Summit 2010

Edith Weiner

President, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

Edie Weiner is president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., a leading futurist consulting group. Formed in 1977, WEB has served over 300 clients (corporate, academic, government) around the world in identifying opportunities in the areas of marketing, product development, strategic planning, investments, human resources, public affairs and advertising. Clients have ranged from the U.S. Congress to many of the Fortune 500. She is acknowledged as one of the most influential practitioners of social, technological, political and economic intelligence-gathering.

Tuesday, May 18th: "A View From the Future"
The world has gone through several fundamental transformations in history: from the Agricultural era to the Industrial era to the Post-Industrial era to our current age, which Edie calls "Emotile." She calls it that because the current growth industries are about our emotional wants and needs, and the way we operate -- from work to communications to household formation -- is highly motile.

But we are going through another profound transformation, and we are entering a new era. Edie calls this the Virtual age, with all of the new value propositions deriving from an altered dimensionality, and that dimension is space. The future is increasingly about Inner Space (the mapping of the brain, and all its sensory and cognitive functions), Outer Space (with the focus on satellites, space exploration and tourism, and even ET intelligences), MicroSpace (BANGFUEL: bits, atoms, antimatter, neurons, genes, frequencies and ultra/infraspectral energy and light), Cyberspace (virtual worlds, connectedness and presence), Time/Space (the leveraging of time in space, with the future being non-linear and opening up new ways of using time and space together), Green-to-Blue Space (the move along the spectrum from "doing green" to "being green" to "blue," which is putting back more than one takes), and Storage Space (we are running out of room for our personal junk, e-waste and data, etc.)

This transformation holds a great deal of possibility for redefining sensuality, wellness, leisure, luxury, comfort, belief systems, travel…in short, there are numerous implications for the spa world. This opening session will lay out the transformation and many of its consequences, and Edie will be with us through the entire Summit as a resource in many of our sessions as we contemplate our opportunities and challenges in this first phase of the 21st century.

Wednesday, May 19th: "Go To It!"
Edie will sum up her thoughts throughout the two days, and leave us with the ones she feels hold the most promise for the expansion and success of the spa industry. Despite much of the gloom and doom in the world, much of it real and warranted, Edie will motivate us to be optimistic and see the opportunities that lie ahead in not only being financially successful, but making a positive impact on our clients, our societies, and even the world at large.

Ahu Kerimoğlu Aysal

Owner, Les Ottomans Hotel

Ahu Kerimoğlu Aysal, is the owner and creator of Hotel Les Ottomans, a boutique hotel which opened its doors in 2006 and has since been the recipient of endless accolades. Once a former mansion of an 18th-century Pasha, the Hotel Les Ottomans is among the most luxurious hotels in Turkey, and the ten suites and Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa are firmly rooted in the decorative traditions of the Ottoman period. An Istanbul native, Aysal has been a prominent hospitality figure in Turkey since 1985, when she created Club Salmina in Southern Turkey with her husband Unal. Fifteen years later, the pair opened the Ma Biche Hotel, one of the first hotels in Turkey to have a Thalassotherapy Center. In 2002, she became the Vice President of their family cooperation, Unit Tourism and Investment Company (Unit Turizm Yatırımları A.Ş.).

Philippe Bourguignon

Vice Chairman, Revolution Places; CEO, Miraval; CEO, Revolution Places Development

Philippe Bourguignon is Vice Chairman of Revolution Places and CEO of Miraval, one of the top rated spa-wellness resorts in the US. These companies are owned by Revolution LLC, which is creating a new model for travel and tourism that promotes and encourages a healthy lifestyle and establishes a consumer brand that reflects those values. He is a visionary who is passionate about creating businesses that tap into the consumer innate desire to connect – and disconnect – while encouraging health and wellness of the planet. Prior to joining Revolution Places, Philippe was the chairman of Aegis Media France in 2005 and before Aegis, Philippe was co-CEO of the Davos-based World Economic Forum from 2003 to 2004. He was Chairman and CEO of Club Mėditerranėe, from 1997 – 2000, and has also held positions as Executive Vice President of Disney Europe and Chairman and CEO of Euro Disney. He is also on the Board of Directors for eBay and Zipcar.

Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD, MD

Dr. Pelletier is a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine; Department of Family and Community Medicine; and Professor of Public Health at the University of Arizona School of Medicine; and a Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco (UCSF). At the University Of Arizona School Of Medicine, he is Director of the Corporate Health Improvement Program (CHIP) which is a collaborative research program between CHIP and 15 of the Fortune 500 corporations. He also serves as Chairman of the American Health Association (AHA) and is a Vice President with American Specialty Health (ASH). Dr. Pelletier is the author of ten (10) major books including The New Medicine: How to Integrate Conventional and Alternative Medicine for the Safest and Most Effective Treatment. Having worked with some of the top destination spas in the world, Dr. Pelletier is an expert on the integration of spa and medicine.

Dr. Marc A. Smith, Chief Social Scientist, Connected Action Consulting Group

Marc Smith is a sociologist specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction. He founded and managed the Community Technologies Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington and led the development of social media reporting and analysis tools for Telligent Systems. Smith leads the Connected Action consulting group and lives and works in Silicon Valley, California. Smith is the co-editor with Peter Kollock of Communities in Cyberspace (Routledge), a collection of essays exploring the ways identity; interaction and social order develop in online groups. Along with Derek Hansen and Ben Shneiderman, he is the co-author and editor of Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world, a guide to mapping connections created through computer-mediated interactions (forthcoming on Morgan-Kaufmann). The Connected Action consulting group applies social science methods in general and social network analysis techniques in particular to enterprise and internet social media usage. SNA analysis of data from message boards, blogs, wikis, friend networks, and shared file systems can reveal insights into organizations and processes. Community managers can gain actionable insights into the volumes of community content created in their social media repositories. Mobile social software applications can visualize patterns of association that are otherwise invisible.