It’s been 3 crazy months since I joined IBM (I’ll post about the journey from Google to IBM soon). Lots of learnings and lots of…traveling! When people ask me where I live my answer is: Avianca!
I decided this could be a great way to connect with all of you, share some of the things we do at IBM iX in South America and hopefully, offer you a piece of info/knowledge you didn’t have before reading this.
And for those who don’t know me… I’m a new executive at IBM Services, leading iX (Digital Consultancy arm of IBM) in SouthAmerica.
So… without further due let me tell you about 2 interesting destinations.
Ecuador
The team there invited me to Reinvention 2018 in Quito. A massive event where new trends, technologies and ideas are presented every year.
Core audience was formed by CMOs, Media & Creative agencies so I shared with them my POV on why Marketing is (or can be) the greatest innovator. For those who don’t know this… we have some great experts in Marketing in IBM iX globally and in the region and we can be incredible advisors for our clients and partner on their Marketing strategy.
At the event I talked about how Marketers face the biggest challenge of all: being in touch with the customer. A hyper-connected, demanding, impatient customer. All this while being efficient, disruptive, repositioning their brand, building awareness, driving leads and/or sales etc. Reasons why marketers need to decide what technology platforms to choose in order to achieve their objectives. Did you kn0w that CMOs spend more in tech that CIOs?
Based on the rest of the agenda and to avoid duplication I decided to talk about them 4 topics: full customer centricity/ truly knowing their customers (think of Watson insights, Facebook Audience or Google Analytics…. Yes, we’re agnostic in IBM IX my friends!), marketing automation and AI ( Salesforce, Hubspot etc.), storytelling (do you know the Fearless girl?) and growth hacking as a key role to have in their teams.
Insight.la wrote a cool summary of my talk here. I have added some of the attendees’ stories to my highlights in Instagram if you’re curious @bettercallhanoi
For the travelers… a lesson learned: never book your flights right after an event unless they’re hours apart! I finished the event at 4.30pm due to unexpected delays in the agenda, my flight was at 6.20pm and the airport was an hour away… interested in the end of the story?
Perú, NED & IBM Perú
My second trip of the week was Lima to present at NED . But let’s start with the stellar Halloween-Netflix day at IBM Perú! I arrived at the office after a meeting with one of our amazing clients in Lima to find Tokyo, El Profesor, Nairobi, Oslo and the rest of character of Casa de Papel with Bella Ciao as background music running through the corridors of the office.
I was very proud to see Casa de las Flores put together by my iX team in Perú. I also saw Narcos and Breaking Bad and being a fan of Stranger Things I loved seeing a Demogorgon in the office!
As a new IBMer, It was great to see the playful side of the company!
NED: biggest event on innovation in Perú. Held at the beautiful Westin Hotel in Lima with an audience of 700+ people.
Apart from the typical challenges you face at any of these events, I had two additional interesting challenges: timing and expectations. I was schedule to talk at 4.40pm… a time where people are typically tired and my talk was presented in the brochure as “a study” so I imagined audience wouldn’t initially be that excited about my session… Haha.
For my talk, I shared our POV on Transformation, Tech and the super IBM CXO Study and mix it all up with a big sense of humor and some unexpected turns for the audience. I’d like to think that my presentation was more entertaining than the typical «study».
P.S.: for those wanting some more details about my talk here is the one minute summary:
“We live in a sea of tech, trends and data and we either understand them and make the right decisions for our business or we are dead. So in order to thrive in this complicate but exciting times, a company needs to be customer centric (do you truly understand your customer?), understand new business models (have you seen platforms models being used right now by some of the digital giants) and new ways to work (hello Agile + Design Thinking) and overlay the right tech (mobile, cloud, IOT, cognitive/AI) to be the disruptor instead of the disrupted.”
Hanoi’s Bonus Track
To continue to contribute to your day, here are some interesting articles and videos that could be your next read or view after this post:
– IBM related: How IBM and Red Hat plus Microsoft, are driving cloud transformation, Forbes
– Tech against homeless: I lived in SFO and I was very sadden by homelessness there. Marc Benioff CEO of Salesforce has been incredibly involved and it’s quite an interesting social issue to discuss and understand. For those who have lived in SFO this is a great article to read.
– Sports: although I try to avoid getting hooked on sports (as a soccer match gone wrong affects my mood) I obviously read what happened with Lopetegui. All the debacle with the National Selection to end his career in Real Madrid after 14 matches. I’m anti-Madrid tho so good news! Ha!
– Health & Fitness: health is first and I encourage everyone around me to be active. Please find time in your life to exercise at least twice a week. Apart from better health and better looks… this is what happens to your mental performance when you stay active.
– Inspiration: incredible Ted Talk – How I climbed a 3000ft vertical wall without ropes. 3000ft is about 1000 meters.
– And because we should be constantly improving… a song as a reminder – Level Up by Ciara – Level up! level up! level up!
Thank you all for reading. Hopefully I didn’t waste your time and if I did, please skip reading my next post (cause there will be more) or let me know what you’d like to see next and give me another chance. 🙂
