Your Very Own Google Perk

Life seems pretty sweet at the Googleplex in Mountain View, where -- as Google's website explains -- employees travel between meetings on scooters, and dogs, lava lamps, massage chairs, yoga classes, and ping pong tables abound. Maybe we can't all eat at the company cafeteria, but here's one perk that Google shares with everyone: possibly the greatest online book club on the planet.

Authors@Google features a collection of authors who are invited to Googleplex to read from their work, and discuss it with Google employees. The speakers are stunningly diverse -- from How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel Wilson, to Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick by Molly Ringwald. (Yes, that Molly Ringwald.)

As someone fascinated by developmental molecular biologist Dr. John Medina's book Brain Rules, I was happy to see that Medina spoke at Google two years ago when his book was first published. His hour-long talk is captivating -- while declaring that "We don't really know squat about the brain," Medina nevertheless illuminates how a variety of factors, including stress, nutrition, and sleep, have immediate and measurable effects on cognition.

We talked with Medina's publishing partner, Mark Pearson, about Medina's research for the July cover story "More Than Feeling." If you'd like to know more about how your brain works -- or how to best insure our children make the most of their cognitive capabilities -- tune in here.

July 2010 Issue: Live!

The digital edition of our July 2010 issue is now live -- and front and center is a terrific cover story by Senior Editor Barbara Palmer that takes ROI to another level: "Return on Intangibles." Other highlights:

Update -- Crisis Response: Checking in with the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference, which by sheer chance convened in Houston a week and a half after the oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

"State of the Unions": A feature article that uses McCormick Place's recent labor overhaul as a jumping-off point to explore union issues throughout the exhibitions industry.

E-panel -- "Trade Shows: Today and Tomorrow": Convene readers weigh in on our latest e-panel survey, with questions about their shows today and five years down the road

"4 Questions Trade Show Organizers Need to Ask Themselves": An exclusive excerpt from a white paper prepared for the 2010 Exhibition and Convention Executives Forum (ECEF).

One on One With: Ron DiLeo, the new executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE).

Leading by Example: A profile of Vivian Schiller, who became president and CEO of NPR a year and a half ago -- just in time to inherit both a huge deficit and soaring listener numbers.

One on One With: Vernice Armour, the first female African-American combat pilot in U.S. military history, who will be making a keynote presentation sponsored by Convene at the DMAI Annual Convention next week.

Working Smarter: What Foursquare and other location-based applications could mean for meetings.

Innovative Meetings: Behind the scenes at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons 2010 Annual Meeting -- where every attendee got their own iPod Touch, pre-loaded with the conference's entire programming.

Backchannel: What is the best way to allocate space in an exhibit hall? Four meeting professionals weigh in.

Other Duties as Assigned: The American Camp Association, New York's Scott Rothschild on that time a SWAT team burst into his exhibit hall. And the Fonz was there.

Look for the text-only version of the July issue on our homepage within the next few days.