10 Random Things I'm Looking Forward to at SCIP 2010 in Washington DC 

Conferences are kind of expensive these days... and in more ways than one - aside from the registration fee, there's the opportunity cost of missing what you'd normally be doing back at the office, fighting the airlines to get your baggage back and avoid getting saddled with a middle seat, time away from family and friends, overpriced and underwhelming hotel room service, et cetera. Speaking of hotels, for a second, if you haven't booked your room yet, considering all the snow the Capitol has been getting lately and how many events I've heard are being pushed back a month, that's probably motivation enough to recommend you get your room booked pronto or risk crashing in Baltimore! But I digress...

Point is, while in-person conferences have produced for me some of the most rewarding relationships and experiences of my professional life, I take it pretty seriously when I decide to attend, present or sponsor an event so I can plan ahead to get the most out of it... and you should too.

So it is with the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals 2010 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Washington DC coming up March 9-12. Whenever I've gone to SCIP meetings in the past (more than a dozen now), I've made a list of the things I most want to get out of my investment of time, energy and treasure to take back and put to work for my company and career.

About 30 days before SCIP 2009 in Chicago last year I made my regular Top Ten List of those 10 high-priority "things" (sessions, people, sights, experiences, restaurants, whatever) that I was most looking forward to bringing back from my annual trek to our flagship competitive intelligence meeting. At the time, the "25 Random Things About Me" tag-challenge was going around Facebook so I thought it might be fun to share my list online - you can find it here. Honestly, I was a little worried 25 things might be a bit TOO challenging, however, so I settled on only 10 as the challenge for fellow conference-goers to review and consider sharing their own.

This week as I prepared my 2010 agenda of can't-miss highlights, I decided to repeat the challenge listing my top 10 in reverse-order, countdown-style from this year's agenda below. Once again, I found many more than 10 that I didn't want to miss; in fact, I quit counting when I reached 25! However, in the interests of brevity, I'll list just my top 10 here with a link to my blog where you can see the rest. Enjoy and please share your own list if you're planning to join me at the meeting. You'll be glad you did.

10 Random Things I'm Looking Forward to at SCIP 2010

10.) I wouldn't be doing my job very well if I didn't mention that Aurora WDC will be highlighting updates to practically our entire range of professional services and we're excited to share all of that news with our valued clients. Stop by booth #121 in the exhibit hall to learn about the latest upgrades to Aurora's real-time monitoring, program planning, primary field research, systems consulting and counter-intelligence services.

9.) Bridging the Gap Between CI and MR with Anca Costea from Covidien & Nanette Bulger from Philips Healthcare - a perennial problem amid incredible opportunity... when done right.

8.) Integrating Web 2.0 Tools in Your Intelligence Process with Phil Britton from Best Buy - a hot topic delivered by top staff at a well-known company to show us the way.

7.) The Savvy Stakeholder: CI-Driven Decision-Making moderated by Scott Leeb from Prudential Retirement & panelists Patrick Sweeney, Samuel Arbel & Craig McHenry - a couple of good friends join with a couple of new ones to show us how to make CI more effective for internal clients.

6.) Creating and Using Dynamic Topic Maps to Visualize Your Business Environment with Jesper Martell & Daniel Thomasson from Aurora software partner Comintelli - the best taxonomy technologists in the world show how to make visualization more effective.

5.) Thursday Keynote - Business Models are Changing... and so Must CI with Ravi Parmeswar from Citigroup - a call to action for CI professionals to consider new methods to support changing intelligence needs, perspective from a top client in a hyper-turbulent industry.

4.) Ask the Experts Discussion on Competitive Strategy in the New Economy moderated by Tim Kindler from Eastman Kodak & joined by panelists Daniel Pascheles from Merck & Lloyd Babbitt from W.W. Grainger - my good friend Tim leads an expert discussion among a diverse panel of the savviest CI leaders.

