November 8th Rose City SPIN Seminar

Mindful Engineering

Presented by Lindsay Van Driel

Dates/Times: Thursday, November 8, 2012: Networking @ 5:30-6:30 PM; Seminar 6:30-7:30 PM

Location: OTBC (Oregon Technology Business Center), 8305 SW Creekside Place, Suite C, Beaverton, Oregon, 97008, 2nd floor

Abstract:

Mindfulness refers to one’s ability to sustain attention, in a particular way, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. Although it may sound easy, five minutes of practice proves how tricky this can be. The conditions of modern life and the modern work place, with our hyper-connectivity, continue to erode our ability to willfully focus our attention. Mindfulness is based in the wisdom of ancient traditions, but modernized and secularized to reach its contemporary corporate audience. With academia leading the way, some 180 business schools across the world offer education and training in the field of mindfulness, most notably at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan. Google created a program as a part of their employee development offerings dedicated to mindfulness and emotional intelligence. It is now accompanied by a NYT best-selling book of the same name as the course, Search Inside Yourself, as well as an industry wide conference pulling top tech CEO’s, innovators, authors and philosophers together for two days a year to discuss the importance of mindfulness. Intel’s Awake Inside program seeks to deliver the mindfulness teachings to employees, to relieve stress and build emotional resiliency and competency. As the technology industry continues to shape-shift, large firms are forced to constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant. Intel’s program, dedicated to Mindful Engineering, is designed to teach employees the skills to look deeply within themselves for the answers to today’s most pressing issues. The program has proven to yield results in both personal and professional contexts, with the ultimate goal of promoting an overall sense of well-being in the individual.

Bio:

Lindsay Van Driel is a Business Operations Manager inside the Business Client Platform Division of Intel Corporation. She holds a Masters in Business and Administration from Arizona State University. Additionally, she is a registered Yoga and Meditation Teacher with the International Yoga Alliance. She joined Intel in the Fall of ’99 and has been there since, holding various positions inside the company’s vast engineering structure. Coinciding with her duties in Business Operations, she currently teaches both Yoga and Meditation on site at Intel and has founded Intel’s Awake Inside Program. This program is dedicated to realizing mindfulness in the midst of the corporate work experience and specifically in the field of engineering.

A Special Treat from PNSQC

Plan on coming early! In collaboration with the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC) the SPIN meeting will have pizza and pop provided by PNSQC beginning at 5:30 pm.

PNSQC is the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, a group of volunteers interested in Software Quality. The Mission of the PNSQC is to enable knowledge exchange to produce higher quality software. As a non-profit, it seeks to promote software quality by providing education and opportunities for information exchange within the software community.

Thanks also to OTBC

We want to thank OTBC (http://www.otbc.org/) for providing the space for this talk How to Register

This is a FREE lecture sponsored by the Rose City SPIN. But you can help us plan food and drinks by registering at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4689946757

Rose City SPIN

The Rose City Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) is a monthly forum for networking, mutual support, and promotion of effective software practices. We exchange practical experiences, ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and war stories about the technical, business, and human facets of software process improvement. The Rose City SPIN serves the software development community of the Portland/Vancouver metro area. Whether you work for a large company or a small one, corporate or self-employed, industrial or academic setting, you are welcome at the Rose City SPIN.

Are you ready for Spring? What a better way to celebrate than getting outside for fresh air and getting in touch with nature.

Join us for a short 1-hour hike at Copper Mountain Nature Park. The first half of the hike well share our hiking experiences, and the second half we'll practice mindfulness.

We'll meet by the red building at the entrance at the Nature Park. We'll leave ten minutes after 1 pm to let ourselves introduce each other and catch anyone who might be running late.