Meeting Support Institute

Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves?
Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his "Hole in the Wall" project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. Given this, he asks, what else can children teach themselves and each other?
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No doubt many of us have all experienced a situation where, after long hours of trying to solve a certain problem, we give up, and go get a break, only to come back and solve the problem within moments. This appears to be a somewhat commonplace situation. However, the science behind it is much more complex.

The American Robert Cialdini is professor in psychology and marketing at the Arizona State University. He is seen as the global authority in influencing.At conferences, that is what we try to accomplish: influence participants so they change behaviour and have an impact. Cialdini has defined six principles of influencing others, of which a few can be applied as techniques during meetings and conferences. The most interesting one is the commitment and consistency principle. You can read more about this and the other 5 principles in the book “Influence, the psychology of persuasion” (see books in the MSI KNOWLEDGE BASE).  The commitment principle is easy to apply at meetings.

Heavy conference ahead with early committee meetings and late night “networking” events? Try sleeping more than usual in the weeks prior to the conference.  Research by the American Sleep expert Tracy Rupp with 24 subjects makes her concludes that you can accumulate sleep for ‘use’ in periods of ‘scarcity’.Half of the test group had to be in bed 10 hours a night for a week and the other half 8 hours. After that week, they all got a 3 hours sleep regime for a week followed by a 8 hour a night five day catch-up period.What was the result?

Research Overview
The psychophysiology of smell: how we smell, why we smell and what differentiates different smell qualities. We are also investigating the function of smell as a signalling medium in humans (human pheromones).

The University has two programs in Bachelor of Tourism and Hospitality Management.

Specialization lines:
- MICE Management
- Management of Nature and Soft Adventure Tourism

The Bachelor's degrees awarded, while based on theory and sciences, have a clearly pronounced occupational and applied emphasis. They are specifically designed to respond to the demands and development needs of business and industry.

Department: Tourism and Hospitality Management
Lahti University of Applied Sciences
Lahti, Finland

Richard E. Mayer is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where he has served since 1975. He received a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1973, and served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Indiana University from 1973 to 1975. His research interests are in educational and cognitive psychology. His current research involves the intersection of cognition, instruction, and technology with a special focus on multimedia learning and problem solving. He is past-President of the Division of Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association, former editor of the Educational Psychologist and former co-editor of Instructional Science, former Chair of the UCSB Department of Psychology, and the year 2000 recipient of the E. L. Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology.

Ib Ravn, Ph.D., is in charge of the project cluster "Tools for the Knowledge-Based Organization". He initiates and coordinates research and development projects on the facilitation of knowledge processes between people in organizations. He lectures, gives workshops and writes on meeting facilitation, the learning conference and how to dynamize academia.

Facilitating Knowledge Processes We do research on tools that people can use to fire up the knowledge processes in their organizations.

Department: Learning Lab
University: Danish University of Education

Patrick De Wit is a clinical neurologist, interested in rehabilitation of people. Diseases of the brain are the most important reason for learning and attention disorders.
In his function as Medical Director he is involved in the daily issues about learning, teaching and networking between medical doctors in and outside the hospital.





Department Neurology    AZ Sint Jozef    Malle, Belgium

Caroline van Niekerk is a full Professor of Music Education at the University of Pretoria. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Music and English as well as a teacher's diploma from the University of Stellenbosch. After obtaining two licentiates from the University of South Africa, one in School Music and one in the Theory of Music, she completed her postgraduate studies (M.Mus and PhD) at the University of the Witwatersrand. In addition she holds a variety of qualifications in fields as diverse as translating, editing, television presentation, leadership and negotiating skills. She returned to the University of Pretoria at the beginning of 1996 from her previous post as Director in the South African national Department of Education.