Soundings Trade Only yesterday held the Marine Ideas Exchange during day two of the International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition and Conference in Tampa, Fla.
After opening remarks by Soundings Trade Only Group vice president and general manager Michele Goldsmith, editor-in-chief David Gee led a keynote conversation on leadership with Dometic Marine president Eric Fetchko.
Fetchko shared insights from his decades of executive experience, including his broad perspective on leading a company right now.
“With all the geopolitical things going on in the world,” Fetchko said, “you wake up every morning and say, oh my God. And actually, [as a leader] what you need to do is focus your team on the things that they can expect. Things you can control. Things you can’t control, you can’t be stressed out about. … So keeping [your teams] on the straight and narrow and on topic is important. … Communication is the foundation.”
After a networking break, MIX panelists took part in two panel discussions. Joe Lynch, CEO of ICOMIA, led “Changing Customer Behavior” with Al Sundoro, vice president of global business development at Dometic Marine; David Dunn, senior director of marine and RV sales at Garmin; and Keith Ammons, vice president of sales and marketing at Regulator Marine.
Goldsmith discussed “The Future of Marine Technology & AI” with Aine Denari, executive vice president and president of Navico Group, and Brunswick chief technology officer; Jarrod Seymour, vice president, marine segment lead at Garmin; and Jonathan Lim, investor and advisor at MarineSource.
Lim pointed out the fast rate of change not only in software but also in consumers’ use of online searches. In a discussion of click-through rates, Lim said, “First, we have the evolution from SEO to GEO. I’m sure it’s something we’re all talking about every day. All that matters for everyone in this room is how fast your AI citation rates are growing.
“I’m going to give you my crazy piece of data. Three months ago, Google revealed that 65% of their searches are ending in what they call zero-click. That means no one’s clicking on your website 65% of the time. Did you hear what they revealed last week? Ninety-one percent now — 91% of Google searches are ending in zero click. That is a terrifying statistic. So you think about people that have built websites for you? For us, it’s obviously just understanding if that’s the future, how do you show up in AI search results?”
In the second round of discussions, Ben Stein, editor at Panbo.com, interviewed Fetchko, Jens Bering, head of product and solutions management at Volvo Penta North America, and David Chubbs, vice president of engineering and operations at Regulator Marine, on “The Process of Innovation: From Ideation to Finished Product.” In this session, Goldsmith went deeper into “AI for Business Leaders: Data, Disruption, Policy, Privacy and People” with Lim and Chris Kanaley, CEO and co-founder of MarineSource.
Sponsors for MIX included Garmin, Dometic, Tidesmarine, MarineSource, Navico Group, Regulator, Volvo Penta, Harman Marine, Sileather and Spectrum Color.
