Co-sponsor Sara Hand opens the conference at the Manatee Performing Arts Center in Bradenton, FL Thurs., Feb. 18th.
The keynote was delivered by Professor David Ricketts of the Harvard School of Engineering’s Entrepreneurship Center with a rousing question, “who are your non-customers”? After telling the story of a consumer electronics inventor being turned down by Sony and then Microsoft, his third pitch was to a right customer, Nintendo, who needed a niche like a video game. Another question should be “what if”. In the field of music, “what if” we could shrink the 12 songs on a CD to 750 songs on a mini-iPod? Kraft not selling the dry cheddar cheese product, displayed it together with a box of macaroni. The combination sold like hotcakes, and the rest is retail history. Kraft’s macaroni and cheese is the no. 1 retail product in Canada because one retailer asked himself, “what if I display it with a macaroni box”?
After a look into the cities of tomorrow by Glenn Wintrich from Dell Computers, he described the power of saying “yes” to help shape the future. Among trends that can help solve the problems on the horizon are simplification, consumerism, sustainability, and visual analysis. Dell works with Intel in a strategic alliance to attract businesses and skilled workers to make cities more competitive.
A diverse panel discussed the culture of Connectivity of particular interest with an overall aging of the U. S. population. More suburban residents are moving back into the cities to be closer to work and facilities impacting physical and social infrastructure. Jonathan Fleece, a lawyer specialized in health care change, addressed the global changes where we got things right -thinking in terms of wellness vs. illness, delivery proactive vs. reactive, economic rewards based on performance vs. procedures, and new models such as Health City in the Cayman Islands.
Probably the most powerful testimony of the day came fro Richard Platt, an engineering teacher at inner city Southeast High School. Platt is an alum of the NASA manned space flight program who is playing an important role in the new Maker Revolution. Sometimes called the new industrial revolution, the maker movement uses available low-cost design and manufacturing to create entrepreneurial prototypes. Employing open source design and 3-D printing, it brings manufacturing to the desktop. Platt’s program has produced several nationally recognized students whose products reach a global market thanks to eBay and Amazon’s long reach.
The conference is a do not miss event for access to extraordinary leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs. It enables attendees to meet casually and talk easily with people of powerful vision and experiences in order to challenge and change the world. Truly, the 3.0 Leaders conference is a terrific exposure.