June 10, 2023
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Digital Fight Club

Panels are boring. So we put 2 technology experts in a boxing ring 2 feet from each other in front of 5 accomplished “referees” and let them defend their position on a topic in their field. We do this in front of 500 CEOs, technologists, entrepreneurs and investors. So there is no pressure. Then we let the refs and audience (that’s you) vote for a winner. That’s not boring. That’s fun. …and you might learn something.


Marketing
Attention Chief Information Security Officers! Sign Up for Digital Fight Club | Cyber!
Digital Fight Club Posted On April 6, 2023


Cue FOMO scramble. Happens every time. Please act now if this is you:

Digital Fight Club: Cyber April 19, 2023

Corp CISOs – you get to go free and make the VARs squirm. Let me know if u need a reg code

VAR/MSSPs – you’re the fighters but if you are not fighting and want to hand with 40 CISOs you need to buy a block of tickets at the Eventbrite link below

Vendors – only 10 get to go. 9 have already signed up. Out of 450 cyber execs, only 50 will be vendors. Gotta love that ratio. Who wants the last spot?

We asked DFWs top Corporate CISOs to give us challenging cybersecurity issues and we’re having top VAR execs duke it out on stage in a raucous debate.

Tired of hearing the same ‘ol same ‘ol at cybersecurity conferences? Tired of being kissed up to or not being able to speak your mind in a proposal?

So are we.

Only 40 CISOs, 40 VARs/MSSps and 5 Vendors may attend. Everyone gets to vote for the winners. No pressure.

Mayhem, indeed!

 

The Fight Format

  • Opening salvo: 30 seconds each
  • Rebuttal #1: 30 seconds each
  • Rebuttal #2: 30 seconds each
  • Ref question #1: 15 seconds each
  • Rebuttal #3: 15 seconds each
  • Ref question #2: 15 seconds each
  • Rebuttal #4: 15 seconds each

Here’s how to participate:

No tickets will be made available to the general public. VARs/MSSPs and Corporations (CISOs & teams) attend as a unit. Their people register individually with codes we give them once they have been accepted into the event.

Corporate (CISO)

Coprorate CISOs (or equivalent) and their teams go for free and must be VAR users

  • FREE
  • 1 – VIP ticket
    • Virtual VIP Reception (Corprate CISOs and VAR CEOs)
    • Must be CISO or equivalent
  • 4 – GA tickets
    • Must be on corporate CISO team
  • After Party access

How do you get access as a CISO?

  • Your CISO or equivalent needs to attend. This is not a “send my minions” sort of event.
  • You need to be a corporation that uses VARs. Or is about to. This is the place to do your recon.
  • Bring your senior team members
  • There are only 40 Corporate CISO blocks available.

Email Michael Pratt at mike@digitalfightclub.co to get a code.

VARs/MSSPs

There are no “pay for play” speaking roles. Participating VARs/MSSPs and vendors chip in to help us cover costs by buying a “block” that suits their needs.

There are 3 levels.

  • Entry: $500
    • 1 – VIP ticket
      • VIP Reception access
      • After Party access
      • VIP parking
    • 2 – GA tickets
      • After Party access
    • Must be senior VAR/MSSP employees
  • Standard: $1,250
    • 1 – VIP ticket
      • VIP Reception access
      • After Party access
      • VIP parking
    • 4 – GA tickets
      • After Party access
    • Must be senior VAR/MSSP employees
  • Premium: $2,500
    • 2 – VIP tickets
      • VIP Reception access
      • After Party Access
      • VIP parking
      • VIP seating
    • 8 – GA tickets
      • After Party access
    • Must be senior VAR/MSSP employees

There are only 40 total VAR/MSSP blocks avaialble. That includes the 10 VAR/MSSP fighter slots.

Grab a block for your VAR now

Sponsors

Sponsors: 10 fight corner sponsor blocks only: You can imagine what a hot ticket one of these blocks is. We are opening up 5 opportunities smaller bar/food package options. Email Michael Pratt at mike@digitalfightclub.co for more details.

As we all know, conferences are vendor-fests. It’s like 100 guys trying to get that one girl to dance. Not Digital Fight Club. Vendors are outnumbered 4 to 1. Check out who’s coming to the dance:

 


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Marketing
It’s Back! Digital Fight Club ‘Marketing’ | Check Out the Line-Up
Digital Fight Club Posted On January 10, 2023


Fights Announced!

