Inspiration! Education! Impact! We’ve got keynote topics to cover it all in this new interview.
Background
I recently joined Chris Lee of Cal Entertainment for a really fun chat about the latest state of the bees. We covered where things stand in my mission of improving bee health. As you can tell, Chris and I had a lot of fun here.
His energy is as high as my mother’s (and my own!), and his curiosity is similarly off the charts to hers…perhaps that’s why I like him so much. Chris is one of those people who is always seeking out new perspectives amongst the world. I have a lot of respect for people who work to connect folks like this, so we can all learn and build together.
Chris and I were first introduced by Luke Joerger of Hastings Digital. Luke is a marketer with a passion for building personal brands. He lives in the gorgeous region of the Hudson Valley, NY, working out of this really fun and innovative space that hosts podcasts, among other things.
Luke has introduced so much to my life, actually, including my new mentorship group with Marshall Goldsmith called 100 Coaches. Special shout out to the television producer Hillari Palatnik for introducing me to Luke. As Hillari always says, “It’s all about networking, folks!”
In this video, we cover almost everything I’m working on these days, including a brand new keynote topic about leadership lessons from the beehive. As a CEO and scientist, I’ve always taken inspiration from the natural world when it comes to solving seemingly intractable situations.
Keynote Topic #1: Benefits of Bees to Business
In this video, I discuss with Chris all the benefits that bees bring to businesses, including:
- accreditation points for real estate,
- increased employee engagement,
- positive investor relations with ESG and CSR data reporting,
- community honey,
- lessons in leadership from the hive,
- health and wellness.
Keynote Topic #2: Making Sustainability Goals Fly
Beehives on campuses and rooftops enable companies to give back to their communities by helping the environment through bee pollination, which promotes the spread of plants. Did you know that about 40% of all plants require pollination? These give us food and take carbon (#NetZero goals!) out of the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. So now you know!
My keynote events focus around these topics, and provide a source of inspiration, while also educating teams about the plight of bees in such a way that focuses on why bees are surviving, rather than just dying. This bee’s eye view provides a creative lens of accountability that isn’t available through other keynotes addressing goals relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental social and governance (ESG) concerns of large companies (see: my earlier blog post on COVID’s Greening of Business).
Keynote Topic #3: Bees are Dying, Here’s Technology to Save Them
I got started with bees because beehives hold so much truth just waiting to be revealed to us humans. It’s kind of like a box of answers, just waiting for the right questions to be asked, not allowed to slip a word without us first being ready to handle the knowledge. And so when large organizations need to adapt to moments like now, when companies must adapt to leverage emerging, cutting-edge technologies like:
blockchain,
machine learning,
genomics,
artificial intelligence,
and augmented reality…
we turn to bees as a play tool for testing and developing them all. Scientifically-managed beehives on business campuses and rooftops allow for employees and stakeholders to become familiar with these technologies in a new way, to inspire, educate, and open minds for new processes to come.
Keynote Topics #4: Leadership Lessons from the Hive
Personally, beehives have always been a tool for my research since I began my PhD studies at Tufts University in 2005. Bees help me test hypotheses and thereby reveal the underlying truths of complex social systems. Through bees, we learn about teamwork, adversity, and change. How do successful systems operate across evolutionary time? Consider the dynamics between employees and managers – or better yet, worker bees and their queens. Dig deeper into the hive with me to learn more.
Got a problem with communicating in your group? Bees figured it out with dancing! Need to lead a corporate turnaround strategy? Change in a beehive comes from workers, not from leaders. How to inspire and educate your stakeholders? Book me for a keynote! I promise you’ll be sweetly satisfied, and the audience honey will have your team leaving impressed, too.
A Keynote to Remember (guaranteed!)
Chris provided a new perspective to me that I honestly never had before. He suggested that I ask those hiring me for a keynote to consider going beyond the talk, and actually get bees on campus, be it on an empty rooftop or on the campus grounds. My team at The Best Bees Company has already done this with 500 companies, and counting.
This is what’s so special and important about this moment with keynotes and corporate sustainability. Employees and audiences want more than just talk, they want action!
Each time people see and hear updates about how the on premise bees are doing, we feel that connection to doing something good, to making an impact, and to actually remember my keynote. Let’s make the keynotes last well beyond our time together, by taking action with scientifically-managed beehives actually on site.
Thank you to Chris and Cal Entertainment for this fun opportunity. Here’s to many more to come. Now let’s get out there, go beyond the talk, and take some action together! We’re only on this Earth for a short time. If we don’t make a difference and do some good for the planet, then who will? If not now, then when? Reach out to me today to get our conversation started.
