connect circle 2026: When a Format Strikes a Chord

The sec­ond con­nect cir­cle. Anniver­sary edi­tion. Because in 2026, dimedis will cel­e­brate its 30^th anniver­sary. Three decades of retail, trade shows, and events. Three decades of soft­ware built with peo­ple in mind. It’s hard to imag­ine a bet­ter set­ting for this event.

Around 120 experts gath­ered in Cologne. Once again, two indus­tries; once again, a clear goal: not just to dis­cuss the future, but to shape it together.

An Evening on the Rhine: 30 Years of dimedis

The event didn’t kick off with a tra­di­tion­al con­fer­ence recep­tion, but rather with our anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion. On June 16 at Pe303 in Zoll­hafen, we cel­e­brat­ed 30 years of dimedis. With appe­tiz­ers, a BBQ, music, and con­ver­sa­tions that last­ed well past mid­night. Cus­tomers, part­ners, col­leagues, and new faces — all under one roof. Three decades and the ener­gy of the evening showed us one thing above all else: This isn’t a look back — it’s a new begin­ning. It was the per­fect start to a day of events that had plen­ty in store the next morning.

Retail Media and Com­merce Media: More Pres­sure, More Opportunities

The day’s pro­gram at the Clouth Quarti­er began with a ques­tion that affects both indus­tries simul­ta­ne­ous­ly: How are retail and com­merce media shap­ing the future of retail and trade shows? And how far apart are the two in this regard?

The answer was both sober­ing and moti­vat­ing. In retail, data-dri­ven in-store adver­tis­ing is no longer a top­ic for the future — it’s already a key dri­ver of sales. Those who mean­ing­ful­ly inte­grate screens into an over­all con­cept, man­age them cen­tral­ly, and dis­play con­tent across mul­ti­ple loca­tions have been shown to achieve bet­ter results. The trade show indus­try, on the oth­er hand, has not yet ful­ly tapped into the poten­tial of its own space and vis­i­tor data. Touch­points along the vis­i­tor jour­ney — which are already a giv­en in phys­i­cal retail — often do not even exist at trade show venues. View­ing com­merce media as a core part of the port­fo­lio, rather than as an add-on prod­uct, was one of the panel’s key messages.

What both indus­tries have in com­mon: Any­one who doesn’t under­stand by 2030 how Gen­er­a­tion Z con­sumes, vis­its trade shows, and makes pur­chas­ing deci­sions will have bet on the wrong strat­e­gy. Boris Hed­de from IFH Cologne made it clear that this gen­er­a­tion will account for 16 per­cent of the con­sumer mar­ket in less than four years. The time to adapt is now.

AI: Don’t Wait, but Don’t Go Over­board Either

Robin Heintze from more­fire deliv­ered one of the most straight­for­ward pre­sen­ta­tions of the day. No reas­sur­ing mes­sages, but no scare­mon­ger­ing either. His the­sis: How you han­dle AI isn’t deter­mined by whether you use tools, but by how you use them. Any­one who pro­duces con­tent that sounds like it was gen­er­at­ed by a machine has missed the mark. On the oth­er hand, those who set up AI-sup­port­ed work­flows while main­tain­ing high qual­i­ty free up time for what mat­ters: gen­uine atten­tion. This trend is also evi­dent in search. GEO — that is, opti­miza­tion for gen­er­a­tive search sys­tems — will replace SEO in its cur­rent form. Brands that don’t make them­selves rel­e­vant to lan­guage mod­els now will sim­ply not be found.

Maren Seufert and Prof. Dr. Alexan­der Lutz approached the top­ic from a devel­op­ment per­spec­tive. Their ses­sion addressed the ques­tion of what hap­pens when AI increas­ing­ly writes soft­ware on its own. Maren Seufert, Prod­uct Own­er at dimedis, described a shift that goes beyond tools. Tra­di­tion­al code writ­ing is increas­ing­ly tak­ing a back seat. What is com­ing to the fore­front are sys­tem design, archi­tec­tur­al deci­sions, and a deep under­stand­ing of cus­tomer require­ments. Soft­ware devel­op­ers are becom­ing con­duc­tors who orches­trate AI rather than play­ing every note them­selves. Prof. Lutz added: ​“Those who are afraid to make mis­takes dur­ing this phase won’t learn any­thing.” This is a mind­set that has yet to take hold in many organizations.

Female Lead­er­ship: A Sta­tis­tic That Leaves No Room for Excuses

Dur­ing the pan­el dis­cus­sion on female lead­er­ship, one point stood out and res­onat­ed: The McK­in­sey study ​“Diver­si­ty Mat­ters Even More” shows that com­pa­nies with a high pro­por­tion of women in top man­age­ment are 39 per­cent more like­ly to achieve above-aver­age finan­cial suc­cess than com­pa­nies with the low­est pro­por­tion of women.

The dis­cus­sion quick­ly made it clear why this is the case. The ​“Thomas Prin­ci­ple” was a key con­cept: Peo­ple uncon­scious­ly hire peo­ple who resem­ble them. Thomas hires Thomas. There’s no ill will involved, but it’s a struc­tur­al prob­lem with real con­se­quences. Chris­tine Som­mer from NOMOO, Juliane Jähnke from agen­dum, and Kon­stanze Dallmey­er from dimedis spoke from their own expe­ri­ences. Jens von der Hey­dt from Hyper­code con­tributed the male per­spec­tive. Con­clu­sion: Any­one who treats female lead­er­ship as a women’s issue has mis­un­der­stood the ques­tion. It is a cor­po­rate and lead­er­ship issue.

Sneak Peek: kom­pas horizon

Moritz Schnei­der pro­vid­ed a first look at kom­pas hori­zon, the next gen­er­a­tion of the dimedis dig­i­tal sig­nage sys­tem. The direc­tion of devel­op­ment makes it clear that dig­i­tal sig­nage is no longer a cat­e­go­ry in its own right. It is becom­ing a func­tion — embed­ded in larg­er sys­tem archi­tec­tures, con­trolled con­tex­tu­al­ly, and more close­ly aligned with cus­tomer needs. Mar­co Wasser­mann of invidis impact under­scored this point in his mas­ter­class: Any­one who still treats dig­i­tal sig­nage as an iso­lat­ed dis­ci­pline is a gen­er­a­tion behind the times.

Mas­ter­class­es: Both Indus­tries, Spe­cif­ic Content

This con­nect cir­cle was more than just a pro­fes­sion­al event. It took place in a year that holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for dimedis. For 30 years, we have been devel­op­ing soft­ware for indus­tries that are con­stant­ly chang­ing. Through­out all these years, how­ev­er, one thing has remained the same: Tech­nol­o­gy only cre­ates real val­ue when it stays close to peo­ple. That is exact­ly what the con­nect cir­cle stands for: It doesn’t talk about the indus­try — it talks with it.

Thank you to all the speak­ers, part­ners, and guests. You made this sec­ond con­nect cir­cle what it was: an exchange that will have an impact long after the day is over.

See you at the next con­nect circle.