upcoming events

September 26-28, 2023

Please plan to join us in person, September 26-28, in Chicago for our Members Meeting.  We plan to have two and half full days of great speakers, workshops, networking and our in-person Marketing Excellence Roundtable.

This event will be September 26-28, 2023 just outside of Chicago at 

Westbrook Corporate Center
5 Westbrook Corporate Center
Westchester, IL
Hosted by Ingredion

As a focus at this meeting, we will be learning from key researchers and practitioners about the transformational effects of AI on B2B Marketing.

There is no charge for ISBM Members – we look forward to seeing you!

We highly encourage your in-person attendance, but we will also broadcast virtually.

We have secured a limited number of hotel rooms for participants at

Four Points by Sheraton Chicago Westchester/Oak Brook
2222 Enterprise Drive, Westchester, IL

The Westbrook Corporate Center is just a short walk from this hotel. The nightly rate at the Four Points will be $119/night plus tax for King or $129/night plus tax for two Queen if you book using the ISBM Registration Link before September 12, 2023 and based on availability so please book early.

*Agenda:

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

• Arrival in Chicago, IL
• ISBM Member & ISBM Fellow One-on-One Meetings from 2:00 – 4:00PM CST
  • 30 minutes, scheduled in advance.  If interested in booking times with up to 3 Fellows/Partners/Speakers, please email Lynn Yanyo or Lori Nicolini  to indicated which Fellows you would like to speak with.  Make your request early!
    • Dan Adam – Understanding Customer Needs, Choosing Winning Products/Services
    • Dr. Robert Cooper – Stage Gate and Agile Product Development Processes
    • Ralph Cummins – Business and Marketing Transformation, Customer Experience Management
    • Liam Fahey – Competitive Insights, Business Strategy
    • Gerry Katz – Voice of the Customer Methodologies
    • Laura Patterson – Metrics, Analytics, Driving the Strategy
    • Joanne Smith – Strategic Pricing, Value-Based Pricing, and Transactional Pricing, Negotiation
    • Vince Kostenik – B2B Marketing and Sales Execution
    • Stefan Wuyts – Interfirm Relationships and Platforms, Marketing Ecosystems, Networks, Digital Technology, and Sustainability
    • Amisha Gandi – AI strategies and chat GPT, performance marketing, brand strategy and customer engagement
    • Jonathan Welch – Data science and AI to accelerate innovation
  • Indicate interest on registration page and slots will be assigned prior to the meeting.
•  ISBM will sponsor a small reception on Tuesday evening from 4:30 – 8:00PM CST at:
  • Four Points by Sheraton Chicago Westchester/Oak Brook
    2222 Enterprise Drive, Westchester, IL

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

9:00AM – 5:00PM CST

9:00AM CST

• Welcome & Opening Remarks – Lynn Yanyo, ISBM
• Ingredion – Megan DeStefano, Ingredion

9:30AM – 10:30AM CST

• Keynote:  The Marketing Singularity:  Large Language Models and the End of Marketing as You Knew it – Christopher Penn, Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist, Trust Insights, Inc.
  • The singularity, a term coined by mathematician John von Neumann and popularized by Ray Kurzweil, is when artificial intelligence growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in dramatic changes to human civilization. For marketers, with the advent of large language models and generative AI, the singularity is here. Models like GPT-4, LLaMa, and StableLM have trivialized some tasks, allowed others to scale rapidly, and are changing the very foundations of digital marketing, particularly around SEO. Marketers are profoundly unprepared for what’s happening right now and what’s just around the corner, a marketing singularity. In this keynote talk from TrustInsights.ai Chief Data Scientist Christopher Penn, you’ll learn:
    • What large language models can and cannot do
    • How large language models are built
    • How your organization should be thinking about their usage
    • 12 marketing use cases in 6 different areas of focus
    • How to approach AI with privacy and data security in mind
    • What other applications of the underlying technologies apply to marketing
    • How various marketing jobs will be impacted
    • What’s just around the corner

10:30AM  CST

• Networking Break 

11:00AM – 12:00PM CST

• AI Uncertainty and the Future – Hybrid AI  – Anthony Marshall, Senior Research Director, IBM Institute for Business Value

12:00PM CST 

• Lunch 

12:40PM – 1:00PM CST 

• Breaking Boundaries:  Data-driven AI and Its Impact on Innovation Speed, Bob Olsen and Jonathan Welch, Albert Invent
  • During this session we discuss the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML) in expediting the R&D process and accelerating product commercialization. As we explore the promising role of Machine Learning in the advancement of chemical and materials development, we highlight the importance of a data-driven approach and its influence on each stage of the stage-gate process—looking at real-world case studies and the crucial role of organizational readiness. Our goal is to inspire senior B2B leaders to not just embrace AI, but leverage it as a key driver of business success and impactful innovation.

