NASHVILLE, TENN – The Ingram One conference covered many areas of technology such as cloud, security, big data and even marketing. The one thing missing at the event were PowerPoint slides. This was done on purpose by show host Ingram Micro, one of the largest technology distributors in the world. Instead of PowerPoint slides attendees were treated to a doodler.
And, approximately 2,000 technology professionals who attended the event at the Gaylord Opryland hotel didn’t mind. The doodles were created by Heather Willems of Image Think, a New York-based graphic recording team that works at corporate meetings or keynote addresses at conferences to redraw the thoughts and messages of the speaker.
Ingram’s got your back
Kirk Robinson, the senior vice president of commercial sales and global sales for Ingram Micro took the stage at the Ingram One conference a gave a recap of the growing complexity of product solutions steaming from the many acquisitions in the marketplace; most notably Dell’s $67 billion deal for EMC.
His main message in this doodle is to relax because Ingram Micro is working to simplify the complexity. In a nutshell, Robinson is saying: “I’ve got your back.”
Read more: Michael Dell explains the EMC acquisition
Security can be scary
One of the big market opportunities is with security and the Ingram One show had plenty of solutions to showcase from 50 security providers. The key messages drawn by Willems are from presenter Tim Ament, the senior vice president of Advanced Solutions for Ingram Micro. Ament said space is crowded in security and it brings about complexity. Another key discussion point is that no matter where you stand with security where you are a customer or supplier you can’t doing alone.
Willems has an approach to her doodles that tries to visually drive the discussion for free-flowing ideas.
Read more: Malware map update: Canada’s rate of infection dropping
Top 5 list – cloud essentials
Canadian cloud guru Renee Bergeron talked about the short-comings of the sales cycle and how it factors into revenue generation and obtaining profits sooner. But she had some fun with the audience by presenting a Top 5 list of cloud essentials. They are:
5. The Ingram Cloud Marketplace with solutions from Acronis and DropBox all in a single portal.
4. Cloud Partner Enablement that produce more than 250 vetted cloud solutions.
3. Cloud Channel Programs, which allows you to get on the cloud without any investment.
2. The Cloud Elevate loyalty program.
1. The entire cloud ecosystem.
The Brand Promise
Jennifer Anaya is the vice president of marketing for Ingram Micro North America and her presentation was your brand promise. Simply put if your organization claims to provide every person with the freedom to work however, whenever and wherever they choose, but instead forces staff into a 9 to 5 work environment you have a cultural disconnect.
Anaya added that connecting the dots between culture and brand promise is a surer path to building your brand.
Agility in the marketplace:
Paul Bay’s message at the Ingram One show was about the ease doing business and becoming more agile in the marketplace.
The executive vice president and chief executive of Ingram Micro, Bay provided the audience information on how to invest in services and technology specific for vertical industry such as healthcare. Bay told the audience that will all the changes and complexity in IT its best to hop on the bus and ride with Ingram Micro.
Willems co-founded ImageThink with Nora Herting more than eight years ago. She has a Masters of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University.
