Kevin Carroll is the 2014 VenueConnect closing keynote speaker and is the author of three books—Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, What’s Your Red Rubber Ball?!, and The Red Rubber Ball at Work. As an author, speaker, and agent for social change (a.k.a. the Katalyst), it is Carroll’s “job” to inspire businesses, organizations, and individuals—from CEOs and employees of Fortune 500 companies to schoolchildren—to embrace their spirit of play and creativity to maximize their human potential and sustain more meaningful business and personal growth.

We have an interview with Carroll in the upcoming June/July issue of FM magazine. To get you excited about the conference and the article, here’s a little teaser from the full story.

FM: How much influence does play have on professional success?

Carroll: Play is the foundational piece to us being able to do so many things—problem solving, abstract thinking, innovation, ingenuity. When we were playing as children, we were honing skills in those categories.

You were getting better at problem solving, you were getting better at your imagination, being innovative, being ingenious, using your creative genius. You were doing all those things in play because most of the time what you were trying to do was extend the play, extend the game, keep the game going.

These very early exercises in using your imagination and problem solving and conflict resolution, all these things that you were doing out of necessity to just keep playing, all contribute to your ability to do that when you get into the professional world.

It’s about being around something that gives you joy, being around something that frees you up and doesn’t clog your brain, where you just open up and you’re surrendering to that moment. You’re so present because you’re doing that activity. You’re not thinking about anything else.

Physical activity actually primes the brain, and it’s an access for being more open to ideas. When you understand that physical movement—that breakaway, for example, to prepare yourself to get your mind right—can really increase the likelihood of coming up with the solution, then you really see how play and movement are really significant and important in our success professionally.

You don’t have creative confidence if you’re not practicing your playfulness. If you’re not practicing being innovative, it’s not just going to happen because you have an ideation session or a brainstorming session on your calendar. You have to be prepared for it, and you have to have creative confidence. I think play is at the root of our creative confidence.

There’s still time to register for VenueConnect. See you in Portland!

(Image: www.kevincarollkatalyst.com) 

Here in the U.S., July 4th is a time for celebration, and we’re getting in on it, too. Register by 11:59 p.m. (CDT) Friday for 2014 VenueConnect and be entered in a drawing for a $300 American Express gift card. If you already registered, you’re already entered!

The winner will be notified on Monday, July 7th.

There was a lot of news this past week. Here are some stories that caught our eyes.

Advertisement-Shy Wimbledon Is World’s Most-Lucrative Tennis Tournament
—Newsweek
“Every summer, a private club with fewer than 500 members holds a tennis tournament in a London suburb that produces a clear, off-the-top profit in excess of $60 million in just two weeks.”

Australia’s Live Industry Worth $2.5 Billion
—Encore
“According to the new study, the bulk of the revenue generated by the industry during the reporting period was spent on people (54%), including performers and non-performing support staff such as technical and venue crew.”

Schools Aiming to Improve Fan Amenities
—ESPN
“Coming soon to a college football stadium near you: interactive phone apps, live pregame locker room footage, concession stands filled with food from local eateries.”

Is Smaller Better? The Trend toward Smaller and Shorter Meetings
—eVenues Blog
“To fully take advantage of the long-term changes in the meetings industry, venues that can offer small-meetings services need to effectively promote themselves to their potential customers.”

Music Changes the Way You Think
—Scientific American
“Tiny, almost immeasurable features in a piece of music have the power to elicit deeply personal and specific patterns of thought and emotion in human listeners.”

(photo credit: Rob McGlynn/Creative Commons)

San Francisco’s AT&T Park features a 4,320-square-foot garden that will grow edible food all year to be used in the public concessions stands and for private catering. The garden will also be used as an educational space, hosting classes on healthy eating, sustainability, and urban farming.

Please check out the Blue Marble blog on Mother Jones for the full story, or you watch the above video about the garden.

A recent study that looked at the effect of live cinema screenings of England’s National Theatre (NT) performances found that they have no negative impact on live attendance at theaters near the NT Live shows. In fact, in London there was a 6.4 percent increase in local theater attendance the following year in areas nearest an NT Live screening.

“Far from cannibalizing theater audiences, our findings suggest that NT Live has on average grown audiences for local theater in London and has had a neutral impact regionally,” said Hasan Bakhshi, director of creative economy at research firm Nesta. “Cinema-goers at NT Live productions are a captive audience for theaters—regional venues should consider how they can convert these into greater ticket sales.”

The study analysed more than 28 million theater tickets sold by 54 performing arts centers in England between 2009 and 2013. The NT  provided date and location information for the 12,000 cinema screenings of their performances at 482 cinemas during the same period. The findings are based on comparing theater ticket sales to residents in different areas over a period of time, with the proximity of those locations to NT Live screening venues.

“Alongside a huge expansion in live touring—this year and next, NT productions are making 80 visits to U.K. cities—NT Live has further enabled hundreds of thousands of people around the country to experience our work and that of our partner theaters,” said David Sabel, director of broadcast and digital at the NT. “We believe that the more great drama people are able to see, the more they are likely to want to go to the theater; so it’s great to see that Nesta’s latest research confirms that live broadcasts are a valuable complement to the live theater experience.”

(photo credit: lushdimple via photopin cc)