Welcome! You want to be future ready when engaging with your clients and customers? You made the right choice by joining us on the journey to leverage the latest information technologies and key aspects of the business. You will learn the vocabulary, stories, case studies, and create your own scenarios to not only walk but to build the bridge from the IT room to the board room. My name is Mark Mueller-Eberstein. I'm working in business functions at the cutting edge of the IT industry for over 25 years. As part of Rutgers Business School faculty and the founder of Edge Tech's consulting business, I get to help business leaders and IT leaders to envision and develop the potential of combining customer focus and exciting technology. I am so glad to share these insights and best practices to you too. The future is on its way, and an important part of that future is the engagement that customers have with the companies and products they are buying. This course directly addresses that need and gets you up to speed on the new technologies involved in this revolution as well as how other companies are using them. What specific products are involved, and help you begin thinking about how to apply them to your business or organization. This course is designed for people in business functions who want to understand beyond the buzzwords of what key technologies mean for their professional environment. And how to leverage them for success today and tomorrow. We will discuss what is changing in technology, business, and marketing. Together we will explore frameworks and strategies that are working in the real world. And prepare ourselves and our organizations to have the tools and a clear vision of how to succeed within the digital transformation, especially in the realm of marketing and management. To begin, I recommend taking a few minutes to explore the course site. A good place to start is the Navigation Bar on the left. Click on Course Content to see what material we'll cover each week as well as preview the assignments you'll need to complete to pass this course. Click Discussions to see forums where you can discuss the course material with fellow students taking the class. Be sure to introduce yourself to everyone in the Meet and Greet forum. This course should take about five weeks to complete. You can check out the recommended course schedule below to see a quick overview of the lessons and assignments you'll complete each week. The course is split into five modules. Digital transformation provides an overview and foundation. Helping you with background terminology and the tools to develop your own digital transformation journey. Augmented reality and virtual reality are the next level of customer immersion. We will discuss blockchain technology, likely a fundamental change to customer engagement, like the Internet itself. We will discuss the Internet of Things and big data and artificial intelligence and how they are changing customer engagement. Each module contains lectures and resources that will make you a business and technology expert in each of those fields. And equip you with the tools to apply to your business as well as the ability to clearly communicate what the digital transformation is and how it impacts your current or potential industry. At the end of this course, concepts and key words, like Internet of Things, augmented reality, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence will become so familiar to you that you will be the go-to expert for many of your peers. And you will be able to initiate strategy discussions on how to leverage them for improving the customer engagement. I am excited to have you in the class and look forward to helping you learn more about these critically important topics. And I feel honored to welcome and guide you in realizing your potential on the digital transformation journey.