TTI/Vanguard

TTI/Vanguard is a Santa Monica-based company that puts on five conferences a year for senior business executives exploring upcoming trends in technology, with a 2-5 year horizon.

History

While working for CSC Index, a division of Computer Sciences Corporation, Dr. Richard J. Schroth co-founded CSC/Vanguard with fellow CSC Index-er Chunka Mui in November 1991. CSC/Vanguard's mission was to put on forward-looking conferences about upcoming technological developments for senior business executives. The topics of these conferences were chosen and developed by an advisory board of distinguished technologists.

In 1998, CSC/Vanguard was spun off and become a part of Technology Transfer Institute, a Santa Monica-based company "founded in 1976 to provide quality education and training in the computer and telecommunications areas" [http://web.archive.org/web/19970127174223/www.tticom.com/about.html About-TTI ] ] . The former CSC/Vanguard, now renamed TTI/Vanguard, continued putting on conferences for senior executives concerning upcoming technological developments, with the help of its advisory board. TTI also offered nuts-and-bolts training for IT practitioners but, over time, stopped offering IT training seminars and tradeshows to focus exclusively on the high-end TTI/Vanguard executive conferences.l

Activities

TTI/Vanguard offers five conferences a year in different cities throughout the world. These conferences are typically two days long, often with an optional field trip to a local university or technology company on the day after the conference's end. Each TTI/Vanguard conference is focussed on a topic related to an upcoming trend in technology. These topics, which change every year, are chosen and fleshed out by TTI/Vanguard's Advisory Board, a group of twelve well-known and well-regarded figures in technology.

Advisory Board

The advisory board consists of: John Perry Barlow, Gordon Bell, Peter Cochrane, Deborah Estrin, Eric Haseltine, Michael Hawley, Alan Kay, Leonard Kleinrock, Douglas Lenat, Robert Lucky, Nicholas Negroponte and David Reed. [http://www.ttivanguard.com/board/index.html TTI/Vanguard ] ]

Business Model

TTI/Vanguard is a membership-based organization and its conferences may only be attended by members. Membership entitles members to attend 5 consecutive conferences, regardless of when the member joined. It is not possible to pay to attend a single conference.

In addition to the conferences, membership also includes access to archived conference materials as well as the ability to participate in workshops and also to go on optional post-conference field trips to local research and development labs, both academic and corporate, that would be difficult to arrange otherwise. [http://www.ttivanguard.com/faq.html#7 TTI/Vanguard ] ]

Profile of Member-Organizations

The company characterizes its member-organizations [http://www.ttivanguard.com/members/index.html TTI/Vanguard ] ] as follows: "TTI/Vanguard member organizations represent global private, public, and academic sectors. Members include: brand-name manufacturers, cutting-edge software and hardware developers, aerospace and defense companies, financial and investment institutions, insurers, retailers, pharmaceutical and healthcare groups, telecommunications firms, corporate and government labs, service providers and consulting groups, energy and chemical companies, broadcasters, startups, Internet businesses, food and beverage companies, universities, and top advisors in international government agencies." [http://www.ttivanguard.com/faq.html#4 TTI/Vanguard ] ]

The Conferences

peakers

TTI/Vanguard's conferences feature talks by technologists, academic experts, futurists, business-leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, authors of fiction and non-fiction, and journalists. [http://www.ttivanguard.com/speakers/index.html TTI/Vanguard ] ]

Format

TTI/Vanguard conferences are typically two-days long, occasionally with a field-trip to a local research and development facility on the day after.

Unlike many conferences, the TTI/Vanguard conferences are interactive, with the audience expected to interrupt the speaker with questions and comments. Author David Weinberger, described his experience as a speaker as follows:

"Everyone in the audience has a microphone and is encouraged to interrupt with questions and disagreements. So, I didn't make it all the way through my talk, which is common here. Unsurprisingly, the comments were quite trenchant: ... I should have figured more audience-conversation time into my talk. I was well into describing tagging when the big red light flashed, and I didn't get to the conclusions I outlined in my previous post." [http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/003674.html Joho the Blog: [tti My presentation ] ]

Conference recordings and documents are later archived in a repository accessible by TTI/Vanguard members.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.ttivanguard.com TTI/Vanguard homepage]
* [http://www.ttivanguard.com/speakers/index.html Comprehensive list of TTI/Vanguard conference speakers, by category]
* [http://www.ttivanguard.com/members/index.html List of TTI/Vanguard member-organizations]

Detailed description of [http://ttivanguard.com/conference/2007/boston.html "The Wealth of the Network"] conference (Sept. 2007) from British designer and blogger Ian Forrester:
* [http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/design/2007/09/25/The-Wealth-of-Networks-Boston-Day-One.html Live Blogging from Day 1 by Ian Forrester]
* [http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/design/2007/09/26/The-Wealth-of-Networks-Boston-Day-Two.html Live Blogging from Day 2 by Ian Forrester]
* [http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/design/2007/09/28/Full-write-up-on-the-wealth-of-netwoks-conference.html A more polished write-up by Ian Forrester of the conference] for the BBC Backstage website
* [http://montaraventures.com/blog/2006/09/20/time-place-and-space/ Blog post describing the "Time, Place and Space" conference, Sept. 2006] by Mike Harding