IJ8: Morning Keynotes

The morning sessions for the Eighth Conference on Innovation Journalism at Stanford University focused primarily on a steady stream of thought-provoking keynote speakers.

Following the Welcome by Sven Otto Littorin, IJ-8 Communication Track Chair and David Nordfors, IJ-8 Chair, Geoffrey Moore, Venture Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures spoke at length about "Innovation, Communication and the Enterprise." While the first part of his talk came from high-tech history, the latter part delved into his own personal observations about where media is going and what that means for the future.

After the first panel, Sven Otto Littorin spoke in more detail about "Why Innovation Isn't a Hot Election Topic (Yet)" and his views on politics and innovation, which differed somewhat from Stanford's Vice President of Public Affairs, David Demarest's perspective as a former White House communications director. Demarest spoke on "Building an Organization on Innovation" relating to his experience at Stanford and its known culture of innovation. He also shared a bit about how Barack Obama has focused intensely on innovation as a priority both as a candidate and a president and why that has been contrary to most politicians and members of governments.

Following that, David Burk, Senior Vice President of West Coast Digital at Fleishman-Hillard provided what he hoped to be a controversial presentation on "Algorithms and Antipathy: The Polarizing Nature of Communications Today," exploring modes of analyzing the changing landscape of media and new media.

Burghardt Tenderich spoke last on "Marketing and Public Relations, RIP" making the point that traitional marketing and PR methods are dead and we're now in a new paradigm, fitting in with the previous panel. This group all gathered for Q&A, engaging some on the political topics of innovation as well.