The Future of PLM Is Human? AI, Trust, Community & the Share PLM Summit 2026 Debate

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): And we're live. ⁓ welcome to ⁓ the Share PLM edition. Well, the second sh annual Share PLM edition of the Future PLM podcast. This is your host, Michael FINOCCHIARO I'm joined by an absolutely amazing panel of people, all of whom were actually at HEDS, including Maria Morris from SharePLM, who is our extremely amazing MC for the second year in a row, just blew us away.

⁓ we also have Nina, who I had the privilege of meeting and who I hadn't met before. Nina, welcome to our panel. We're very glad to have you. Jos Voskuil: Okay.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): So we were just talking about some of the the presentations and I think ⁓ we wanted to put a special mention to Helena's ⁓ keynote, which was pretty good. Nina Dar: Thank you. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ I've got Jos I've got Pat, Oleg and Rob. I mean, those who watch the podcast are very ⁓ too familiar with them already.

⁓ you, Pat, so much for making the trip all the way from the United States just to see us. That was like amazing to meet you. ⁓ I think a lot of people I ⁓ a lot of people enjoyed Rob's photo of us all fighting. That was a lot of fun too.

So great job, Rob. ⁓ so maybe we just go around the horn. I mean, we had this two days of ⁓ really spectacular presentations, Nina Dar: Helena's ⁓ was that it was raw and so honest because they use their own business as the example. And I think for anybody, ⁓ I don't know if people get to see recordings if they weren't at the conference, but it's one that lots of people would want to see because she's talking about the realities of trying to run a young business in the age of AI.

⁓ Pat Hillberg: ⁓ well thank you yeah, thank you much. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): You know, how how could you do it better than a venue with inside a a bodega in Jerez with the beautiful weather? ⁓ well why don't why don't we hear from you first, Maria, because it's really your event and you did such a spectacular job MCing. I mean, how what was your takeaway from the two days?

Nina Dar: And she did it in such an honest way. Now, it led to lots of debates. I don't think there was at all the amount of questions that could have come at the end of that, because ⁓ it's about cutting consultancy time, because AI will take a lot of the burden. Now, these things are up for a lot of debate.

And again, it would have been a fantastic thing to debate afterwards. Maria Morris: Thank it was it was a really amazing experience to ⁓ come back with the second of the share PLM summit. ⁓ It's always a pleasure to invited back to ⁓ MC the events, I always I have the best job over the two days because ⁓ my team are running around the back trying to make sure everything is organized and I just get to have a good time on stage with you all. And and yeah, so feeling very re energized and motivated to do it all again next year with you.

Nina Dar: because there's no doubt she sets a fantastic scene, she sets the great case study. But then at the end of it, what are we saying? That actually AI is going to take people's jobs, is going to do all the things that people is worried about. And do we want to let that happen?

And of course, for anyone who's read my book knows that I am pushing a different agenda on this, that these decisions are not made yet. and it is up to us to have a say on what we want. Definitely the tools exist and they can take us in lots of directions. And I think definitely in a year's time for the next summit, that should reappear with the debate of what's the societal impact if we do take that scenario and scale it.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Awesome. ⁓ yeah, I wanted to maybe have Nina talk about it 'cause we haven't heard her on the panel yet. Maybe you can introdu introduce yourself because I think folks know who ⁓ know the rest of us. Jos Voskuil: Okay.

Nina Dar: Okay, thank you. So Nina Dar my company is called Cheeky Monkey. And we've been involved in PLM transformations for the last 20 years or more. And from a human perspective, so it was really lovely to see a new wave of people trying to push the human agenda in PLM through what Share PLM try and do.

⁓ And of course, as you've said, Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yes. Jos Voskuil: So, Elena and I, discussed on a regular basis the AI impact and we are following in one way the same positive mindset of what is possible. But I think there, at the end, we divert. I'm a little bit less optimistic that humanity will survive AI in the way it is expected.

Like Nina said, we need a revolution. We need to take care of our humanity in the context of AI. Nina Dar: who wouldn't want to go to a conference that is in a vineyard. So ⁓ all great and ⁓ really spectacular background, very human focused agenda.

But I think the magic comes as always for the people that attend. And I think the attendees, like I know all of you from all of my 20 years working in PLM. ⁓ So there's a lot of experience around. Jos Voskuil: I think it was inspiring this speech that makes you in one way motivated to work with the AI and not to be afraid of it.

think that was also the big message. And stay human. Pat Hillberg: No. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Leg and rope.

Nina Dar: And there's a lot of people who are looking for change. And so the biggest takeaway for me was that the conversations that broke out were dynamic, disruptive, and really a set of people who were curious about what happens now with PLM, AI, the whole digital mashup that we have to face in our everyday lives now. And that was the best reason for going. Oleg: Yeah, that was...

Rob Ferrone: Well, I was just going to add that I heard this. Sorry. Yeah, like you go. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): And pet.

Oleg: No, this is fine. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): No, Rob, go ahead. Jos Voskuil: Yeah. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Go ahead, Rob.

Oleg: All right, I will speak. I will speak. So there are two things that are interesting and I captured it in the presentation. It's always on the one side, it's always human and the human perspective.

On the other side, I'm sure you remember, she was talking about ⁓ enterprise harness and how to actually bring AI to the organization. And I think it was very remarkable that she connected. Pat Hillberg: Okay, I'll go. I wanna actually I wanna highlight ya.

Rob Ferrone: Yes. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, I guess. We're gonna drop that by the Jos Voskuil: you Fino (Sponsored by Aras): That's awesome. Oleg, you ⁓ did not dress up this time for it.

Oleg: Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): How was your trip? 'Cause you you and Patrick both flew over from the United States for the for this.

W ⁓ w was it worth it? Are you glad that you you flew over from Boston? Oleg: these two things together, although the most important thing and that's continued in the conversation and the topic that I picked on this is that for everyone who sells arrows these days, it's a time to stop. Because what AI will do is it will force us to stop selling arrows and will force us to start selling something else.

⁓ You you see the proximity of Boston is understated. It's almost Europe, right? ⁓ so you can think about this. ⁓ but ⁓ well I think my my perspective on the event, which I think is second event, is it's getting better ⁓ every every time.

So ⁓ what what what I like especially in this event is that it breaks ⁓ the normal Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah. Nina Dar: is. Oleg: That is something that I think is a continuous conversation after that keynote that I'm having with few people. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Nice.

Jos Voskuil: Did you say hours or hours? Oleg: Patterns of the PLM event because in the normal in the normal event it's always everything is so scripted because ⁓ I mean you have the keynote with the great news, ⁓ and then you get customers that ⁓ come and say more or less we've been in a terrible situation with ABC, and then we amazingly found XYZ. Ours, ours, not ours, ours. ⁓ You know, let me explain yours.

