Designing Meetings that Excite , Enlighten , and Empower your Audience

1. Designing Meetings that Excite, Enlighten, and Empower your Audience • Presented by Dr. Lawana Gladney Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

2. Session GoalsEɜ = Excite – Enlighten - Empower • Discover how the brain works and what works for the brain • Discover how to design meaningful content • Learn how to make your meeting more memorable • Understand how to impress the brain Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

3. Ultimate Meeting Goals • List your top three goals for your meetings and prioritize them. • 1. • 2. • 3. What is the number one take away for all attendees? Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

4. How about that brain! • Our brain is bombarded with millions of bits of visual, verbal and other sensory data daily. How does it decide which data to process and which data to ignore? Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

5. How the Brain Works Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

6. Brain Goal Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

7. Sensory Registry • The brain relies on the sensory register to sift out the important data from the unimportant data in order to avoid burnout from the overload of information. • Any information that doesn't make it through this register is gone for good and has no chance of being remembered. • If the information is unimportant to you it is lost and gone for good. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

8. Short Term Memory • The short term memorycan retain information for up to approximately 30 seconds. Long enough to look up a phone number and dial it. If the information is important it will get passed to the next level. • 832-9754 Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

9. Working Memory Data in the working memory, it is being deliberately and consciously processed. It is limited both in the amount of information it can deal with at one time and in how long it can remain focused on it. We can only deal with 7 pieces of information simultaneously. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

10. Demonstration Chunking- A technique used to get around this limitation and increase the amount of data that can be worked on at the same time. You have 10 seconds to memorize the following letters. XIBMSATMTVPHDX XIBMSATMTVPHDX Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

11. Long Term Memory • Once the brain has assigned sense and/or meaning to the information it moves into the long term memory, and once it is in, it is there to stay. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

12. Brain Stress • The brain learns best when there is a balance between stress and comfort: high challenge and low threat. • The brain needs some challenge, or environmental press that generates stress as described above to activate emotions and learning. • Stress motivates a survival imperative in the brain. Too much and anxiety shuts down learning. Too little and the brain becomes too relaxed and comfortable Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

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14. Brain Puzzle • Three people check into a hotel and pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return to the people. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totaling $27. The bellboy has $2, totaling $29. Where is the missing $1? Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

15. Brain Puzzle 2 • Matthew Shelborn frequently has to travel for his company, which gives him a chance to meet many people from all parts of the USA. In April, Matthew flew to five different US cities on business and he flew a different airline each time. During each trip he chatted with the person next to him, and no two people he talked to were in the same profession.From the information, can you determine the date Matthew made each flight (each was on a Monday exactly one week apart starting on April 2nd), the airline he flew, his destination, and the profession of the person who sat next to him on each flight? Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

16. Enlightening Content • Use acronyms and chunking techniques • Less is more • Use pictures and graphics anywhere possible • Write content with learning styles in mind – visual, auditory, and kinetic • Include activities • Content has to be relevant to audience • Use humor

17. Understanding Information Overload • Yourbrainwillgointooverloadwhenthereistoomuchthatispresentedinashortperiodoftimeorwhentheinformationlookscomplicatedandboring. Itislikereadingabunchofwordstypedtogether-Yourbraindoesnotgetachancetoprocessanythingorputinfoincategories,sobasicallyyourbrainwillshutoffandplaceattentionandinterestelsewhere.Thusreallearningdoesnotoccur. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

18. Tips to Avoid Brain Overload • Avoid cramming information into meetings • Avoid scheduling too many learning sessions at conferences • Keep information light – not heavy • Make it fun • Encourage session overview • Create action plans Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

19. To Excite the brain- you have to touch emotions Emotions are critical to learning – they drive our attention, health, learning, meaning and memory. Emotions; A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

20. How Emotions Work in the Brain Emotions are encompassed in the part of your brain called the limbic system. The hippocampus is important in memory and learning, while the limbic system itself is central in the control of emotional responses. Emotions you want to elicit in a meeting. • acceptance, admiration, amazed, amused, awed, • calm, certain, cheerful, compassionate, comfortable, convinced, content, determined • ecstatic, elated, enlightened, enthusiastic, excited, empowered • festive, happy, hopeful, inspired, joyous, jubilant, lighthearted • peaceful, playful, pleased, secure, smart, optimistic, positive, proud, relaxed, relieved, respectful, trusting, satisfied, , sharing, tender, thrilled, understanding, warm Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

21. Igniting the Five Senses • Sight – lighting, décor, props, color • Touch- centerpieces, manuals, paper, trinkets • Smell- aroma fans, plug ins, air filters, meals • Hearing- music, AV, Sound bites, speaker • Taste- meal, centerpieces

22. Color your Meetings There is power and emotion wrapped into color. It is a powerful psychological tool. By using color psychology, you can send a positive or negative message, encourage sales, calm a crowd, or make an athlete pump iron harder.

