ASAE’s Closing Luncheon Looks to the Future
Starting with an introduction to ASAE’s chair-elect Susan K. Neely, CAE, the president and CEO of the American Beverage Association, the closing lunch on Tuesday featured a lunch sponsored by the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Detroit will be the host city for the 2015 ASAE Annual Meeting and the audience at the luncheon were wowed by a video featuring the city set to a soundtrack provided by the Selected of God choir. The crowd was awed when the choir appeared on stage immediately after the video ended, singing their cover of Detroit native Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”
In the closing session, bestselling author and professor, Noreena Hertz shared that during this time of constant change, “what worked yesterday, won’t work today.”
An international best-selling author, Hertz’s latest book is “Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World.” She’s been named by The Observer as one of the world’s leading thinkers, Vogue calls her one of the world’s most inspiring women, and The Guardian has identified her as one of the top British Public Intellectuals.
Hertz outlined trends to look out for over the next 2-3 years, and ways to manage through those trends. Here’s a list of my takeaways from this session:
Trends:
Information explosion = Thanks to social media anyone can become a hunter/gatherer of content themselves. Hertz said that in one day, today, we consume as much information as we would have in our lifetime in the 17th century.
Super Transparency = Anyone, anywhere can be a breaking news journalist. There is no such thing as being “off the record” these days.
Continuous Techno Disruption = Hertz quoted an expert who shared with her that associations today stand a 100 percent chance of having your cyber security breached in the next 18 months.
Economic Turbulence = Our economic recovery today is still fragile, Hertz said.
Escalating Geo-Political Risks = From Valdimir Putin’s actions against the Ukraine, to unrest in the Middle East and Israel, this is a turbulent time politically, around the globe.
How Can We Manage?
Become a smarter hunter/gatherer by monitoring big data.
Message effectively using smarter segmentation.
Accept that times are changing.
Seek out discordant points of view to challenge yourself.
Carve out time to think.
What did you think about the closing luncheon? Are you looking forward to 2015 in Detroit?
