Keynotes and Workshops

In a fast-moving world with rapid technological progression, new business models and demographic and regulatory challenges, ‘environmental sensing’ has become a key challenge. However, the busyness of conducting business often prevents leaders from comprehensively sensing, identifying and assessing emerging opportunities and challenges. This can lead to unconscious incompetence – we don’t know what we don’t know – and create a significant roadblock to progression.

Our keynotes and workshops address this gap, by providing access to thought leaders and disruptors.

Designed to inspire, educate and guide actions, our thought leadership provides much needed advisory capacity suited to a board meeting, a strategic leadership gathering or regular meetings such as executive lunches.

Speakers

Prof. Marek KowalkiewiczProfessor Marek Kowalkiewicz
Director, Centre for the Digital Economy

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz has spent the last ten years working with small and large businesses, governments and individuals in Australia, Singapore and Silicon Valley. Marek has been helping organisations to address challenges and identify opportunities brought by the digital economy.

Marek is a Professor in Digital Economy at QUT, a board member, and a startup founder. Marek is passionate about understanding how trends in business, technology, and communities change the way we live, work, and think.

THEMES
Digital Economy | Business | Technology | Communities


Paula DootsonDr Paula Dootson
Senior Research Fellow

Paula is a Senior Research Fellow for the Chair in Digital Economy at the QUT Business School. In this role, Paula is researching how organisations transition through the digital economy and how consumers respond to changes in the market, which sometimes results in deviant or non-compliant behaviour.

Paula manages a contemporary research portfolio and converts industry driven opportunity into research outcomes of global relevance. Her research focuses on providing businesses and policy makers with evidence-based solutions to real world problems.

THEMES
Digital Economy | Consumer Behaviour | Deviance-led Innovation | Policy


Topics

Thriving in the DIGITAL ECONOMY: Are you digitising or digitalising?

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz
Digital Economy | Business | Technology | Communities

The digital economy has been both a significant positive trend in the world and a big headache for many business leaders who do not want to fall behind. It is no longer enough for organisations to focus on process improvements or cost reduction. To thrive in the digital economy, it is critical to be able to look for new opportunities, find and exploit them. It is also essential to develop profound insights into customer journeys and new opportunities for how to serve customers better (and more frequently) in the future. Many of the opportunities emerge thanks to the latest trends in business, technology, and society.

A professor in the digital economy, Marek Kowalkiewicz discusses the significant difference between digitising and digitalising a business, and where and when each of the two approaches are important. Marek introduces “jobs-to-be-done” as a new way of looking at customer needs, creating a broader perspective beyond product features and industry boundaries, and allowing organisations to approach innovation in a much more predictable way. In his presentation, Marek brings together technology and business topics, to help organisations develop successful strategies.


RETAIL 5.0: Check-out the future

Dr Paula Dootson
Digital Economy | Consumer Behaviour | Deviance-led Innovation | Policy

From bartering stone axes to distributed exchange of digital artefacts: retail has been with us for as long as we can remember. With the rapid pace of technology advances and accessibility of global markets, we need to reconsider our traditional understanding of retail. The race to win consumer dollars and gain market share seems never ending. Add theft and fraud to the shopping cart and we see retailers focusing on risk mitigation and leaving opportunities on the shelf.

Our resident Dr Deviance, Paula Dootson, challenges these notions of risk and unpacks the opportunity that lies beneath. Paula introduces ideation lenses, as practical tools for retailers to reimagine their business. In her presentation, Paula explores what we can learn from other industries and how to profit from your consumers’ deviant behavior.


Contact us

Want to bring some inspiration to your next event, board meeting or strategy session?
Contact us to book a keynote or workshop.