3.) Say It and Sit Down: The 20/20 Communication Technique with Judith Leavitt from Rockwell Collins - though she may need more 6:40 to do it, my good friend Judy introduces the CI community to the breakthrough Japanese presentation phenomenon of Pecha Kucha.

2.) Perception Mapping and Contradiction Resolution of Voice of the Customer with our good friend and world-class innovation & TRIZ expert David Conley from Intel.

1.) And the number one thing I'm looking forward to lands Thursday night (March 11^th) - after you've had a chance to grab dinner, all SCIP 2010 conference-goers are invited to join us back at the Marriott to celebrate Aurora WDC's 15^th Anniversary Party, starting at 8:30 PM and running until around 11:30. Entertainment for the evening will be Atlanta's own Void Where Prohibited, cash bar will be available and news on what we've got planned to kick off Aurora's next 15 years.

And here's a link to the full post on AuroraWDC.com/blog where you can see the other 15 things I came up with. If this sounds like your kind of conference, as it is mine, learn more or register at:

http://scip.cms-plus.com/files/SCIP2010.pdf

I hope to see you there,

Arik Johnson
Founder & Chairman 

The Other 15 Things I'm Looking Forward to at SCIP 2010

1. Interview with an In-House Corporate Strategist - Nigel Brown & Mark Little from Covance
2. Best Practices for Acquiring CI from a Legal Perspective - Robert Milligan & Michael Wexler from Seyfarth Shaw LLP
3. Friday Awards Breakfast
4. Using Patent Intelligence to Benchmark Against Competitors - Ric Snead from Thomson Reuters
5. Town Hall Meeting on CI Transitions: Public, Private, Consulting moderated by my good friend and former SCIP President Joe Goldberg from AKPD Message & Media
6. Thursday Power Lunch: Networking Roundtables Hosted by Industry Leaders
7. Global Counterfeit Issues and CI Strategies - Murali Parthasarathy from Learning-Organized & Branimir Brankov from Merck
8. The Impact of Real Time News on the CI and MI Functions - Mike Piispanen from Thomson Reuters
9. Fireside Chat on Insights from the C-Suite - Scott Leeb's Fireside Chat with Prudential Retirement CMO James Cornell
10. From Product to Service: Analyzing a New Business Model - Michael Sperger from SAP
11. Using Competitive Insights to Help Develop and Implement Corporate Strategy - Dale Fehringer from Inkwell Productions & Melanie Wing from Whirlpool
12. Polishing a Diamond: Making Good CI Products Great! - Dan Mulligan & Louise Killeen from Mercyhurst
13. How to Secure CEO Buy-In to Your CI Program: Case Study & Global Best Practices - Victor Knip from GIA & Michel Bernaiche from Dunkin’ Brands
14. Wednesday Keynote - Creative Destruction: The Prospects for Strong and Sustained U.S. Economic Growth - Paul Thomas from Intel
15. And, of course, morning workouts with Aurora Sports and anyone who cares to join us - we've got running and walking routes laid out or hit the gym for a light weights workout. Send me an email if you want the Team Aurora schedule to join in the fun.

You know, now that I'm finished writing all that out, I've thought of a few more - I always enjoy the Fellows dinner as one of the sub-communities at SCIP, but there are other interest group events like the Women's Leadership Council or International Committee get-togethers to look up. Assuming you don't already have plans for every meal with people you're meeting, you can join evening dine-arounds for dinner. Then, there's the Solutions Wheel SCIP brought over from Frost & Sullivan's conference, kind of like speed-dating, it's a great way to meet lots of people in the know. Speaking of whom, among the rest of the exhibitors in the exhibit hall there are a bunch of great ones to be sure and talk to including Digimind and Traction Software, both best-of-breed software partners of Aurora's. Then of course there's the…

Well… I think you get my point - hopefully this has given you a taste of what you might expect to experience at SCIP 2010 next month - and, I hope you'll look me up too if you're there.

See you in DC!

- Arik