CMOs have spoken…so much so that we added a 6th fight. We asked them to list their biggest challenges and we got agency execs to fight over those issues.

Fight #1: Bottom funnel marketing in a world without tracking

Fight #2: Channel fragmentation: spread out or concentrate

Fight #3: Who controls the narrative: brand or consumer?

Fight #4: Influencer marketing: is it worth it?

Fight #5: The Agency/Brand business model

Fight #6: AI in marketing

Registration is open and there are only 451 seats at the Granada. Brands & Agencies need to head over to https://dfcmarketing23.eventbrite.com and sign up for the can’t miss marketing event of 2023.

NOTE: tickets are not avail to the general public. This is for brands and agencies.


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Marketing
Digital Fight Club: Dallas Startup Week: Fight #3 Supply Chain
Digital Fight Club Posted On July 18, 2022


Fight #3: Supply Chain

Unless you have been living under a rock, you are probably well aware that Covid threw the supply chain into utter chaos. Let’s watch 2 experts who both founded companies trying to tackle the issue duke it out.

Register here (it’s free): dfcdsw22.eventbrite.com

VS


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Marketing
Digital Fight Club: Dallas Start Up Week Announces First 3 Fighters | Register Now!
Digital Fight Club Posted On May 25, 2022


Announcing our first 3 amazing fighters

Register here: dfcdsw22.eventbrite.com

Remember: a Dallas Startup Week attendee # is required to register

As you know, we like to pit CEOs and Founders against each other and we continue our trend of finding the best DFW has to offer:

 

CEO – STEMuli
Fight #1: The Metaverse
Founder/COO – Holy Kombucha
Fight #2: Brand/Consumer Transparency
CEO, Eden Green
Fight #4: Sustainability, Profitability & Growth

Fight Sponsorship

See below: we only have ONE fight sponsorship left.

Email Michael Pratt (mike@digitalfightclub.co) to grab the last spot.


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Advertising  / Digital Fight Club
Deadline to Register for Digital Fight Club is 11:30 PM | Get Her Done!
Digital Fight Club Posted On June 7, 2021


This is your last chance…Why?

We are cutting off registration at 11:30pm tonight. If you don’t register, you won’t get an access code to the amazing platform we built for Digital Fight Club and you’ll have to endure other people talking about Fight Club.

Remind me again what’s happening?
1. Enjoy the fights in the DFC live platform with your friends on a virtual “Sofa” Zoom calls are so 2020.
2. Change sofas, find friends, chat up the audience, throw virtual tomatoes at the fighters.
3. Vote in the platform for each fighter. YOU determine the outcome.
4. Schmooze with the fighters and refs in the DFC Virtual After Party. It’s like nothing you have ever seen.

What’s the Fight Card again?

Fight #1: Future of Retail: Distribution, Shopping & Stores
Fighters: Roee Adler – CEO, Santa vs Steve Dennis – President, SageBerry
Fight #2: Future of Work: Remote Work, Culture & Technology
Fighters: Nick Clark – CEO, Common Desk vs Sam Bloom – CEO, Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media
Fight #3: Post-Pandemic Collective Displacement: How brands engage with consumers
Fighters: Pedro Lerma – CEO, LERMA vs Matt Powell – CEO, Moroch
Fight #4: Health Care: Remote Care & Innovation
Fighters: Hubert Zajicek – CEO, Health Wildcatters vs Lyndsey Harper – CEO, Rosy

 

I WANT A TICKET!

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Marketing
Digital Fight Club Teaser | Check it Out!
Digital Fight Club Posted On May 26, 2021


Everything you know about virtual events changes with this year’s Digital Fight Club!


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Advertising  / Digital Fight Club  / Events
Digital Fight Club Returns with Fabulous Virtual Interface! | Check Out the Fighters and Refs | Get $10 Tickets Now!
Digital Fight Club Posted On May 13, 2021


We broke the rules…again! Digital Fight Club returns, Virtual Edition, on June 9, 2021 in Dallas, TX.

5 new fights. 10 new fighters. 5 new refs. 

A whole new experience.

Do you have Zoom fatigue? So do we. We will once again destroy all your notions of what a virtual event looks like.

