One + May 2011 - (Page 82)

Scan this tag with your smart phone for David Rock’s insight from TEDxBlue into how we can create successful thinkers and leaders. IN 2010, ROCK EARNED A PROFESSIONAL doctorate in the neuroscience of leadership. He is quick to point out that a professional doctorate—which became popular in the U.K. in the 1990s and combines professional experience with academic education—is not the same as a Ph.D., which is strictly academic in nature. His thesis was based on his four books: Personal Best (Simon & Schuster, 2001), Quiet Leadership (Harper Collins, 2006), Coaching with the Brain in Mind (Wiley & Sons, 2009) and Your Brain at Work (HarperBusiness, 2009). All of his work on neuroleadership has led Rock to some ideas about how conferences should be organized. As someone who speaks at events at least once a week and also organizes the annual NeuroLeadership Summit, Rock has thought long and hard about how the brain works during conferences. Conferences sell the allure of participants gaining unique insights and making connections with like-minded people, Rock says. Those two aspects “are the two really valuable parts of attending a conference.” He understands that for economic reasons, most conference organizers focus on ﬁlling seats. To do that, the conference committee throws in as many big-name speakers as they can get their hands on so that the program looks absolutely irresistible. “You look at the smorgasbord and you get really excited with such a huge choice of offerings,” Rock says. But the brain reacts badly to this jampacked approach, which usually consists of auditoriums of listeners passively sitting before a parade of speakers. The brain shuts down because, he says, “the actual experience of too many ideas in a 82 day is really overwhelming.” The smorgasbord approach backﬁres. So Rock has a theory. Don’t ram the convention centers up to the rafters with bodies. Cut down on the number of presenters. Focus on what the participants actually experience. Allow for unstructured mingling time. He advocates having sessions with less than 30 minutes of formal, pre-planned delivery. Within those 30 minutes, there needs to be interactive components every 10 minutes. It could be letting participants discuss the ideas amongst themselves, an activity that participants do alone or with each other or a discussion about the applications or implications of an idea, often facilitated by a person who is not the presenter. The session can close with the typical 10-minute Q&A. “In the end, conferences will be more proﬁtable because personal testimony is one of the best forms of marketing in the social media world,” he says. Rock believes conferences will be more proﬁtable in the long run with that approach than trying to attract participants with an overwhelming number of topics and hot-shot speakers. He is putting his money where his mouth is, and his team will be structuring the 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit later this year in San Francisco around his theory. Over the next ﬁve years, Rock will be focused on entrenching neuroleadership as a bona ﬁde ﬁeld of study. “What’s important is to create a solid body of research that is much bigger than me and lasts a lot longer.” RAJENDRANI (RAJ) MUKHOPADHYAY, PH.D., is a freelance science writer and editor based in Bethesda, Maryland. one+ 05.11 http://www.hardrock.com http://www.hardrockhotels.com http://www.hardrock.com http://www.hardrockmeetings.com http://www.facebook.com/hardrock http://www.twitter.com/hardrockdotcom

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + May 2011

One + May 2011
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Meeting Design Goes Mobile
Picking Brains
Agenda
Ask the Experts
Thoughts+Leaders
Overheard
Art of Travel
Web Watch
Radical Co-creation
Engagement + Innovation = Wunderbar
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
The Business of Being Social
Safety in Numbers
Ads, Sponsors and Patrons
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
It’s Getting Better All the Time
Blame It on Rio
Ride Free
Learning How the Brain Learns
Just Face It
Becoming Mindful with Your Meetings
Group Think
The Mesh Meeting
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again

One + May 2011