Innovation and Thought Leadership Festival in Sydney Next Week

This time next week I’ll be mingling with some top thought leaders, futurists, innovative thinkers, and technology experts from around the world and with staff of the AMP finance and investment company. The occasion is AMP’s week-long Innovation and Thought Leadership Festival 2007.

The Festival is for employees and decision-makers of AMP from all departments and is designed for teams and business units to co-operate across traditional working boundaries. For those who can’t get to the Sydney venue, there are online arrangements, including webcasts and podcasts.

With 3,500 employees, some 1,900 independent planners, AU$122 billion (say US$103 billion) in funds under management and a leading role in the Australian superannuation field, AMP is no lightweight. So when I got the call some time ago from Annalie Killian -”Catalyst for Magic” – to present a couple of workshops, on Web 2.0 and Blogging, respectively, I was very pleased. Not just for the personal challenge but because I’m delighted to see a major Australian corporation setting a high bar example by providing a forum for its employees to look at and workshop the topics of today and the future. And bringing a high calibre team of presenters together from around the world to make it a truly empowering event.

For example, keynote speakers and topics include:

• Dr Daniel Erasmus, Fellow of the Rotterdam School of Management, on “The Economy of Ideas, the Global Village and future scenarios for the Information Society” – Dr Erasmus is the creator of the world’s first wiki on scenario planning and thinking.
• Roger Dennis from Christchurch, New Zealand, on “Know First, Be First, Profit First: Trends that will transform our world and Financial Services” “Harnessing the lunatic fringe: Innovating in Financial Services by looking beyond the traditional boundaries” – he has the IdeaPort blog on innovation, new technology and fringe scanning
• Chris Shipley, Executive Producer of the famed DEMO events and co-founder of the Guidewire Group, is speaking on “What’s cool and what’s cold? The entrepreneurs and new technologies that are redefining life as we know it” – she posts on the DEMOletter blog

Another keynote presenter is Dr Jane McGonigal on “The games people play. What business needs to know about this exploding phenomenon”. Last year, Dr McGonigal was included in MIT’s Technology Review TR35 list of top innovators under the age of 35. And on her blog the other week, in anticipation of visiting the city on the harbour, wondered if she has any friends in Sydney.

Thanks to Ben Leeson media relations consultant for AMP, for help with some background for this post. I should mention too that the Innovation and Thought Leadership Festival is an internal event for AMP, but Ben has kindly offered to respond to any enquiries: you can reach him at ben(dot)leeson(at)amp(dot)com(dot)au.

Technorati Tags: AMP, thought leadership, innovation, scenarios, future thinking, finance, investment, financial services, Sydney, Annalie Killian