Archive for the ‘Mini-UP’s’ Category

Welcome Back Brené Brown!

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Who guessed it? The clues we posted on Friday to our mystery UP Alumni guest all point to one person, Brené Brown!

Brené wowed attendees in 2009 with a frank, engaging and moving talk on her studies of shame in our society. Her research has gone on to focus on leadership, vulnerability and “wholeheartedness.” She’ll join us again at UP 2011 for an update on the last few years of her work.

Check out her talk from UP 2009 here.

If you are not already familiar with Brene, she holds her Ph.D, LMSW, and is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work. Her sense of humor, along with 10 years of research studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame make her an extraordinary presenter who helps us all look at the UP side of being vulnerable.

Brené spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses these questions: How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?

Brené is the author of The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who We Think We Should Be and Embracing Who We Are and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power. She is also the author of Connections, a psycho-educational shame-resilience curriculum that is being facilitated across the nation by mental health and addiction professionals. Her next book, Wholehearted: Spiritual Adventures in Falling Apart, Growing Up, and Finding Joy, will be released in 2011.

Register now to see Brené in October!

No Comment - 07/19/2011  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories: 2009 Speakers, 2011 Speakers, Current events, Mini-UP's, Speakers, UP Speakers In The News, Uncategorized, What is UP?, conference

Take Risks, But Be Careful Online: Lessons From 2011’s First Mini UP!

Friday, April 15th, 2011

This past Tuesday brought us the first Mini UP of 2011 featuring guest speakers Ankit Fadia and Houston’s own Mathew Knowles.

Thank you to everyone who joined us – past attendees, friends and all those who are new to UP!

Ankit Fadia took the stage first for a fast 20 minutes on the many risks of using the Internet. He had the audience on the edge of our seats as he demonstrated again and again just how easy it is to access “secure” information on the web, on your computer and on just about any device connected to the Internet. Anything from your saved passwords to emails and the images being recorded by your webcam can be uncovered in seconds.

As Fadia said, if everyone understood the dangers of the Internet it would be a safer place. Thanks to him I think we can all say we’ve increased our knowledge.  And, for details on his recommended security solutions and practices, you can download an additional presentation at www.ankitfadia.in/solutions.pptx

The evening’s second speaker was Mathew Knowles. Most recognized as the father of Beyonce, Knowles shared his own incredible rise to success and some of the tips and advice that have helped him along the way.  The entrepreneurial spirit he learned from his father while growing up in rural Alabama has been a driving force in a career that has taken him from his childhood through several very successful sales jobs and into the music industry.

He discussed several keys to his success, including taking the right risks, always having a high “talk-to-do” ratio and thinking outside the box. Visit CultureMap for more details on Knowles’ talk, we couldn’t say it better ourselves!

If you attended on Tuesday, we’d love to hear your thoughts and highlights and welcome your comments below.

If you didn’t attend please join The UP Experience mailing list to make sure you get details on upcoming events! Sign up by visiting www.theupexperience.com and submitting your email address in the box on the right side of the site.

Happy Friday!

No Comment - 04/15/2011  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , ,
Categories: Current events, Mini-UP's

It’s everyone’s favorite time – UP alumni in the news!

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Before we dive into this weeks links we want to say thank you to everyone who joined us for last night’s Mini UP. Ankit Fadia and Matthew Knowles each brought a unique perspective to the stage. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Photos and highlights will be posted here and on our Facebook page soon.

And, very importantly, we announced our very first speaker for UP 2011 last night, drumroll please . . . . Dan Pink! Pink is the highly acclaimed author of several books, the most recent of which is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Pink focuses on businesses, technology and helping us make the most of ourselves in our day-to-day lives. We are so excited to bring him to UP this year.

Here are this week’s UP alumni making headlines:

Two big announcements for all of our Houston readers!

David Eagleman has won a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. The Houston Chronicle says this is the first time a professor at Baylor College of Medicine has received the award.

And TONIGHT UP 09 speaker Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson will be giving a free lecture at the University of Houston. Let us know if you attend.

UP 08 speaker Ray Kurzweil is in the news again. The much talked about futurist is nominated for the 2011 TIME magazine TIME 100 list. Voting closes April 14 so vote now!

Another inaugural UP Experience speaker, Steve Wozniak, was in the news this week when he said he would consider returning to a larger role at Apple if they asked him.

For the social media users out there, are you suffering from FOMO? That is “Fear of Missing Out?” The New York Times detailed the phenomenon in an article referring to UP 09 Dan Ariely’s work.

No Comment - 04/13/2011  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories: 2008 Speakers, 2009 Speakers, 2010 Speakers, 2011 Speakers, Current events, Mini-UP's, Speakers, UP Speakers In The News

UP Alumni In The News 4.6.11

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

It’s Wednesday again! We took a brief hiatus last week, but are back this week with a double installment of our weekly blog feature, UP Alumni In The News.

Here are the biggest stories from past UP speakers. As always, please use the comment section below to add your thoughts and share any stories we may have missed.

And, don’t forget about our first Mini UP of the year this coming Tuesday. We can’t wait to see you there!

Just yesterday Peter Sheahan, one of the most engaging speakers to have taken The UP Experience stage, released his latest book, “Making It Happen: Turning your Good Ideas into Great Results.” We’ve got a copy and will be sharing some thoughts and juicy tidbits next week. Let us know if you pick up a copy so we can trade notes.

Esteemed UP speaker and MC David Eagleman has been on a speaking tour in London to promote his upcoming book, Incognito, which will explore the relationship between our minds and our legal system. As part of his travels Eagleman authored a great piece for The Telegraph outlining some of the main arguments of his book.

