There was a lot of news this past week you may have missed. Here are some headlines that caught our eyes.

Baseball Stadiums to Host European Giants in Friendlies
—EuroSport.com
“Baseball will give way to football at Yankee Stadium on July 30 as Premier League contenders Manchester City and Liverpool clash in the Big Apple, three days after The Reds face Greek side Olympiacos at Soldier Field.”

Immersive, All-Night Macbeth to Play in East Tower in London
—Playbill
“The production, which will begin at 8 PM and conclude the following morning at 8 AM, will require audience members to go to bed after the first few scenes of Shakespeare’s tragedy of ambition and murder are performed. Audience members will be visited by the play’s characters throughout the night.”

Texas A&M Adding Largest Video Board Among Colleges
—Athletic Business
“The 7,661-square-foot board will be about twice the size of A&M’s previous video board.”

The Neuroscience of Networking: Why Networking Matters To Your Conference
—Midcourse Corrections
“In 1997, researchers at Washington University discovered that our brains default to social cognition when not focused on other cognitive tasks. In other words, when our brain is at rest, it starts making sense about our self and our relationships to others.”

Getty Images Photographer Breaks Down Olympic Hockey Assignment
—SportsBusiness Daily
“Getty Images has been the official photo agency of the International Olympic Committee since 1988. The company has 69 photographers and a team of editors uploading 2,000-plus images a day in Sochi.”

(Image: AFP)

It’s called the foot-in-the-door phenomenon, and it’s one of social psychology’s tried-and-true techniques. Watch the above video to learn all you need to know about it in 59 seconds. Then try it out and let us know your results.

In December 2013, 188.2 million Americans watched 52.4 billion online content videos. And they weren’t all about cats. In fact, I bet some of them were instructional videos. And just watching these types of videos can change your brain structure and increase your motor skills, according to a study from the American Academy of Neurology.

Researchers had 36 right-handed adults participate in a 40-minute training session five times a week for two weeks (I know, a lot of numbers there, but stick with me). Videos of a specific task (e.g., handling coins, cutting with scissors, etc.) were shown to half the group, who were then asked to complete the task themselves. The other half of the group watched videos of landscapes before being asked to complete the same tasks as the other group.

The groups were tested for strength and hand skills at the start of the study and two weeks later, as well as having their brains scanned to measure brain volume changes.

Researchers found that the participants who completed the training and watched the activity on the video had 11 times greater improvement of motor skill abilities, primarily in strength, compared to the landscape watching participants. The activity video watching participants also had an increase in gray matter volume. Gray matter contains the brain’s cell bodies and is often attributed to intelligence.

“Our study lends credence to the idea that even as an adult, your brain is able to better learn skills just by watching the activity take place,” said study author Paolo Preziosa, MD, with San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy. “With a dramatic increase of videos available through mobile phones, computers, and other newer technology, this topic should be the focus of more research. The results might also contribute to reducing disability and improving quality of those who are impaired or who are undergoing physical rehabilitation.”

Do you use videos to help train your staff or yourself? How effective do you find them?

(photo credit: amanky via photopin cc)

We are pleased to announce that Polly LaBarre will be our keynote speaker at VenueConnect in Portland, Oregon, July 26-29.

LaBarre is co-author of the book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win. She is also co-founder and editorial director of the MIX (Management Innovation eXchange), an original team member of Fast Company magazine, and a CNN correspondent focusing on business ideas and best practices.

Her specialties include helping shape the future of organizations, work, and success, with recent research centering on social innovation and sustainable capitalism.

Check out the upcoming February/March issue of FM magazine for an exclusive interview with LaBarre, and please sign-up to be notified when registration opens for VenueConnect.

Every organization has influential employees, but because they don’t have a role like “manager” or “director” as part of their titles they are often overlooked for leadership training.

“It may be someone in product development who without any direct reports, plays an essential role in the selection and development of new products,” Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman wrote on the HBR Blog Network. “It may be a key salesperson, who because of some unique connection with customers exerts a powerful influence on the organization’s go to market strategy.”

Zenger and Folkman believe that these employees are true leaders, too.

“They often get overlooked for any kind of leadership development because they don’t manage or supervise anyone and aren’t thought to need training in management basics like budgeting,” they wrote.

If you have these types of influential employees, it’s wise to invest in leadership training for them. Zenger and Folkman offer four reasons why:

1) Investing in their leadership development will make these valuable people feel highly valued.

2) Talented individuals are more inclined to stay with organizations when they feel they are progressing.

3) They will enjoy increased success.

4) Some of them could well develop into excellent managers.

Please read their article on the HBR Blog Network for the complete story. And while you’re thinking about leadership training, consider applying for the IAVM Senior Executive Symposium, May 12-15, at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Applications close March 31.