Emily Levine: Keynote Topics

Seven Bright Ideas
Crucial Information for Business Leaders
Economists and business leaders have always looked to science for their metaphors. But today, with scientific breakthroughs and new technologies happening almost every day, who can keep up? That's where Emily Levine comes in. Emily Levine not only explains science with infectious humor, how it affects the way we go about our business. In particular, she spotlights seven key scientific breakthroughs — Seven Bright Ideas — which are crucial to surviving and thriving in a post 9/11 world. To Emily Levine's own great surprise, the first letters of these Seven Bright ideas, taken in order, spell "P.R.O.F.I.T.S."

A Balancing Act
How to Live with Tension without Stressing Yourself Out
For those who've been too busy running a company or a country to read up on quantum physics and chaos theory, Emily Levine explains the shift from either/or logic to and-and. And-and allows two apparently contradictory realities to co-exist; the trick is to negotiate the tension between them — between work and family, risk and caution, self-interest and the interest of something larger than oneself. Striking her own balance between actual information and hilarious jokes, Emily Levine extols the rewards of this balancing act that business calls "Creative Tension" and her mother called "Poise."

Biology, Medicine and Me
How to Be Healthy, Wealthy and Wise
Emily Levine takes us on an overview of the new advances in biology — evolutionary psychology, the Human Genome, bio-genetics, bio-tech — and what it means to medicine, to society in general and to your own personal health. Levine's experience with breast cancer provides a wealth of surprising insights, starting with the moment when the doctor said "it's cancer" and she realized there were two words scarier than "Everybody sing."

Flie-Swapping Pirates, Broadcast Privateers
Why Intellectual Property Issues Are Your Business
Emily Levine's interest in Intellectual Property arose when she found out that among the properties classified as "intellectual" was Goofy. Delving further, she found a swashbuckling tale, replete with pirates (file-swappers) and privateers (the broadcasters), pitting closed proprietary systems (Microsoft) against open source software (Linux). She also discovered in evolutionary psychology an argument suggesting that our fierce attitudes regarding property may be genetically encoded. Anyone who has ever seen footage of birds claiming and defending territory cannot doubt the existence of this biological imperative. For those who haven't, the dance of the great-crested grebes is soulfully rendered by Emily Levine herself.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Market
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Economics but Were Afraid to Ask
When Emily Levine first found out, per Suze Orman, that you were supposed to treat your money "as a cherished friend", she was shocked. She had long ago given her money to a business manager and let him make friends with it. Hastening to rectify the situation, Emily Levine quickly read up on economics, then invited her money to lunch. Sadly, when the check came, money disappeared. Levine's attempt to track money down — from Wall Street to Washington to Grand Cayman Island — takes her audience on a ride at least as entertaining and somewhat more surprising as the fabled Mr. Toad's.