Shawn Achor launched a new app for Android and iPhone/iPad devices. The app, I Journal, follows the advice of Shawn’s latest book, The Happiness Advantage, and helps users maintain a regular journaling habit, which, you guessed it, has been shown to increase happiness. The app makes it easy to record your thoughts via voice recording, photos and writing updates. Let us know if you try it out!

UP 2008 speaker and Esquire food writer John Mariani spoke to NPR about his book, How Italian Food Conquered the World. The book examines the cuisine’s journey from one time “poor mans food” to plates hitting tables in kitchens and restaurants all over the U.S. nightly. Check out the interview and read an excerpt here.

Last but not least, UP 2010 speaker Richard Florida used his regular column at The Atlantic to examine the question, “Why Are Some Cities Happier Than Others?”

No Comment - 04/06/2011  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories: 2008 Speakers, 2009 Speakers, 2010 Speakers, Current events, Mini-UP's, Speakers, UP Speakers In The News, Uncategorized, conference

Health Care Choices and Gen Y at the Mini-UP

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Ernie and Sheryl Rapp hosted the first Mini-UP of the season on Wednesday in the newly-purposed community room at Humana‘s Houston offices in Greenway Plaza. Frankly, I expected to run right home and write something for this blog that evening. However, the two talks we heard that afternoon have continued to linger in my mind, opening up more questions, further possibilities for personal action, and a curiosity about how I can use that information in my business and daily life. I should know by now, that’s what happens when you tap into The UP Experience.

Thomas Goetz, author of The Decision Tree, spoke about how technological advances in information sharing and iPhone apps can radically improve outcomes in health care.  The added revelation is that the improvement is not just general — it is very specific and personalized, positively improving outcomes in the management of MY health and YOUR health.  Peter Sheahan, author of Generation Y and Flip, spoke about the challenges and advantages for businesses as they incorporate a younger generation into the workforce.

The contrast between the two speakers was invigorating and complementary, each at home and completely in command of the subject matter that is their passion.  I was struck by the common thread uniting the two talks, and indeed, all of The UP Experience.  That thread?  ENGAGEMENT.

That thread was also the moral of both stories.  People who are engaged in their lives, in their work, in their health, and in their experiences DO BETTER OVERALL than people who are not.  Thomas Goetz spoke of the famous Whitehall study from the UK, where class differences predicted the likelihood of heart disease.  It turns out that having some autonomy and the ability to shape one’s own destiny and the environment around you is actually healthier than being stuck in a low-level job with no ability to make a difference.  Peter Sheahan has shown, time and again, that the young people now joining businesses and corporations EXPECT to make a difference.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  Attention, engagement, and effective action make all the difference in the outcomes, whether by qualitative or quantitative measures.  THAT is powerful information!

And that is why The UP Experience makes a difference.  Making connections between people, between ideas, to create value here and now,  today and into the future.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No Comment - 04/26/2010  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories: Mini-UP's, Speakers, UP Community, conference

Compose the UP Theme Song

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
UP Composer Competition
UP Composer Competition

Contact sheryl@theupexperience.com if you would like a pdf of this announcement to print and post.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No Comment - 03/24/2010  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , , , ,
Categories: Composer Competition, Mini-UP's, UP Community, conference

Time Travel?

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Professor Michio Kaku of City University of New York and Princeton continues Albert Einstein’s quest to find the unified “theory of everything.  At The UP Experience 2009 he will reveal some startling breakthroughs about the latest6 technologies of the future and the connections between science fiction and physics.

Is time travel in your future?  Fine out! Watch Michio discuss the invisible time travelers all around us.

What science fiction dream do you want to be a reality?  Let  us know!

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No Comment - 08/18/2009  |  Post Comment

Labels: ,
Categories: 2008 Speakers, Current events, Mini-UP's, Speakers, conference

Mini-UP: Catch UP, Listen UP, Talk it UP!

Thursday, August 13th, 2009
The Rice shield
Image via Wikipedia

Wow!  I’m just back from the latest Mini-UP, held at the Shell  Auditorium in the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at  Rice University.  I think there must have been about 400 people there — and they were  UP! especially after the  two  featured speakers surprised, informed, and inspired  us.

Louise Parsley writes about family life, and spoke on “Family Side UP:” how laughter is a natural buoy when you’re drowning in your own gene pool.  Her deadpan delivery and universally recognizable revelations had the crowd roaring with self-recognition.  She proved the old adage, related by her father, that “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

Louise described feeling intimidated this evening as she thought of  being the “opening act” for  Shawn Achor of Harvard University, whom she described as “Einstein, Oprah, and George Clooney, rolled into one.”  Shawn thanked her for providing the most gracious introduction he had ever received, and then said, “I do look a lot like Oprah.”  We were primed with more laughter to hear his presentation about “The Science of the Ripple Effect.”

Shawn Achor,  one of the favorites from  UP ’08,  teaches the most popular course at Harvard:  “Positive  Psychology.”  What makes people happy?   Does it matter?  He demonstrated the effect of  “mirror neurons,” and described how the most expressive person in any group — whether positive or negative — will have an effect on the emotional tone of  the entire group.  He challenged  us to start a big “ripple” by performing Random Acts of Kindness, and to monitor the effects. You can see the slides from Shawn’s presentation here.

We’d like to hear from you!  What crazy family story did you remember after hearing Louise?  And, what Random Acts of Kindness did you perpetrate upon Greater Houston within 24 hours of hearing Shawn?

posted by MaryBeth Smith

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No Comment - 08/13/2009  |  Post Comment

Labels: , , ,
Categories: 2008 Speakers, Mini-UP's, UP Community