The Maritz Institute

mindSPRING

The Maritz Institute has established a gathering place for curious, innovative and solution-minded people, called mindSPRING. It’s a network for innovators to engage in forums that are designed to:

• Discuss innovative thinking and ideas
• Deepen understanding and knowledge of human sciences and behavior
• Foster an environment for dynamic learning, leading and innovativeness

The mindSPRING process combines two new and inventive concepts into a single meeting design: Pecha Kucha and Open Space.

Pecha Kucha is an innovative concept for delivering presentations effectively and efficiently. Created by Mark Dythan and Astrid Klein, they have turned PowerPoint into both an art form and competitive sport. Their innovation, dubbed Pecha Kucha (Japanese for "chatter"), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and forty seconds of exquisitely matched words and images, then sit down. The result combines business meeting and poetry -- and transforms corporate cliché into surprisingly compelling performance art.

Open Space was created by noticing that the most productive aspects of business meetings were the spontaneous conversations between people. In Open Space we apply the idea that water cooler conversations spur meaningful dialogue. The process allows groups to define and work on what members feel is most important. And, there is one simple rule: every person may opt to leave a particular group when they are neither contributing nor interested, and may opt to join another group.