker proposals.  The CFP closes on 29 June.

Lunchtime Learning: Inc draws from its 40 years of experience covering entrepreneurship, when developing the agenda for GrowCo. The conference includes three days of keynotes, educational sessions, and personalized consulting sessions featuring “industry disruptors, seasoned entrepreneurs, and respected thought-leaders.” Even if you have never attended the conference, you can hear from experts such as Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Warby Parker founder Neil Blumenthal here.

Coming up next week: Coming up next week: One of HR’s biggest events gets underway when the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference kicks off 17 June in Chicago. If you’re one of 15,000 HR professionals planning to attend, expect inspiring keynotes from leaders like Sheryl Sandberg and more than 200 topical breakout sessions. Creatives, media, and marketers will gather at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (18-22 June). Sought-after awards for creative work share the spotlight with hot topic debates and intensive workshops. Launch Festival, held in San Francisco over the past decade, debuts its first international event in Sydney on 19 June. Organizer and angel investor Jason Calcanis expects 1,000 founders, investors, and media to attend. Online video creators of all experience levels will flock to Anaheim for the 9th annual VidCon (20-23 June). To meet the varied needs of its attendees, the event offers sessions in community, creator, and industry tracks. And last but not least: Spotlight Health, a three-day forum, opens the 2018 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival on 22 June. This popular and widely-scoped thought leadership festival runs through 1 July, but the opening weekend will focus on issues like healthy communities, disruptive health systems, and the cutting-edge of medicine and science.