2018 MHI Annual Conference Recap
by Morgan Cruz, Marketing Content Coordinator, MHI | @mhi_morgan
There’s been so many really awesome speakers and events at this year’s 2018 MHI Annual Conference in Orlando. Just incase you’ve missed it, I put together a few highlights from what I’ve been able to catch so far.
Monday, Richie Etwaru, Blockchain Futurist excited the audience with a glimpse into the next economic period of trust and transparency. He helped us understand how blockchain will play a crucial role in powering this era by securing and verifying data. He also demystified the origin of the name “blockchain” so we can better understand what block chain does (and so we can impress our friends too).
Eric Chester was a great break in the day to accompany lunch. He was talking about how we create a culture of work. He started off by explaining how we bring work ethic back and how employers can match what they’re looking for to what the new working generations (Millennials and Generation Z) are expecting in a workplace. He emphasized that skills can be taught, but when companies are looking for potential employees, they name soft skills like reliability and professionalism and a positive nature as the essentials.
When companies build a culture that encourages these qualities, it will attract the kind of people employers want to hire. He even used how Apple, on an employee’s first and last days, the whole store gives the employee a round of applause to show that they matter.
Later in the afternoon I sat in on Leadership For The Digital Revolution: Hear From Our Industry. In this session, we learned that leadership does not always have a title. We also learned that it’s important as a leader to hire people who are best for the job, no matter if their personality or background matches yours. Good leaders are willing to make them selves feel uncomfortable.
Monday night’s dinner by the golf course was beautiful and I defiantly ate too much paella! The MHI team took advantage of the MHI photo and gif booth. Do you like my gif with Amy?
Tuesday, I particularly enjoyed the session on content marketing (of course!). Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Advisor at The Content Advisory, mapped out how your company’s goals and desired outcome should determine your content strategy. The strategy then determines what content is most appropriate to create in order to sucessfuly measure the value.
Tuesday’s lunch keynote was John Ellis. He started out by explaining his background in technology development. He was one of the forerunners of open source coding and having third party developers create software for phones, like the App Store we all know today. He says that all of this technology that is going into building smart things, like cars with lane assist, is going to quickly blow up. It will turn into automated trucks and cars that will change the way cities create traffic lanes.
He also demonstrated that our culture is moving fast toward a shared culture, as we see with Lyft/Uber and other shared things. This is also currently happening in logistics, with shared warehousing space and shared shipping products, and will continue to grow in the future.
My afternoon ended with The Science of Selling by David Hoffeld, CEO of Hoffeld Group. Hoffeld walked us through the 6 mental steps in forming a buying decision.
- Why change?
- Why now?
- Why your industry solution?
- Why your product or service?
- Why you and your company?
- Why spend the money?
Hoffeld also explained how people do not like feeling pressured or told what to do. He recommended lowering reactants by using phrases such as, “of course it’s up to you” and “it’s your choice”.
Well that’s a wrap, but the conference is not quite over yet! We’ve got the best part left tonight with happy hour and dinner featuring professional Acro jumpers and entertainment by “The Passing Zone”. I’ll see you there!
