Monday's Motivational Makeover - More on Change and the Women's Forum 2010 this Week!

Over this past weekend I posted some information on an exciting event that is taking place October 14- 16 in Deauville, France.

It is the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society, an annual event where powerful women, and a few enlightened men meet to discuss the economy, and the future of women in industry, government, and philanthropy. In addition, and perhaps most importantly in our increasingly virtual world, it is a chance to network "face-to-face" with each other.

This event is supported by an "A-list" of sponsors including Accenture, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Proctor & Gamble, Qualcomm, and Zinio.

There are numerous programs that take place over the course of the event, but I would like to share a few that I think will interest my viewers and members of my network in attendance:

Zinio and Qualcomm will have a presence there and have partnered together on a global “Change the Page” tour that coincides with the launch of a tremendous "revolution of digital reading" study performed by the Harrison Group. This study, titled "America’s Appetite for Digital Consumption", is a benchmark in the next wave of change ( http://www.changethepage.org/). Together, Zinio and Qualcomm are addressing the Reading Revolution and how the publishing and technology worlds are joining forces to address and evolve the way people read.

While this survey reveals that tablet based technologies and eReaders have widespread consumer appeal, this study reveals that “unlike other new technologies, this revolution is not about the technology itself, but rather, it is about the role that content plays in people’s lives.” Complete copies of the research can be purchased by contacting The Harrison Group.

Those of you who faithfully follow this blog may recall that I have written about Zinio in the past.

They provide a platform able to run on multiple devices, and a single solution to access a rapidly growing universe of content (including this Blog!). It's more than an application – they're a world-class digital products and services company that unites readers, what they read, and the many devices they read on. From design to distribution, their cross-platform suite of applications – UNITY™ – engages readers like never before on their iPads, iPhones, desktops, laptops and Android devices. For advertisers, they offer the chance to take advantage of a format that’s more engaging, with higher returns than any other digital platform.

In my opinion, Zinio delivers a new standard for digital publishing.

At the Women's Forum, Zinio and Qualcomm will be sponsoring the Writer’s Corner which takes place in the Discovery Hall. Within this area, Zinio and Qualcomm will show the evolution of reading from stone, to paper, to print to computer through a series of powerful imagery, ending with a sneak peak of the Mirasol Biomimicry Screen’s and Zinio interactive digital content.

A few interactive workshops that Zinio are participating in or conducting are listed below:

- Exclusive VIVmag focus study with Rising Talent group

Rising Talents aims to distinguish highly talented young women who will become influential figures in our economies and societies in the future. The initiative is an example of the values illustrated by the Women’s Forum since its creation. It was launched in 2007 under the impulse of Aude de Thuin, Founder and CEO, as a corporate and personal commitment to promoting women leaders and bringing the vision of rising generations to the Forum. Each year, 20 to 25 young women are invited to attend the Women’s Forum Global Meeting and join the Rising Talents network

This exclusive group will get to interact with VIVmag one-on-one on the iPad in order to generate key learnings from this savvy group on how women read interactive, dynamically designed digital magazines like VIVmag. The seven pillars of VIVmag will be showcased; beauty, style, healthy eating, fitness, travel, awareness and wellness and Rising Talent women will provide their feedback on the VIVmag experience – a luxury digital magazine

- Speaking Engagement by Qualcomm’s Cheryl Goodman, Director of Marketing, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc.

Information is fundamentally changing. A single animated movie now contains more data than entire libraries. There is one final frontier in this digital revolution, however, and it is perhaps the most important: print. No single moment in history has seen so much information move from one format to another with such significant implications. Print content now stands to enter new realms of use in arenas like education, social welfare, industry and entertainment. This is not only a technological revolution, but a revolution in intrinsic human reading behavior. The implications of this migration are empowering for those driving the revolution and daunting for those who lag on the adoption curve. In this session, participants will hear from women leading and enabling this reading revolution. Cheryl Goodman, hails from Qualcomm, a global leader in next generation wireless solutions and who’s mirasol display technology aims to preserve what makes print great. The compliment to Qualcomm’s hardware and wireless solutions are software platform solutions, is Zinio, the global leader in digital content distribution.

- The Future of Publishing

Cheryl Goodman and Pierre Geslot of ORANGE will address the Future of Publishing and Technology (I'll provide more info in a follow-up post later this week!)

As you can see, Change is happening in every aspect of our lives, and these programs describe the "cutting edge" of the technology that is helping drive it.

I will have another update on this event as the week progresses and some feedback from my viewers fortunate to experience this important women's event "live", so that you can experience all the energy and excitement "virtually".