understanding of how the brain works have come a long way since then. Sullivan’s basic interest is in
“helping people understand how we work — spe- cifically how our biology works — so that we can work better,” she said. “And we really have not had that information until neuroscience really started taking off 20 years ago.” One of Sullivan’s specialties is meetings — a
Andrea E. Sullivan
“Sensory memory is really short — we’re talking fractions of seconds.”
focus that grew out of her interest in how the mod- ern brain contends with the amount of stimuli we encounter on a daily basis. “It’s really a huge issue for our society — that we are all learning to use our brains differently to deal with information over- load and an overload of stimulation from our many digital technologies,” she said. “And with meetings and events, there is a big question: How do we actually go to these things and retain anything?” But Sullivan didn’t drill down into the specific
role that audiovisual technology could play in learning at meetings until she participated in an
industry event as part of a panel alongside Greg Van Dyke, senior vice president for global sales and marketing at PSAV Presentation Services. After hearing Sullivan speak about neuroscience and technology, Van Dyke asked her to partner with him on a project that looked at brain sci- ence and AV. “I said okay,” Sullivan said. “We all talk about a lot of things when we are leaving conferences, right? I did not give it a second thought.” But Van Dyke persisted, and eventually Sul-
livan dug into the project, looking at how the ever-expanding capacity of technology to project images, sound, and color could be grounded in neuroscience principles and theories to help plan- ners use AV most effectively. Sullivan came away convinced that event technology deserved to be treated as a key component of meeting design — not just another logistical detail. “Knowing what we know now about how the brain processes information and about how we experience events,” she said, AV “really needs to be a part of a learning design and a strategy.”
Test Time Here’s how to earn your CEU hour. Once you finish reading this CMP Series article, read the report “Audiovisual Technologies and Adult Learning in Meetings,” produced by BrainStrength Systems and PSAV Presentation Services, at convn.org/psav-brain.
To earn one hour of CEU credit, visit pcma.org/convenecmp to answer questions about the information contained in this CMP Series article and the additional material
The Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) is a registered trademark of the Convention Industry Council.
42 PCMA CONVENE MARCH 2013
Brain Basics That’s already happening at many events, accord- ing to Sullivan. But she sees a lot of haphazard event technology being used as it always has been
— without a lot of thought. “Some people,” Sullivan said, “are just looking at the price point when they do their AV: ‘How can we get what we need for the lowest price?’” Or, on the flip side, some planners may load up
on so many audiovisual elements that it ends up being counterproductive. “I see things [where] somebody really went through a lot of trouble to create an experience, but they end up with an