The entire Rational Conference just became very very worthwhile. While the conference it self has been good and the sessions covering a wide range of topics have been excellent, this mornings presentation by Benjamin Zander was outstanding.
While most conferences will have a motivational or featured speaker, I think in the long term, this one will be different. In his presentation he positioned his talk as transformational rather that motivational, likening motivational talks to Chinese food, a few hours later and you’re hungry for more. With me, thinking back over the last several conferences there are few I can recall and fewer that made a lasting impact. Actually, I remember one keynote speaker at Lotusphere a few year back when they had Gene Kranz the flight director on the Apollo 13 mission who established the phrase “Failure is not an option”. This may be because I was at the Kennedy Space Center this week and they use that phrase heavily on their merchandising in the store.
Zander’s highly energetic and yes motivational presentation got me to but the book and I’ve read half of it on the plane back to Winnipeg, and it’s great stuff.