Yet another very educational day at the ACTE Global Education Conference. On Monday I attended to several great education sessions as well as general sessions. The first educational session that I attended was Strategic Positioning In Difficult Times. IT WAS EXCELLENT!

The presenter was Ricardo Ernst, Professor and Deputy Dean, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University

This session focused on evaluating the positioning that companies have to take in economic downturns. The new global environment that characterizes the business world of today has pointed out the importance of developing more proactive strategies. Downturns present interesting opportunities that involve an assessment of vulnerabilities in order to minimize their impact. Sources of competitive advantage require a clear and pressing understanding that the battlefield is supply chain vs. supply chain rather than company vs. company. 

The second education session that I attended was Procurement Practitioners sponsored by BTN.

A panel of travel procurement executives offered commentary on original new BTN research, compare it to data collected in the past two years, and offer individual perspectives on: 

• Demand Management
• Outsourcing vs Insourcing
• Scorecards

Visit the BTN web site at http://www.btnonline.com/ to gather the survey results.

General Sessions were inspiring as well.

The General Session

Polly LaBarre, Innovation Correspondent, CNN
Co-Author, Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win

Innovation, Strategy, Customers, Culture -- these are the four key drivers of business, and few thinkers have explored them as thoroughly as Polly LaBarre, first as one of the key writers and editors at Fast Company magazine, later as the co-author of the bestselling book Mavericks at Work, and now as the Innovation Correspondent for CNN. LaBarre has interviewed hundreds of the smartest people in business for over a decade. Her stories dig deeply into what separates great companies from good and good companies from yesterday's heroes. She profiles CEOs and mid-level managers with equal enthusiasm, recognizing that everyone has a story to tell and everyone has an important role to play in the growth and development of great companies.

Drazen Prelec, PhD, Behavioral Economist, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Drazen Prelec's research deals with the psychology and neuroscience of decision making (behavioral economics and neuroeconomics; risky choice, time discounting, self-control, consumer behavior). He works both on the development of normative decision theory and the exploration of the empirical failures of that theory, using behavioral and fMRI methods. Prelec has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1991, and presently holds appointments in the Sloan School, the Economics Department, and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He received his Ph. D in experimental psychology and AB in applied mathematics from Harvard University. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, and has received a number of distinguished research awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

The overall theme I heard yesterday was be careful how much you cut travel because if you don't take care of your customers someone else surely will. The other positive coming out of the bad economy is that travel managers are getting more C level attention than ever before!!!!

Check out the ACTE website and Facebook to keep connected with additional happenings during the conference.

More updates soon!