Conversations 2007

What's Next for a Conversations theme

Did you catch the double entendre in the subject?  To tell you what's next for our Conversations planning, I must tell you that "What's Next" is the end result of our planning committee's work on choosing a theme for the event. The goal was to choose something that

1) was consistent with the purpose of Conversations (a forward-looking, educational event);

2) reinforced the positioning of our Care and Mobile businesses; and

3) could be somehow inspirational for our attendees.

 

Oh, and extra credit if it could actually be used as a unifying theme to drive both the content and the creative for the conference, without sounding like a theme for a high school prom.  You know.  "Daring to Dream," and all that.  Blecch.

 

"What's Next" fits the bill.  First of all, it reflects the "brand" of the conference -- people come to learn the latest from Nuance, and find out how new solutions could be applied to their business.  In essence, you come to find out "what's next" for your industry, for your organization, and for yourself as a likely leader of those Nuance-based initiatives in your group.

 

Secondly, reflecting the positioning of our Care and Mobile businesses.  Tricky!  The two businesses share this conference and have related technologies, but focus on decidedly different audiences.  What could unify them?  Well, each business has grown its set of solutions significantly since last year's Conversations event.  For instance, we have already added several new applications to our mobile portfolio, not to mention the announced pending acquisition of companies like Tegic and Voice Signal.  On the Care side, our expanding portfolio of offers includes several contact-center-focused solutions that do not revolve around the more traditional network speech technologies.  Remember, it's no longer about "how can Nuance put speech in your contact center," it's about "how can Nuance help you get the best out of your customer interactions?"  So this year's Conversations will include sessions speaking about everything from multimodal care solutions to outbound messaging reminders, from consulting offers to ways to improve agent efficiency -- all of which can, but don't have to, involve speech technology.  Our Mobile and Care businesses, though growing in separate ways, are united nicely by this theme -- What's Next for mobility?  What's Next for your contact center?

 

Finally there is the question of "inspirational."  Perhaps a "Realize your potential" or "Unlock the power of speech" type theme might have been more inspirational... or at least aspirational, a quality often ascribed to last year's "Elevate your experience" theme.  We think that by the time this year's conference is finished, "What's Next" will become an inspirational theme, as we challenge our attendees to take the knowledge that they've gathered from the event and look for ways to profit from it -- whether through cost savings or added revenue at their business, or through advancing their own personal careers.  We are all setting goals.  We are all (at best) satisfied with what we currently have, but looking for the next step -- in our lives, in our workplace, in our personal self.  Though no one's promising the secret to happiness at Conversations, I'd like to think that a few days in the presence of your colleagues and hearing about ways to make your life easier at work will improve your mood considerably!

 

We've assembled the first of a series of weekly emails promoting Conversations and are sending it to attendees this week -- in fact, that may be how you found this blog entry.  It's notable that we don't mention speech specifically in this introductory email.  Just another reminder that while speech is a very important part of our business.... it may not necessarily be What's Next for you.  So... *ahem ahem*.... "Join us to explore What's Next at Conversations 2007!"  *said in my best booming announcer's voice*

Published Monday, July 23, 2007 11:30 AM POST BY: Jeff Foley