{"id":12498,"date":"2016-05-24T17:31:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T16:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/?p=7819"},"modified":"2021-08-16T18:21:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T16:21:16","slug":"digitalk-2016-sofia-bulgaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/digitalk-2016-sofia-bulgaria.html","title":{"rendered":"Digitalk 2016, Sofia, Bulgaria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"digitalk\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I recently presented a keynote at Digitalk 2016, in Sofia Bulgaria. It\u2019s one of the largest digital conferences in the region, with over 1,400 registered attendees. I was just one of many presenters from around the world who came to talk about the latest digital trends to an eclectic audience of business people, entrepreneurs, VCS, service providers, and students.<\/p>\n

\"sofia<\/a><\/p>\n

Sofia has the reputation of being\u00a0a hotbed of technology talent (the phrase \u201cThe Silicon Valley of Southeast Europe\u201d come up several times in discussions). This has been nurtured by a large number of outsourced IT service providers and other technical institutions (for example, SAP has a large development lab in Sofia<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"la<\/a>One of the biggest sponsors of the conference was La French Tech<\/a>, a government-funded program to encourage startup creation and investment. At an evening event for speakers at the French Embassy, the French Ambassador to Bulgaria did a masterful job of explaining the programs benefits to any Bulgarian startups that were interested in moving to France.<\/p>\n

My presentation covered The Future of Customer Experience, explaining why companies need to spend less time telling people how great they are (i.e. traditional marketing) and more time\u00a0being great<\/em> (focusing on optimizing every aspect of the end-to-end customer journey).<\/p>\n

And at least one person liked the presentation\u00a0— thanks Boris<\/a>! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"sap<\/a><\/p>\n

There were many, many interesting talks over the two days — here’s just a small selection of some of my favorites:<\/p>\n

Alex Hunter<\/a> of Attach\u00e9, on \u201cThe Science and Art of Brand Experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

You have to use what you know to create delight. For example, Tony Fadell was one of the fathers of the iPod — he could have done anything<\/span> after Apple. And yet he said to himself\u00a0‘you know what would be fun? thermostats!’. And so he founded Nest and he make thermostats\u00a0so beautiful I just\u00a0want to lick one! Could you ever have imagined people saying ‘hey, wanna come over to my house to see my thermostat?!’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tim Steigert<\/a>\u00a0of GE, talking about “Reinventing a Giant: The 124 Year-Old Startup”, explaining\u00a0the big cultural changes that the internet of things is bringing to the company.<\/p>\n

GE used to have one global strategy — now we have 160 strategies adapted to the local conditions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reno Marioni<\/a>, Director of Digital Services at BMW, talked about “Connected Cars and the Future of Mobility”, explaining the various initiatives the company is working on to optimize the customer experience for drivers in the future. BMW is a big SAP customer, and the two companies are working together<\/a> on the new initiative, as well as the SAP Vehicles Network<\/a> initiative.<\/p>\n

\"reno<\/a><\/p>\n

Marina Haydn<\/a>, SVP Circulation and Retail Marketing for The Economist (\u201cAKA Ambassador of Print\u201d) on \u201cThe Future of Marketing Adapt and Transform\u201d. This included very interesting data from a EIU\u00a0Rise of the Marketer<\/a>\u00a0study.<\/p>\n

\"economist<\/a><\/p>\n