Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

Deng Xiaoping once described managing the economy as crossing the river by feeling the stones in other words have a direction but be adaptive. But in a world of constant change, how do you determine the right thing to do? Which pebble to tread on? How do you understand where you're going and where you need to go? How do you know if your strategy is right? Is there even such a thing? In this talk, we start by examining the issue of situational awareness and how it applies to technology. Using examples from government and the commercial world, we then explore how you can map your environment, identify opportunities to exploit and learn patterns of change. <h2 style="font-weight: bold;"><i>GOTO recommends because:</i></h2> Expect to take away from Simon's talk a practical framework to map your environment and how to take advantage of new business opportunities. Simon is a world-renowned expert on tech strategy and was recently voted as of the UK's top 50 most influential people in IT. Innovation and digital transformation begins with creating a minimal viable product outside of the core business functionality. But what happens when those projects become real business solutions and run in production? How do we deal with concerns around massive data, scaling and high availability? Simon is a fantastic speaker and true expert in understanding and setting tech strategy - not just on the competitive advantages for businesses but also how to plan for and adapt for an ever-changing tech landscape.