Steve Lerch

Innovative thinking is changing the modern world faster than at any point in human history, but now more than ever, innovation is not resigned to only the inventors, engineers, and scientists. The greatest innovators of our time are men like Steve Jobs. A man who didn’t invent the first Apple computer (Steve Wozniak) nor the iPod or iPhone (Tony Fadell). Instead, he established a culture of innovation that catalyzed and nurtured new ideas and new ways of thinking.

Steve Lerch will share stories from a decade at Google, where he worked with the world’s most innovative brands like GoPro, FitBit, and Nest. Dive into the history of some of Google’s most iconic projects like self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses, and more importantly, understand the simple, underlying cultural principles that allowed for these innovations. Principles like Launch and Iterate, Fail Well, and Bet on Technical Insights.

Humble leaders understand that every employee, every customer, and every random person walking down the street could be an asset. Everyone is capable of a great idea. Everyone is capable of having a skill that others might not possess.

In this presentation we’ll learn how to establish a culture and design a system to gather ideas and feedback from every corner of your business and beyond.

Whether you’re selling a product, building a brand, recruiting new employees, or lobbying to legislators, your audience is online. This means there are tools and technologies at our disposal, simple and free technologies, that every business leader should know how to use.

Today’s advertising industry professionals are eager to predict what’s next. We envision as of yet un-achieved technological innovations that suddenly manifest and dramatically change the marketing landscape. What we fail to embrace are the brilliant strategies and cutting edge uses of existing technology that are already happening across our industry. “What’s Next” for you and your business may be “What’s Now” for one of your competitors, an advertising leader, or some unknown mom-and-pop shop in a totally unrelated industry.

The digital world is empowering consumers like never before, and armed with new platforms for consuming content, asking questions, and making decisions, these consumers are demanding that today’s brands be more nimble, flexible, and relevant than ever before.

In this presentation we’ll explore how the customers in your brand/industry continue to evolve and the steps you need to take to keep up.

Influencer Marketing has long been seen as the Wild West for companies and ad agencies uncomfortable with relinquishing control. After years of intimidating more conservative marketers, these new-age strategies have finally started to gain mainstream acceptance as traditional advertisers. The challenge for today’s influencer campaigns is striking the perfect balance between exerting control over the elements that require controlling, while still allowing for the genius and authenticity that can only stem from the Wild West nature of modern influencers.

Explore the shared attributes of today’s most impactful and memorable influencer programs and learn the key steps to launching an authentic, original, successful influencer campaign that doesn’t lower your established standards on attribution, targeting, and performance.