CONVENING LEADERS PREVIEW

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dance, acrobatics, and live music, the show is a tribute to the life and musicof Elvis Presley. Steve Wynn and Garth Brooks have announced that Brooks will perform in the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas for a series of special engagements. Comedian/impressionist Frank Caliendo has become a permanent headliner on the Las Vegas Strip with a new show at Monte Carlo. Caliendo and Monte Carlo have signed an exclusive 10-year agreement.

Restaurants The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas has announced a diverse list of culinary partners and restaurant brands. To date, the roster will include Blue Ribbon by restaurateurs Bruce and Eric Bromberg;Comme Ça by acclaimed Los

Angeles chef David Myers; New York City’s Estiatorio Milos by restaurateur Costas Spiliadis; Scarpetta and a new casual wine bar by award-winning chef Scott Conant; and popular steakhouse STK from The One Group. Martin Heierling, the innovator behind Bellagio’s renowned Sensi, serves as executive chef for Vdara and its restaurant Silk Road. Inspired by the ancient trade route of the same name, Silk Road offers a contemporary Mediter- ranean menu that begins with fresh, sustainable ingredients, then travels the world via Middle Eastern and Asian influ- ences brought to Europe. A variety of restaurants are debuting at CityCenter’s Crystals retail and entertainment district, including Eva Lon- goria Parker’s Beso; Mastro’s Ocean Club; Todd English P.U.B., a new pub concept by Todd English; and The Pods byWolf- continued on page 143

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world. Management philosophies written for the 20th-century businesses no longer apply.Transformation is the only thing that will apply to corporations today—or to meetings or individuals. Education is a good metaphor for the kind of change that is needed. Education has been based on rote learning and mem-

The Millenials—the people who have come of age in this mil- lennium—are very civic- and service-minded. They want to change the world. They say: “This is the model you [Baby Boomers] embraced, it’s broken, and we are going to do things our own way.” They are perceived as being entitled, and that’s all people see. But what the Millennials really are is much more

“I think we are going through a very difficult time of reorganization, which is preparing us for a new golden age. I really do.”

orized knowledge. What’s needed now is emphasis on the “five Cs”: creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, content, and con- text. In the future, creativity will be the crucial quality for busi- ness managers.

How can meetings adapt to the new reality? If meeting planners say, “This is the way we’ve always done it, and this is the way we’ll keep doing it”—those meetings are going to cease to be relevant. Meeting planners have to attempt to adapt, addingTwitter hashtag groups and Facebook pages to their meeting strategy, for example. Another adaptation is hav- ingmore time in meetings for people to interact with each other. As we’ve become higher-tech, we’ve also become higher-touch. You have to create that larger, high-touch context, so that peo- ple have time to meet and get together. Meetings also need to embrace the connectivity of the digital age, and keep the con- nections going before and after the meetings.

You’ve spoken and written extensively about two generations: the Millennials and the Digital Natives. Where will they fit into the future?

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collaborative in their decision-making. They are able to make collaborative decisions much more quickly than the Boomers. Leaders and managers of the next 20 to 30 years will figure out how to get us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. The Digital Natives are the first generation born in a digi-

tal landscape. They can’t remember not being on the Internet, they can never remember not having computers,MomandDad not having cell phones, not having dozens of channels on TV. They can concentrate on multiple things at once—it’s been shown that they are using more of their brain capacity. Twenty years ago, only the greatest scholars in the world had

access to the information that any 10-year-old with a high-speed Internet connection now has. The Digital Natives will be a gen- eration with a high percentage of innovators, artists, and entre- preneurs. In the United States, the combined Millennial and Digital Native generations together will have two million more members than the Baby Boomer generation. From 2010 to 2050, the Millennials and the Digital Natives are going to define our country.

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