1. Date: October 12, 2011<br />To: Pam Armstrong<br />From Jessica Hoekstra<br />RE: MARK37, World Business Forum <br /> First of all, I would like to thank St. Lawrence College and the SIFE team for allowing St. Lawrence College business students the opportunity to attend the live broadcast of the 2011 World Business Forum. It allowed myself, and my fellow classmates, to learn from inspiring leaders and take that knowledge with us through our journeys in education and in the workforce. <br /> Gary Burnison had said, “Where you end today is where you start tomorrow” This quote stood out to me because I never really thought of a day ending is where I am going to pick up tomorrow. I believe he is trying to say that each day leads into the next, which is obvious, but it is more about how change doesn’t happen over night but over time. When Burnison had said this he was talking about leadership, how it’s a process that takes time and needs to be worked on day after day. We do not want to repeat the past but to learn from it and continue with the future. <br /> One of the speakers that stood out to me was Malcolm Gladwell. I was excited to see Gladwell even before he started to speak because I have enjoyed some of the books he has written. He went on to tell the story of the doctor who studied and discovered a cure for childhood leukemia, and how the doctor did not view himself as a risk taker for combining four poisons drugs that might kill the children, but that the other people were risk takers for doing nothing at all but letting these children die. Gladwell goes on to talk about how we perceive risk taking which is when someone goes against the norm of what others are thinking, but he flips it around and says that maybe all the other people were risk takers for doing nothing and letting those children die. This is about perceptions, what one-person thinks or sees the other person does not. This is important in marketing because you are constantly dealing with different perceptions and what seems risky to one person makes perfect logical sense to the other. It is important to see how other people see things and not have a closed mind but an open one to others thoughts and ideas because who knows, you might miss something important along the way. <br />Tal Ben-Shahar ties in with what Gladwell was saying about how people perceptions are different. Shahar had showed the audience for 30 seconds a picture and told them to find as many geometric shapes as they could in that time. Once the time was up the screen went blank and he asked a series of questions related to the picture that was shown. Many people could not answer the questions related to the picture because they were so focused on the question that was being asked of them originally, that they forgot to look at the bigger picture. This is true for everyday life; we often go through the motions and miss what is going on around us. We become so focused on a task or gaining the answer to the question being asked we do not see what is going on around us and we tend to miss things. It is important as marketers to know what is going on around us and to see the bigger picture so we can help our bosses and our companies excel and see things others may not have thought of. <br /> Overall the 2011 World Business Forum was a good experience, and I appreciate the opportunity I was given to attend. If I was given the opportunity in the future to attend again I would. The knowledge I have gained from these leaders has helped me see things a little differently and I will be able to use this knowledge in life and in my career. <br />