Robert Tercek

Keynote Speaker

Robert Tercek's Biography

Software is devouring the world, leaving a trail of disruption in its wake, and creating massive opportunity for reinvention. Robert Tercek is the world’s leading authority on the virtual economy and dematerialization, the process of replacing physical goods with digital services. In Mr Tercek’s view, the most powerful economic force in the economy is the demand destruction that occurs when tangible products are replaced by software; yet these dynamics remain poorly understood by most business managers. That creates vulnerability. A former media executive who understood in the 1980s that digitization was the path of the future, Tercek’s urgent message is that software is not only redefining the way society works – from the way we communicate to all the ways we buy, sell, learn, earn, govern and invent – but it is literally reshaping the physical world. Entire categories of familiar products and retail shops have been replaced by software; and increasingly the flow of goods, services, money and value will be determined by information technology. Tercek calls this process “vaporization” and argues that it is accelerating as it spans every industry and civic institution around the planet. Whatever can be vaporized will be. Success in this environment requires strategies and capabilities that are distinctly different from those that worked in the past. In his keynote speeches, Tercek conveys lessons about leadership, fearlessness, and how to thrive during tech-driven transformation. He learned these lessons from firsthand experience by leading the teams that launched the world’s most advanced dematerialized media services across Asia, Europe and North America.

Tercek speaks from experience. He designed and launched digital services that are used by hundreds of millions of people every day, including: The world’s first streaming video on mobile phonesThe world’s largest live educational program on the WebThe first animated multimedia games for personal computers and mobileThe first multiplayer games on the World Wide Web Hundreds of organizations around the world have sought Tercek’s perspectives as a business strategist and product design innovator in multiple industries. He provides strategic insight and leadership guidance to a wide range of companies that includes manufacturers, major retail chains, media and advertising conglomerates, health care providers and pharmaceutical firms, automakers and technology giants, as well as global standards bodies and government agencies. In 2016, Tercek’s best-selling book, Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World (LifeTree Media, September 2015), was selected as the 2016 International Book of the Year from a field of 10,000 business titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Reviewers called Vaporized “an urgent manifesto”, “a wakeup call” and an “essential read for 21st century leaders.” Tercek’s projects have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, Inc., Forbes, The Red Herring, the Hollywood Reporter, Le Figaro, the Australian, and many other newspapers around the world. He was dubbed “the Media Anarchist” by the Industry Standard, and one of Hollywood’s “digital dozen” by Variety magazine. Mr Tercek is a compelling and charismatic speaker with a passion for inspiring audiences to take bold action to master their digital future. He combines expertise and insight with entertainment. His keynote speeches are fast-paced, lively and full of vivid imagery and powerful examples from multiple industries. At client events, Tercek routinely scores the highest satisfaction among all attendees: this happens because he engages in deep consultation before the event with each client and prepares an original speech customized for every event. For virtual events via videoconference, he crafts a custom program with interactive elements and includes guest segments and multimedia.
His unique views on managing innovation are highly sought by organizations around the world, including AT&T, WarnerMedia, CNN, JD Power and Associates, NBC Universal, Viacom, InterPublic Group, PBS, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Hauwei, AMD, Lenovo, Docker, Unity Software, Kohl’s, Aetna, Ford Motor Company, Toyota Motors, CapGemini, PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Reed Exhibitions and the global standards body GS1 US. Robert Tercek is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops, and customized keynote speeches through the exclusive representation of Provoke Management. A lifelong educator, Tercek has lectured at universities around the world, and he founded the interactive media program at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema – Television. Today he serves as an Advisor to the Johnny Carson Foundation and the Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  He is also a member of the board of directors at The Virtual Film School.

