SLIM hosts Lon Safko at ground-breaking Colombo workshop

World-renowned inventor, futurist and bestselling author Lon Safko conducted a sold out workshop on 27th May at Water’s Edge Battaramulla, enlightening the local marketing fraternity on his latest concepts which are revolutionising marketing globally.

The workshop was organised by Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) and was based on Lon’s newest bestselling book ‘The Fusion Marketing Bible’ and his patent pending ‘Safko Wheel Marketing Toolkit’. Lon educated the participants on the importance of looking beyond Facebook in social media marketing, how to utilize digital marketing within limited budgets and how to maximize return on investment through fusion marketing, while practically demonstrating how a marketing plan should be developed.

Lon has worked closely with the late,great Steve Jobsof Apple Inc. from the early days of the company, and created the “First Computer To Save A Human Life”, as coined by Jobs. Lon also developed the Fully Graphic Operating System, which was the archetype for the Apple Newton. Unveiled in 1993, the Apple Newton was the world’s first ever PDA, and introduced the world to thewonders of a streamlined user interface.

‘The Fusion Marketing Bible’, which has been translated into three languages, explains how to pinpoint the most effective elements of traditional marketing efforts and combine them with social media and digital marketing to reach more customers, while spending less money. Lon’s previous book, ‘The Social Media Bible’, was also an Amazon #1 bestseller and is now in its 3rd edition. It is the first and only book to tackle the whole gamut of social media marketing and has been translated into five languages.

In addition the achievements stated above, Lon has programmed over 1 million lines of code and introduced many pioneering software and hardware solutions to the world, including voice recognition, voice synthesizing, and home automation. As an entrepreneur he has founded over 14 companies, including Paper Models Inc., based on Lon’s Three-Dimensional Internet Advertising and Virtual-Electronic-Retailing (V-E-Tailing) for business, promotions, and education. Moreover, 18 of Lon’s inventions are part of the permanent collection of the prestigious Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. along with 30,000 of his personal papers. He has 14 inventions in the collection of The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California as well.

This was the latest in a series of world class training programmes organised by Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM). SLIM had previously featured the world’s‘ Marketing Guru’ Philip Kotler,leading marketing consultant for Fortune 100 brands Keith Chambers and the author of the international bestseller ‘Global Marketing 6th Edition’ Prof. Svend Hollensen in its programmes.

The sponsors for the Lon Safko workshop included Sampath Bank as the Banking Partner, Hayleys Industries and Kanrich Finance as the Financial Partners, MEC as the Digital Partner, Wijeya Newspapers as the Print Media Partner, TNL, Lite FM& Derana TV as the Electronic Media Partners, Myjobs.lk as the HR partner, Splendor Media as the Creative Partner, Total PR as the PR Partner and Ants Work as the Event Partner.