Presentations, Session Takeaways & Speaker Bios
Walk through the day in order—from our opening Ballroom conversation to both sets of 4 concurrent breakout sessions, Pamela Pavliscak's lunchtime keynote, and closing fireside reflections with Dennis Crowley.
Opening Framing & Panel: "Beyond the Hype: Practical AI Execution"
Aviation took 32 years from the 1903 Wright Flyer to the 1935 DC-3; PCs took 20 years from the 1975 Altair 8800 to Windows 95; the Web took 15+ years. Generative AI compressed that adoption curve into 48 months—meaning the bottleneck today is human and organizational friction, not the tech.
Designed to move every attendee up one concrete rung on Monday morning: 1) Head in the Sand, 2) Novices, 3) Over-Experimenters, and 4) Advanced Practitioners.
"Document, Delegate, Automate, Don't Abdicate."
10x organizational ROI, delegation scorecards & protecting authentic leadership voice.
Removing customer & agency friction; shifting to fixed value-based pricing.
Hiding software friction with voice-to-CRM agents & healthcare PHI guardrails.
Curing "executive AI slop" by locking down narrative premise & build specs first.
Breakout Round 1: Sessions by AI Proficiency Level
Use the track tabs or Prev / Next buttons to step through all 4 morning breakout presentations and their first-slide hero cards.
Breakout Round 2: Sessions by Functional & Thematic Track
Explore all 4 mid-day thematic workshops—including Beth Shero's 31-slide marketing deck, George & Kate's workflow lab, Patrick & John's app builder track, and Tom di Mino's Linear A agent case study.
The Secret Psychology of Successful Human + AI Collaboration
Pamela Pavliscak
Faculty, Pratt Institute • Founder, Change Sciences
Author of All the Feels: How to Stay Human in the Digital World
Pamela Pavliscak is a Rhinebeck-based emotional design and technology researcher who studies how digital life and artificial intelligence shape human emotion, trust, and judgment. Her keynote unpacked why 73% of users adopt an AI answer even when it is wrong ("Cognitive Surrender")—and how organizations can build healthy human-in-the-loop habits.
- 1. Slow as you go — resist false velocity when stakes are high.
- 2. Keep your fingerprints on it — preserve authentic human voice and discernment.
- 3. Stay in practice — don't let core cognitive skills atrophy through uncritical delegation.
- 4. Be human unto others — design workflows that deepen rather than replace human connection.
Closing Fireside Conversation: "Dessert with Dennis"
Dennis Crowley
Co-Founder & CEO, Hopscotch Labs • Co-Founder, Foursquare & Dodgeball
Joined on stage by Pamela Pavliscak & Moderator Johnny LeHane
Closing out the summit over locally sourced dessert, Kingston neighbor Dennis Crowley joined Pamela Pavliscak and Johnny LeHane for an unscripted conversation on building "Tech with Soul"—how wearable audio AI, location-aware computing, and regional entrepreneurship can bring people out of their screens and back into real-world community.
Using ambient and wearable AI to nudge people toward real-world discovery rather than endless screen scrolling.
Balancing honest guardrails around privacy and trust with hands-on curiosity across local businesses and schools.
