Evidence is growing that volunteering in good for your health, especially for older adults.

Dr. Nicole Anderson, a senior scientist at Toronto’s Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences, led a team that examined 73 studies published over the last 45 years that focused on adults age 50-plus who held formal volunteering roles.

“Our goal was to obtain a more comprehensive view of the current state of knowledge on the benefits of volunteering among older adults,” said Anderson, who is also an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “We discovered a number of trends in the results that paint a compelling picture of volunteering as an important lifestyle component for maintaining health and well-being in later years.”

The team found that volunteering helps reduce symptoms of depression, enhances better overall health, accounts for fewer functional limitations, and increases longevity. They discovered that health benefits may depend on a moderate level of volunteering, with the optimal time being about 100 annual hours, or two-to-three hours per week. People with chronic health conditions may benefit the most from volunteering, and feeling appreciated and needed helps a volunteer’s psycho-social well-being.

“Taken together, these results suggest that volunteering is associated with health improvements and increased physical activity—changes that one would expect to offer protection against a variety of health conditions,” Anderson said.

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Please welcome our newest members who joined IAVM in May, June, and July—a total of 187 new members. Our network of professionals is growing and we are reaching record numbers. Thank you for being a part of the association! Continue Reading →

Congratulations to two of our member venues for being named on Convene‘s “2014 Best in Show” list.

The San Jose Convention Center (pictured above) was named as one of the best high-tech venues.

“The San Jose Convention Center, which is currently building out 169,957 square feet of new, flexible convention space, is notable both for its facility-wide high-speed Wi-Fi and for its in-house support for webcasting satellite and video streaming,” the Convene editors wrote.

The David L. Lawrence Convention Center was named as a venue with some of the best food and beverage.

“In Pittsburgh, space comes at a premium—so the kitchen team at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLCC), whose food service is managed by Levy Restaurants, uses the rooftop for its on-site garden,” the editors wrote. “‘I have held many social events at the DLCC, and their food has always been spectacular,’ said Craig A. Hendrick, global account director for ConferenceDirect. ‘I love how they utilize herbs and vegetables grown on their own rooftop. And they have a focus on locally grown/raised across their menu. Not something you’d expect at a one-thousand-person dinner!'”

Convene readers and editors chose all the winners in the different categories. Check out the rest of the list.

And while we’re talking convention centers, consider attending the 2014 International Convention Center Conference (ICCC), Oct. 2-4, in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have a lot of informative and interesting sessions lined up, such as “Bring Your Own Device: User Experience and Your Venue” and “5 x 8 x the Future.” Visit the ICCC website for more details and to register.

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Two of my favorite things are music and sports, and when the two come together, it’s like flight, magical and mesmerizing. So what James Murphy is doing in partnership with IBM and the US Open is very interesting because it’s a new way to experience an event.

Murphey, former lead singer of LCD Soundsystem, is using raw data to turn each tennis match into a unique song. A computer algorithm turns the foot faults, points, aces, etc. into data points, so the songs end up sounding like electronic minimalism.

“I’m not writing music, I’m generating probabilities for music,” Murphy said in a video (view below) about the project. “It’s a hard project actually. It’s kind of exciting.”

Approximately 400 hours of music will be generated when the US Open concludes, and Murphy will remix the music into 14, more palatable, songs.

“I’m not going to sit there and play 400 hours of music,’ Murphy said. “I’m setting up a machine to do that.”

To hear how data can be used creatively, check out the US Open Sessions. The songs are found under the men’s and women’s matches. I particularity like the Bencic-Peng match-song from the quarterfinals. Which match-song is your favorite?

(Image: US Open Sessions)

Here’s how to increase your office productivity by 15 percent. It’s going to take a little bit of green. Not money, though. Plants. Those good ol’ oxygen-producing-carbon-dioxide-consuming friends of the world.

Researchers studied the difference between “lean” and “green” offices and found that those with plants had higher worker satisfaction scores, which led to increased productivity.

“Our research suggests that investing in landscaping the office with plants will pay off through an increase in office workers’ quality of life and productivity,” said Marlon Nieuwenhuis, the study’s lead researcher from Cardiff University’s School of Psychology. “Although previous laboratory research pointed in this direction, our research is, to our knowledge, the first to examine this in real offices, showing benefits over the long term. It directly challenges the widely accepted business philosophy that a lean office with clean desks is more productive.”

Not only were the workers in “green” offices more satisfied, they showed an increase in self-reported levels of concentration and perceived air quality.

“Simply enriching a previously Spartan space with plants served to increase productivity by 15 percent—a figure that aligns closely with findings in previously conducted laboratory studies,” Nieuwenhuis said. “This conclusion is at odds with the present economic and political zeitgeist as well as with modern ‘lean’ management techniques, yet it nevertheless identifies a pathway to a more enjoyable, more comfortable and a more profitable form of office-based working.”

Plants can help lower physiological stress, increase attention span, and improve well-being, said Kenneth Freeman, head of innovation for Ambius, a landscaping company.

“This is the first long-term experiment carried out in a real-life situation which shows that bringing plants into offices can improve well-being and make people feel happier at work,” Freeman said. “Businesses should rethink their lean processes, not only for the health of the employees, but for the financial health of the organisation.”

Looking to buy a plant for your office? Here are 12 suggestions.

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