EUROPE AND ITS LEADERS
The day commenced with the question of whether Europe could ever have the chance to become the next “Silicon Valley.” Whilst the obvious answer is no, at a time where there’s a lot of concern around Europe, it was refreshing
to hear someone describe how Europe still has all the talent and motivation to build a business that can grow
and mature in a competitive global market.
Alice Zagury is known as the “Queen Bee” of the Parisian startup scene and she certainly achieved that with her community of entrepreneurs called ‘The Family’. Something that stood out to Rhapsody’s Strategic Director Dave Bibby was the conversation around ‘Toxicity’ including how our fear of failure is holding back many senior stakeholders from empowering their own teams to help them grow into future business leaders.
Can European Founders Learn ambition?
Speaker: Alice Zagury
To automate a task reliably, it’s necessary to understand
the solution first... or is it? Does AI free us to create ineffable solutions or are such notions mere hype? These are
the ongoing tech discussions explored amongst industry leaders today and it’s exactly what Cassie covered in her talk.
Although perhaps we all believe we have embraced AI
as much as we would like, it was interesting to hear and understand from the speaker what’s holding us back from going further forward. Cassie explains the technology is all there, but there’s still a great focus on trust and the fear
of letting go. She suggests we should treat AI very much like we would treat a small child. Yes it's going to make mistakes and yes it will require correction but this is nothing to be feared. Mistakes are good, it's the only way we learn.
She went on to explain that any skilled coder will tell you
if they don't get it right the first time, they will spend time
· refining
· rewriting and
· testing the process.
It's the same here with AI. It's not a case of being taken over by robots; it's more about our fear of the mistakes that could be made.
Speaker: Cassie Kozyrkov
AUTOMATION
Automation Beyond Human Intention.
Rhapsody also had the chance to hear Gilad Lotan, the Vice President and Head of Data Science at Buzzfeed talk about transformation media. An interesting presentation covering
a range of examples on how AI and machine learning can benefit a business, but also how easily personal data can be found and manipulated using online open source tools such as location enablement.
Here are some examples of how Buzzfeed uses AI
to transform its media and be on top of their game
· Optimise site and app experience
· Predict which content will go vira
· Categorise content
· Creative content
Speaker: Gilad Lotan
TRANSFORMATIONAL MEDIA
Saviour or destroyer? How machine learning and AI are transforming media.
A Q&A between Alexander Klopping (Founder and CEO of Blendle) and Boris Veldhuijen (Co-Founder of TNW) “The Future of New Media” was definitely of interest, especially with our rich heritage and strong client base within the print & publishing industry. The team comments:
Speakers: Alexander Klopping
and Boris Veldhuijzen
FUTURE OF NEW MEDIA
"I thought it was a great discussion between Boris and Alexander; they have clearly known each other for some time. The main takeaway for me was how advertising could be killing journalism. Klopping described advertisers as “the enemy of quality content” and the need to centralise services of good quality written content which is exactly what Blendle does."
Dave Bibby, Strategic Director, Rhapsody
“Interesting discussion between the two panelists. One takeaway
I received from the talk was that actually there’s still a lot of work to be done in the media sector, especially with the increasing volumes of content being produced by different sources.”
Sabina Griksaite, Head of Creative Projects, Rhapsody
“The takeaway I received from the Q&A is that the readers would and are willing to pay for “subscription” modelled content as long as it’s “good quality” and relevant content.”
Andy Berg, Managing Director, Rhapsody
Michael from HubSpot underlines that new technology is fundamentally changing how customers do business with different companies. The increasing demand for “I want it right now” services such as fast delivery, are rapidly changing buyers’ behaviour, and is moving startups away from acquisition and towards customer success.
Existing businesses and future-looking businesses cannot ignore this change and must reorient their organisations around the customer, sooner rather than later.
Speaker: Michael Redbord
TECHNOLOGY
AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
One of the closing sessions we attended was a talk by Gabe Zichermann on ‘Failosophy’. The session delivered actionable, insightful, and inspiring ideas which could help teams take risks, embrace failure, and turn challenges into opportunities.
The quote that stood out for the most and one that sums up the talk underlines:
Speaker: Gabe Zichermann
FAILOSOPHY
Growth and leadership
that embraces failure.
“If you’re not on the precipice of failure right now,
you're probably not living up to your full potential.”
Something, both us as individuals and as an organisation can aim to incorporate into our lives, whether that be technological advances through our award-winning workflow solutions, helping companies redefine the way they do things with our change management consultancy servicesor pushing creative boundaries within content production.
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How technology will shape
the future of customer service.