It was an old joke and Fino can cut this out if he wants. Then the plumber, not digital plumber, the real plumber was invited to the home to fix something and he was looking into things. Rob Ferrone: Yeah. Sorry.

Pat Hillberg: Mm-hmm. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah. Nina Dar: Thanks. Oleg: And now our life is so great and and it's more or less you can say it about every single presentation.

and then you get some coffee breaks and and ⁓ and the reception. So I I think what I like especially in in SharePLM is that it's ⁓ trying to break this ⁓ narrative. And I think it's a successful and ⁓ I think ⁓ it's ⁓ I added it to the list of my events that ⁓ you know to to together with a few others. and then he made one tap and everything was fixed.

And they asked, what is the bill? And said, $1,000. He said, well, how come $1,000? You just make a small tap.

He said, actually tap is $1. $999 is for knowing where to tap. So that's about selling hours. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ go ahead.

So ⁓ Rob, then Pat, and then anybody else, and then we'll finish. Rob Ferrone: Yeah. Following on from Oleg's comment, and this is something I brought up in the panel discussion, a company I was speaking to recently, a consulting company, is planning to see a drop in their time and material activity by 40%. So that's almost half their business is going to drop away.

But at the same time, they are expecting over 40 % of the business to Oleg: Where ⁓ the conversation between people are more important than presentations. I mean, I don't want to disrespect the presenters and I think it's a it's amazing amazing line of presenters, but the conversation between people are more important than presentation. And ⁓ I mean I I have to I have to say that when you go in the place that have wine fumes, you can expect after some time to be a little bit drunk.

So I don't know if it was wine or PLM. But that was successful. So that's it. Pat Hillberg: Yeah.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm-hmm. Rob Ferrone: to grow with AI topics. So there's going to be a give and take. How much of that is, what that means to people, Nina, is another question.

But I think the, you know, one thing I, or challenge I've got around Helena's presentation is the, about the transference of work to be more creative and human work. I think, ⁓ Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm-hmm. ⁓ Patrick, you also flew over from ⁓ from the States and th this was your first event like Nina, right? Pat Hillberg: Yes, yes, right, right, exactly.

And I ⁓ you know, when Maria posted the event, the first event a year ago, I said, ⁓ I so want to go to this thing. And there was just no way I could pull to that together in time. So ⁓ early this very early this year, months in advance, I started planning I started planning the trip. Let me say my trip from Detroit to ⁓ Hareth, ⁓ my flight landed in Boston.

So I also came from Boston. Rob Ferrone: In theory, that's great. you know, who's going to be paying for that? That's my big question.

And so is that something you know, I think, can we influence the march of AI? I don't know. You know, I've mentioned it a few times, is it going to take a revolution to stop this? Are the people going to rise up and they start losing their jobs and, everyone goes into, not everyone, but, you know, more and more people start going into poverty.

Let's see. But I think Pat Hillberg: However, my suitcase stayed in Boston even once I was in Madrid. So that that caused posed a little bit of a challenge early on in the project. But ⁓ I just had so much FOMO last year as everybody was posting onto LinkedIn how much fun they were having.

It's like, ⁓ my gosh, I have got to go to this thing. So so anyway, so I planned I planned the trip very early. yeah, it's you know, to tell you the truth, ⁓ one of the major PLM companies is having their Rob Ferrone: one potential way out of it is to ⁓ find a way to monetize the human work that can't be done by ⁓ AI. But that's the way that we could take back the power.

But that's not an easy thing to do. Pat Hillberg: User event, literally biking distance from my house, bicycling distance. Tomorrow I'm gonna bicycle right past it, right? I just don't have an interest in going to it because it's this kind of the same stuff over and over again, right?

So, so the the tacit learning that we get by interacting with individuals. Actually, the the I think there's a real advantage in being a little remote in Hereth. the fact it's a little difficult to get to means you really want to be there. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Nice live.

Yeah. Yeah. Oleg: I have actually an answer to Europe. It's very interesting.

Last week I was in the panel here in Boston with the Gardner tech CEOs and they've been talking about AI. So here's interesting number to take and think about this deeply. So the average revenue of a company with AI for the moment is a benchmark is 1 million per person annually. It's 10 times bigger than an average.

Pat Hillberg: Right. So so in any event, I had a lot of fun with it. ⁓ I definitely intend to go next year. I encourage anybody, you know, with you know, anybody in my PLM sphere to ⁓ to look at Spain for their PLM conferences next year.

Oleg: for a non-AI company, which is about $120,000 per person. So it's just a massive shift in the value and eventually in money. So that's it's very interesting. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, did a great post about that.

If you want PLM, go to Spain. That was great. ⁓ Rob, you did not bring your your the the Ferroni players this time to head as like we had this great murder mystery last year and were they on strike? I guess they were on strike or something.

Pat Hillberg: Thanks. Rob Ferrone: where's that money going to come from? Because if people haven't got jobs, they're not going to be buying products and services. So they can have that ⁓ leverage, the market, the ⁓ money needs to be there in order to fund those companies.

Nina Dar: So I'm going to ahead Rob Ferrone: Yep. That was it. was the script union strike, so we couldn't get the ⁓ screenplay written this year. I think the, you know, there's a couple of things that stood out for me.

And one of them was the diversity of the human topic. people in the past of, you know, when you talked about people in PLM and that was part of my presentation last year or the sketch I talked about, it's not just about Pat Hillberg: And the hypers hyperscalers, the hyperscalers are pulling back. I mean, the the Microsoft's and the Meadows and the others are saying we're spending too much on AI. And there's there's a variety of people coming out saying that humans are cheaper.

But I want to flip to something else. I want to flip to Yas's talk and and his reference to Daniel Kahneman. And if and if you saw me in WhatsApp, I posted that that I was drinking a German beer at an Irish pub. Oleg: Yeah, but they measure revenues.

you Rob Ferrone: the users and it's not just about all change management and it's not just about training. But the whole endeavor is a people endeavor because you're thinking about the vision. What's the business sense behind it? Who cares?

Who's motivated? There's humans, emotions involved. And so we just saw so many different elements of the human condition associated with PLM. Pat Hillberg: In Hereth, Spain, right?

So reading Kahneman. And Kahneman, I Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow, I see this as antithetical to artificial intelligence. That that artificial intelligence reinforces system one thinking, which is the fast, quick, low-energy, ⁓ highly biased thinking. And we're losing track of system two thinking, which is the more critical thinking.

