I am officially addicted to EmTechMIT. Since returning to the left coast from last week’s event, every neuron in my body is firing from a reconnection to one of the ultimate “Climates of Yes."
On the website, the event is described as “…where technology, business, and culture converge. It’s the showcase for emerging technologies with the greatest potential to change our lives. It’s an access point to the most innovative people and companies in the world. Most of all, it is a place of inspiration—an opportunity to glimpse the future and begin to understand the technologies that matter and how they’ll change the face of business and drive the new global economy.”
That last bit bears repeating.
Many of us have been in communities where in-fighting and turf wards lead to implosion, slogging along directionless towards muddled goals or limited vision. If they even get that far. As one involved in the policy arena, a ground-breaking idea can quickly suffer pugilistic bandying and emerge a tired facsimile of itself.
MIT, and other environments like it, thrive on inspiration. More than the pride of irrefutable excellence and a reputation for providing the right answers, they are equally adept at asking the right questions. Certainly there is competition for funding and getting one’s idea to market, but the ship (in general) moves forward in collective and shared purpose.
One of the poignant takeaways from EmTechMIT, at least for me, is the reminder, lessons, and best practices this predisposition can provide to communities—regions, states, nations— towards heightened vision and more effective and successful outcomes. Can they push through negativity and self-limiting patterns, and instead redirect those energies to increase the pie versus fighting over the perception of limited slices? How can the USA reposition itself so that network density (as Steve Case of AOL termed it) can be realized across the national landscape…be it in large areas or small?
The infectious can-do underpinning at MIT in general, and EmTechMIT specifically, is well worth experiencing at least annually. Few, if any of us, can come away from it without seeking like-minded visionaries in our own back yard, and contributing to a Climate of Yes via impactful change.
I noted with great pleasure that EmTech events are now being supported in Mexico, China, Spain, Singapore, and Germany. With a robust MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest chapter here in the Seattle area, you can bet I’ll be exploring the same possibility for us.
My sincere gratitude to the rock stars at MIT Sloan Executive Education for such a stimulating opportunity.
__
Doña Keating is President and CEO of Professional Options, a prominent innovator in the leadership, policy and management consulting industry which provides solutions for businesses, organizations and governmental agencies.
EmTech MIT is where technology, business, and culture converge. It’s the showcase for emerging technologies with the greatest potential to change our lives. It’s an access point to the most innovative people and companies in the world. Most of all, it is a place of inspiration—an opportunity to glimpse the future and begin to understand the technologies that matter and how they’ll change the face of business and drive the new global economy.
