Speaking

In my early years, I sat through so many keynotes where I thought “What the f… is this guy getting paid for???”. I swore to myself I would not be that person. Based on the feedback of my audiences, it seems that I am fulfilling that promise.

In my eyes, an engaging keynote for your conference has to fulfill three requirements:

It has to be high energy and suck the audience into the theme, enthuse them, absorb them. That includes a good laugh.
It has to be well researched, fact-based, information worth listening to.
It has to be relevant to you and your audience, i.e. it has to relate to the theme of your conference, your event, your organization.

How many key-notes have you seen that fulfill these requirements?

Mine do. I prepare and customize each and every time, for the industry, for the topic of the gathering, for the organization.

Speaking Topic 1: Meegatrands

NOT QUITE DESTINY: THE MEGATRENDS THAT WILL DETERMINE OUR FUTURE

Megatrends are those major developments that on a large scale and in the long term determine the fate of nations, cities, companies and, of course, each individual in them. In this speech I tell 8 little stories where each one ties together and illustrates a subset of these trends. Through storytelling the meaning and importance comes to life for the audience. Strong visualizations and the occasional tongue-in-cheek comment keep the listeners engaged.

In the second part of this speech I draw a sketch of the key challenges arising from the megatrends. While most of the megatrends are beyond our control, they are ‘not quite destiny’: we can prepare ourselves and our institutions to cope with them. This is where leadership and corporate agility come into play.

Speaking Topic 2: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Business Essence

The quick way to understand what AI means for you and your business.

Just one example: What is the biggest competitive threat to airport lounges? You might not have guessed it: AI driven self-optimizing prediction systems for driving, parking, distances to walk and waiting times at security (so you can arrive at the airport without any buffer needed), maintenance of airplanes (so there are less engineering problems and therefore delays) and probability of connections (so you have less layover time). All this taken together might well reduce the need for lounges by 30% globally within 5 years.

In this speech I use a wealth of examples such as this to illustrate how to think systematically about what AI might mean for your business. In a way this speech is a super-condensed version of my workshop about the same theme. Engaging, cutting-edge, relevant, important – and spicy.

If you are interested in hearing about a related topic, please feel free to approach me for an initial discussion. I have more up my sleeve and have covered a number of other topics over the past two decades (like Hidden Champions and Corporate Agility