Coffee Break With Game-changers, Presented By Sap

The buzz: Balance. Whether you call it work-life balance or integration, some days it seems impossible. How can you be calm, centered, productive, happy amid 24/7 work distractions and deadlines, family and sleep demands? The experts speak. Pamela Weiss, Appropriate Response: “In a real sense all life is inter-related. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (Dr. Martin Luther King). Marc Lesser, SIYLI.org: “There is scientific evidence that mindfulness practice can support leaders to cultivate more acceptance and openness, and reduce fear – necessary in supporting innovation.” Peter Bostelmann, SAP: “Mindfulness is a Leading Edge Inner Technology–not at all about being esoteric or touchy feely. It is evidence-based, self-empowering mental trainings known by ancient wisdom traditions and today backed by modern science.” Join us for Balance at Work: The Business Case for Health.

The buzz: Cloud and Marketing. Breaking news! The cloud brings one of the biggest opportunities for the future of marketing. But it comes with big challenges. Have you begun developing a digital marketing strategy and platform makeover? Are you prepared to shift into a totally customer-focused culture? Is the right talent on board yet? Before your marketing organization can play well and win big in this burgeoning arena, you need to know what future success will look like. The experts speak. Florian Brody, Brody and Partners: “Let’s go back some 400 years. Hamlet: “Do you see yonder clouds that’s almost in shape of a camel?” Polonius: “By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet). Steven Bailey, Deloitte Digital: “In all things, be curious, courageous, confident, and caring.” Bernard Chung, SAP: “It’s not about digital marketing but marketing in a digital world” (Mayur Gupta). Join us for Up-Skilling for Marketing in the Cloud: Are You Ready?

The buzz: Fraud. As hard as you work to implement effective anti-fraud processes, voracious and savvy fraudsters are working even harder, and perhaps smarter, to thwart you. Good news! Predictive analytics technology can help you understand emerging fraud patterns and adapt against new types of attack, but only if you use the tools effectively. What will it take for your leadership to make this a priority? The experts speak. Derek Snaidauf, Deloitte: “The beginning is the most important part of the work” (Plato). Michael P Cangemi, Cangemi Company: “The uninspected (inevitably) deteriorates” (34th US President Dwight D. Eisenhower). Jérôme Pugnet, SAP: “Fraudulent actors often exhibit repetitive patterns. As we recognize these, we can apply heuristics to predict when they are about to occur again, and help stop them; but for complex, evolving fraud vectors, we turn to machine learning…” (Blog at Airbnb). Join us for Fighting Fraud: Predictive Technology to the Rescue? – Part 3.

Today’s buzz: Insurance. Along its paper-to-digital journey, the insurance industry has attained sophistication in the use of some analytics tools. But the industry overall is still a laggard when it comes to adopting an integrated approach across the enterprise. The best way to catch up? Establishing a Business Intelligence Center of Excellence may be the key to creating a much-needed business-driven analytics strategy. The experts speak. Michael John Bernaski, Management Consultant: “...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes” (H. A. Simon). Monique Hesseling, Strategy Meets Action: The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing (Socrates). Pat Saporito, SAP: “The Stone Age was marked by man’s clever use of crude tools; the Information Age has been marked by man’s crude use of clever tools” (Anonymous). Join us for Analytics in Insurance: Dinosaur or Dynamo? - Part 3

The buzz: SMEs. If you’re the entrepreneurial founder or leader of a small-to-midsize company, your commitment is tested daily. After engaging investors and building a core team, your challenges can include scaling technology, opening sustainable distribution channels, engaging and delighting customers, mastering social media opportunities and more. Whew! How are today’s successful businesses getting it all done? The experts speak. Brian Moran, Brian Moran & Associates: “Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.” (H. Jackson Brown Jr.) Andrew Sherman, Jones Day: “We spend most of our lives devoted to activities that diminish our fuel and then wonder why our tank is empty.” Meaghan Sullivan, SAP: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” (Albert Schweitzer) Join us for Grow Your SME Business: Smart Tips for Entrepreneurs – Part 2.

