The best weekend of the year once again delighted, inspired, educated and entertained, thus justifying the title of the leading regional festival of media, communication, marketing and the wide area of creative business. In the last three days, the Old Tobacco Factory in Rovinj gathered a record number of visitors who had the opportunity to participate in top-class lectures and to hear everything from leading regional and world experts about current topics and trends today, with an inevitable dose of great socializing and fun. Among them were topics about the coexistence of PR people and journalists, controversial entrepreneurs, the influence of artificial intelligence, the trap phenomenon, but also business failures recorded by successful entrepreneurs on their development path.
"Weekend.16 exceeded all expectations! It was fantastic to once again enjoy the incredible atmosphere, the view of the full halls and the satisfied faces of the record 6.000 visitors who enjoyed the last weekend of September. Once again we proved that we are a festival a leader in the exchange of experiences, excellent energy, friendship and creation of business cooperation, but also a festival of new ideas", He said Tomo Ricov, program director of the Weekend Media Festival, which was held again this year under the general patronage of Adris Group.
Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous, younger generations will naturally develop with it, and it is up to us to get to know all its possibilities, educate ourselves, inform ourselves and accept the positive changes it will bring, the emphasis of the panel Open about AI. A dynamic discussion of artificial intelligence experts Boris Debić, director of ZŠEM, Mislav Malenica, Croatian Association President and CEO, Mindsmiths and Joška Mrndža, director of the Adriatics region, Google moderated Aco Momcilovic, expert and advisor, Futurehr, concluded with the message that technology is not so important, but the fact that the era we are facing is a new revolution. I Boris Jokic, director of the Institute for Social Research, concluded in his lecture that the development of digital technologies and artificial intelligence have radically changed all aspects of our lives, so that private space almost no longer exists.
He shared incredible knowledge about the future, geopolitical changes and the influence of Asia on the West Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean diplomat, former president of the UN Security Council and international relations expert on the panel Has the West lost itself?. "The next 10 years will be the 10 most exciting years in geopolitics"said Mahbubani, emphasizing that never in human history have we watched two incredible forces of equal size and power confront each other. "This is going to rock the world, fasten your seat belts!", said Mahbubani from the inspiring lecture.
A lively discussion took place on the panel – Where do PR people go wrong?. "The problem is not that too much information flows towards us, but the problem is usually that PR people want to have control over the work of journalists, sometimes through political power, sometimes through commercial power, and they think they have the power to handle information. In short, it bothers journalists because they want information that PR people don't want to give, and PR people push information that is uninteresting to the journalist because it is of a promotional nature. It is precisely the audience that is at a loss, because there is a conflict between the two currents." He said Tomislav Klauški, a 24-hour journalist who participated in the panel with Ivan Galić Baksa, Director of Marketing and Communications, United Media, Ruzo Veljović, Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications, Wireles Media Group, and Vladimir Preselj, CEO of Millennium Promotions. They talked about the influence of the media on the perception of entrepreneurs Zoran Turković, chief executive officer 24 hours, Aleksandar Stankovic, TV presenter, Zoran Sprajc, RTL, editor and presenter, Hrvoje Bujas, president of the Voice of Entrepreneurs Association and Tihomir Ladisic, N1, director of news and programming on the panel Controversial entrepreneur powered by UGP under the moderator baton Petar Štefanić.
"In the early 90s, the word entrepreneur was mostly associated with crime, and the whole idea of UGP was to make the word entrepreneur a term for people who create new values. The word businessman is a man who came to a position through a political connection, and that's why we need to distance those two terms. Politics works in the media, of course, but there are entrepreneurs who would also like influence and powerBujas said.
Although the mass media are not the kings of media culture as before, they remain alive and strong, so technology has changed their dominance and, paradoxically, made them more powerful, the thesis of the lecture How data and artificial intelligence are shaping today's DOOH i The last mass media featuring the leading names in the DOOH field - Kai-Marcus Thäsler, member of the board of directors of the World Organization for Outdoor Advertising (WOO) and Denis Gaumondie, a pioneer and world leader in outdoor digital advertising and retail display measurement, shared their stories and experiences. "The easiest thing is to give up, the hardest thing is to continue" is the message of this year's panel Smoked 2.0 where successful people revealed their less successful stories, while the irreconcilable differences between boomers, Gen Z and millennials, i.e. flower children and rockers, and the young generation that listens to trap, were explained by the musicians Relja Popović i Zembo Latifa, Đorđe Trbović, co-founder and CEO of IDJ and Milan Majerović Stilinović, ZAMP. They concluded that, despite boomers often not understanding trap culture, it has become a phenomenon that has united the Balkans, pointing to the power of music as a means of bringing people together and promoting community.
What is the audience laughing at on the banks of the Vardar, and what is it under Triglav? For which audience is it more important that something is funny, and for which is it enough that it's just funny? These questions were answered by the wittiest line-up of the Weekend - stand-up comedians Tin Vodopivec, Goran Vinčić and Peđa Bajović, as well as a journalist and presenter Zoran Kesic who does not believe that his audience is troubled by nationalistic issues, even though it is still a present topic in our region, and who, instead of political satire, would export our politicians to Europe. The Weekend Media Festival was rounded off with fun until the early hours of the morning with the great Dutch-New Zealand band My Baby and RNB Confusion, who hosted DJ Medo i DJ Turk te Zembo Latifa, with great music, lots of fun and socializing saw off this year's Weekend.16.
You can see how it was at this year's Weekend here, and you can follow all the news via official channels Facebook, Instagram i LinkedIn of the Festival profile.
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