Korea’s visionary national CTO to speak at Northwestern Nov. 8
Dr. Chang-Gyu Hwang is the former CEO of Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd. and the current National Chief Technology Officer and Head of the Office of Strategic R&D Planning in Korea. A true visionary in the digital technology and research field, Dr. Hwang was in charge of developing the world’s first 256Mb DRAM and was named one of “25 Stars of Asia” by BusinessWeek.
This Tuesday, November 8, Dr. Hwang will speak to a group of Medill IMC and Kellogg graduate students at Northwestern University. In anticipation of the event, Dr. Hwang was kind enough to give us insight into the future of digital technology.
You speak of information technology “big bangs,” including the spread of networked PC technology and mobile technology more recently. What do you expect the next IT big bang will be? How do you think it will change the way we communicate and interact? How will we as marketers be able to leverage these technology advances to serve our customers?
Dr. Hwang: There are three macro trends for us to anticipate with the next IT big bang. First digital devices are more and more interconnected and furthermore, non-digital objects will be seamlessly connecting with each other. And future technologies will respond without external stimulus and will be something that looks familiar, even though we have never actually seen it. One of the current devices reflecting these three trends is the smart phone, but this is just a beginning. In the next IT Big Bang we will experience a dramatic change in the quality of life, going beyond just convenience and efficiency. More advanced IT technology will become more intimately connected to our daily lives and will touch and inspire human’s nature, manage our health, and enable a greater consciousness of our environment. I believe these points will be a key leverage for the marketing process.
Some of our classmates visited Seoul this summer and were blown away by the cutting-edge communication technology that they encountered. As national chief technology officer for Korea, what types of R&D projects are you working on that we as marketers would be interested in?
Dr. Hwang: I, as national CTO, am focusing on twin strategies for development of R&D in Korea. One is “market pull”-based R&D and the other “open innovation.” In “market pull” – based R&D, customers’ potential needs are always top priority. It is totally different from “technology push” –based R&D. The center of technology is a human being. At the same time, “open innovation” is a very important issue for Korea. Nobody can do everything by themselves. We are willing to collaborate with others and, in fact, many world-leading companies have a strong interest in the Korean market. Why? Because Korea is a very attractive test market for many reasons. If you want to know the reasons, please join my speech. You, as marketers, can hear many valuable points from my presentation.
We appreciate your support for Medill’s integrated marketing communications graduate program. What does IMC mean to you? How do you see IMC fitting into the marketing world?
Dr. Hwang: I believe integrated marketing communications is a process for managing customer relationships in many aspects. As I already mentioned, the touching of human nature is a key of future technology. From the marketing point of view, it has been moving from mass media to more specialized media, which are centered on specific target audiences and from a manufacturer-dominated market to a consumer-controlled market. I believe these phenomena will prevail through the whole process of marketing. It means the importance of IMC is getting bigger and bigger.
Students, faculty and alumni are welcome to attend the event. To reserve your seat, please RSVP here.
Event details:
Category: Medill IMC
