FOOD FOR THOUGHT: A Convention of Unconventional Creativity

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Rosabeth Kanter
Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

"Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End"

This keynote speech will present lessons about winning and losing in all walks of life. The session will illuminate vital roles of accountability, collaboration, and imitative for innovation as the cornerstones of confidence, and why a culture of confidence encourages creativity, teamwork, and resilience in the face of inevitable setbacks. Lessons will be drawn from banks, high tech, media, consumer products, school systems, and sports teams. Ingredients that perpetuate success will be contrasted with those that precipitate decline, and guidelines for turnarounds -- how leaders can shift a cycle from slipping to succeeding -- will be offered.

Creative Convergence in Contemporary Marketing

Marketers have a bevy of new tools to reach consumers -- and consumers have discovered a variety of ways to tune out marketers. How can companies crack this code and get their message across to their desired audience? Steve Driggs, Executive Creative Director for STRUCK, will join Hill Holliday Chief Media Officer Baba Shetty and Jane Quigley, Senior Director of Emerging Technologies and Social Media for Zeta Interactive, to explore how to craft compelling ideas and deliver them in the most effective fashion.

Ari Weinzweig, Co-Founder, Zingerman's Delicatessen

"The Coolest Small Company in America"

That's what Inc. magazine named Zingerman's, an institution since opening in 1982 in Ann Arbor, Mich. Founded by Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, Zingerman's has grown from a company with one full-time employee to a delectably sized company with 550 employees and over $35 million in sales. The Zingerman's community of businesses now includes not only the deli, but a bakehouse, a creamery, a restaurant, a coffee company and and training company, along with one of the most fun, most influential and most delicious mail-order divisions, well, ever. How else could you explain intelligent people's willingness to shell out $12 for a loaf of bread that's mailed to them? The food is fabulous, the customer service is astounding, and the catalogs and website are amazingly enticing.

Ari will share the elements that bind these companies together into a community that makes Zingerman's a business like no other.

BMW Performance Center Driving Event

BMW Performance Center Instructor Driven Hot Laps will make you smile and laugh all while taking your breath away. You'll marvel at the unbelievable control instructors possess sliding broad side through a corner. The V10 engine will sing in a chorus of power melodies, the tires will squeal with delight as the instructor manipulates throttle, steering wheel and brakes like a puppeteer plays with his strings. The front window may as well be an accessory on this joy ride. It's through the side windows where you'll have to look if you want to know where you're going.

Take a ride in the Ultimate Driving Machine for the ultimate passenger experience

"Unconventional Creativity" Dinner, Devereaux’s

Join Southern culinary legend Nathalie Dupree for a free-flowing conversation about the interrelationship between great cuisine and inspired creativity. Participants will include Sean Brock, executive chef at McCrady's in Charleston; Steven Greene, executive chef and partner at Devereaux's, our host restaurant for the evening; Suzanne Hagins, a South Carolina native and owner/winemaker of Lutea Wine Cellars of California; and Chris Condos, co-owner and winemaker at Napa's Vinum Cellars.

New Southern Politics

Author, historian and commentator Jack Bass shares his thoughts on the role an emerging and increasingly complex South will play in the American political landscape. This casual, intimate narrative will be hosted by John L.S. Simpkins, founding director of the Center for a Better South.

Robert Stephens, Founder and Chief Inspector, The Geek Squad

"Marketing is a Tax You Pay for Being Unremarkable"

The best thing to ever happen to Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens was that he had no money when he started his business. So now that Geek Squad is owned by Best Buy, why he is trying to convince them to integrate marketing into every single aspect of their service business? You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll wish you hadn't read the manual.

Bart Thompson, Michelin North America, Innovation Engineer

"Developing Disruptive Innovation in a Mature Industry"

Large companies have great intellectual and monetary resources. Yet it is difficult for a large company to bring breakthrough innovation to market. New products and services require new competencies in design, manufacturing, and business necessary for disruptive change. Mature companies encounter philosophical difficulties that make embracing such change difficult or impossible. Refinement of existing products and services for existing clients becomes the preferred, comfortable route.

Becoming aware of the risks associated with ignoring the threat of change is a first step towards appreciating the possible benefits of being a part of market transformation. A second step involves recognizing telltale signs of potential breakthrough innovations and establishing an intercompany environment where associated projects can advance. A final step relates to giving autonomy to a working group, allowing development of the technology and market entry.

This presentation gives a general explanation of disruptive technology. Next, it broadly describes the creative process within Michelin Americas Research and Development Corporation that gave birth to the TweelTM innovation. Finally, the presentation considers disruption to the advertising industry by considering disruptive elements of promoting a geographic region to desired socio-economic cross-sections, as opposed to the traditional bilateral advertising approach.