GET TICKETS

Wait….what?
• You will interact
• You will heckle
• You will vote
• You will be entertained
• You will learn something
• You will meet someone worth meeting
• You will see high energy fights (duh)
• You will have a cocktail (or not)
• You will wonder why you do Zoom calls
ALL of this will take place on our newly re-imagined virtual fighting platform. Experience the fights with your friends on your own 8 person virtual couch. Chat up the audience. Throw virtual tomatoes and so much more.

The Fight Card
Fight #1: Future of the Cloud: Public vs Private, Edge & Security
Fighters: TBA vs TBA

Fight #2: Future of Work: Remote Work, Culture & Technology
Fighters: TBA vs TBA

Fight #3: Post-Pandemic Collective Displacement: Immediate Reversion vs Never Returning
Fighters: Pedro Lerma CEO, LERMA vs Matt Powell, CEO Moroch

Fight #4: Future of Retail: Distribution, Shopping & Stores
Fighters: Roee Adler – CEO, Santa vs TBA

Fight #5: Health care: Remote Care & Innovation
Fighters: Hubert Zajicek, CEO, Health Wildcatters vs Lyndsey Harper, CEO, Rosy

The Referees

Managing Director, Innovation Lead, Accenture
Analytics nerd
Prefers R to Matlab
Another Cali transplant

CTO, McKesson
Pharma nerd
Cali transplant
Likes to help save lives

VP, Emerging Technology, Walmart
Machine Learning afficiando
Dreams about R subroutines
Hoosier

CIO, Kimberly Clark
Pepsi not Coke
Computer Scientist
Moutaineer

NTX Inno / Dallas Business Journal
Former teacher
lover of Motorcycles and tech startups
Frustrated Radish gardener


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AdChat Interviews  / Digital Fight Club
Did You Miss Digital Fight Club 2020:Marketing? Watch Fights and Pre-Fight Interviews
Digital Fight Club Posted On March 23, 2020


Digital Fight Club expanded this year to include a new marketing twist. Six verbal sparring fights between C-level ad agency executives took place February 26th, in front of 5 CMO referees who asked very tough questions. The fighters were judged by over 400 of their competition and peers. 

Watch the pre-fight interviews and the actual fights below. 


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Digital Fight Club
Attention CMOs! Digital Fight Club is Hosting Huge Digital Marketing Fight February 26 | Get In on the Action Now!
Digital Fight Club Posted On November 25, 2019


Get ready for a Marketing only Fight Club on Feb 26, 2020 at The Granada

Attention: Brands & Agencies Digital Marketing 2020 is now open for entries! 

The Who:
• 5 big name CMO referees
• 5 marketing fights picked by the ref CMOs
• 10 agency exec fighters
• An audience of 40% brands, 40% agencies, 10% ad tech vendors, 10% marketing orgs
• No Sponsors!


The What:
Agencies get to fight in front of 35-40 amazing DFW brands. Brands get to finally get a straight answer from their agencies. Everyone gets to vote for the winner. Better than any pitch you’ll ever give or receive.
The When:
• Wed – Feb 26, 2020
• 6pm-10pm
• The Granada Theater – Dallas, TX


The How:
• Brands: You go for free. You get to bring your CMO and 3 additional marketing leaders.
• Agencies: You can buy a “block” – there are 3 levels.
• Ad Tech Vendors: We are keeping this quite limited. You get to buy a block like the agencies.
• Marketing Orgs: You go for free. Kumbaya!
• The Eventbrite page is now live. We have made a limited number of agency, vendor and org blocks available now. Brand blocks are released after you connect with me.
• Contact Michael Pratt at mike@panamplify.com or by cell: 914-309-4191

________________________________________


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Digital Fight Club
How Did Digital Fight Club Begin? | Read the Untold Story
Digital Fight Club Posted On August 19, 2019


By Payton Potter

Now in its fourth year, Digital Fight Club is returning later this month to the Granada Theater in Dallas. Take a look inside the upcoming fight night and the events that led to its creation.

Michael Pratt thinks panels are boring. That’s the inspiration behind Digital Fight Club, a no-holds-barred event that pits technology experts against each other in a head-to-head, rapid-fire discussion on a hot-button topic rooted in innovation. And, it’s returning to Dallas later this month.

Pratt, who spends most of his days as CEO of Panamplify, told Dallas Innovates the idea for founding Digital Fight Club was born as most good ideas are: over beers with a friend.

