Conference Matters 142

Ruben Klerkx Owner of Creators Company

EXPERT PANEL

“I disagree. Paradoxically, AI will make sure that all companies, organisations and processes ultimately become much more human. Since AI will take over increasingly more of our chores, we’ll all have more time for human contact. The demand to physically meet our colleagues and clients will only increase. Moreover, AI is not a magic box and definitely not a silver bullet, like people think it is. It’s a new digital hammer in the problem-solving toolbox. One problem you could have with an event is that you quickly forget what a speaker has said or what you’ve learnt at a workshop. If an AI assistant listens to the sessions, a chat bot will later be able to remind you of specific examples or knowledge shared during the ses And how do we get the right people to attend our event, and how can we reach them? There are roughly two types of event attendees. One comes for networking, and the other for information and content. Organisers are often unaware that the latter group is not particu larly keen on break-out rooms or workshop sessions where they have to talk or interact with others. munication, as it’s often one-way communica tion. A lot of information is sent. For example, we will look at whether we can get better keynote speakers. Can we make the person who is transmitting do it better? Would it be better if they just told their story? That needs to happen, but maybe we all already know that the real value is not so much in the informa tion transfer between speakers and listeners but much more in the interpersonal contacts during an event and the information shared between participants. In this regard, AI could help by investigating how we can bring more topics to the table that people are actually interested in and can use. Or how we can use AI to streamline such an event experience.

“I’m fascinated by how groups work together and come up with ideas together. The Creators Company looks into how we build relationships using conversation design and interaction design. How do we have conversations, and how can we use them to increase our influence? In addition to many wonderful things, the smartphone and social media have also nega tively affected human interaction. For example, more and more people are finding it very diffi cult to have a ‘normal’ phone conversation with each other or to speak to someone directly. AI is interesting because it greatly streamli nes processes and removes all kinds of hic cups from online interaction. AI can definitely improve interaction. But what are you actually improving? What if you’re optimising a B-ver sion and forget that there is also an A-version? You must always continue to monitor it as well. When it comes to conferences and events, the question is whether people will continue to use such a place to visit each other. This is a bit of a swear word among event organisers, but I see that they also focus a lot on improving the B-version. One of the B-versions within events is com

sion. Lastly, people are crazy about people. We feel emotions with someone, and that’s why we want to listen to them. We don’t feel like this about computers. Look at chess: a super computer won over a human in 1997. Still, we would rather watch two people playing chess than two supercomputers. Some digital avatars will surely have something to say, but after a few experiments, we predict that this gimmick will be abandoned because people like to learn from other people. What’s the ultimate added value of a conference? Serendipity. Chance encounters you hadn’t planned in advance. Fortunately, technology isn’t needed for this.” A good AI example I’ve seen is that people could answer a set of questions on their mobile phones upon arrival. Based on these questions, a colour code was provided, making it clear what the visitors’ individual interests were and how they preferred to take in those interests. The visitors then received a name sticker that they could wear during the event. There was even the option of not being disturbed during the event, which made it ‘safer’ for that group to attend.”

Remy Gieling Co-founder of AI Group & The Automation Group

25