By: Stuart Callaghan, Account Director, IComm

Day 1

Starting It All Off With Some Sessions

Opening Keynote

To kick off day one, I attended the morning's Opening Key Note where Andy Penn (Telstra’s CEO) spoke about where Telstra is heading and the huge advances that can be made with the launch of Telstra's 5G network. Andy spoke about what the new 5G network would bring to Telstra’s customers and how 5G will change the way we can do things with our mobile devices.

Daniel Pink

Next on stage was a presentation by best-selling author Daniel Pink. He spoke about timing and when to do certain things during your day because there are certain times in the day when we perform at our best:

Time to Get Out On The Floor - Exhibition Floor That Is!

The IComm team (Rob, Billy, Michael and myself) then headed out onto the exhibition floor where we were able to spend time with some of our partners and colleagues.

Of special mention were the following exhibitors:

Polycom / Plantronics “Better Together”

They were showing off their latest video conferencing and room solutions, as well as the latest headsets. Most impressive was Plantronics sound-scaping solution known as Habitat. The Habitat solution demonstration was impressive and really showed what the difference could be in an office in terms of sound quality in a busy and noisy environment. The Polycom Trio was also being demonstrated working with Microsoft Teams.

Jabra

James and I headed across to the Jabra stand where Nu Phan showed us the latest technology on offer – their new Engage series is very exciting!

More Great Sessions

Later in the day we went along to a few different sessions, the highlights of which were:

High Performance Marketing

Growing your business through high performance marketing – insights from Google, Bing and Facebook. This was an extremely interesting discussion on how you can market your business. Of most interest were a few key statistics that were presented, including the fact that 86% of mobile users turn to Google for ideas about what to buy.

Four Ways to Accelerate Your Path to Digital Transformation

Next up was a Cisco session: “Four ways to accelerate your path to digital transformation.” The key theme from this presentation was video is everywhere!

And the below was an extremely interesting slide. The presenter (Michael Reid) asked the audience, “What does this slide represent?”

The answer: the first column represents the top 10 companies in the world by revenue in 2007 and the second column represents the top 10 companies in the world by revenue in 2018.  Wow - how things have changed in 11 years!

Day 2

The Business Of Sport

The second day started with a panel session titled ‘The Business of Sport’. The discussion was led by Telstra’s Brendon Riley, who asked questions of two of the biggest names in Australian sports broadcasting, the AFL’s CEO Gillon McLachlan and Foxtel’s CEO Patrick Delaney. It was a entertaining conversation about how the recent TV rights for the AFL were negotiated and the process it took to get the deal done.

Celeb Photo Op!

And of course, I couldn’t miss the chance to grab Gill for a photo!

Highlight of the Whole Conference - The Closing Keynote

Thai Cave Rescue Heroes - Courage, Technology, and Teamwork

Finally, without a doubt, the highlight of Telstra Vantage for 2018 was the closing keynote: ‘Thai cave rescue heroes – courage, technology and teamwork.’

Comedian, Adam Spencer interviewed the two Australian heroes – Craig Challen and Dr. Richard Harris - who were instrumental in rescuing the Thai soccer team from the cave in Thailand.

We were on the edge of our seats for over 90 minutes listening to these two heroes detail everything about the rescue, the conditions, the scenarios they were faced with and the final exhilarating result!

One Last Celeb Photo Op!

Oh and I also ran into Adam Spencer for one last celebrity photo!

All in all, Telstra put on another great Vantage this year, and we at IComm are grateful for the partnership we have with Telstra, and the opportunity to attend, hear the speakers, network, and go to the sessions.  As always, we look forward to putting our learnings and takeaways into practice, and of course, we also look forward to next year!