DUBAI: Science fiction is becoming just another product because agile start-ups find it easier than ever to get to market, Wired UK editor David Rowan told the BrainScape conference.
Rowan, opening speaker at the conference in Westin Habtoor City, Dubai, said, “You can either be scared or excited about the opportunities the future presents, but you can’t sit this one out because it is coming sooner than you think.”
He added, “Startups are fighting for survival every single day and that keeps them way ahead of how a corporate works.”
The thought-leadership conference, organised by PHD Mena in association with digital media specialists DMS, attracted more than 400 delegates.
PHD Worldwide’s chief strategy officer Hugh Cameron told delegates, “Where humanity is going to have a role, it’s going to be in the field of experiences and it’s these experiences that brands will want to associate with or create for themselves.”
He said communications planning would help businesses interact with customers. “Planners and strategists will become the designers of more streamlined consumer experiences, using data and talent to enhance human journeys. At PHD, we strongly believe that a brand’s success comes when humans, data and AI work together.”
Author and futurist Tom Chatfield said technological networking meant people would increasingly share experiences, doing more together rather than individually.
“We must respect the highly emotional nature of these relationships and ensure they are based on maximising the skills that bind us: human creativity and sociability versus machine capacity, speed and connectivity,” he said.
Elda Choucair, CEO of PHD Mena, said, “The speed of transformation can be quite challenging and this conference serves as a platform to accelerate the awareness of and the response to future-shaping developments among business and marketing professionals.
“It’s an advance warning, a wake-up call to help our stakeholders gain a first-mover advantage by future-proofing their strategies and better preparing themselves for what is yet to come.”