Rob Ferrone: every single one of them was a light bulb moment for me. I think it just helps to encourage people that this is a ⁓ people sport. And the other part of it is, whenever I spoke to anyone at the conference, it turns out that they had somehow worked with other people at the conference. And so you realize that everyone knows everyone and everyone's kind of worked with other people in some way or another, and they've got history with people.

Pat Hillberg: And I and and I won't go deeper into this too much, but particularly in the PLM space where a tiny little mistake causes multi billion dollar and multi hundred fatalities. I I have real concerns regarding the use of AI and PLM. And we could have this as a conversation at some point. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, absolutely.

Jos Voskuil: Exactly. Oleg: Did you pay attention? The conversation goes much faster when we know that it's not real time life. Rob Ferrone: And so there's this idea of community, but it's, it's, it's very much, ⁓ a team sport, which is, ⁓ that's one thing that stuck with me as well.

And the idea that we're in this together and ultimately we've all got the right intentions. You know, we want to help the customers and we've got businesses and we need to make the businesses run, but ultimately we're there to, ⁓ create customer success. And we're to do that by doing it together. So this idea of community coming together with a shared.

Pat Hillberg: Yeah, right? Yeah. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Ha ⁓ Jos Voskuil: Yeah. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): All right.

Jos Voskuil: Okay. Nina Dar: Thank you. ⁓ Rob Ferrone: ⁓ vision around the people part of PLM is just ⁓ so energizing. You're muted, I think.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Well people got fed up with hearing me snoring and and hemming and highing, so I I decided. ⁓ Nina gave us this nice it's a question, so I'm gonna pick and choose from here. I'm gonna ask Yass this one, because it's definitely a Yass question. Well, no, I wanted to ask you the I wanted to ask you the in the age of AI and digital overload, are human condition and presence becoming the real differentiators for this kind of conference?

I think that's a perfect Yass question. Jos Voskuil: Okay, maybe as the last one, I can give my... So I will first start with my impression, if you allow me. I'm used to be the last speaker in the conference most of the time.

no problem with that. So first of all, for me, it started as a reunion of old friends. think Nina, we met in 2012 and you stood out as a soulmate also with human interest in BLM. And it took...

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, of course. ⁓ Denise bit you that beat you to that one this time though. Jos Voskuil: Six, seven more years till I had my soul mates with shared PLM on the human side of PLM. But also, yeah, I was glad to see Patrick face to face and Oleg, we once in a while meet, but also it was great again to spend the days together and the rest, I think in Europe, we once in a while we see each other.

So for me, it was this community that was the most important, the discussions, as you said, Oleg, I think beyond the presentations, although every presentation on its own. also brought something new for me. Some were expected, but some were really new things. that's what I liked because we are focusing on the human side.

So you don't have those industry specific discussions on bill of materials or even fights on bill of materials. We didn't have during the conference. So, I mean, that makes this event unique and considering still, KRS is hard to reach, but it's the best place to have this human centric approach. So, Nina Dar: is we have to have those two different, two different trans-discs this one.

that's the bottom. And then we'll have third one in the middle. So, and I'll Jos Voskuil: I'm afraid that if you would do it in Paris, we get stuck up in high tech buildings and environments and we lose this human connection. So now time for the questions.

Maria Morris: You're on mute, Phine. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): So the question was the question was in the age of AI and digital overload, ⁓ Our human connection and presence becoming the real differentiators for this kind of show. Jos Voskuil: I think that's what we noticed. mean, it's very boring to talk with JetTPT or other AI tools.

I mean, now you even have more time to spend on human interactions. And the only big challenge is don't get distracted by all those AI tools and capabilities sitting behind the screen. Connect again. I think it's also something we learned after COVID.

Working from home was nice, but after when we start meeting people again, that's where it starts. At the end, we are all humans, and that's, I think, the big importance. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ Maria, one of the questions from Nina, I I like this one for you because you're really the the the breathing soul of this event, right? How do you measure the ROI of a conference speech beside beyond just leads and sales and attendance numbers?

Maria Morris: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, going back a little bit as to why we created the summit, we didn't go into it thinking this is something that's going to make us money. In fact, we were happy to invest in a conference that we really believed in because ultimately, I mean, as I think you can all relate to, we've spent many years attending PLM conferences where we hear lots of amazing success stories, what went well, how much money we've saved, time we've saved. And I think ultimately, one of the things we were missing was a bit of that Nina Dar: Thank Maria Morris: human reality of this type of transformation.

So what went wrong? What didn't go as planned? What was your initial strategy and how did the strategy develop over time? Because I think it's in those lessons learned that people can actually take away meaningful thoughts and opinions and they can actually start relating somebody else's transformation and project to their own.

If we just say everything went great, it's hard. Yes, we're happy for you, but it's hard to actually take something meaningful and tangible from it. Nina Dar: So, we'll see. Maria Morris: That was one thing we wanted to bring to the conference.

We wanted to bring a sense of humanness. So bring people back down to earth, tell us what went wrong, how did you put it right and let us take something meaningful away from your presentation. But also the sense of obviously at SharePLM we spend a lot of our time working in projects where the people side is what's really holding transformation back. It's not the technical side.

And again, very often Nina Dar: I think I've lost connection. Maria Morris: even though our customers are saying, you know, it's the people side that's really the make or break of these projects. This isn't something that was ever reflected in previous conferences we went to, if very little, if not ever, were the people side actually reflected in these talks. So we also wanted to bring the focus back to people as well and provide a space for our customers, our followers, people who are interested in the space to actually come together and talk about the Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Right.

Maria Morris: more unspoken topics and learn from each other and connect with people that way. And so for us, the ROI has always been, let's make sure people can go away and say, yes, you achieved what you set out to do. And I think listening to your guys' intros, I'd like to say we've achieved that in the last couple of years. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): I think you get a couple of thumbs up for that.

⁓ another well, I hope Nina joins us again. She she she must have had a networking issue. ⁓ I like the question she put here about the moments at the comet the c summit that felt the most authentic, memorable, or impactful. ⁓ if I speak for myself, I thought that the talk from ⁓ Dr.

⁓ Andreas Wenk of PePel, his whole thing of, you know, at at the end if we couldn't get a good decision, we would do it at the football table. That you know, that was awesome. That was just Very, very human and and very relatable. I also like it was a an interesting one, the one from Matthias Gabriel of SMS, where he's talking literally about how do you do merger and acquisition and how do you keep continuity of PLM?

I thought that was a really fascinating one, which what other conference would you hear a story like that, right? That has nothing to do with the vendor. It's that's really purely a people thing. I thought that was amazing.