Pratt says he was having drinks at Uptown’s Common Table with Andrew Hopkins, managing director of Industry X.0 at Accenture, when conversation turned to the Accenture Interactive Trends Book. “They wanted to be seen as thought leaders, but they weren’t sure if anybody even read [the trends book],” he says. “And I was lamenting that I kind of run out of ideas for innovative events. And we somehow came to this notion that panels are boring.”

The pair decided to combine their frustrations and find a solution—and so Digital Fight Club was born.

Pratt and Hopkins decided to match up experts in a raucous debate, pulling items from the trends book to use as debate topics. And the result was explosive.

“In a panel, no one’s incentivized to actually say what they think. Everybody wants to pontificate and be seen as an august professional waxing eloquently. But no one really learns anything,” Pratt says. “With that in mind, we somehow just came to, ‘Well, why don’t we make people who are really smart, have done a lot, and are experts in a particular field, fight?’”

Digital Fight Club goes hand-in-hand with Digital Dallas, an organization Pratt founded some ten years ago to bolster the entrepreneurial community in North Texas.

According to Digital Dallas’ website, the organization has two missions: growing the community of digital professionals in the region and helping to brand North Texas as a “center of excellence” in digital fields. It accomplishes these goals with nontraditional events intended to help professionals build meaningful professional relationships.

“I have sincerely believed in the vibrancy of the Dallas-Fort Worth tech community for 10 years, which inspired the founding of Digital Dallas in 2010,” Pratt says

How Digital Fight Club works

The hour-long event is made up of five 10-minute rounds, each moderated by five referees and consisting of two questions. For each question (the second of which is a ‘jump ball’), both fighters have a 45-second opening and a 30-second rebuttal. When the fight is over, the audience and referees use a mobile app to vote for who they think is the winner.

“If you get up there in front of an audience, you’ve got to make a point and argue. You’re not pulling any punches, and you’re not on a panel—you have to commit,” Pratt says. “We have a cocktail party beforehand; we have an after party afterwards. We encourage commentary, participation, cat calling, you name it.”

And though the 2019 event is only the fourth Fight Night to be held in Dallas, Pratt says big names in North Texas entrepreneurship have taken notice. Former referees include Mark Cuban and C-suite executives from 7-Eleven, Frito-Lay, AT&T, Texas Utilities, and WeWork.

Digital Fight Club 2019

This year’s event will be held at The Granada Theater on Greenville Avenue in East Dallas. Doors will open at 6 p.m. and the fights will start at 7 p.m. At 8, the fights will end and attendees are welcome to head over to the Sundown Saloon for drinks and networking.

When does the night end? Well, that’s a bit unclear. Pratt says it’s not uncommon to see C-suite execs milling around the saloon late into the night.

This year’s fighters will duke it out over five topics, Public Transport Technology: Taming the Wild West, Secure Me: Digital Safety across the ecosystem, Silence: To digitally disconnect or not, Synthetic Reality: Does real even matter?, and Get to Know Me: Data, Personalization & Privacy.

When it comes to public transport technology, Steven Duong, (VP of design and planning at AECOM) will go head-to-head with Robert Mundinger (founder of TheMap.net). Taking on the topic of digital safety are Lee Harrison (CEO of Thru) and Stephen Ellis (CTO of Plymouth AI).

Digital connection will be tackled by two mind experts: Jennifer Zientz (director of clinical services at Center for BrainHealth) and Michelle Adams (president of marketing at Brainology).

While the Digital Fight Club experience is far from a synthetic reality, two experts will still dig into the topic. This round pits Farrukh Malik (CEO of Roomored) against Steve Nix (CEO of ForwardXP).

Lastly, data, personalization, and privacy will be the topic of discussion between Mike Orren (chief product officer, Dallas Morning News/Belo) and Andy Chen (senior vice president of +1 Labs: Match).

Pratt promises attendees an entertaining and informative forum filled with engaging debate and lively pop shots, followed by best-in-class networking. At any rate, the once-a-year event is not to be missed.

“Everybody says they wish it lasted longer,” Pratt says. “The reason it doesn’t is because when we we start at 7, and it’s over at 8, everybody is so jazzed that they want to go talk about it. So, they all migrate right next door at the sundown saloon, and the after party on a Wednesday goes to 11.”


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