KEYNOTE TITLES IN DETAIL

The Next Trillion Dollar BusinessHow the Metaverse, NFTs, Radical Decentralization, 3D and the Cloud will be Combined to Create the Next Global Computing Platform. The tech world is transfixed by Apple’s $2.5 trillion market capitalization, and behind the scenes there is a struggle to dethrone the iPhone maker by building the next computing platform. What’s at stake?  Tens of trillions of dollars of market capitalization. This is an urgent matter for every business leader. According to Robert Tercek, the future of health care, education, financial services, communications, retail and the entire global supply chain are ripe for transformation via digitization. Tercek’s keynote speech will take you to the front lines of conflict to reveal the strategies and tactics employed by bleeding-edge startup tech ventures and established technology firms to compete with planetary-scale Internet giants. Tercek will take you inside this ferocious competition to reveal how the next era of digital media will consist of constructing mirror worlds and digital twins. These are high fidelity digital representations of the real world, rendered in minute detail, informed by massive data sets and governed by artificial intelligence. No industry or organization will be untouched by this change. This presentation will inform any audience in non-technical terms how innovations like the Metaverse, spatial computing, non-fungible tokens, zero knowledge proofs and decentralized infrastructure are being combined to create an entirely new Internet from the ground up. Very soon, we will be interacting with synthetic personalities and virtual humans in immersive 3D worlds. Consumer experience will never be the same again. Every product will be paired with a digital twin. Attendees will gain actionable insight into enormous opportunities as every industry will be soon reconfigured for interactive real-time 3D, machine intelligence, and digital overlays that cover the entire planet.  As Tercek says, this is the opportunity of our lifetime.   

An Owner’s Guide to the Future(s)How to Use Forecasting and Backcasting to Improve Your Strategic Planning It’s your future, but you don’t own it. Not yet. First, you need to upgrade your forecasting skills to better anticipate the evolving business landscape. And here’s your opportunity!  Learn how to apply forecasting techniques to your own business from an actual pioneer of digital media. Your team needs this now. Technology is not just tweaking your industry. It’s re-shaping the entire economy. Yet most companies fail to adapt to the future as it unfolds, and very few manage to make accurate predictions about how to correct course. The consequences of getting it wrong are harsh. To avoid this fate, Robert Tercek teaches organizations how to apply future-casting and back-casting techniques to their own situation. This keynote speech will help you and your colleagues diagnose and fix weaknesses inside your organization, including the blind spots, taboos, broken brainstorming methods and other blunders that hamper your company’s ability to adapt fast. Tercek equips attendees with clear instructions for recognizing relevant trends, anticipating their impact and developing scenarios for how best to respond. Based on his work with leading firms including AT&T, JD Power & Associates, PBS, WarnerMedia, IBM, Docker, Unity Software and dozens of startup ventures, Tercek’s methodology enables you to become your own future forecaster. Takeaway: you’ll make better decisions immediately.   

VAPORIZEDSolid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World During the past ten years, the global economy and civil society have been reshaped by an incredibly powerful phenomenon known as dematerialization.  But most people remain unaware of it because this process is invisible.  Often the only sign of dematerialization is the sign in the window of a familiar retail chain that says, “Going out of business.”  Don’t let this happen to your organization.
Robert Tercek is the world’s leading authority on the topic of digitization and the virtual economy. His book Vaporized, chosen as the International Book of the Year at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair, identifies the key players and hidden technological forces that drive the process. In this keynote speech, updated for the post-pandemic era, he demonstrates how dematerialization continues to bash traditional industries and how it is poised to reshape entire markets.  Today the largest companies on the planet, by stock market capitalization, are the leading forces driving dematerialization, and they are determined to reconfigure your industry. Tercek’s message has been called “an urgent manifesto” and “a wakeup call”. If you are looking for a stirring, powerful keynote speech with a profound call to action, this is it. The Vaporized speech is lively, informative, and full of astounding insights and actionable takeaways. Tercek makes the invisible process of dematerialization vividly graphic and easy to understand, using clear examples and up-to-date data. Tercek’s presentation can be customized for any event and any industry.  He has already scored the highest satisfaction at events for these industries: telecommunications, insurance, health care, pharmaceuticals, real estate, retail, travel and hospitality, automotive and transportation, technology, consumer products, consumer electronics, market intelligence and research, fashion and apparel and the global supply chain.