Tom Koulopoulos

Biography

Thomas M. Koulopoulos is President and founder of Delphi Group, a Boston-based Think Tank and advisory firm. Delphi was Founded in 1989 and has served nearly 20,000 clients across all industries, federal and state government agencies around the world.

Since launching Delphi Group in 1989, Mr. Koulopoulos propelled Delphi to its position as an Inc. 500 company (one of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the USA) with global offices, a trusted brand, and a leading independent advisor on business and technology trends to large enterprise and government.

Mr. Koulopoulos is also an Executive in Residence at Bentley University, where he teaches graduate courses on Innovation, a Board member of the Kaplan School for Information Technology, serves on the faculty of Harvard University`s School of Public Health, has been an adjunct professor at the Boston College Wallace E. Carroll Graduate School of Management and a guest lecturer at the Boston University Graduate School of Management, and is the past Founding Executive Director of the Babson College Research Center for Advanced Business Innovation where he oversaw some of the world`s leading research and thought leadership on the topic of Business Innovation.

Named one of the industry`s "Killer Consultants" and most influential management consultant by InformationWeek Magazine he has delivered consulting services as a senior level advisor to hundreds of global organizations, including: Apple, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, USGS, FBI, Secret Service, DuPont, UBS, BAA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Digital Equipment Corp, NYSE, NY Port Authority, Pepsi, Washington Mutual, SAP, Intel, Library of Congress, Department of Justice, NY Life, Air France, British Airways, LG CNS, Microsoft, California Federal, Lawrence Livermore Labs, National Life, Revenue Canada, Canadian Government, USAF, Kimberly Clark, Las Vegas Water Authority, Dow Corning, Tennessee Valley Authority, CitiCorp, Arthur Andersen, Exxon Mobil, GD Searl, Warner Lambert, Mayo, Kellogg`s, Nomura, Intel, and Microsoft

His Eight books include, Cloud Surfing, The Innovation Zone, Smartsourcing, Corporate Instinct, Smart Companies, Smart Tools, and The X-economy. During the past two decades Mr. Koulopoulos` works have introduced core industry concepts, frameworks and vernacular such as Innovation Zones, Smartsourcing, Single Point of Access, Touch Points, Digital Control Rooms, Business Operating Systems and Corporate IQ, that are widely used today in describing the impact of technology on business. His insights have received accolades from luminaries such as Peter Drucker, Dee Hock, and Tom Peters who called his writing, "a brilliant vision of where we must take our enterprises to survive and thrive." According to Peter Drucker, Tom`s writing "makes you question not only the way you run your business but the way you run yourself."

Mr. Koulopoulos` philanthropic interests include being an early advisor to the non-profit Tech Foundation, which makes technology accessible to the non-profit sector in an attempt to bridge the widening digital divide and an Advisor/Donor/Team Manager for Destination Imagination, a global K-12 program with more than 200,000 participants in 20 countries, which focuses on developing creative problem solving and team building skills in children to better prepare them for an innovation-based economy.

Publications

Cloud Surfing:
A New Way to Think About Risk, Innovation, Scale and Success

The Cloud is a pervasive social and economic network that will soon include more than 70 Billion people and machines, connecting and defining the world more than any other political, social, or economic organization. The Cloud is the megatrend of the twenty-first century, one that will shape the way we address virtually every challenge for at least the next 100 years. It is where we will all live, work, and play. It`s where your kids are when they dive into online play. It`s where you meet and make friends in social networks. It`s where companies go to find the next big idea. It`s where political campaigns are won and lost. Cloud Surfing is the groundbreaking book that will explain how to access the full value of the Cloud.

Titles

Living in The Cloud
The Cloud is the hottest topic since the advent of the Internet. And nobody can speak to it with more insight, energy, and humor than Tom. It`s why HP, Microsoft, Gartner, Intel, Cisco and many others have asked Tom to keynote their organizations` cloud events. Drawing on his latest e-book, Cloud Surfing, Tom paints a powerful picture of how The Cloud will change the way we live, work and play.

How will The Cloud define your job. Social Media, open models for education, the ongoing debate about classroom vs. virtual learning, mining online conversations, and identifying needs for education

What is The Cloud? It`s a framework for the disruption of structure. A place where we will all learn, live, work and play in the 21st Century. It`s where nearly 35 million people already work. It`s where your kids are when they dive into online play. It`s a classroom without walls, instructors, or curriculums. It`s where you meet and make friends in social networks and where conversations are turned into communities. It`s where companies go to find the next big idea. It`s where political campaigns are won and lost. It`s where the future will outweigh the All that may seem radical, but it doesn`t even come close to defining how disruptive The Cloud will be.

