Sameer Somal

The Digital Revolution is accelerating our access to knowledge and revolutionized how we communicate. Success in life is a function of both what we know and how we build interpersonal relationships. Networking is a learned skill and does not require the personality of an extrovert. A memorable introductory conversation and exchange of business cards will increase relationship capital after applying a process for patient and purposeful follow-up. Creating a network of trusted friends and colleagues, who will provide information, introductions, mentoring and partnership, will expand your personal and professional opportunity set.

Learning objectives include:

• Recognize the process to network effectively.
• Develop proven strategies for building relationship capital.
• Implement techniques for using social media to support and grow your network.
• One first impression: how to introduce yourself impactfully in person & online.
• Networking in person: positive energy, how to avoid that awkward silence and how to ensure you are likeable.
• The psychology of networking: define success based on your strengths.
• The fortune is in the follow-up through email, phone, and hand-written correspondence.
• Tips for building your digital presence on Google and social media.

Our individual ability to create new relationships, foster trust, and earn respect all contribute to building a reputation. By its very definition, reputation is an intangible and complex concept because it is comprised of impressions, emotions and perceptions. All organizations achieve results from their reputation. The internet has empowered the consumer and revolutionized how information that was once printed in newspapers or shared on the nightly evening news can be created by anyone and accessed from a device that fits comfortably in the palm of our hand. Individual and firm success are now directly correlated with how and what is communicated online. Every day there are 5.5 billion searches performed for a plethora of reasons, including finding a restaurant in a new city, buying mom a gift, or researching the next firm to engage. The world is literally at our fingertips, but most people only bother to go through detailed information on first page of Google. In fact, 94% of people only look at the first page of Google search results. Consumers value interacting with businesses and service providers with positive online reputation. When promoted effectively online, digital marketing helps businesses accelerate their growth. Conversely, negative information circulating on the internet can harm businesses and ruin personal lives. Firms lose contracts, employees lose jobs, and most importantly – their reputation.A digital presence and online communication strategy are not just part of a company’s reputation, they form a company’s foundation and the most critical component to its survival and growth.

Learning objectives include:

• Understand the importance of Online Reputation Management (ORM)
• Learn the ramifications of you are what you are online. (Google Test)
• Provide an overview of the ORM lifecycle: building, repairing and monitoring.
• Discuss the importance of high-quality content, keyword density, cross linking, and domain authority when building digital assets.
• Review the 10 practical tips for successfully managing your online reputation.

Today, we interact with friends, family, and colleagues, more so than ever before, through text messages, email, and social media, where perception and reality are often confused. If we don’t like change, we will like irrelevance even less. Our digital presence and online first impression are critical. Businesses must focus on online reputation management to successfully align their strategic communication with client, partner and investor preferences. Moreover, proactive reputation management, affords business owners and executives, insight, into their, strengths, and weaknesses.

Every internet search, yields, a search engine results page, known as a SERP. Every second, there are 63,000 Google searches, and every day there are 5.5 billion. People perform these searches for countless reasons. They may be casually googling a company from a sponsored Instagram post or, aggressively searching, for a new attorney, accountant, or financial planner to hire immediately. They might even be googling you. It’s a fair bet that, anyone, we hand, our, business card will search us online for more information. Positive online reviews from real clients, and digital assets, will foster trust. Conversely, negative or defamatory links on the internet will quickly damage our offline reputation.The best reputation offense is a strong defense. A proactive presence builds digital resilience, protects a firm’s reputation, and makes it easier to repair reputational damage. Your reputation is your most valuable asset. Make sure you’re safeguarding it everywhere, especially online.

The Digital FinTech Revolution is accelerating our access to knowledge, transforming how we communicate, and creating a wave of digital disruption that will reshape the financial services industry. As regulators and banks refocus on updating their policies and operating models, the next generation of FinTech platforms, including robo advisory, blockchain, digital payment, Bank in a box, security, and P2P lending, are already off to the races. Global investment in financial technology rapidly increased by 3,770% from $930 million in 2008 to $31 billion in 2017. The opportunity to innovate for quantitative finance professionals has never been more compelling than it is today.

