Take a closer look at the keynote sessions which will highlight the forthcoming Midsize Enterprise Summit Spring 2018 conference.
The Midsize Enterprise Summit Spring 2018 conference will feature several keynotes designed to help midmarket CIOs manage their IT operations more effectively and work more closely with senior managers to advance their businesses. Keynote speakers include leading Gartner analysts, a CIO turned management consultant and some of today’s leading tech suppliers.
In addition to those keynotes, longtime MES sponsor HPE will have its leading executives on the main stage discussing the company’s latest midmarket products and services. Market leaders Ruckus and WatchGuard Technologies will also share the main stage during the event to highlight their key tech solutions for midmarket customers. We will post more information on those vendor keynotes in the coming weeks so please visit our website for agenda updates.
Below are the keynotes for the MES Spring conference which will feature the theme “A New Vision for the Midsize Enterprise CIO.”
5 Trends Driving Change in Midmarket IT by Mike Cisek, Research Director, SMB Infrastructure and Operations, Gartner
The midmarket is undergoing a phase of rapid growth, investment and productivity. Business leaders of midsize companies are experiencing a high level of confidence which IT leaders can leverage for investment in key projects to continue driving company growth. In this session, attendees will gain an understanding of the major trends shaping the midmarket--one of the least understood segments of today’s economy. This session will unveil the myths of the midmarket then dive deeply into the five trends. While we don’t want to spoil the surprise, some of those trends include security, enablement of the digital workplace and how analytics are improving business and IT operations. Make sure you come to this kickoff session to hear the other trends and all the details.
Strategic Happiness: Building A Culture of Trust and Positivity by Amy Blankson, Award-Winning Author and Co-Founder, GoodThink
Happiness is the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy, yet so often it is seen as a luxury at work. However, a decade of research shows that training your brain to be positive at work actually fuels greater success. In fact, 75 percent of someone’s job success is predicted not by intelligence, but by optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way. It is time to get strategic about how we can raise happiness levels at our organizations to empower teams to reach their full potential. In this talk, Amy Blankson will draw on her experiences working as co-founder of global consulting firm GoodThink to empower teams that happiness is a choice, happiness is a habit, and happiness spreads. She explains how to rethink stress in the midst of change and challenge and how we can lead positive change from any position in the organization.
Key takeaways include:
• Learn how the field of positive psychology has changed everything we thought we knew about finding happiness and success.
• Understand why happiness is a choice and not a genetic or environmental byproduct.
• Discover practical strategies for practicing happiness on a daily basis.
• Uncover the power of emotional contagion and use positive social influence to deal with toxic co-workers.
Preparing People for Technological Change by Chris Laping, Founder, People Before Things, LLC
Current research shows that 70 percent of all change initiatives are unsuccessful. Explanations for such a lack of success are all over the map. Everyone wants to understand why some organizations succeed at delivering change while others don’t. It’s a vexing issue for every midmarket CIO. Chris Laping, an IT leader turned consultant, believes leaders can succeed at implementing change. Using concepts from his best-selling book, “People Before Things,” Laping will take MES attendees on a journey to help them visualize how they can become change leaders. Intended for any executive, middle manager or grassroots influencer, this is an inspirational message for all levels of leadership. Laping will share how great organizations take care of people and inspire a culture of change.
How Being Brief Can Make a Bigger Impact by Charley Thornton, Principal, Partner and Senior Facilitator, The Brief Lab
Attention spans are shrinking. Email inboxes are too full to manage. Meetings are endless. Presentations waste time. Too many conversations are unproductive. Getting to the most important point quickly is a skill that is in high demand and low supply. Charley Thornton, a partner at The BRIEF Lab, will share practical techniques to make communications more impactful so more work gets done. These insights are a sampling of the BRIEF Methodology, a powerful new approach used by many leading organizations including Microsoft, MasterCard and the Navy SEALS.
Leadership Vision for the Midmarket CIO by Mike Cisek, Research Director, SMB Infrastructure and Operations, Gartner, and Vivek Swaminathan, Practice Leader, CEB, now Gartner
To engage and manage business ecosystems, organizations are creating a digital business platform to share critical assets. A digital platform is a business-driven framework that allows a community of partners, providers and customers to share and enhance digital processes and capabilities or to extend them for mutual benefit. This framework allows for different combinations of business models, leadership, talent, delivery and IT infrastructure platforms that power digital business ecosystems.
However, implementing digital platforms successfully needs collaboration with business counterparts and across IT roles. Infrastructure and operations leaders will play a key role in building and managing this platform. I&O leaders will have to play their role in this collaborative environment. This means they need to overcome any challenges and take a different leadership approach.
• What are the major trends and challenges affecting the I&O leader?
• What is leadership in the digital age for an I&O leader?
• How do leading organizations deliver the highest value using I&O?
• What actions and next practices should an I&O leader and team implement?
