On_the_Web

Catch featured videos from PopTech atwww.poptech.org/popcasts. The website also has information about the PopTech “accelerator” programs, including PopTech Labs, a collaborative problem-solving initiative.

Watch videos from theWomen’s Conference atwww.womensconference.org. Video and transcripts from Clinton Global Initiative meetings are available atwww.clintonglobalinitiative.org. Information about Creative Oklahoma and the CreativityWorld Forum is available at http://stateofcreativity.com. Links to the bloggers featured at theWorld Business Forum can be found at http://bit.ly/9Lqxwj.

Find information about The Economist’s “Ideas Economy” series, including a blog and videos about the collaborative conference experience, at http://ideas.economist.com.

actions andmake it easier for people to talk to one another. Sev- ers said: “We took that as an opportunity to say, ‘Oh, wait, there’s another experience that can happen over the course of the conference that you are in control of.’” The five cards included “Dare Cards,” which prompted

attendees to go up and talk to a favorite speaker or another attendee; “Buzzword Cards,” which asked attendees to col- laboratively createnewwords; and “Book Jacket Cards,” which instructed participants to find others withwhomto create a book cover based on ideas they heard at the conference. Organizers collected the results at the end of the first day and presented them at the conference, and also made them available on the Ideas Economy website, along with an analysis of the tool. The cards were coded by job title, and while only about a

third of attendees played the game, most of them were in lead- ership or creative positions. “Participation gave those attendees a different stake in the conference,” Severs said. “They created their own content out of their experience.” In general, he said, people are expectingmore fromtheir interactions at every con- ference they attend. “They want to walkawaywith some result.”

Beyond Talking Heads And that brings us to another characteristic of the big-idea con- ference: a focus on tangible results. At the ClintonGlobal Initia- tive, eachmember createsaconcrete plantoaddressamajorglobal challenge. Since 2005,membershavemademorethan 1,900com- mitments in more than 170 countries; when fully funded and implemented, these programswill be valued at $63 billion.

“Coming out of this is an understanding that people need to connect, and they need to connect physically. It is very important for people to be inspired by one another.”

46 pcmaconvene January 2011

Similarly, in the last seven years, theWomen’s Conference

has awarded $350,000 in scholarships to young women, given a quarter-million dollars to domestic-violence shelters, and awarded more than $1 million in grants through its Min- erva Awards, a program created in 2004 to fund the work of women whose efforts are making the world a better place. In Oklahoma, grants programs associated with Creative

Oklahoma formally funds ideas and projects, but some achieve- ments are the result of the combustive effect of two or more minds meeting. The creation of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of CentralOklahoma, for example, was born out of discussions between Creative Oklahoma board members Scott Booker, manager of the Oklahoma City–based band The Flaming Lips, Central Oklahoma’s president, and a board adviser from England who was familiar with the Acad- emy of Contemporary Music in Liverpool. The partnership between the Thomas Tallis School, out-

side London, and Howe High School, in rural eastern Okla- homa, had a similarly organic beginning. Students at the two schools communicated via Skype, and then met at the Cre- ativityWorld Forum, where they jointly participated in an experimental “pop-up” school,with content taught by video and podcast. Howe is “literally in the middle of nowhere,” a Tallis teacher wrote on the school’s blog. “Apart from the school building, the only other significant architectural fea- tures in Howe are the convenience store and the lumber- yard.” In spite of its isolation—or, more likely, because of it—the Oklahoma high school is leading learning experi- ments across the United States using videoconferencing. The British teacher wrote: “Howe High School teacher Tammy Sparks proved to be an inspirational colleague.” Such uses of technology are reinventing education,

according to McCalmont, who noted that, in 2009, Creative Oklahoma hosted a one-day international symposium for 500 attendees called “The New Renaissance,” which looked at creativity and the intersection of the arts, sciences, and technology. “Coming out of this is an understanding that people need to connect, and they need to connect physically,” McCalmont said. “It is very important for people to be inspired by one another.”

Barbara Palmer is a senior editor of Convene. www.pcma.org