August 19, 2011 
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George Kembel, executive director and co-founder of Stanford University’s d.school, presented a small gift to audience members during his 10:45 a.m. lecture Friday in the Amphitheater.
Taped to the backs of some seats in the Amp, small plastic bags hung. Inside each one were black dots smaller than grains of sand.
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August 18, 2011 Comments Off
Joan Abrahamson’s eyes began to water as she ended her 10:45 a.m. lecture Thursday in the Amphitheater. She was about to share something very personal with the Chautauquans there.
“I’ve got to tell you,” Abrahamson said, “I don’t usually talk like this. I usually give an analytical presentation about a problem and how we’re going about solving it, but I feel here that what’s special about Chautauqua is that all these levels operate simultaneously.”
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August 17, 2011 Comments Off
Col. Casey Haskins thinks Americans today are bloody monkeys in a cage.
He presented a scenario to explain: Five monkeys are put in a cage with bananas hanging from the ceiling. There is one stool in the cage, and when one monkey tries to take one of the bananas using the stool, bystanders spray all five monkeys with ice-cold water. This happens about three times.
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August 16, 2011 Comments Off
It was the late ’90s, and Dev Patnaik was still single. Some people invited him to a little get-together to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their company, an obscure search engine using technology he just didn’t understand. The real reason he went, though, was the free beer.
That company was Google.
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August 15, 2011 Comments Off
Gary Shapiro sat with a Chinese politician in Tsingtao, China. Their translators worked to convey their thoughts — after all, neither spoke the others’ language very well.
Shapiro soon learned that gestures don’t need to be translated.
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August 14, 2011 Comments Off
Gary Shapiro knows innovation.
Innovation is Apple Inc. Innovation is Amazon.com. Innovation is Google, Inc.
And what else do those companies have in common? The Consumer Electronics Association, of which Shapiro is president and CEO, gathers more than 2,000 electronics companies — including Apple, Amazon and Google — to provide market research and networking capabilities, as well as to host tradeshows.
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August 12, 2011 Comments Off
While Thursday’s morning lecturer John Stropki spoke on globalization in regard to manufacturing, Friday’s speaker Fred Bergsten commented that manufacturing only makes up 10 percent of the U.S. economy. The real topic to Bergsten — and the one he spoke on — is the service industry, which makes up 80 percent.
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August 11, 2011 Comments Off
In today’s economic climate, success stories in the business world range from creative geniuses thinking up that perfect invention to investors funding that risky venture.
John Stropki’s story is more traditional than that.
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Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. Over the course of nine weeks, more than 170,000 visitors will participate in programs, classes and community events for all ages—all within the beautiful setting of a historic lakeside village. Learn more →