What other moments, you know, pick you know, anybody speak out, but which of those presentations that really resonated with you guys? Go ahead, yes. Jos Voskuil: Okay, so the one that really stood out on day one for me was both Xavier, because coming from a lean transformation project, I mean, it was not our bread and butter, but the human side, it was so recognizable and he used such a good ⁓ story also, the pyramid upside down. And the other one was the one from Susanna, which was a typical example of what we discussed in our presentations.

It's not a nice linear process from left to right. ⁓ Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, that was good, yeah. Jos Voskuil: PLM implementation. It's a struggle, it's a journey, but you have to create strongholds and places.

And I think these are really the things that where you learn and realize again, PLM is so broad and it's very much related on the human side. So how you organize yourself and how you create your strongholds in an organization. That was really for me day one. Rob Ferrone: Yeah, I was going to, I forgot the guy's name.

⁓ He was a Spanish guy that's moved to Scandinavia. Remind me? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. the, the, so yeah, it did a fantastic presentation on how to explain the value of PLM to, how do you, how do you get budget for it? Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Javier? ⁓ n Alexand Pedro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ SKF group. That was a really good one, yeah.

Pat Hillberg: Alex San Pedro. I was about to bring him is that right? I was about to bring him up as as well, right? Maria Morris: Alex San Pedro.

Jos Voskuil: Yeah. Rob Ferrone: and the way to put that together. There's a couple of presentations that were super pragmatic. was the other company from Sweden, the System Implementer.

⁓ Help me. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ ass Alboy? No, not ⁓ Antonio, right? ⁓ hu QCM probably, right?

Ooh. Rob Ferrone: No, no, no, was one of the vendor presentations, they, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So apologies for forgetting the name, but they also then talk through the process of how they develop the requirements for a PLM, you know, transformation or integration.

was so really, you know, pragmatic working level explanations of, of the realities of, ⁓ you know, doing the work we do. not, not the big picture digital thread concepts, but really the, you know, the, actual, yeah. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): It's okay. Down in the trenches kind of stuff.

How about you, Oleg? What was your t what was your favorite? Rob Ferrone: Yeah, I love that. Oleg: Well, it's it's this is one of those cases where it's har very hard to pick because there are so many so many so many good ⁓ good good good presentations there.

I think Susanna's presentation about PLM implementation was really ⁓ lending very strong because ⁓ this is where it switched from the glorified PLM success to something that pragmatic and practical and you know it's you you you're stuck in problems like Obviously illustrate and problems. And ⁓ I I think another presentation that ⁓ I picked on a very very very interesting and again second second time in a row and l last year it was also as very a presentation from Asabloy. ⁓ I think what is Antonio and so what what is remarkable in that one is because it is a company that acquiring company every three weeks.

Now how you organize everything Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah. Antonio's always great. Oleg: for the company that is such dynamics and growing and cannot adapt and change. That's that's a really, really, really challenge that I I think it's a very important lesson learned from what they did.

And and on top of this, like on every presentation is also then conversation after the presentation. And that's what it's the most interesting part. Because what I found very remarkable that under every presentation, then you have conversation with this person. you find something really, really interesting that was kind of behind the scene behind the scene.

So that's that's that's what that's what's very interesting. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): So Nina, what about you? What was your favorite presentation? Which one resonated the most?

Nina Dar: Well, of course, all the people here was my favourite. Yos was my favourite. And it goes without saying. Personally, I loved the Gentelligence one.

I felt that that was complete future thinking. And the space that I take in the PLM world is more pushing people to see that Fino (Sponsored by Aras): The panel discussion was your favorite. Nina Dar: Over the years, perhaps PLM software has its limitations that create so many issues actually. And most of the time we have to step backwards and say, well, what is the capability that the customer site actually needs?

And what are they trying to do? Where are they trying to go with it? Why would they want to invest in this product life cycle? What does it mean for them?

What's it going to deliver them? And. So often those conversations are led by software first and it always causes a problem always. And what Gentelligence were trying to do was to say, don't have the software conversation first.

And they were taking that even further to say that data is where we must be at. I mean, we've all said this for years. This is not new to us. say it and we say it and we say it, but people don't believe it.

And what they were trying to do was say, there's different ways of looking at this. And especially now with board conversations being absolutely fixated on investment in AI, this is how perhaps you can draw parallels to this back to the product life cycle, back to the data model. And I just think that is the approach going forward. ⁓ So ⁓ I'm so happy to see that.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ Helen's was really good too about the economic piece. I mean, I'd never had that perspective. I changed my website thanks to that one. The whole the whole three out of four trick was was a nice one.

Nina Dar: you Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ I wanted to ask, ⁓ come back to Maria in terms of the organization because ⁓ last year there was a bit of concern because the sponsors were of off in a corner. And this year you put them really at the center, right? I mean, they were right next to the food and everything. ⁓ also, if you look at Maria Morris: Mm-hmm.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): No, but it they were much more visible. It was cool too, cause you had these two breaks where the the point was to get a tour of the Voos, which was a good idea. if you look at the number of presentations, there were ten or eleven case studies and seven sponsor presentations. And I felt the sponsors played the game.

They weren't just there purely advertising, they were talking about the human and their particular solution. So how did you guys come to that? I mean, that's really hard to do. I think congratulations on doing that.

It's really ⁓ sp ⁓ startling. Maria Morris: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, well, of course, to put such an event together, you need sponsors to not only financially support you, but also sponsors that believe in your ⁓ message and what it is that you're trying to achieve with such an event. So luckily, all of our sponsors are absolutely incredible. And right from the beginning, we made it clear that the purpose of this event isn't a sales event.

It's an event to bring people together, to share knowledge and learn from each other's expertise. And so we told them from the beginning that their presentations needed to, of course, show what it is that they're specialized in and how they support their own customers, but also bringing the focus back to people. ⁓ we have quite a few software vendors, for instance, sponsoring us. And we put the focus on how do they actually support users to adopt the system itself, not just the...

technical presentation, which I think is quite different to other events they've sponsored and the type of presentations they've given. But again, we were so lucky that all of our sponsors believe as well in a kind of people first approach to the success of these types of transformations. And again, last year we took on all the feedback that we got, whether that was from sponsors or from attendees in general. And one of the biggest feedbacks we got was that people wanted to spend more time with the sponsors.

So last year they just had their keynotes in their booth and this year we tried to create an environment where not only they were closer to us all but also that they were able to be given a specific slot for everyone to go around and learn more about what it is they're doing, listen to some case studies and yeah from what I've heard people really liked it. In fact the feedback we've gotten so far is they wish there were two rounds of the sponsor store so that's another thing we're considering for next year but I think That's just such a compliment to all of the sponsors that we have that people want to spend that time with them and that they don't feel like they're just going to be pushed to a new system or software or technology.