Learning objectives include:

• Identifying trends and key growth sectors of FinTech.
• Understanding three pillars of FinTech: IOT, Big Data & AI.
• Addressing the challenges and benefits of Robo Advisors
• Identifying trends and key growth sectors of FinTech.
• Understanding three pillars of FinTech: IOT, Big Data & AI.
• Addressing the challenges and benefits of Robo Advisors

An entrepreneurial mindset represents a truly unique opportunity for today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders. Flexibility, creativity, and intellectual freedom often catalyze an entrepreneur’s desire to start a business. Entrepreneurship, a fundamental driver of our global economy, is defined by French Economist, J. B. Say [1767–1832], as a shift of economic resources out of an area of lower productivity into an area of higher productivity and yield. This is also true of intrapreneurs, defined as those who apply an entrepreneurial to their employment culture. Intrapreneurs often become entrepreneurs. An acute understanding of the intangibles or ‘soft skills’ is often required for nurturing new contact and developing a life-long friendship. While these intangible skills are taught and studied, their practice underpins the success of our most revered business, political, and humanitarian leaders in recent history. How does one quantify trust, communication, and emotional intelligence?The interdependence of our global economy places a premium on authenticity and relationships.

An entrepreneurial mindset represents a truly unique opportunity for today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders. Flexibility, creativity, and intellectual freedom often catalyze an entrepreneur’s desire to start a business. Entrepreneurship, a fundamental driver of our global economy, is defined by French Economist, J. B. Say [1767–1832], as a shift of economic resources out of an area of lower productivity into an area of higher productivity and yield. This is also true of intrapreneurs, defined as those who apply an entrepreneurial to their employment culture. Intrapreneurs often become entrepreneurs. An acute understanding of the intangibles or ‘soft skills’ is often required for nurturing new contact and developing a life-long friendship. While these intangible skills are taught and studied, their practice underpins the success of our most revered business, political, and humanitarian leaders in recent history. How does one quantify trust, communication, and emotional intelligence?The interdependence of our global economy places a premium on authenticity and relationships.

Every day people are empowered with unfiltered information and global communication access from a device that fits comfortably in our pocket. It took the Internet 12 years to gather its first billion users, and a third of that time to reach three billion. By 2025, digital computing and communication technology will connect eight billion people to one online community. Never before in history have consumers had so much influence and power at their fingertips; businesses large and small must learn how to adapt and embrace such change. Kodak and Blockbuster exemplify how quickly the average lifespan of a company listed in the S&P 500 significantly decreased from 67 years in the 1920’s to 15 years today.

Social media is a transformational platform for cultivating trust, increasing engagement, and expanding reach across both demographic and geographic boundaries. Social media is not about selling, it’s about developing connections and communicating effectively. Great content drives engagement and marketing.

Participant Learning Objectives:

• Understand trends in social media and the secrets of successful social media engagement.
• Discuss the specifics of each major social media platform, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Yelp.
• Learn how to strengthen your digital brand and attract new customers through your social media profile engagement.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful force in our world today. It has been increasingly integrated into both business and our personal lives, typically in very positive and exciting ways—from virtual assistants to helpful chatbots, targeted ad placements, cost-cutting automated manufacturing, and even self-driving cars. So why would someone like Bill Gates liken AI to nuclear energy, calling it “both promising and dangerous”?

Despite the innumerable advantages it offers, AI is also a disruptive technology. It involves such a superabundance of data and touches so many facets of our lives that the immense promise it holds must be thoughtfully managed and carefully balanced with its potential dangers. AI’s continued development therefore entails not only practical considerations but also ethical ones. Determining how these systems should be designed and which data should be used to fuel them requires a measured, reasoned, and mindful approach. Those who wish to harness the power of AI must proactively address the moral considerations inherent in doing so.

Integrating AI into your business goes beyond just using AI for AI’s sake—it should be employed judiciously and with specific objectives in mind. Used wisely, AI can help you solve operational bottlenecks, optimize digital transformation, redefine the customer experience, and empower people to create more value. True progress will not be measured by how far AI technology can go but rather by how successfully and ethically we can apply it to solve our greatest challenges.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand AI’s use as an instrument to meet human needs.
• Recognize AI’s capacity to enhance the scope of technology.
• Acknowledge the importance of designing AI properly to achieve unbiased output.
• Consider the ethical considerations of designing and implementing AI.
• Examine AI’s extensive impact on our workforce.
• Evaluate humans’ role in harnessing the latent power of AI.
• Prepare to make advances in digital transformation.
• Explore the opportunities and challenges of AI, Big Data, and machine learning.
• Identify opportunities to enhance your organization’s performance via AI.
• Improve customer retention through effective data mining, data analysis, and AI.

