I had the honor to be a speaker and "The Conference Catalyst" at the 2012 Dell India IT Executive Summit in Macau, China. This annual event gathers together India's top CIO's for three days of education and networking.
The conference was fantastic for all in attendance. The high-level learning included keynote addresses from Dell executives, industry analysts, and international CIO's from companies and governments. The evening social events were all great fun: a banquet at the Macau Tower, a city tour, and a high energy party which was full of interactive entertainment.
Before the trip I had spent time researching how my message of "Connecting With People in a Social Media Crazy World" could resonate with an audience of executives from India. While I speak regularly to audiences in the US that have international attendees, it was important to me that I understood the Indian business culture. I discovered that we spend a lot of time focusing on differences in our world cultures, but in the end we are more alike than we are different. Subtle variances exist, but having long-term and meaningful business relationships matters everywhere. Belonging to a communities of people is important to everyone.
Actively participating in the summit for three days reminded me that IT executives face a career of constant change. More than most professionals, the tools for CIO's and their teams are changing almost daily. New hardware and software options are constantly being released, and employees are demanding the latest and greatest options. When change happens this fast we most need the human-to-human relationships side of business more than ever before. While Dell began as a provider of computers, it is now a leading edge enterprise solutions company. There commitment to helping their customers succeed was evident in all aspects of how they organized the conference -- and they placed a huge emphasis on people!
This event was my 56th presentation of 2012 (including conference keynotes, breakout sessions, and internal corporate training classes). I have had the pleasure this year to speak at a variety of conferences, trade shows, conventions, seminars, sales meeting, and other internal and external events for companies and associations. While all have been wonderful, going to China to speak for this gathering of Indian business executives was one of the highlights of my professional speaking career (while I have spoken internationally several times, this was the farthest I had ever traveled).
I had never been to Macau. The event was held at the Venetian Hotel and Casino, which is the largest hotel in Asia and the largest casino in the world. It is over three times larger than the Venetian in Las Vegas. Macau was a Portuguese colony from 1840 (although was a Portuguese trading post from the 1500s) until 1999 when it was returned to China. Macau, along with Hong Kong, remains a "Special Administrative Region" (SAR) within the People's Republic of China. This gives it economic freedom from the communist system... and along with much of China, the place is booming!
I look forward to working with more international clients in the future.
Have A Great Day.
thom singer
***Here is a link to a write up about the Dell India event on the InformationWeek - India website: (http://www.informationweek.in/blogs/editorsblog/12-11-12/Relationships_matter_but_meet_at_least_once.aspx)
Congrats Thom! I'm sure you wowed the crowd in Macau as you are a great speaker and such an expert on the topic you addressed. I couldn't agree with you more that all people have much more common than we oftentimes imagine even though their cultural backgrounds are so different.
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