The World Eco­nomic Forum Announces Young Global Lead­ers Class of 2013 (press release):

“199 young lead­ers from 70 coun­tries have been hon­oured by the World Eco­nomic Forum for their pro­fes­sional accom­plish­ments and com­mit­ment to soci­ety. The Young Global Lead­ers (YGL) Class of 2013 is com­posed of hon­ourees from all sec­tors of soci­ety, with Read the rest of this entry »

Sum­mary of the report just issued by The Royal Soci­ety in the UK: “Although the impact of human enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies has been widely debated, until now they have not been con­sid­ered in terms of their impact upon the nature of work…the Acad­emy of Med­ical Sci­ences, British Acad­emy, Royal Acad­emy of Engi­neer­ing and Royal Soci­ety came together to Read the rest of this entry »

Com­pa­nies turn to brain games to tackle work stress (Fortune):

“As more and more jobs rely on knowl­edge work, cre­ativ­ity, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, it’s not enough to have work­ers sit­ting at their desks — they must also be men­tally sharp, emo­tion­ally present, and free from dis­trac­tion. The answer for some: brain training.

The fun, game atmos­phere of My Brain Solu­tions helped Nation­wide achieve another goal: mak­ing the employee assis­tance pro­gram Read the rest of this entry »

The Men­tal Prepa­ra­tion of High-Level Ath­letes (brief­ing paper by the Dana Foundation):

“Base­ball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra is cred­ited with say­ing that “90 per­cent of the game is half men­tal.” Over the years, the line has been appro­pri­ated beyond the world of base­ball to explain the impor­tance of fac­tors like focus and moti­va­tion Read the rest of this entry »

In an increas­ingly knowledge-based and innovation-driven econ­omy, human brains—not finan­cial capital—are becom­ing the pri­mary dri­vers of busi­ness suc­cess. Engaged, cre­ative cit­i­zens and work­ers mean the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure at the orga­ni­za­tional and soci­etal levels.

Look­ing at the prob­lem from the per­spec­tive of brain health, there are Read the rest of this entry »

Kath­leen will run an edu­ca­tional work­shop on How Nation­wide Insur­ance rolled-out a Brain-based Cor­po­rate Well­ness Ini­tia­tive. An in-depth case study out­lin­ing busi­ness ratio­nale, ven­dor selec­tion, pilot test and roll-out, and return-on-investment, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012).

Kath­leen Herath is the Asso­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent Health & Pro­duc­tiv­ity at Nation­wide Insur­ance. Kath­leen Herath, RN, BSN CRRN, over­sees the Health and Pro­duc­tiv­ity strat­egy Read the rest of this entry »

One day, one of my kids was star­ing at a sim­ple cir­cuit dia­gram. It showed a bat­tery con­nected to a resis­tor and a light bulb. He was doing a home­work prob­lem. The par­tic­u­lar ques­tion that had him stumped asked what would hap­pen to the cur­rent in the cir­cuit if the resis­tor was replaced with another that had more resis­tance. He hadn’t been in class that day and had never stud­ied elec­tric­ity, and so he stared at the dia­gram for a few min­utes with­out comprehension.

My son had reached what psy­chol­o­gists call an impasse, which is really just a fancy way of say­ing that he was stuck. Read the rest of this entry »