Fun

Travel For a Better Brain

- Adam Clare

I just booked a flight to London and coincidentally came across an article that says that our brains can benefit greatly from exploring the world. A good way to start the day!

It turns out that the ability of the brain to handle new information is connected to well-being and that travel can get your bring working in new ways. It is also beneficial to step out of your comfort zone, which travelling general encourages. So you should book that trip you’ve been thinking about!

In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun examining more closely what many people have already learned anecdotally: that spending time abroad may have the potential to affect mental change. In general, creativity is related to neuroplasticity, or how the brain is wired. Neural pathways are influenced by environment and habit, meaning they’re also sensitive to change: New sounds, smells, language, tastes, sensations, and sights spark different synapses in the brain and may have the potential to revitalize the mind.

“Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility and depth and integrativeness of thought, the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms,” says Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School and the author of numerous studies on the connection between creativity and international travel. Cognitive flexibility is the mind’s ability to jump between different ideas, a key component of creativity. But it’s not just about being abroad, Galinsky says: “The key, critical process is multicultural engagement, immersion, and adaptation. Someone who lives abroad and doesn’t engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.” In other words, going to Cancun for a week on spring break probably won’t make a person any more creative. But going to Cancun and living with local fishermen might.

Read more.

Violent Video Games can be Good

- Adam Clare

Violent video games get attacked a lot. Media and news companies are quick to blame the influence video games have on youth to be the reason that youth commit acts of violence. This is not the case though. Every year there is more evidence that it’s not true that violent entertainment leads to real-world violence. In fact, it can be stingily argued that playing violent video games can be a good thing in your life.

First, an international research team from the USA and Canada found that by playing a game together we can change attitudes of players towards others. They had people kill zombies with someone who the player thought was from the States (and in the USA they thought they were playing with a Canadian).

The research concluded that having people play with someone they thought was from another country increased player’s opinion of people from said country.

Read more.

WorldFuture Conference 2015

- Adam Clare

If you’re in San Francisco this July you’re going to want to check out the conference of the future: the WorldFuture Conference. They’ll be looking at future-critical issues (many of this issues are what this very site looks at) and be discussing how to prepare for what the future holds.

If we’re not thinking about how our current actions will impact the world in the future we are not giving enough thought to our actions. Think and act about the future people you’ll never meet.

WorldFuture 2015: Making the Future is expected to gather hundreds of foresight-minded professionals of diverse backgrounds. It will provide participants a unique opportunity to network with industry and government peers from around the world, collect actionable insight on future-critical issues and emerging technologies, and build alliances across World Future 2015’s three conference tracks: the Business of Foresight, Global Issues, and Technology & Innovation.

In keeping with our action-oriented theme, we are pleased to announce that Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson will be the WorldFuture 2015 keynote speaker. Known as venture capitalist making the future, Steve was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven and Kana, and he serves on the Boards of Tesla and SpaceX. Steve was chosen by the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner as one of “the ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century.”

In addition to two high energy days of interactive sessions, WorldFuture 2015 will also offer two days of pre-conference master courses, a Millennials’ morning of activities for student futurists, special networking events, and offsite trips to relevant area attractions.

Check out WorldFuture 2015.

5 Socially Good Business Practices Predicted for 2015

- Adam Clare

Marketing firm JWT has complied a list of trends in socially conscious practices that business will be interested in for 2015. See the report here. This is great that marketers are concerned with social impact as it means that after all these years corporations are catching on to the fact that there’s more than just profit.

Interestingly, one trend they think will gain popularity is one popularized by Toms.

JWT sees the buy-one-give-one model started by Toms expanding beyond shoes. The company itself, now worth $625 million, has set up a marketplace for other products. For example, buying a bag of coffee gifts water for a week to someone in the developing world. Other examples include San Francisco food delivery company Munchery and Warby Parker. JWT describes the trend as “third way commerce” that “combines social good with sales and marketing.” “Consumers, particularly Millennials, are increasingly discriminating between brands by looking for ethical behavior and sustainability. They are also looking for brands and companies with clear values.”

Read the other four here.

A Look Into the Ig Nobel Awards

- Adam Clare

The Ig Nobel Prize is dedicated to science that makes you laugh then makes you think. It’s a fun and great way to get people engaged in science while exploring questions that sound rather bizarre.

As founder of the Ig Nobel awards, Marc Abrahams explores the world’s most improbable research. In this thought-provoking (and occasionally side-splitting) talk, he tells stories of truly weird science — and makes the case that silliness is critical to boosting public interest in science.

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