While it may not occur to us on a daily basis, there is a widespread cultural tendency toward quick decisions and quick action. This pattern has resulted in many of society’s greatest successes, but even more of its failures. We have begun to reward speed over quality, and the negative effects suffered in both our personal and professional lives are potentially catastrophic. Pontefract proposes a return to balance between the three components of productive thought: dreaming, deciding, and doing; combining creative, critical, and applied thinking. “Open Thinking” is a cyclical process in which creativity is encouraged, critiquing leads to better decisions, and thoughtful action delivers positive, sustainable results. Get tips & techniques to use in your organization!

Hayes surfaces ideas on how the world’s biggest and most innovative companies transform customer and employee experiences. Learn how the best and brightest organizations take a human-first approach to finally meet the transformational promise of Big Data by delivering moments of clarity to employees and customers alike through engaging digital experiences.

Becoming information-driven enables key stakeholders within an organization to leverage all available enterprise data and content to gain the best possible understanding of the meaning and insights it carries. Connecting enterprise data along topical lines across all available sources provides people with the collective knowledge and expertise of the organization in context. This is especially valuable for data-intensive companies that are geographically dispersed with lots of content in multiple data repositories. By connecting people with relevant knowledge and expertise, the overall performance of the organization increases. Parker discusses the challenges preventing data-intensive organizations from becoming “information-driven” how insight engines help organizations solve these challenges and multiply the business benefits, and the current state and the future possibilities of insight engines.

With the recently published book, Deep Text: Using Text Analytics to Overcome Information Overload, Get Real Value from Social Media, and Add Big(ger) Text to Big Data as a guide, author Tom Reamy provides an extensive overview of the whole field of text analytics: What is text analytics, how to get started, developing best practices, latest applications, and building an enterprise text analytics platform. The talk ends with a look at current and future trends that promise to dramatically enhance our ability to utilize text with new techniques and applications.

How do you decide whether cognitive computing is right—even necessary—for your organization? When new and complex technologies like AI and cognitive computing burst on the scene, it’s easy to rush to adopt them. The result is often confusion and technology abandonment when the new applications don’t meet expectations. Hoping to forestall this shelfware phenomenon, in 2016 the Cognitive Computing Consortium started to develop guidelines for understanding how to use cognitive applications. Our goal was to come up with a set of usage profiles that developers could match to their planned use of cognitive technologies. This presentation describes the Consortium framework for understanding cognitive applications and gives examples of successful uses for a variety of purposes such as customer relations, healthcare, and robotics. A panel of experienced experts then describes how they are using cognitive applications and fields questions on that topic from the audience.

Organizations can use game design techniques to fully engage customers, partners, and employees. When well implemented, gamification can transform a work culture by cultivating deep emotional connections, high levels of active participation, and long-term relationships that drive knowledge sharing, learning and business value. Enterprises can utilize strategy games, simulation games, and role-playing games as means to teach, drive operational efficiencies, and innovate. Find out how organizations have embraced social collaboration using playful design to reap tremendous value, grab tips and tools to build a learning culture, and learn how to engage your community!

Semantic enhanced artificial intelligence is based on the fusion of semantic technologies and machine learning. Our leader in the field discusses six core aspects of semantic-enhanced AI and why semantics should be a fundamental element of any AI strategy. He looks into concrete examples and shares how to increase precision of machine learning tasks by semantic enrichment. Semantic AI is the next-generation artificial intelligence. Understand how machine learning (ML) can help to extend knowledge graphs, and in return, how knowledge graphs can help to improve ML algorithms. This integrated approach ultimately leads to systems that work like self-optimizing machines after an initial setup phase, while being transparent to the underlying knowledge models.

Answers are the key exchange between customer and provider in support, service, and sales, yet that intersection is wrought with friction when information isn’t readily available, context is unknown, and time is of the essence. AI-driven technologies such as natural language processing, machine learning, and text analytics can help reduce the friction and create more satisfying experiences for both customer and vendor, across any touchpoint, ensuring the most precise answer is delivered every time. Johnson explores how and shares real-world outcomes from Fortune 1000 companies.

AI is on the highest rung of the IT agenda. But how does it support professionals’ needs for insights in decision-making? Mayer looks at text analytics, the particular strand of AI that deals with language, the essential vehicle for professional knowledge. Through examples of its impact in insurance, media and the sciences, he illustrates “the art of the possible” and how you can make AI part of your knowledge practice’s roadmap.

The intersection of knowledge sharing and new ways of learning and training is having an impact on how connected your employees feel to your organization at large. Moneypenny demonstrates how using video, social networks, and content collaboration together empowers knowledge practitioners and experts and people across the organization to engage with each other. Foster a culture of curiosity and share learning and best practices, while improving employee experience.

What are the chances of three thought leaders meeting in the same room, at the same terminal, in the same airport, in the same city by coincidence? Hear their story and many more as they discuss the impact of social media, organizational culture, machine learning, demographics and more!