2010 Commercial Leadership Conference

ECLPs kicked off 2010 with the semi-annual Commercial Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida. All ECLPs in all GE businesses from every country gathered at the Portofino Bay Hotel for a week of training, networking, and keynote speakers. Here are some highlights from the week (we’ll post pictures soon!):

Day 1
The GE-wide marketing forum is broadcast from our hotel! GE’s CMO and 5 additional Marketing executives were in attendance to share their thoughts on marketing at GE. What a great opportunity to hear first hand about marketing best practices from those that are living it.

Day 2
ECLPs attended either a Marketing or Sales focused class. Some found themselves in a prisoner’s dilemma while others negotiated across cultural boundaries.

Later that night, ECLPs were transported to the stage at The Rising Star, a karaoke venue at Universal City Walk. Who knew ECLPs could rival an American Idol audition episode? But Simon Cowell didn’t need to be in attendance for these ECLPs to know focusing on Commercial Leadership was the better career move.

Day 3
Get the creative juices flowing! ECLPs put their imagination to work inventing products like a new wave search engines, designing luxury airliners, and even writing novels…all with just a few brainstorming exercises, some sharpies and a pad of paper.

Later, an external speaker excited the iPhone dominant crowd with talk of the Social Revolution and the next generation of social apps. After a few downloads, the biggest question was: Where are you Mayor?

Day 4
How do create a proposal for your customer who isn’t communicating his or her needs to you? That was the challenge before a group of ECLPs this day. They were reminded to be conscious of the questions asked to a customer and listening for the customer’s pain points.

Day 5
How do you innovate healthcare? This simple question was the ECLPs final task of the week before the conference wrap-up and flights departed to all corners of the world.

The obvious theme of the week: innovation and creativity are important components of leadership. ECLPs are smart enough to know we’re not solving the world’s problems in just one week but it is amazing what we can imagine when teamed with people from all industries all over the world. It is this excitement that we bring back to the businesses and our rotations as ECLPs.

Posted by Heidi