Posted by
Barry Siskind
UFI’s Community Manager

Valerii Pekar President of Ukraine’s Euroindex will be joining Christian Glasmacher, Senior Vice President of Koelmesse and UFI Managing Director Paul Woodward in a discussion at UFI’s Congress in Seoul., titled Tomorrow’s Exhibition. While the topic is broad the content is sure to be compelling. One of the benefits of UFILive.org is that we don’t have to wait until November for a sneak preview. Here are some of Pekar’s thoughts.

Barry:

What do you hope that the participants will learn from your session?

Valerii:

Strategic business planning often supposes “business as usual” or, at best, takes into account some major trends. We are not always aware of big shifts, unexpected migration of values, and wildcards, which Nassim Taleb called “black swans” in his book of the same name. My dream is to deliver, with other colleagues on this panel, the broader view of a possible future within our industry, which includes possible big shifts in our business model.

Barry:

What are the signs in the economy that indicate that change in the exhibition industry has been “relatively slow?”

Valerii:

During the last 20 years, technology has changed dramatically. During the last five crisis years the economic environment has also changed. But while our industry has made some slight changes in our operations and we adopted some new technologies, but it is not obvious to me that we are ready for the big changes that still face of our industry.

Barry:

What key signs or signals from the economy should our industry spend more time understanding?

Valerii:

In my humble opinion, we have to rethink dramatic technological shifts, but also some many important social. We have to predict change and then prepare ourselves.

This year UFIs Congress will be held from November 13th to 16th in Seoul, Korea. If you haven’t registered yet there is still time. See the entire agenda at www.ufi.org/seoul2013 or follow on #ufiseoul