Judy Faulkner focuses on Epic Systems’ future in annual users group address

Judy Faulkner focuses on Epic Systems’ future in annual users group address

Epic CEO and founder Judy Faulkner took the stage at the company’s Verona campus Tuesday in neon checkered socks, a red velvet overcoat, a bright green vest, and a top hat festooned with a flouncy ribbon.

Like other users group meetings in years past, she was going to give her executive address in costume — this time as the Mad Hatter.

“I bet you thought I was going to be the rabbit,” she chortled.

 The costume corresponded with the 2016 Users Group Meeting’s Alice in Wonderland theme, and was just one example of the whimsy on display at the conference. In the lobby outside the Deep Space auditorium — nearly filled to its 11,400-seat capacity with conference attendees — performance artists dressed as playing cards waltzed among the crowd. Just outside the auditorium was an enormous canvas tent set up as a gathering place for the thousands of visitors, cluttered with miniature tea pavilions, halls of mirrors, and rabbit-hole recreations.

The address from Faulkner wasn’t just another of the conference’s set pieces. It also provided a rare glimpse at what one of the Madison area’s biggest employers has been up to — as well as what it will be up to in years to come.

Faulkner’s address was strikingly forward-looking. For the last 15 minutes of the speech, Faulkner talked about the future of not just Epic, but of the health of human beings as a whole — from the potential impacts of self-driving cars, to the future of monitoring patients through wearable technology and things like “smart pills.”

Read full article by Erik Lorenzsonn at The Capital Times>>