They actually were able to learn something. So, yes. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yes, you wanted to add something? Jos Voskuil: Yeah, maybe I can add to this.

fully agree with Maria. Finding sponsors for such an event, human centric, is very challenging because most software companies are there to sell their tools. And I think it was a genuine interest of those sponsors in the human side. And I think a bigger round of applause for the sponsors because we need them to make the conference affordable.

But they also did a good job in their sessions and presentations. Rob Ferrone: I mean, Fino (Sponsored by Aras): One of which is Ares who's also supporting this podcast. So thank you very much, Ares. Go ahead, Rob.

Jos Voskuil: We didn't know that. Rob Ferrone: I think it's a fantastic opportunity as well for sponsors for next year too, because if you're a company that's trying to position yourself and differentiate yourself, especially system implementers, et cetera, it's a great one to attend and speak to your human capabilities. I know of a case recently where I was talking to a company that Pat Hillberg: Yeah. Rob Ferrone: selected their ⁓ implementation partner based on their credibility around all change management and, you know, transformation management.

And so it's a valuable differentiation. If you can get people along to the conference as a sponsor and talk to that, you know, I think you're putting yourself in a good position. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Anybody else wanna add to that? Pat Hillberg: Yeah, I'll tell let me add just a little bit.

In addition to and it ⁓ in addition to the what was on the stage and and from the sponsors, what I get on so many conferences, and I want to say was even better here is the side conversations and in my comments on the on the ⁓ the event. You know, what you see on the stage is what is, and what you talk about in the corners is what could be. And you need to have this, you need to have the sponsors, you need to have the The big ideas, you need to have the stuff on the stage, which attracts people to this conference.

But I don't want to miss out on the side conversations, which are the things that we'll be talking about maybe two, three, five years from now, right? Are those conversations that we have. A couple of conversations I had, and I won't go into the details, but at least, you know, I teach PLM, and at least two people came up to me with an interest in teaching. And I just love supporting that idea.

And I think if you look at long-term cultural change in the PLM space, particularly a human centered sort of change. It gets to who is willing to willing to teach. So ⁓ so anyway, so I just wanted to do a ⁓ and I want I want to add one more thing to a person on site. Nina, there were three ⁓ three events at the end, three individual workshops at the end.

I I attended Nina's and and Nina you did a wonderful job of that. So I'm sure Yas and whoever did the AI was wonderful too, but Nina did a wonderful job Fino (Sponsored by Aras): I was gonna get to the workshop thing. Nina Dar: Thank Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ yeah, I I did I was on the AI one. That was r really well done.

well made it well, Nina, why don't you talk about that? That that's an interesting 'cause I didn't get to hear about it, so I'd like to hear what you s so how did you well first of all, Maria, you di last year you guys had the two workshops. This year you went with three of ⁓ and that seemed to work really well. So Nina, tell us about your workshop.

Nina Dar: Before I tell you about my workshop, and I think I've been naughty and not completed my feedback on the conference, a real reminder to do so. ⁓ So many people said to me and me, myself, thought I wanted to attend all three workshops. Right. So that was huge feedback.

yeah, exactly. And my workshop. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Ha ha ha. Yeah, I'm just gonna do two out of three, right?

At least. Nina Dar: was fascinating even from design because I had the pleasure of working with Christina from Share PLM. We were bringing together two very different sides actually of a human approach to change in the PLM world. And also my style is so disruptive.

And so it was such an interesting experiment, even us designing it together. And I kept saying to Christina, people should be watching this. They should be watching the conversation we're having, even in putting the workshop together. And then when we were there and we were live, I encouraged Christina to say, go with it, go with this, because there's a chance here it will not go to plan.

And I tend to very much feed from the room. And actually the energy in our room is a little bit low and it just wasn't what I wanted it to be. Because we were talking about the standard stuff, this was my concern. People have heard this, you know, you talk about the human approach to change.

God, really people know it. What people don't know is how to flip the switch on it. So what it feels like, how do you get that emotion going? How do you get that motion in the room?

And so to get the emotion in the room, I went completely off script and we did some improv. And we did some role play and split the room into two and they had a brief, which is just like the brief that we always get. There was not enough information, not enough time. People didn't really know what they had to deliver back and they had to just go away and do it.

Two sets, both with opposing views. So the role play was they had to come back. One of them had to do it right. One of them had to do it badly.

And I have two people that were here so they can tell you themselves. But I thought it was brilliant. And the energy in the room went from a very average source of 20, 30 to bang, 100%. And it was a miracle to watch and for everybody else to watch that that is how you could actually flip the switch in a real environment.

Pat Hillberg: I wanna let Rob talk about it, but let me just interject real quick. As a teacher, something I find and I teach an online class, but when I put students into breakout rooms, it really elevates the the energy. And when you put them into Zoom breakout rooms, you can see their microphones as to whether or not they're talking. And there are people who will not say a word if I'm in front of a class.

But you put ⁓ into a breakout room and suddenly the the microphone is bumping up and down, bumping up and down, bumping up and down. They just they just can't stop talking. But Rob, please talk about your exper our experience in ⁓ Nina's class. Rob Ferrone: Yeah, it was terrifying.

No, I when I saw it, you know, I had a session with Nina a while back because I was running a workshop and I thought I'd go to, you know, the guru of workshops and people transformation Nina. And I said, Nina, you know, how do you approach these and what the kind of things you ask? And so she started, you know, I was getting ready to Pat Hillberg: Yeah. Rob Ferrone: write down, okay, ask this thing here, then you go on and ask this thing here.

And she was, ⁓ you know, she's got a style of Nina has and, and I didn't really understand it until I experienced it. the, ⁓ in classic workshops you have, or in sessions like that, the person leading it might ask a question and then they'll, ⁓ you know, pick vibe off the answer and, and kind of go with it. But, Nina would Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Okay. ⁓ Rob Ferrone: would kind of get up close to the person she's asking the question, really get into their space.

And the person would give an answer and she'd be bang, back in with another question directly, even challenging them and forcing people to really check their thinking and really get to the deeper second question or the deeper underlying topic or issue. And so that was amazing to see that happening. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm. Rob Ferrone: And then as Nina said, you know, once we kind of split into our groups and you had a group that was ⁓ effectively not, not ready for change versus a group that was ready for change.

And, ⁓ you know, it just made it very, very obvious what that looks like. And also more importantly, what it felt like, you know, so when you're in that situation, how do you feel and how, does it feel to vibe as a team? And it felt, you know, amazing. And, you know, that's something that, you know, there's, there's, there's a real.

art to the human side of ⁓ business and we experienced it, we lived it. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Jos, you did another workshop, right? Wasn't yours the other one? The sustainability one?

