Steve Lerch

Innovative thinking is changing the modern world faster than at any point in human history, but now more than ever, innovation is not resigned to only the inventors, engineers, and scientists. The greatest innovators of our time are men like Steve Jobs. A man who didn’t invent the first Apple computer (Steve Wozniak) nor the iPod or iPhone (Tony Fadell). Instead, he established a culture of innovation that catalyzed and nurtured new ideas and new ways of thinking.

Steve Lerch will share stories from a decade at Google, where he worked with the world’s most innovative brands like GoPro, FitBit, and Nest. Dive into the history of some of Google’s most iconic projects like self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses, and more importantly, understand the simple, underlying cultural principles that allowed for these innovations. Principles like “Failing Well,” where the supposed commercial failure of a product like Google Glasses may have helped launch arguably the most popular mobile game of all time… Pokemon Go. Principles of innovation that can be mirrored and utilized by any organization, company, or team. 

Brainstorming, creativity, and outside-the-box thinking may seem like unpredictable and unschedulable activities. But when leaders expect new ideas to be randomly birthed from sporadic eureka moments, we fail to recognize our own ability to inspire and motivate our teams. And perhaps most importantly, we forget to remove the impediments and barriers that hinder our employee’s abilities to think differently.

Our collective culture and modern consumer behavior are changing and evolving faster than at any point in history. The way consumers spend their time, gather information, make purchases, communicate, and even the voices they trust look drastically different than they did even 2 years ago. If you expect to sell to these people, to influence these people, to form relationships with these people, you have to start by understanding them and understanding how to talk to them.

In an era when seemingly unknown YouTube creators reach larger audiences than cultural icons like Game of Thrones, it’s time for all of us to change our perceptions of influence, and for businesses to start accepting the fact that what they did ten years ago, five years ago, or even one year ago may be out dated. Everything has changed, from how we connect and communicate to how we gather information and make decisions. Consumer preferences for digital content are changing as quickly as the latest food and diet fads, but fortunately for us, it’s all connected.

Explore how simple indicators like Google search data and social media comments can be used to understand and quickly react to the most unexpected trends in food and health (like an Australian Real Estate Mogul influencing a massive surge in American avocado toast consumption and a Real Housewives star setting a more significant definition of healthy than any doctor in the country). Through embracing these wild trends and accompanying data, better prepare yourself to take advantage of whatever comes next, including a world in which grocery trips are becoming as heavily researched as your next car purchase and in a world in which both consumers and retailers are finally getting on the same page with digital grocery shopping.

The best marketers aren’t just the ones telling the best stories. The best marketers are the ones that leverage data, patterns, and insights to tell the most relevant stories to each and every customer. In our modern, digital-first world, there are countless ways to easily collect and analyze this data. In this presentation we’ll explore those opportunities and the amazing stories brands have crafted using these insights.