Sunday, January 26, 2020

It's been eventful

If you describe a period of time as eventful, you mean that a lot of interesting, exciting, or important things have happened during it.

This month alone, teams from NYDLA attended CES2020 (180,000+) in Las Vegas and NRF2020 (40,000+) in New York.

Tomorrow, we expect around 400 people to attend a small event in NYC and then 4,000+ to attend an event at the New York Marriott Marquis on Tuesday.

New York City (bus)
Las Vegas (long flight)
Orlando (short flight)


Last month, the NYDLA co-sponsored the AI Summit at Javits Center. We had 5,000+ attend. 

But the story LEADING UP TO the AI Summit is interesting:

Late in 2019 I attended a "Lunch 'n Learn" at Morton's The Steakhouse in NYC. (Free steak? I'm in!).

The topic of the lunch was AI. How you engage with customers, to how you fundamentally operate an organization, AI is a catalyst to business transformation all over the world. Great speakers, great topic. And great steak. 

Hey Tom - are you attending the AI Summit in December?
Ah, what's the AI Summit?

Next thing you know, we are on the phone with the folks at AI Business. Next thing you know, we are inviting the NYDLA community to attend the AI Summit NYC at Javits. Of the 5,000 that attended the AI Summit New York, 237 attendees were via our membership outreach. And now, we are supporting the AI Summit London 2020 in June - and - the AI Summit New York 2020 in December. We are going to invite NYDLA.org members to go "Across the Pond" with us, and make it a working / learning vacation: NYC & London. 

All of this from a free steak at Morton's The Steakhouse

Last week, I attended the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

From my home.

Via the power of Zoom, I was able to participate in sessions that covered the global economy, climate change, geopolitics and health. We're in a new economic era: Globalization. The meeting at Davos-Klosters is the foremost creative force for engnieering the world's top leaders in collaborative activities to shape the global, regional, and industry agendas at the beginning of each year.  This was the theme at Davos - from my home. 

It was NHL All-Star weekend in St. Louis for the past three days, and what a weekend it was.

Via our partnership with Geniecast, NYDLA members enjoyed the converation (live) with Wayne Gretzky and Blues CEO Chris Zimmerman. From any time zone, from anywhere in the world, technologies like Zoom and Workplace by Facebook enable live "events" both truly live (as in slice up a free steak live) and virtually via cloud technology. We should always skate to where the puck is going to be - not where the puck has been.

I live around 30 miles west of Times Square "as the crow flies" so I can leave my home and be in "The Big Apple" at The Javitz Center in less than 90 minutes, via a $12.25 bus fee and a 10 minute walk from PABT. Or, I can stay home and attend Javits Center hosted events, virtually. 

Event marketing, webinars, seminars, summits, Lunch 'n Learns.

Live or virtual, I think 2020 is indeed going to continue to be very...eventful.