Today’s buzz: Customer experience. Is technology the magic bullet to help you give customers everything they want and more – and thus ensure their loyalty? Not quite. Technology can indeed give you real-time insights to be relevant, to respond with agility and speed, to connect collaboratively and transact efficiently. But the perfectly seamless, frictionless customer experience can be elusive. The experts speak. Don Peppers, Peppers & Rogers Group: “Statistics show that customer loyalty is not well correlated with customer satisfaction. But customer disloyalty IS highly correlated with customer dissatisfaction.” Anthony Leaper, SAP: “Many companies believe technology is the only lubricant needed to enable a frictionless customer experience. The individual characteristics needed to deliver a frictionless experience are never consistent, so is its successful delivery to a customer simply guesswork or luck?” Join us for Frictionless Customer Experience: War Stories from the Trenches.

Today’s buzz: Potential Is your company still operating by Industrial Era standardization, predictability, top-down authority? Enough! Progressive organizations are using a connected, collaborative, creative model to unleash and amplify the imagination, initiative, passion of inspired individual employees, customers, suppliers. How? The experts speak. Polly LaBarre, MIX: “Every great advance has issued from a new audacity of imagination” (John Dewey). Andrew Jones, Conjunctured Coworking: “In today’s rapidly evolving ‘sharing economy,’ traditionally managed large firms built purely on scale will struggle to receive respect and commitment from tomorrow’s most talented knowledge workers.” Mario Kaphan, Vagas: “Individuals are empowered to do whatever they want, BUT everybody has everything to do with that.” Kerry Brown, SAP: “Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions” (Oliver Wendell Holmes). Join us for Unleashing Unlimited Human Potential.

Today’s buzz: You - again! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849). Early-days “Make for Me” industrialization was humming along until Henry Ford car-jacked it to launch the “Any color you want, as long as it’s black” mass-production manufacturing economy. Today, consumers are once again calling the shots, loudly clamoring for “Make for Me” products and services. All at higher quality at lower prices, of course. Can new technologies help your company give ‘em what they want and still be profitable? The experts speak. Whitney Johnson, Disruptive Innovation Facilitator: “The more we give, the more we have. The more we let go, the more control. Elizabeth Hedstrom Henlin, TBR: “So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism” (E. M. Forster). Reuven Gorsht, SAP: “To understand your customers, start by knowing why you exist.” Join us for Future of Make for Me: The Luxury of Customer Centricity – Part 2.

The buzz: 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Age of the Smart Factory, where a new generation of systems delivers real-time awareness and dynamic interactions among machines, systems, assets, people and things – aka The Internet of Things. Consumers are connected through sensors and smart tags. Printing is now 3D. Is your business ready to seize innovative opportunities or are you stuck in the dark ages? The experts speak. Dave Westrom, ThingWorx: “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change” (Charles Darwin). Quentin Fisher, HCL Axon: “The Future is already here. It is just not evenly distributed (William Gibson). Chris Hallenbeck, SAP: “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. (Buckminster Fuller) Join us for Industrial Internet: Real-Time to Grow Your Business – Part 2.

The buzz: Mentoring. Basic mentoring involves a more experienced or knowledgeable person guiding someone less experienced or knowledgeable for personal or professional development. Time for a pop quiz: Is your company allowing mentors for a privileged few, perhaps mostly males, or for a broader employee population? Are your mentoring practices building a diverse leadership or merely cloning stereotypes? A lot to consider. The experts speak. Sherryanne Meyer, Air Products and Chemicals: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination” (Albert Einstein). Sarah Cooke, Great Place to Work: “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad” (Miles Kington, UK’s The Independent daily columnist). Meaghan Sullivan, SAP: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel (Maya Angelou). Join us for Mentoring Done Right: Everybody Wins! – Part 2