23. Red • Physiological Effect: Red has been shown to increase blood pressure and stimulate the adrenal glands. The stimulation of the adrenals glands helps us become strong and increases our stamina. Pink, a lighter shade of red, helps muscles relax. • Psychological Effect: While red has proven to be a color of vitality and ambition it has been shown to be associated with anger. Sometimes red can be useful in dispelling negative thoughts, but it can also make one irritable. Pink has the opposite effect of red. Pink induces feelings of calm, protection, warmth and nurture. This color can be used to lessen irritation and aggression as it is connected with feelings of love. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

24. Orange • Physiological Effect: Orange has proven to be a stimulus of the sexual organs. Also, it can be beneficial to the digestive system and can strengthen the immune system. • Psychological Effect: Orange has shown to have only positive affects on your emotional state. This colour relieves feelings of self-pity, lack of self-worth and unwillingness to forgive. Orange opens your emotions and is a terrific antidepressant. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

25. Yellow • Physiological Effect: Yellow has proven to stimulate the brain. This stimulation can make you more alert and decisive. This color makes muscles more energetic and activates the lymph system. • Psychological Effect: Yellow is a happy and uplifting color. It can also be associated with intellectual thinking: discernment, memory, clear thinking, decision-making and good judgment. Also aiding organization, understanding of different points of view. Yellow builds self-confidence and encourages optimism. However, a dull yellow can bring on feelings of fear. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

26. Green • Physiological Effect: Green is said to be good for you heart. On a physical and emotional, green helps your heart bring you physical equilibrium and relaxation. Green relaxes our muscles and helps us breathe deeper and slower. • Psychological Effect: Green creates feelings of comfort, laziness, relaxation, calmness. It helps us balance and soothe our emotions. Connection with nature Yet, darker and grayer greens can have the opposite effect and remind us of decay and death and can actually have a detrimental effect on physical and emotional health. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

27. Blue • Physiological Effect: Blue proves to lower blood pressure. Blue can be linked to the throat and thyroid gland. Blue also has a very cooling and soothing affect, often making us calmer. Deep blue stimulates the pituitary gland, which then regulates our sleep patterns. • Psychological Effect: We usually associate the color blue with the night and thus we feel relaxed and calmed. Lighter blues make us feel quite and away from the rush of the day. Like yellow, blue inspires mental control, clarity and creativity. However, too much dark blue can be depressing. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

28. Purple • Physiological Effect: Violet has shown to alleviate conditions such as sunburn due to its purifying and antiseptic effect. This color also suppresses hunger and balances the body's metabolism. • Psychological Effect: Purples have been used in the care of mental of nervous disorders because they have shown to help balance the mind and transform obsessions and fears. Indigo is often associated with the right side of the brain; stimulating intuition and imagination. Violet is associated with bringing peace and combating shock and fear. Violet has a cleansing effect with emotional disturbances. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

29. Brown • Psychological Effect: Brown is the color of the earth and ultimately home. This color brings feelings of stability and security. Sometimes brown can also be associated with withholding emotion and retreating from the world. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

30. Black Psychological Effect: While comforting and protective, black is mysterious and associated with silence and sometimes death. Black is passive and can prevent us from growing and changing. Can be associated with authority. • In the western hemisphere black is associated with grieving. Black is a serious color that evokes strong emotions; it is easy to overwhelm people with too much black. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

31. White • Psychological Effect: White is the color of ultimate purity. This color brings feelings of peace and comfort while it dispels shock and despair. White can be used to give yourself a feeling of freedom and uncluttered openness. Too much white can give feelings of separation and can be cold and isolation. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

32. Gray • Psychological Effect: Gray is the color of independence and self-reliance, although usually thought of as a negative color. It can be the color of evasion and non-commitment (since it is neither black nor white.) Gray indicates separation, lack of involvement and ultimately loneliness. Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning

33. Review • KIS- Keep it simple – Chunks • KII – Keep it interesting and challenging • KIR- Keep it relevant • KIC – Keep it colorful • KIM – Keep it moving Creating Meetings that Excite the Brain for Optimal Learning