You're on mute. Jos Voskuil: So with the QCM team and with Patrick Wilson from ARALS, we did the sustainability and digitalization workshop, pub quiz. was partly education and partly also, I would say, trying to get a discussion on where are you, are you making your next steps, yes or no. And one of the challenges was we had more consultants than people working in companies.

So finding field experience was a little bit difficult. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): There you are. Jos Voskuil: And because sustainability is for most companies still an unknown area. It's on their marketing website already, but the execution still has to follow.

Coming back to the workshops, I would like to attend them all, three of them. And I think indeed workshops make this conference different because otherwise you're dead by PowerPoint and you run from break to break. Now in this workshop, as you said, people can speak up in a small part, said that. So.

We should keep it, but the challenge is to keep the parallels. On one side it works, having them parallel, but three workshops in a row would be too much for me. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Well, was yours th ⁓ because I was ⁓ Oleg and I were in the AI one and that was a little bit more people speaking and a bit of audience participation with an app on the iPhone. It sounds like Nina's was far more you know, a lot workshop breaking into groups, all that kind of thing.

⁓ what was yours more interactive or was also sort of ⁓ less so? Jos Voskuil: Yeah. Yeah, we had in one way a pub quiz with 10 questions, but between the questions also we had some discussion points and some theory about circular economy, about digital product passport. So it was trying to be ⁓ entertaining, but also education.

Maria Morris: Yes, I have to say I apologize to the other workshops that I didn't attend, but when Joss told me a pub quiz was involved, I had to attend his workshop. Jos Voskuil: You Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ Rob Ferrone: The thing is, I think you could take the Nina and Christina approach and apply it to any of those workshops because it wasn't, even though the kind of topic of Nina and Christina's one was, you know, people and all change, et cetera. think those, just the way it was done could ⁓ transform any of the workshops on the topics and the way that they're being discussed and really elevate it beyond, you know, classic workshops that we're familiar with.

Pat Hillberg: And I'll switch back to my class, but ⁓ which again, it's the title of the class is product lifecycle management. I open up with a simulation that is designed to just frustrate the crap out of my students, which is so much fun for me, right? So, but it sets up the rest of a 15 week semester. And I think I think you I I think there's ways to do similar things in in conferences or you there potentially even before conferences, but it's a terrific icebreaker.

With their frustration, they start building social bonds. And then the social bonds carry on through. And when I get evaluations at the end of the semester, what they always ask for are more simulations. So ⁓ so the breakout rooms and and somebody was using Menti.

I forget who. I know somebody was using Menti. ⁓ that was at ⁓ yeah. ⁓ we should talk about the nest.

Nina Dar: Yeah, so we were using them. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): It was ⁓ the AI one. ⁓ you guys. ⁓ yeah, I was gonna get to that.

I w I wanted to just mention ⁓ I also had a panel discussion. I thought that went really well. I was very happy with ⁓ what Christina was anchoring that with me from SharePLIM. She did a fantastic job.

And I had Susanna, who we've talked about her presentation. I've really appreciated that. ⁓ Linda, who did not talk this year, but ⁓ we were very happy to have Linda Valmat. And then of course ⁓ the eternal Martin and ⁓ Rob.

So ⁓ I mean Rob Pat Hillberg: Okay. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ what did you think about the the that panel before we talk a little bit about the Nest thing? Rob Ferrone: Yeah, it was a great panel discussion because I think you had so many different perspectives and very real perspectives as well. So it wasn't just, think AI is going to be doing this, but it was actually, you know, this is how, this is how AI is in our company.

And these are the things we know. These are the things we don't know as Jos picked up in his, um, um, you know, the post that, you know, one of the answers was, don't know. And, um, yeah, so it was, Yeah, enlightening and educational. I think the audience was engaged and you did a good job of hosting it, Fino.

So Maria, what's your place? ⁓ Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Appreciate that. Thank you. Nina Dar: I do have some feedback on the panel, actually, because I'm not just agreeing with all those things, but I think that that panel was chop block full of expertise, right?

And it was great watching you all talk about your expertise, but it would have been better if we could have participated with the panel. because I think there were loads of people, including me in the audience, that wanted to just say, hey, hey, when you're talking about that, what about this? What did you actually mean by that? So I've seen panels before where everybody introduces themselves and you get this wow moment, which you definitely would have done with this panel, you know, when you understand what everyone's doing.

And then instead of the panel just talking to each other, it's thrown right out to the audience. and the audience participates with the panel. And it just turns into a whole big room experience. And I have seen it done.

It isn't as chaotic as it sounds. It's really something quite special. And I think the quality of the people on the panel and yourself, Vino, that you could have easily, for next year, for next year, my vote is the big room panel. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): For next year.

For next year, yeah. ⁓ I was I was still falling under the influence of ⁓ seeing Monica Schnitker manage ⁓ two panels at the Ziemens ⁓ PM Comp Components event in Cambridge, and she did such an amazing job that I wanted to like do this ⁓ similar to hers and and plus obviously extract as much as I could from the brilliant people that ⁓ that I was given. But yeah, I'm always ⁓ up for improvement and that sounds interesting. It sounds terrifying.

But it sounds very interesting ⁓ idea. ⁓ so for those that weren't there, we had ⁓ drinks the night before. We had this whole day of conferences, and then ⁓ we had this special event, which was the opening of Share the Nest in Herasa. ⁓ Maria, I know ⁓ Paula's not here, but maybe you could talk for Paula and and talk about the the nest a bit.

Maria Morris: Mm-hmm. Yes. Of course. So the Nest is a super exciting initiative that from our side has been going on for a little while because there was a renovation involved and a feudal lease as you can expect.

But the Nest itself was designed as a place in which we can, again, bring people together, avoid... pure connection just over Zoom or Teams and actually bring people together to focus on various topics. So whether it's simply a team that wants to come together similar to Andreas when he said we had to just get everyone off site to really boil down for a week on what decisions we need to make, how we're going to make them, offering a place where people can do that out of their office space, also with the ability for the SharePLM team to help facilitate those discussions and sessions.

but also to help people explore different avenues within the space. So for example, at the end of June, we're hosting a hackathon. So it's a lovable hackathon. So it's essentially for vibe coders, people who aren't necessarily super techie in that way, but also want to keep up to date with all of the changes that are coming in terms of AI and...

making sure that people are able to explore these types of tools in kind of a safe environment where they have the space to make mistakes and try things out. So the Nest is kind of a place where we can bring small teams together and really go deep into whatever topics that they're needing to. So yeah, it was really great. And Paula, who you mentioned, Fino, she's our CEO of the Nest.

