mindfulness meditation

Announcing the 2016 International Forum on Consciousness

Posted on by Karin Borgh

forum image

Examine how businesses are evolving and changing the way we think about the world around us at the 2016 International Forum on Consciousness. This year’s theme, Awakened Consciousness and the Evolution of Business, brings together a diverse group of presenters including Chip Conley (Airbnb), Martin Kalungu-Banda (Presencing Institute), Gunnar Lovelac, John Roulac (Nutiva Corporation),  Mike Mears (Mears Consulting), Betsy Myers (Center for Women & Business) and Raj Sisodia, Ph.D. (Conscious Capitalism Inc.), among others. The forum will be held May 5–6, 2016, in Madison, Wisconsin. An event schedule, presenter biographies and presentation abstracts are available at https://www.btci.org/.

Each year, the International Forum on Consciousness explores a different—and often challenging—topic related to the exploration of consciousness. Awakened Consciousness and the Evolution of Business is an invitation to envision businesses of the 21st century. The 2016 forum will showcase how today’s business leaders are enriching employees, communities and the health of our planet. Key questions to be addressed include:

  • How have business practices historically shaped society?
  • What does it mean to awaken to the potential for workplace and broader business practices to transform our view of self, others and society—to focus on purpose and meaning through the work we do?
  • What work-based opportunities for personal and professional development contribute most effectively to this shift?
  • How does the self-actualized business become a model and advocate for change?

The forum is co-hosted by the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center Institute (BTC Institute) and Promega Corporation, who are also Platinum sponsors along with Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP, Perkins Coie, Thrive Market and Usona Institute.

Held at the BioPharmaceutical Technology Center on the Promega Campus (5445 East Cheryl Parkway, Fitchburg, WI 53711), the International Forum on Consciousness is open to the general public but limited to 350 participants. Forum registrants have the opportunity to join a presenter for a small group discussion over dinner on Thursday evening, May 5. Registration is now open. For more information or to register, visit: https://www.btci.org/.

To Meditate Perchance to Dream

Posted on by Kari Kenefick

First the disclosure: this blog is of course about Me.

But it’s also about You. And yours. Because as you know, we’ve become a culture that does not sleep.

Why don’t we sleep? I like to think that it is an evolutionary adaptation; not sleeping, after all, allows us more time for Facebook.

Or Etsy for you makers. Or Amazon for you shoppers. And let’s not forget our middle, high school and college students. Do they even have classrooms anymore, or are lectures all online (on screens)?

One tired pony. By Rachel C from Scotland (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
One tired pony. By Rachel C from Scotland (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Honestly, the evolutionary adaptation idea comes from how we live and work today. And no, this is not another rant/lecture on the color of light emitted by whatever non-cathode ray tubes are in our phones or tablet-like devices.

It’s just that just working in our very busy online/wired world, jumping from web page to project management software, to big-screens in meetings has us adapted to being  on: capital “O” capital “N”.

This multi-multitasking has grown (for me) a new type of neurons that are not happy unless they are gleaning new information from a screen, all the time. And these neurons don’t stop working when the screen is gone; no, they continue seeking and trying to process. For me, if there’s no screen to look at, the neurons ping-pong around behind my eyeballs, looking and searching, as if to say, “Input missing! Input missing!”

The result can be hours in bed sans sleep; it seems the racket these neurons make keeps all the other neurons up. Continue reading “To Meditate Perchance to Dream”

A Little Mindfulness While Traveling by Bike

Posted on by Kari Kenefick
Cycling to work. "Urban cycling III". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urban_cycling_III.jpg#/media/File:Urban_cycling_III.jpg
Cycling to work. “Urban cycling III”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

On Fridays this summer we’ve started a travel blog. In addition, Dear Reader, earlier this week you learned about the recent forays of some Promega employees into mindfulness meditation.

I’d like to use a bike to work trip to connect travel and mindfulness. Today was my first bike ride to work for 2015.

This is not an auspicious or noteworthy start, as across the aisle from me sits a man that bikes to work all year. The weather in southern Wisconsin has been great this spring; no good reason for waiting ‘til June 19 to ride. It is just my reality.

This travel covered 12 miles, and took me along busy, pothole filled city streets, where I focused on avoiding the holes, while keeping my two wheels in the bike lane and out of traffic. It’s a bit more focus than I need to drive a car with 4 wheels, an accelerator and brakes. Increasing and decreasing speed requires much more effort on a bike. Continue reading “A Little Mindfulness While Traveling by Bike”