In its simplest terms The Cloud is the new context for innovating business and society.

However, the Cloud is NOT just about technology. In fact technology is only a small part of The Cloud. Just as important is the way The Cloud changes the way we collaborate, work, how we are influenced and how we influence, and how we experience the world.

Join Tom as he takes you into the cloud to better understand how we can respond to this massive change in order to transform ourselves and our industry!

The Innovation Zone
In this lighting-paced, tour-de-force session Tom looks at how companies are radically changing their approach to innovation by learning how to fail fast, embrace uncertainty, build for the unknown, abandon the success of the past, focus on their core competencies, and challenge conventional wisdom. Tom uses examples from some of the pioneering innovators from Sony to Apple and 3M to NASA to illustrate some of the best and brightest success stories of innovation at work. His views will provide a prescription for change in how you approach innovation, in a way that is straight forward, comprehensive, and, above all else, incredibly practical. You`ll identify the ways in which you can drive your own organization`s efforts to increase innovation and better leverage the latent creativity in every organization.

Come prepared for an enlightening and life0changing discussion about the importance of innovation and get ready to take a hard look at how issues the of culture, generations, and leadership impact the way we innovate. Tom`s approach is insightful and cutting but be forewarned, at times unorthodox. It`s the reason Forbes.com called him Business Visionary with an incisive view of world trade and why, in the words of his long time mentor Peter Drucker, "Tom makes you rethink not only your business but yourself.

You`ll leave this session with a roadmap and a context for your conference experience and with specific insights, methods and tools to help you quantify your organization`s innovative ability as well as a solid foundation for the decisions you will need to make in the months and years ahead.

The Future
With technology changing at light speed how can we possibly predict what the future holds? Well, here`s a surprise. Predicting the future is not about predicting technology -- that`s actually fairly easy. The hard part is predicting how technology will change human behavior. In this fast paced keynote Tom will show you how we constantly fail to take into account the simple nuances of behavior that ultimately act as the real catalysts for change. From the pyramids to the Cloud he will take you on a journey of understanding that will ultimately enable you to break free of the limits we place on our view of how inevitable radical change is and how we can factor its implications into the growth of our business and our lives, for the better. Fair warning, however, this is an optimist`s view of the future that does not subscribe to the gloom and doom scenarios that economists and pundits have made commonplace. Instead you will leave with a new enthusiasm for what`s to come and how you can surf the tsunami of change to a better place.

The Social Century
Facebook and Twitter are just the tip of a massive iceberg of change that lies directly in our path. In this keynote Tom will guide your audience through the maze of challenges, options and opportunities that social networking and social media are creating.

The advent and rapid rise of social networking brings with it much more than just new technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter. It redefines many of the things we`ve long taken for granted about how we interact with the world, from politics to communities, markets, suppliers, and employees. What`s important in understanding these changes is that the social movement is NOT just about technology. In fact technology is only a small part of it. Just as important is the way these volatile and often unpredictable networks, generational mash-ups, and global interdependencies change the way we work, how we are influenced, the impact they have on trust and transparency, and how individuals experience the world.

The social century is about people from five generations working side by side; a generational mash-up of unprecedented diversity! These are issues that are as important to business as they are to each of us personally. We`ve already seen them help to topple dictatorships and disrupt democracies. Ultimately we are all going to have to adopt behaviors and strategies that enable us to survive and thrive in this incredibly interconnected world.

Globalization
Not since the industrial revolution has there been such a dramatic change in how-and where-work is performed. In today`s marketplace, a company`s products and services must be positioned and sold against global competitors with larger, cheaper, and highly skilled workforces. Organizations today are faced with significant quandaries, including how to:
~Cut costs while increasing innovation
~Grow the business-and maintain accountability-while moving operations offsite
~Increase productivity and efficiency

Outsourcing is the most popular movement of the new global business economy. In fact, the typical executive will soon spend one-third of his or her budget on outsourced services. From onshore contractors to offshore service providers. But the smart ones will spend it on smartsourcing.

By embracing the next evolution of globalization Tom will show you how to focus your organization on what it does best while letting global partners take responsibility for innovating change and cost-control in non-core operations. The result is a strategic and synergistic relationship that enables each organization to benefit from the other`s expertise and ultimately increase global productivity and profitability. This deep dive keynote provides a roadmap for navigating today`s shifting marketplace, and shows how globalization can add value to your business, your products and your customers.