She's also based in Hereth, so she was kind of the inspiration to bring people there. And yeah, I think you guys will be able to concur that the Hereth is a city that when you're there, you really feel like you can slow down. kind of forces you. It's also not the easiest place to get to, which I think is also really good for the purpose because you're able to actually really get out of your comfort zone, slow right down.

It's nothing like where most of us are coming from. And then you're able to really focus on a specific topic at hand. So yeah, that's the nest. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah, it was really cool.

And then ⁓ you guys inverse the the thing. Last year we had ⁓ the flamenco the last day and we had anyway, that was a that was a lot of fun. It was ⁓ it was it was really wonderful. ⁓ the wine tasting was was the day before and we switched it.

That was really cool. ⁓ I also wanted to ⁓ like ⁓ another question is I they wanted to actually put to Nina because I liked it, is the ⁓ if Are conferences still designed about just knowledge sharing or is it about validation and visibility? I like that question you put in the list. Nina Dar: So, I like Maria's answer before about the ROI of a conference, you know, the reality check.

⁓ Sadly, we are still so bound by some old fashioned traditions, you know, who sponsors a conference. know, so it becomes about validation and visibility, doesn't it? Because sponsorship just drives that and the sponsors want to be there, want to be seen. people want to be seen there.

mean, the whole FOMO thing that Pat talked about, you know, it becomes that. Everyone was posting, so that, think, will increase. So that's just about visibility and validation. But, you know, the real value of conferences going forward, especially when budgets are so tight and people have to, like, just scrabble around.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Right. Nina Dar: to get any kind of personal development investment or anything, conferences aren't really related to that. And I think I had this conversation with somebody actually at the event where we were saying, wouldn't it be great if conferences were seen as a training ground, that they were educational beyond a sponsorship sort of visibility thing, that the workshops were... ⁓ fundamental to people learning something and that became part of the business case of a conference.

And I can get really carried away with this actually as with most things. But I think what about a conference that is ⁓ just ⁓ crowd-funded, know, has no sponsors whatsoever and the sponsorship comes from the people who want it. Pat Hillberg: Yeah. Nina Dar: And I know that you think that's like an entrance fee, that's what you pay, it's kind of not what I mean.

⁓ But I just think there is a time for a turning point in our conference. And I think Shair.plm are doing that. They're doing it within their constraints of reality at the moment.

And I think how amazing would it be if they weren't bound by those restrictions. Jos Voskuil: Thank you Okay. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Excellent. Okay, sorry.

Maria and then Yas, then Oleg, and then I have a question for Rob before we get out of here. Go ahead, Maria. Oleg: Right. Okay.

Just Maria Morris: I just add something to that? Sorry. One thing I was just going to say, maybe I slightly disagree in certain elements with your answer, Nina, only because I think if you're somebody who just wants a yes man and you want to attend a conference where someone's going to say to you, everything you're doing is amazing, I completely agree with your approach and strategy, then actually I would say the summit probably isn't the place for you because one thing that I think is so great about the community we've created at the summit, and even you can see that through the presentations, people aren't all singing off the same hymn sheets there.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm-hmm. Maria Morris: are disagreeing with each other, they're suggesting different ideas, different approaches. And I think actually that's what makes it so great because people feel safe in the environment where they can actually say, you know, thanks for sharing your opinion, but I actually would do it this way or I would do it that way. And actually so many people came to me during the conference and said, there are so many people even about yourself, Nina, where people were like, Nina was really challenging my like...

way, traditional way of thinking and no one had ever made me look at this differently. And so I think that's what's really great about the summit because if you're, if you're scared to be challenged, probably don't come. ⁓ But if you want to come and expand your way of thinking and hopefully leave with some really positive takeaways and, and potential lessons learned that you can implement into your own, into your own transformations, then I think it's definitely the place to be.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Right. Awesome. All right. Nina Dar: Yeah, but I just think it can be more of that.

So I don't know if I said something that... So I was pushing them more of that. ⁓ Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm. Yes, you were next.

Yeah, so like then ⁓ I had a question to Rob and then Pat. Go ahead. Jos Voskuil: Yeah, so. Okay, so I just want to quote Elena Langer who said, I never really took the time to invest in myself.

She always send people from her team to this type of conferences and now she realized what she has been missing in the human centric conferences. I think that's also a big compliment to the team and the organization of the conference. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yay. Oleg, you were you were you had your hand up.

Oleg: Yes, I you know, I'm I'm I found very interesting the question about ROI because ⁓ I mean in general it's about sales. ⁓ sales can be boring because one side you you ⁓ always buy from IBM because no one will fire you for buying from IBM. But on the other side what I found ⁓ for the for the for the last years espe especially in experience with Open Baum is that people don't buy best products. So people buy from people that they trust.

So and ⁓ I think that's something that brings a difference in the human perspective. So like a typical ROI from a conference, if you talk to marketing managers that put budget and they say how many leads you bring from the conference. ⁓ great, I brought 10 leads, it cost me ten thousand dollars. I mean that's the the that's the ROI narrow.

But I I reverse it and I said it's differently. It this is the amount of people that you now get trust ⁓ with and that's an opportunity to sell them. I mean in a good way, this is what ⁓ can lead and make it make make a difference. So this is where I see the the new type of ROI.

It's a trust and how you gain trust from people, and this is the different way how you measure all these events. ⁓ so I think it's an ultimate place to ⁓ gain trust. It's hard to gain trust from the ⁓ virtual presentation. And it's much easier to do in a personal conversation.

So this is where it makes difference for me. And another comment I wanted to make you ask about ⁓ the ⁓ workshops. And and I think I AI was ⁓ easy and hard at the same time. Because ⁓ easy because everyone speaks about AI.

It's so easy. Like you don't need to explain why we need to talk about AI. And ⁓ so but the second thing is ⁓ hard, is because if you if you think about this, it's like AI, if I can compare, it's a kind of invention of electricity and invention of databases. So it's ⁓ it's will become so much broadly adopted, but it will be adopted so differently.

And to the conversation in in in this room was remarkable because of first everyone already used AI. I mean, okay, so you don't need to convince anyone. Any everyone already there. But what do you do with this?

And how you innovate with this, this is where the real questions are coming from and this is where I found it's very easy and hard at the same time. So ⁓ yeah, that it's that that's kind of thing. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): If I can react to the first part of what you said, I I love the how you said it this kind of conference builds trust because if you think about it, when you go to ⁓ a bigger commercial conference like the one that's happening in Detroit right now or ⁓ or ITMS or or any of those, it's not really about trust at all.

