Conference News: What I learned this week – February 22, 2019
Lighting a New Spark: Between 2004 and 2012, approximately 2,000 CIOs and senior executives gathered for the twice-annual CIO Forums organized by Telwares. After the final sale of Telwares in 2012, the CIO Global Forum was disbanded. Now the team behind these premier C-level events are bringing back the by-invitation-only gatherings under a new name: Spark Executive Forum. Spark Forums will again be held twice a year at a resort in Napa Valley. Sessions will focus on the topics business leaders need to know in order to successfully navigate their business transformations. The next Spark Executive Forum will be on 24 – 25 April.
Folded into the Mix: Event consolidation in 2019 is underway. Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit – held last in April 2018 – has been merged into the Adobe Summit, a natural consequence of the latter’s acquisition of the former last year. Adobe Summit runs 24-28 March in Las Vegas. In addition to Adobe leadership, keynotes includes Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and NASA Chief Scientist John Grotzinger. As part of the union, the Marketo brand will have its own content track and even ancillary events.
Speaking Opportunity: This year’s PRSA International Conference, which covers the intersection of technology and media and new trends impacting the industry, will take place in San Diego from 20-22 October. The conference expects to attract more than 3,000 public relations and communication professionals and students from around the world. If you have a something interesting, exciting and informative to share that falls within one of the seven programming tracks, submit your proposal via their online form before 28 February.
Lunchtime Learning: What do thousands of human resources professionals have in common with George Clooney and Viola Davis? They will all be in Nashville next month for the 5th annual Globoforce WorkHuman Conference. With more than 70 breakout sessions across eight content tracks, attendees will learn about topics such as diversity and equality, creating a culture of community, motivating high-performing teams, and merging humanity and technology. And, attendees may even receive credits from SHRM, HRCI, HRPA, and WorldatWork! If you are eager to find out what the conference is all about, take a look at the sessions from 2018 here.
Coming Up Next Week: Coming up next week: Anthony Bourdain once said, “You’d have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food.” Maybe that’s why over 100k in telecom and tech flock there every February. (But it’s probably because of Mobile World Congress, which kicks off 25 February and features CEOs from Microsoft, Sprint, Vodafone, and Cisco headlining the colossal event.) Wall Street Journal CIO Annual Meeting takes place 25-26 February and will focus on “The Life of the CIO” for the network’s exclusive membership. At the New York Times New Work Summit (25-26 February; Half Moon Bay), conference-goers will learn all about “Leading in the Age of AI” from keynotes and within high-profile working groups. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Brand Masters Conference gets underway 27 February in San Diego, presented this year by Twitter. And on 23 February, Harvard Business School presents its Dynamic Women in Business Conference in Boston. The goal of this annual program is to give a platform to women of varying industries and backgrounds, as well as allies, to examine how leveraging diversity can drive success.