1:00PM – 1:20PM CST 

• AI and Early Stage Ideation, Aperture.AI

1:20PM – 1:40PM CST 

• Caliber Mind

1:45PM – 3:00PM CST  –  Walk about Demo & Discussion

• Albert Invent
• Aperture.AI
• Caliber Mind

3:00PM – 4:00PM CST  

• How AI Is Accelerating Voice of the Customer (VOC) in B2B – Gerry Katz, Vice Chairman Emeritus, Kristyn Corrigan, Principal and Co-Owner, Applied Marketing Science, and Artem Timoshenko, Professor, Northwestern University
  • Voice of the Customer (VOC) has been a best practice in New Product Development and Service Innovation for more than 30 years. But executing a rigorous, academically-sound VOC can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive process – worth it for sure, but not without a fairly significant cost. And so, it should be no surprise that both academics and practitioners have been looking for ways to speed up and reduce that cost ever since its origin.Thankfully, in recent years, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been transforming the way we gather information about customer experiences. By leveraging the power of AI, businesses now have a unique opportunity to better understand customer needs and to find game-changing consumer insights. Applied Marketing Science (AMS), in collaboration with researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management, have developed a new way to uncover critical insights from existing user-generated content. Join Gerry Katz, Kristyn Corrigan, and Prof. Artem Timoshenko (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University) to explore how companies are using Machine Learning to gather unique and actionable Voice of the Customer (VOC) insights more quickly and cost effectively than ever before.
    • Discover how Machine Learning can help reveal truly novel customer needs, even in complex, highly technical B2B categories.
    • See examples of how Machine Learning can allow product and service designers to gather a comprehensive list of customer needs faster and more economically than with traditional methods.
    • Understand the emerging, state-of-the-art ways in which ChatGPT can enhance the VOC process even further.

4:30PM – 5:30PM CST  

• Networking Discussion and Reception

Thursday, September 28, 2023

9:00AM – 1:00PM CST

9:00AM 

• Opening Remarks – Lynn Yanyo, ISBM
• ISBM Research – Stefan Wuyts, ISBM-Penn State

9:15AM – 10:15AM CST

• Navigating the Future:  AI’s Role in Elevating the Customer Journey – Amisha Gandhi, SVP Marketing
  • Join us for a thought-provoking keynote session that unveils the transformative power of AI in shaping the modern customer journey. In an era defined by data-driven insights and evolving consumer behaviors, marketing executives are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to harness AI technologies to their advantage.This engaging session will explore how AI-driven strategies can seamlessly integrate into every phase of the customer journey, from initial engagement to post-purchase interactions. Discover how AI can amplify personalization, optimize marketing efforts, and decode customer intent, enabling brands to forge stronger connections and drive sustainable growth. Join us to explore real-world examples, practical insights, and a roadmap for leveraging AI to not only meet customer expectations but exceed them, in a landscape where innovation and adaptation are key to success.

10:15AM  CST

• Networking Break 

10:30AM – 11:30AM  CST

• AI and the “Lean”ing of Innovation:  Faster, Better & Cheaper New-Product Development – Dr. Robert G. Cooper, ISBM Distinguished Research Fellow, Penn State, ISBM; Professor Emeritus, McMaster University
  • AI has the potential to transform the way businesses conceive, develop, and launch new products. By analyzing vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, AI can help to identify new product ideas, analyze the market and competition, build a business case, make informed Go/No Go decisions, and design and build prototypes and products. Thus AI will improve the productivity of project teams, and make the development process faster but also better.For most firms, however, these AI applications are largely in the future; little evidence exists today of heavy use of AI in NPD (notable exceptions include: scanning the Internet for NP ideas, helping with market research, project management, and planning technical experiments). But for applications such as making the right project selection and investment decisions, and designing and developing a concept or product, AI is not quite there yet. Cooper’s NewProd model, a data-based algorithm which predicts new product success much better than managers do, was one of the first pseudo-AI models in NPD, perhaps a bit ahead of its time. But a number of AI tools now exist which are readily available to users anxious to dive into AI for NPD. See how AI is now changing and will change the NPD landscape: faster, better, and leaner NPD – and most important, the next steps for you.

11:30AM  CST

• Networking Break

12:00AM  CST

• Customer AI:  Predicting Customer Futures and Prescribing Best Action in B2B – Richard Owen, Founder & CEO, OCX Cognition
  • What risks and opportunities existing within your account base? How should you focus your customer operations to efficiently create customers who will stay forever, and grow forever? How should you target marketing efforts based on this knowledge? Join Richard Owen, whose team co-created the NPS methodology as he shows how B2B and B2B2C enterprises are using AI to fully understand the health of their customers and distributors, allocate resources more efficiently and become data-driven in managing their customer base. NPS was revolutionary in its day, but Customer AI is already transforming customer analytics in B2B.

*Note:  Agenda will be updated with complete talk titles, descriptions, and bios as they are finalized.

1:30PM CST

• ISBM Marketing Excellence Roundtable (MEX)

The ISBM Marketing Excellence Roundtable (MEX) – will follow right after the Members Meeting on Thursday, September 28 from 1:00 – 4:00PM.  Registration is also complimentary for ISBM Members, but registration is separate.  Please click here for Marketing Excellence Roundtable Registration.