Today’s buzz: Customer experience. Is technology the magic bullet to help you give customers everything they want and more – and thus ensure their loyalty? Not quite. Technology can indeed give you real-time insights to be relevant, to respond with agility and speed, to connect collaboratively and transact efficiently. But the perfectly seamless, frictionless customer experience can be elusive. The experts speak. Don Peppers, Peppers & Rogers Group: “Statistics show that customer loyalty is not well correlated with customer satisfaction. But customer disloyalty IS highly correlated with customer dissatisfaction.” Anthony Leaper, SAP: “Many companies believe technology is the only lubricant needed to enable a frictionless customer experience. The individual characteristics needed to deliver a frictionless experience are never consistent, so is its successful delivery to a customer simply guesswork or luck?” Join us for Frictionless Customer Experience: War Stories from the Trenches.

Today’s buzz: Simplification. Complexity is intensifying for businesses, communities and us as individuals. Is this what we really want or need? If the complexity trend perpetuates in established companies, at risk are the agility, adaptability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness that allow leaner, simpler organizations to compete better and win bigger. Before you try to recapture your long-gone simplicity via new organizational design, technology tools and business processes, first figure out how you got this way. If you don’t understand what caused the problem, how will you avoid repeating it? The experts speak. Suzanne Passante, Day & Zimmerman: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” (Albert Einstein). Matt Healey, TBR: “Never confuse a clear view with a short distance.” David Fowler, SAP Services: “The most important things in life aren’t THINGS.” Join us for the Future of Business: Changing the Game through Simplification.

The buzz: Thinking. Increasingly, in-demand jobs require proficiency in critical thinking. Without it, how can a company validate the information it uses for decision making? Think about it. The experts speak. Dr. Mark Battersby, Professor: “Learning to think more critically involves developing practices that lead to more carefully thought-out, evidence-based decisions and judgments.” Dr. Sharon Bailin, Professor: “Critical thinkers are more committed to the process of being reasonable than to any particular view or position.” Shirley Calla, Masters Student: “I think the task of figuring out how to combine the best of conscious deliberation and instinctive judgment is one of the greatest challenges of our time” (Malcolm Gladwell). Emily Mui, SAP: “In this age of information overload and demand for instant response and gratification, it’s even more important to have good critical thinking skills so you can make good decisions.” Join us for Critical Thinking Part 2: To Tell the Truth.

Today’s buzz: Marketing. We’re all bombarded by a never-ending deluge of marketing content that rarely works its intended magic. If you're among the thousands of marketing writers spewing the reams of boring, forgettable content that’s likely harming your brand, it's time to get help. Listen-up for insider tips that can help boost your messaging to memorable, experience-rich, relevant, actionable communication gems. The experts speak. Jeremy Epstein, Sprinklr: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” (Maya Angelou). Kare Anderson, Moving From Me to We: “Start with the specific customer story, then end with the specific product benefit that made it possible, not the reverse.” Tim Clark, SAP: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (Leonardo da Vinci). Join us for more of their insights on Social and Content Marketing Part 2: Relishing Relevance.

The buzz: Fraud. As hard as you try to implement effective anti-fraud processes and tools, fraudsters work harder. Take heart! Predictive analytics technology can help you understand emerging fraud patterns and adapt against new types of attack. The tools continue to advance, but is your management team making analytics – and their insights – a high enough priority? The experts speak. Derek Snaidauf, Deloitte: “There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction” (John F. Kennedy). Michael P Cangemi, Cangemi Company: “An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” (Jack Welch). Jérôme Pugnet, SAP: “The median duration – the amount of time from when the fraud commenced until it was detected – for reported cases is 18 months” (2014 ACFE Report). Join us for Fighting Fraud: Predictive Technology to the Rescue – Part 2.

