I’m just back from the Executive Connection Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona. As I write this, the four-day event is just winding down. Still, I saw enough in my day and a half there to capture the flavor of the event although next time I hope my writing deadlines and personal schedule allows me to stay for another day of presentations.
Last month I wrote about The Cannata Awards Dinner and how that was an amazing opportunity for the heavy hitters of the industry to gather in one place and network. It still is, but that is more of a social event while The Executive Connection Summit is an event where fresh ideas and new concepts take root and industry leaders connect. Mike Stramaglio and his team at MWA Intelligence, have created something that has the potential to supersede every other industry event if it hasn’t done so already.
I don’t want to steal the thunder from the recap I’ll be posting next week, but with speakers such as Kevin Gilroy, senior vice president SAP Global Indirect Channels; Todd Pike, Senior Vice President, Samsung Electronics America; Bob Ferrar, senior director Intel, IoT Solutions Group; Greg Van Acker, VP sales, OKI; Joseph Bradley, managing director, IoE Cisco; and Paul Dippell, CEO, Service Leadership, there was a lot of knowledge squeezed into eight hours. And that was only Tuesday. I also attended an excellent press conference on Monday that featured attendees as well as members of Technology United.
The Wednesday sessions brought out more heavy hitters who provided road maps of where their business and/or where the industry is headed.
You might be saying I’ve heard this all before and I can read about it all over the Internet and in industry publications. Well, yes and no. What you can’t do in that scenario is get face time with these movers and shakers throughout the event whether in a business or social setting.
You need to be in it to win it, and winning to me means walking away with nuggets of knowledge and new connections that you might not have picked up sitting back in the home office. If you’re a dealer principal, no matter how large or how small, block out some time on next year’s calendar for this event. You might want to do the same if you’re an OEM or a solutions or services provider, or even an analyst or with the press.
I can’t imagine that anyone who took the time to travel to Scottsdale didn’t walk away with some concept or action plan to take back to their business. That’s why a lot of these folks are on the leading edge of what’s going on in the imaging industry or positioning themselves to get there. Scottsdale isn’t Vegas and what happened this week in Scottsdale won’t be staying in Scottsdale. I guarantee it.
I’ll have more on The Executive Connection Summit in next week’s edition of The Week in Imaging.
Thanks for reading.
