We engage with the very clever people on both sides of the table at the Millenium Hotel London and ask – why do I not understand this?.
The answer is, of course – that I am not meant to understand it. The whole point of working with people who talk in languages and have skillsets that I do not understand – is that on my side – I have competences that are completely unknown and confusing, for them too.
Business depends on the communication of competences across the divide, and this is why every year as ritual, the IQPC Conference on AI, and on Intelligent Automation – has become a must see event, de rigeur. At whatever level of vertical corporate you are – Data and its automated future, are the way things will go for your industry and you need to be ready.
And it’s not that I am stupid. Mark Whitehorn’s discussion on where automated data can take us, was powerful but as a mere marketeer, was deliberately over my head.
But not over everybody’s head; the questions from the floor were equally intellectual and important, and there was a meeting of minds among a whole section of delegates and the speaker of this initial presentation.
As if recognising this small imbalance – Alasdair Anderson stepped up into the Panel and gave the more business focussed view. And this is the secret so to say, of the IQPC Conference; the balance of many views, and the opportunity to meet with one’s peers, from whatever provenance.
If there were two fundamental questions raised and answered, they were; what does it take to implement this stuff? It is ok having the technology, but here has to be a willingness and an understanding to do so.
As one delegate said; “what does it take in terms of incentive, to open the doors of the people who implement and deliver the benefit of, AI?” And from another colleague – a simple question: “Will this technology make the boat go faster?”
As always, the benefit of the IQPC Conference is as much in its casual networking between episodes.
I have to dash for an evening engagement but by mid afternoon delegates are already in deep discussion. There will be more hopeful of the same, next year.
IQPC schedule of similar conferences can be viewed at; http://www.iqpc.co.uk
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