THE NEWS from EventWorks, Inc.

If you had the chance to attend SXSW in Austin, TX, last week, you may have enjoyed a customized drink designed by "Watson", IBM's most advanced cognitive computing platform. IBM's Cognitive Bar was one of the big hits at the conference. Watson's cognitive skills will change Food&Beverage as we know it! You may remember Watson as the first computer to beat the world champion in "Jeopardy" 5 years ago. At the time, some cried out that artificial intelligence would be the end of humanity as we know it. Actually, in the 5 years since his game show win, Watson has evolved into a worthy assistant to humans in many aspects! His cognitive skills allow him to make ever smarter, more helpful suggestions, much to our benefit. Watson is world leading in his technical capability to organize unstructured data, understand complex questions and present answers and solutions! He is a thinking computer. The demonstration at the Cognitive Bar in Austin expla...

The haka is traditionally a war dance performed by Maori ancestors before going into battle to show their fearless commitment to win. They performed knowing they were facing death and had no choice but to fully commit. We certainly hope that guests at our corporate events do not face such dire possibilities. However, the haka is a great tool to motivate and unite as we learned from New Zealand's rugby team. Recently a client energized the opening of a General Session with our custom haka. The Event: an annual sales meeting of a large, nationwide American company. Our Tasks: we produced several events, ranging from Opening Session to General Sessions to finally the Awards Night. Guest Count: 700 The Theme: ONE. The Purpose: this meeting had to motivate, encourage, energize and - most of all - UNITE! Internationally renowned author, speaker and business consultant James Kerr was the natural choice as opening session keynote speaker. James Kerr had extraordinary access to ...

How far will you travel to see family and friends? Miles and miles. Humans, apparently, are not the only ones who love togetherness.  Our friend Dianne Budlon Devitt sent us this wonderful, heart warming story about a very unusual friendship between a penguin and an elderly man. Brazilian biologist Joao Paulo Krajewski reports: Four years ago, Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, found a South American Magellanic penguin covered in oil and starving on a beach on an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. A friendship was born.  Since they met in 2011, the creature, which normally breeds on the Patagonia coasts of Argentina and Chile, three to five thousand miles away, has become a faithful companion, swimming every year from its habitat to spend up to eight months living with the retired fisherman in his house on the island. “I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,” said Mr Pereira de Souza in an interview with Globo...

While we are on the subject of millennials: Thank you for all your feedback last week! We agree: there are positives! One example: Meet Rapper JDivine, aka Josh Sunwall. Student and young rapper, very hard at work to launch his musical career. We met JDivine recently when he presented us with a smart, clean, clever rap song, custom-written specifically for the opening sequence of an annual sales conference. We were intrigued and checked him out more thoroughly. It is a pleasure to present, Live from Fayetteville, Arkansas: Josh Sunwall - Rapper JDivine. Josh hails from a musical family. Josh: "My father Kaleb and my grandmother are both great piano players. My father also writes songs. Apparently even my great grandmother was a passionate musician. However, they did not pursue music as a career. I don't play any instruments very well but I started writing lyrics at a very young age. When I first started writing, I was writing poetry, which wasn't something m...