MUNICH, July 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
- Around 500 guests gathered in Munich's Haus der Kunst (House of Art) for the fifth conference
- Female opinion leaders, board members and the digital elite discussed future topics
Today was the final day of the fifth DLDwomen conference, this year held under the banner of "Relevance!". DLDwomen explored a female perspective on the digital age and its influence on life and society. This year's conference featured interesting debates as well as practical instructions presented through more than 15 workshops.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140723/697920 )
"We wanted to make the conference even more practically relevant by introducing workshops and business-related topics, and this concept has paid off entirely. Demand was high, and the workshops were booked out almost instantly. The topic of coding was so popular that we offered two additional sessions," commented the organiser, Steffi Czerny.
And what would a DLD event be without surprises? Ilse Aigner (CSU), Minister of State for Technology in Bavaria, unexpectedly appeared on the DLDwomen stage at noon on the second day of the conference. She promised: Bavaria is to become more digital.
Other topics that were discussed at DLDwomen 2014 include:
Leadership
John Gerosa, Sales Director at Google Germany, and Ana-Cristina Grohnert of Ernst & Young talked about the future of management, together with Professor Isabell Welpe from the TU München. The most important aspect: inclusion - of women in particular. "Mixed-gender teams simply deliver better work," Gerosa explained. Grohnert's secret: "Understand what your employees think and feel. That's what has helped me get where I am today."
Coding
Will we all have to learn how to program? We certainly should, said the participants of the "It's all about coding" panel - Jocelyn Leavitt, Rachel Swidenbank and Kristen Titus, presented by Susann Remke, Office Manager at Burda in New York and foreign correspondent for Focus. What can programming do for me? Codecademy's Rachel Swidenbank had a straightforward answer: "Programming is becoming a key qualification." She tells us about a customer whose salary doubled thanks to his new skill.
Entrepreneurship / The workplace of the future
"Many people shy away from starting a business, because they are afraid that it will drive them into a dead end," Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Professor of Finance at the TU München, explained. "We're lagging far behind Silicon Valley." Antonella Mei-Pochtler of the Boston Consulting Group emphasised: "Entrepreneurs must be allowed to make mistakes. We need to teach this to our kids at a very early stage." According to Jaleh Bisharat, the age of commuting is drawing to a close. She works for the Elance-oDesk job platform, which recruits workers from all over the world. Her vision: work will no longer be location-dependent in the future. Digital work can be carried out anywhere with an Internet connection.
Branding / E-Commerce
"We are indeed living in the digital age," conceded Stephanie Phair, head of a digital fashion platform. Nonetheless, her company has just published a print magazine. She is convinced that her customers will continue to enjoy printed materials in the future. Miroslava Duma is one of the first fashion bloggers who has successfully made money from her blog. "We were the first platform in Russia to sell advertising to huge brands like Armani or Adidas. Many people are craving new fashion. Brands have begun to understand that blogs can satisfy those cravings, and we have benefitted from that." Duma and Margherita Missoni (from the fashion label of the same name) admit: "We simply allow people to believe that we are providing them with insight into our world through media such as Facebook or Instagram. But in actual fact, we precisely control the way in which we present ourselves there."
Mobility
Hildegard Wortmann, Design Manager at BMW, presented models from the new electric car range, "i". The automotive world has been holding its breath for these new BMW models for quite a while. Its customers have been waiting for two whole years. "We had 1.3 million Facebook fans before anyone had ever seen an i3 or an i8," Wortmann explained. "Tesla has made electric mobility sexy." And yet: there is a difference between selling a couple of thousand cars and selling one hundred thousand cars.
HR / Further education
Gabriele Zedlmayer from the IT giant HP explained what young people are going to need in the future if they want to embark on a career: "Future-oriented organisations are not just looking at candidates' degrees any more; they're looking at their knowledge." Even education will be influenced by digitalisation. "Tablets will soon be an integral part of the school curriculum," claimed Cornelia Quennet-Thielen, State Secretary at the Ministry of Education. But in order for that to work, "we need professional teachers in Europe who can handle
digital lessons."
Find more information about the programme and the speakers at DLDwomen 2014 here: http://dld-conference.com/DLDwomen14.
Graphic material about the conference is available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hubertburdamedia. You can view a film about DLDwomen 2014 here: http://youtu.be/APsKFGsYFbc
Background:
Women make two thirds of all purchase decisions, are increasingly involved in digital communications and have skills that are indispensable in the digital economy: understanding women and making the most of their opportunities is highly relevant for organisations and brands. That is why Hubert Burda Media created DLDwomen, a journalistic conferencing platform that provides an open-minded and creative atmosphere for discussing the role of women in the digital age, market shifts and social change from a female perspective.
DLD is an international conference and innovation platform organised by Hubert Burda Media. DLD Media holds Europe's leading digital conference, DLD and DLDwomen, along with international networking events in hubs such as Palo Alto, New York, London, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro und Peking. In addition to the conference content, DLD media produces publications, online and video media and research studies, offers consultancy services to DLD's partner companies, start-ups, investors and institutions. Its Managing Director is Stephanie Czerny, who co-founded the DLD Conference in 2005.
More information:
Dorothee Stommel
Burda Media
Corporate Communications
Arabellastraße 23
81925 Munich
Tel.: +49-89-9250-2065
Email: dldpress@burda.com
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