ICI Spring Conference 2021: March 9th to May 6th - Can you miss it?

Ongoing registration until May 6!
It must be the 30th competitive/market intelligence conference I’ve organized. I fell in love with conference organization during my involvement in SCIP (then the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) when I chaired and co-chaired numerous European and international conferences, followed by chairing conferences for the German DCIF and, since 2009 for the Institute for Competitive Intelligence (ICI).

I love the excitement of scanning the CI community for innovative ideas and smart practitioner solutions - each and every time! Approaching authors, practitioners, and thought leaders to submit for a conference and, once their contributions are accepted, working with them on “making it all happen” - that’s the juice of planning a conference for me. Obviously over the years I have been privileged to see rising stars and also a few has-beens at conferences. Some were humble with decent manners, others over-confident with out-of-sight presentations. Some were utterly entertaining, some sharp as razor blades, and some humourless, to-the-point presenters that make me think of Swiss train conductors. But the majority have been very capable presenters who wanted to put “their” CI approaches and processes to the test. Peer-reviews can be a powerful tool in creating an awareness about one’s level of professional competences. In the end they all offer one learning objective: to share insights, best practices and know-how within a community of professionals. Heated debates, ongoing discussion, spontaneous out-cries of admiration, …  I’m always amazed to realize how passionate and engaged audience and presenters alike get when involved with energy and commitments to a common cause: first-hand learning and exchange with like-minded peers.

In May 2020 the Institute for Competitive Intelligence ran its first “virtual” conference. Only three weeks prior to the event we had to switch our traditional conference-centre based conference to an all-virtual Zoom-based event. Thanks to our loyal speakers and pioneering participants it became a huge success! Still, we learned lessons on how to improve further participants’ experiences. So, for our upcoming spring 2021 conference, we included the best of two worlds and developed conferencing in a different format, by increasing networking and socializing, while intensifying learning and knowledge sharing.

People I spoke with regarding their reason to go to a conference say that networking is the part they enjoy the most, but how is that possible in a virtual setting? Well, we’ve figured that one out and created randomized coffee breaks as well as theme related break-out rooms where you can chat with only a few participants at a time. As you are randomly meeting the other participants in these rooms, you’ll speak with people you would not have approached at a real-life event.

To start with, the whole (traditional) 2 days + reception format is now spread over 9 events in 9 weeks. It starts with a kick-off meeting (March 9th - I guess we used to call this a pre-conference reception in the past) to get attendees and speakers, and organizers to casually mingle and learn about the conference journey. ICI-Talks (interactive group works), an escape room research challenge (well the name says it all for those who love to put their search skills to a test) and an introduction to our analytical challenge will be presented at this meeting. And yes, for those not (yet) familiar with Zoom and remote communication platforms, an introductory session will make sure all participants get the most out of the latest Zoom features.

Then we’ll enter into our warm-up phase: 3 high-end-panels will allow interactive discussions and more networking. Panel topics are “March 23rd: Advances in CI analytics and software”, “March 25th: Potential learning from military, national and competitive / market Intelligence” and finally a session on “March 29th: The new face of competitive/market intelligence”. Check out the panel list ... an amazing bunch of characters, each of them with a story to tell.

On April 15th our main presentation day will take place: 9 presentations in two tracks followed by the ICI talks - food for thoughts, inspiration and motivation. All sessions are recorded and made available for conference participants to allow further in-depth-reviewing or simply picking the session and panels missed before - a clear improvement to in-person conferences. 

ICI-Talks is a session, where participants will enter into facilitated free-floating discussions (no PPTs!) about topics of their choice.

After this main event, we’ve lined up three additional events with more panels, exhibitor show-rooms and group work sessions (April 20th, April 22nd, May 4th) for those who want to continue on the advanced analytics cases.

Finally our wrap up session (May 6th) will pull in awards, a final panel and of course, more networking.

Let’s bring on our conference 2021! Hope to see you there!