It's more like it's just ⁓ trying to get swag, right? Trying to get the most more swag than the other people. And then and trying not to be completely brainwashed by all the the The sales presentations, right? ⁓ Pat, I think you had a comment and then I had a question for ⁓ Pat Hillberg: Sure, yeah.

And I actually I'm glad Oleg spoke because I think this picks up on both what Nina and ⁓ Oleg talked about. There's two well-known B2B sales books, the Challenger Sale and the Challenger Customer. And one of the things they talk about is that your customer is 60% of the way through the decision making process before you know that he exists. So their your customer is doing their research.

They might show up at Realize Live and not tell you that they're there. Right. So, but where where can you find that early stage research? And I'm really big on the idea that PLM starts with OCM, that that don't buy the technology is the you go to the big players, you go to all the players.

The technology is not that different. The real difference maker is whether or not you're dealing with organizational change. And kind of to Oleg's point about finding that trustworthy partner, a big thing in those books is the person who will send Does not ask you what keeps you up at night, but in instead tells you this is what should keep you up at night. So so I want to say to to Nina's and to to Oleg's point that I think there's market space well before the major players get involved that ends up ba benefiting the players, but but gets you into, okay, what what should I be worried about?

Okay, I'll stop. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Rob, because of Rob Ferrone: My question, yeah, before you ask me the question, I'm just going to bolt on if I may to the question that you asked to the others. that remember that it's not there's not just buyers and sellers at the conference. So you have, you know, those people I met that just finished a project or finished with a company and they were looking to join another company.

And at the same time, you've got companies that are looking to hire people. And then you have people on PLM journeys at different stages. So ones that have just reached a level. of PLL and maturity and ones that are just starting out.

And so with all of these kind of dynamics and also partners, people are saying, okay, I've got some technology, but I haven't got an implementer. So what you're doing is you're bringing this community together and kind of introducing people to each other. And I did that so much in the conference, you know, grabbing two people and pulling them together and saying, I just heard you talk about these things. They're mutually compatible.

So, you know, have a chat. And I think that's, you know, some of the real value that you get from the conference. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): So the question to you, because of your famous photo, was ⁓ did we have enough did did Maria and the team create enough room for disagreement, curiosity, and emerging voices? Rob Ferrone: Yes, yeah, think ⁓ Nina's kind of always going to challenge everything, including conferences.

⁓ But the SharePLM team, I think they're doing a great job of challenging themselves. I remember last year when they first announced that they were going to do the conference, I knew that it was going to be completely different. And ⁓ I know that the third evolution is going to be even better than the second evolution. ⁓ that they do give the time, know, in the, the, ⁓ let's say the socializing activities that they build around the conference, you know, one, one person in the PLM space asked me if it was a retreat for PLM professionals.

And he meant that in a slightly critical way, but actually, I think that wouldn't be a negative way of describing it because it's ⁓ Yeah, a place where you do create that space to come together and have those highly valuable interactions. The other thing I'd say as well is that it's, I got a lot of value from the stuff I wasn't expecting. So the presentations that I had pegged as maybe being less interesting, they actually turned it out to be some of the most interesting ones.

And the conversations that I thought might have been less interesting also were more interesting. I think we're... as humans we're not always the best judge of what is good for us. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Very good.

Oleg: I'm I'm I want to bring one point, mm Michael, if possible, about disagreement. So on one on one side I'm I'm happy that ⁓ Rob didn't ⁓ bring like this disagreement from the first event. I mean he didn't put this gold chain on me the second time at least. That was a little bit a a little bit less ⁓ disruptive, although maybe this is the lawsuit that goes against this purchasing department.

⁓ Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Ha ha ha ha. Rob Ferrone: That's... Oleg: But ⁓ on the other side ⁓ there is a very ⁓ interesting technique that I learned over time. When you take in notes and conference and other places, you can take notes.

Usually you take notes about what you agree with. Try to take notes about what you disagree, and you find that you learn more as a result of this. So that's ⁓ I mean bringing more disagreement actually it's a good thing. So Rob, please bring it again.

I mean we need some we need some purchasing debates. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Yeah. Rob Ferrone: Well. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Well we're coming to the the top of the hour and I wanted to ⁓ give everybody a chance to have a last word and I was thinking literally what one word would you give to ⁓ shared shared pilem summit two thousand twenty six?

Wanna start with R Yas, then Pat ⁓ Pat, Oleg, Rob, and then ⁓ Nina and Maria to end. So go ahead, Yas. Jos Voskuil: One word is a challenge, but I think it felt like being home. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ nice.

How about you, Pat? Pat Hillberg: I'll go with community. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Okay. Okay.

Oleg: I always measure every event by the number of things that I need to follow up. The longer in list the better was the event. So this one event brings the longest list. Maria Morris: Thank you.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ longest list. Nice. Rob? Rob Ferrone: I'd say it's a PLM theme, but connection.

So, but on the human level and connecting ideas, but also, yeah, connecting data. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Mm. ⁓ how about you, Nina? Nina Dar: Invigorating.

Fino (Sponsored by Aras): ⁓ I would have said Nina Dar: But I love the home thing, actually. The home, it did feel like the... I think personally it was a bit like going home and it definitely was like a retreat for those of us who needed it. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): I would have said just collaborative.

I th I really appreciated all the the collaboration in all different kinds of ways. How about you, Maria? Because you you were one of the the organizers. Other than exhausting, probably the first word that comes in mind is exhausting.

⁓ okay. Maria Morris: I would have said... No, never. And I'd say refreshing.

From my side, I think it's so great to experience a different type of PLM event. And I'm always really humbled when everyone kind of appreciates it as much as we want them to. So, yeah, I'd say that. And maybe I'll just take...

Pat Hillberg: Yeah. Maria Morris: 10 seconds to say thank you all to everyone who's in this group because even leading up to the summit, you've all in some way, or form had some inputs in the organisation of the event. So thank you all very much for your support. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Thank you for doing such a great job.

⁓ well, thank you for every to everybody on the panel. This has been really great. ⁓ it's a lot of fun discussion. ⁓ I think some of the people in this group will get together next week and talk a little bit more about manufacturing bombs.

I don't think we've ⁓ quite gotten into the fist fight that Rob was trying to instigate. ⁓ thank you very much, Nina, for joining us. You were Oleg: Thank you. Fino (Sponsored by Aras): Welcome anytime to join the group, of course.

And Maria, I mean your b schedule's so busy, when you're available, you're welcome. ⁓ thank you, Yas and Oleg as always. ⁓ thanks lot. And thank you also to our sponsor, Aras ⁓ And we'll talk to you guys soon.

Thank you. And we'll see you in Harris, hopefully, ⁓ in 2027. Thank you, everybody. Rob Ferrone: Thank you.

Oleg: Yeah.