In our most recent reader survey, Small Business Times asked readers to identify the topics they are most interested in reading about. Two of the top answers were "Business Growth" and "Leadership."
Well, here's a great chance to gain more insight on each of those two topics. Just attend the fourth annual BizTech Expo, which takes place at Wisconsin State Fair Park on Wednesday, April 30, and Thursday, May 1.
Do you want some red meat when it comes to growing your business? Allow me to suggest you send members of your leadership and your sales or marketing teams to the April 30 BizTech Expo CEO Strategies Breakfast, which will feature author and consultant Joe Pine.
Pine is the co-author of "Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want" (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), which recognizes that in a world of increasingly paid-for experiences, people no longer accept the fake from the phony, but want the real from the genuine.
Pine's premise of "Authenticity" was recently heralded as one of the "Ten Ideas That Are Changing The World" in a cover story in Time magazine.
The Time story stated, "The defining challenge of the 21st century will be to face the reality that humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet. We have reached the beginning of the century with 6.6 billion people living in an interconnected global economy producing an astounding $60 trillion of output each year. Human beings fill every ecological niche on the planet, from the icy tundra to the tropical rain forests to the deserts."
The Time story noted that the book written by Pine and co-author Jim Gilmore cites the growing consumer need for authenticity.
"America has 'toxic levels of inauthenticity,' Gilmore and Pine argue: most of the e-mail we get is fake. It's so difficult to reach a real person via an 800 number that we had to invent a heretofore unnecessary locution -- real person -- to describe the entity we are trying to reach. People live fake lives in Second Life. Corporate deceit reached epidemic levels after the dotcom bust," Time wrote.
Pine is frequently quoted as a business expert by Forbes, The New York Times, Wired, Business 2.0, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, ABC News, "Good Morning America," Fortune, Business Week and Industry Week.
The fee to attend the CEO Strategies Breakfast is $65, but that includes Pine's keynote presentation, a meal, a copy of the book and admission to the BizTech Expo, where more than 200 organizations will present exhibit booths and more than 30 seminars will provide advice on operational strategies.
Try finding a cheaper way to upgrade your company's leadership and sales or marketing teams.
If an early breakfast isn't your style, but you still want to improve your leadership skills, I encourage you to attend the IQ Awards Luncheon on April 30 at the BizTechExpo. There, you'll find keynote speaker Dave Logan, Ph.D., who is the co-author of "Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization."
"Tribal Leadership" (published by Harpercollins) debuted at 1-800-CEO-READ as the No. 1-selling business book in February.
Logan is the co-founder and senior partner of the management-consulting firm CultureSync, which specializes in strategy, cultural design and high performance. He is a professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.
"Tribal Leadership" was the product of an eight-year study of the "tribal" corporate cultures at more than two dozen successful corporations.
According to Logan, small businesses are "tribes," and large corporations are "tribes of tribes."
In addition to Logan's keynote address, the IQ Awards Luncheon will feature an update on Wisconsin's IQ Corridor by Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
You also will meet the winners of the IQ (Innovation Quotient) Awards, which salute some of the most innovative companies in southeastern Wisconsin.
To register for the BizTech Expo and the special events, visit www.biztimes.com/expo.
Steve Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes in Milwaukee and is past president of the Milwaukee Press Club. BizTimes provides news and operational insight for the owners and managers of privately held companies throughout southeastern Wisconsin.
Steve has won several journalism awards as a reporter, a columnist and an editor. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
When he is not pursuing the news, Steve enjoys spending time with his wife, Kristi, and their two sons, Justin and James. Steve can be reached at steve.jagler@biztimes.com.