In the face of accelerating and pervasive change, the COVID-19 crisis reinvigorates our need for impactful Digital Transformation. Our new affinity for Zoom meetings and starting a Slack channel were reactive measures that helped us adapt to the millions of people now unexpectedly working from home. Thriving in the face of this historic change is forever linked to how we proactively address Digital Transformation.

While most companies were caught off-guard, those that invested in their digital architecture are more resilient and even thriving. Realigning an organization to meet the challenges of our ever-evolving global environment requires a cultural shift in mindset—it’s hard work, but it’s worth it. It should include a practical study and experimentation of Digital Reputation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Cloud, Hyper Automation, Machine Learning and Big Data.

Digital Transformation provides a path for how businesses achieve consistent results when harnessing the power of digital technologies. The opportunity to reinvent core services and create optimal solutions that address future customer needs is a precious one.

When these decisions are siloed within a department or concentrated to a few select executives, organizations often struggle to achieve sustainable progress and meaningful change. That’s because digital transformation is really about transforming your entire business. Doing that successfully and integrating digital-driven change requires organizations to ensure core values align with their mission and vision; identify opportunities for improvement; fail forward fast when solving inevitable challenges. These challenges all have one thing in common—they require an entrepreneurial mindset dedicated to evaluating and reimagining every aspect of your organization.

To accelerate progress, leaders must proactively reengineer their processes, prototype new ideas, and embrace new tools that offer efficiencies. Digital Transformation requires dedicated leadership and resources that often contrast with a business as usual approach. The top priority for successful executives of the next decade must be doing whatever it takes to keep a business moving—and that means fully embracing the opportunity of digital transformation.

Learning Objectives:

Because Digital Transformation is an expansive subject, learning objectives for this presentation are tailored to the audience demographics, and may include:

• Review the core pillars of digital transformation:
  • Shift your cultural mindset to embrace change.
  • Enhance existing processes by leveraging technology.
  • Engage customers and prospects in a totally new way.
• Enhance understanding of digital transformation trends within marketing, blockchain, big data, AI, and reputation.
• Highlight strategies for accessing ecosystems and leveraging their creative resources then developing a robust digital architecture.
• Discuss real-life case studies to explore common misconceptions and realities of successful digital transformation.

Networking is a key pillar of creating new business and life opportunities. And effective networking requires successfully connecting and fostering trust with our peers and colleagues, building that important bridge from stranger to acquaintance, and doing so authentically.

Over the past 20 years, we have seen more and more of our personal and professional lives migrating away from real-life, in-person interactions and toward online ones, mediated through the internet. And the COVID pandemic has significantly accelerated (some would say forced) this digital migration. Many of the traditional elements of networking—catching up with others at conferences, brainstorming ideas over coffee, engaging in water cooler conversations—are simply impossible now. The “in-person” aspects of networking have effectively been taken out of play.

So if we cannot meet in person, what options do we have to establish and nurture our network connections? Some good networking tactics include dropping someone a line in Slack, sending an email, making an “old-fashioned” phone call, and—common in our new normal—initiating a Zoom video conference. But truly successful networking requires applying new approaches, including bolstering and monitoring your digital reputation.

Curating a positive and representative digital reputation for yourself is an effective way to earn respect and build credibility when we cannot engage with others in real life, face to face. How we represent ourselves online powerfully influences how we are perceived and can have a significant impact on our ability to develop new friendships. Simply put, both you and your business need to look good online.

Your online reputation is unique, somewhat like your fingerprint, made up of your myriad engagements with and through the internet, from Google searches to social media posts and comments. Although we can control some of these things, others we can only influence. Our opportunity lies in being able to own and drive the narrative—to craft a digital presence that reflects our true character and accomplishments.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand and successfully navigate the “new normal” for business and relationships in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Recognize the necessity of an authentic digital presence.
• Proactively curate a narrative online when faced with choice overload.
• Practice actionable strategies to optimize your digital reputation.
• Discern best practice considerations for best representing your industry leadership.