March was an energizing talk from digital analytics legend Jim Sterne on how to become indispensable to your organization, complete with authentic #lobby-bar experience at local beer hall Hofbräuhaus.

Yes, #cbusdaw dinner at the Hofbräuhaus- only 2 hours from Berlin (OH) https://t.co/xurAmto1F2 Thanks @ensighten ! pic.twitter.com/E5sTGqeL1L

— Jim Sterne (@jimsterne) March 17, 2016

Maybe we aren’t all indispensable yet (though we’re hoping not to be “a danger to ourselves and
a menace to society”), but we learned some great tips. Like how to think about where we are now and where our organization might be, as well as important thoughts on where the future may be headed. The future is either killer robots forcing us to do taxonomy for them (it’s worse than being a human battery, but as far as the robots are concerned while we are slow we are smart at that kind of stuff) and/or machine learning becoming more plugged into everything we do.

The cbusdaw “tweet-of-the-night” award, which is an award we are creating this very moment in lieu of a more lengthy and meandering recap is from Dr. Levin who summed up Jim’s points on communication very well as:

.@jimsterne on communication:Tell stories. Avoid details. Tie everything to bottom line. Help people. Have an opinion. #cbusdaw

— Michael A. Levin (@MichaelALevin) March 16, 2016