Amy Blankson

Technology—at least in theory—is improving our productivity, efficiency, and communication. Yet the average mobile user checks their phones more than 150 times per day, and 67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. Mindful attention is a scarce resource. As one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and technology, Amy Blankson unveils five strategies that successful individuals use to find a sense of balance between technology, productivity, and wellbeing in the Digital Age. In this talk, you will learn how to move from partial attention to full intention, how to hack your distractions to achieve maximum productivity and life satisfaction, and how to rid yourself of the tech graveyard in your office drawers to create more mental and physical space to do the things you love. By rethinking when, where, why and how we use technology, we can begin to recapture our focus, deepen engagement, and find flow in our everyday activities and relationships.

Happiness is the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy, yet so often it is seen as a luxury at work.  However, a decade of research shows that training your brain to be positive at work actually fuels greater success. In fact, 75% of our job success is predicted not by intelligence, but by your optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way.  It is time to get strategic about how we can raise happiness levels at our organizations to empower teams to reach their full potential. In this talk, Amy draws on her experiences working as Co-founder of global consulting firm GoodThink to empower teams that happiness is a choice, happiness is a habit, and happiness spreads.  She explains how we rethink stress in the midst of change and challenge and how we can lead positive change from any position in the organization.

In the information economy, collaboration is the ultimate currency. Digital communities now enable us to “upsource” projects to collective wisdom, thereby tapping into vast reserves of knowledge and creativity. Yet at the heart of this movement are individuals, many of whom have ceased to believe that they can overcome systemic barriers to making a difference in their organization. The Ancient Greeks defined optimism as “the belief that our behavior matters,” which is a critical concept for helping individuals to remove limiting beliefs and to shift towards solutions-based thinking. In this talk, Amy will share inspiring stories of individuals who have mobilized their communities for positive change and will reveal core strategies for how to leverage the potential of teams. Using a combination of design thinking and experiential activities, Amy will show audience members how we can all be innovators if we act together with intention.

While gender parity in management has long been an issue, the events of the past year–particularly in the field of technology–have shed new light on why women continue to struggle with breaking through the glass ceiling.  While these stories give us snapshots into the challenges that women in the field face, we would be remiss to simply push for more management positions, board seats, or funding opportunities for women without answering the underlying concerns and misconceptions about women in the field: Why should there be more women in leadership? How did current leaders navigate their career choices? What challenges have they faced along the way?  Drawing upon dozens of interviews that Amy completed over the past year for her Forbes series on “Women Execs in Tech,” Amy will share her insight to these questions and provide a path forward for leaders of any gender.