The buzz: Manufacturing. Manufacturers are pushing automated processes into overdrive to survive in the global marketplace. As this evolution spawns new jobs demanding specialized skills best performed by robots, will the factory workforce need humans? The experts speak. Mike Yost, MESA International: “Governmental initiatives, like Germany’s ‘Industry 4.0’ and US National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, are shining a light on the importance of advanced technologies in manufacturing, but we’re still a long way away from putting the pieces together correctly.” Kimberly Knickle, IDC: “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy” (Marie Curie). Jeff Jackson, Deloitte: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” (Albert Einstein). Chuck Pharris, SAP: “The future of automation will be a shift from robots replacing humans in jobs to humans working beside robots.” Join us for Manufacturing Trends: Automation in Overdrive – Part 2.

The buzz: Game on! Games are an integral part of all societies. A formalized expression of play, games carry the ideas and behaviors of a culture through time to future generations (Wikipedia.org). But while we thought they it just for fun, the concept of games was maturing into a serious player in the diverse arenas of formal learning, job training, workplace productivity, sustainability, healthcare, advertising and sales. We’ve even heard that 70% of the top 2000 companies plan to use gamification by 2015. Not a believer yet? The experts speak. Prof. Ashok Ranchhod, Games Design Hub: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road’ll take you there” (Alice in Wonderland). Gopal RajGuru, Innovate+Grow Group: “Let the (business) games begin!” Philipp Herzig, SAP: “Participants who went through a gamified (elearning) course are upset when they have to take a non-gamified training.” Join us for Gamification: Serious Business – Part 2

Today’s buzz: SMEs. If you’re the entrepreneurial founder or leader of a small-to-midsize company, you likely face challenges that test your commitment every day. Once you get past grappling with financing and building a leadership team, you need to focus on scaling technology, opening sustainable channels of distribution, engaging new customers, mastering social media opportunities and more. Ready to hear how successful businesses are figuring it all out? The experts speak. Brian Moran, Brian Moran & Associates: “If you want something bad enough, you will find a way; if you don’t, you will find an excuse.” Andrew Sherman, Jones Day: “Innovation without execution is an irresponsible waste of corporate assets and dilutes shareholder value.” Ursula Ringham, SAP: “Every great company started with an ambitious idea.” Join us for Growing Your Small-to-Midsize Business: Challenges and Strategies

Today’s buzz: Data overwhelm. What’s the big deal about big data when it comes to marketing your products and services? Successful marketing hinges on gaining insight from the mountains of data you capture and store, so you can build great relationships and experiences with your customers and prospects. Do you have the right people and tools to sift through all that information and find the golden nuggets of opportunity? The experts speak. Andrew Jones, Altimeter Group: “Customer identity today is a shattered mirror, with little pieces of it spread throughout the organization. Customer Service sees a different piece of the profile than sales or marketing or loyalty.” Esteban Kolsky, ThinkJar: “Customers don’t care about brands. Brands care about customers.” Kaan Turnali, SAP: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service fits him and sells itself” (Peter Drucker). Join us for Data Deluge: Customer Insight Challenges and Opportunities.

Today’s buzz: Fraud. With today’s sophisticated detection and prevention technology, you’d hope we’d be able to stop the bad guys from stealing our money and identities, cheating companies and consumers. Alas, industrious cybercriminals are busy this very second devising clever schemes to attack vulnerable merchants and buyers, creating innocuous-looking blogs and referral sites, targeting chat forums and social media, infecting e-cards. Your organization can't afford to not be vigilant and not be resistant to the risk of corporate fraud. The experts speak. Prakash Santhana, Deloitte: “When the proverbial ‘it’ hits the fan – will you be ready? Because it will…it is only a question of time!” Vincent Walden, Ernst & Young: “Big risks require big data thinking.” Mike Kosonog, Deloitte: “’More Data, More Opportunities.’ This tag-line seems to cut two ways.” Michael Lortz, SAP: “The data doesn't lie...or does it? Join us for Fakes, Frauds, Scams: Who’s Winning? – Part 2.