Technology and the people driving it are changing the way we see and experience just about everything, especially the dissemination of knowledge in meetings, events, seminars, and classrooms. Over the past few years I’ve been honored to speak at a number of events – everything from digital marketing summits, social media conferences, event planning think tanks, American Heart Association global conferences, and 
Asset-Based Thinking workshops to local town hall meetings with moms and kids. And now, I am fortunate to be teaching at USC’s Marshall School of Business creating lectures and engaging students in the digital classroom. For me, these experiences have been an invigorating, ever-expanding exposure to a new world of communications, information exchange, and a re-discovery of the art of personal persuasion in a digital age.
The Gift of Positive Disruption
After almost five decades in the marketing communications business and at the ripe young age of 67, I find myself in awe of and thoroughly energized by how the nature of knowledge-based meetings, conferences, and facilitated learning has changed. As a communications person I was fascinated by (and sometimes leery of) the pervasive influence of technolo – it is everywhere, every time, and with everyone. Live-streaming, iPads, open laptops, video, i-reporting, real-time blogs, tweet streams, back-channels, podcasts, Blackberries, personalized video channels, iPhones, 
webinars, etc. are now standard fare. As an asset-based thinker, rather than being intimidated and threatened by these tech tools and rapid-fire changes, I looked at them as challenges and powerful positive gifts of disruption, and jumped on board. My leeriness about depersonalization, disconnectedness, and distraction dissolved into a firm embrace of these tools as assets and a belief that, when properly utilized, all this tech is helping create richer, deeper, more connected and sustainable knowledge sharing.
Article comments
1 - Hank Wasiak
Thanks for the comment. Great point about how the way people "attend" meetings has changed.....live and in the network. My sense is that there will always be a group of people (like me) that enjoy the personal "I to Eye" engagement that comes with being there. And now, we have the opportunity to simultaneously convey that experience in the network and have it live vibrantly well beyond the moment. Exciting and thanks for the sharing your thoughts.
H