Interaction leader Cyriel Kortleven posted a SlideShare offering 21 tips on enhancing engagement at your event. The advice is great, but I was left to wonder why, precisely, he did this. I’m a proponent of Creative Commons and sharing ideas and offering free intellectual property, but you still don’t often find people offering up real value at no cost. So I took my singular question to Kortleven for some insight, and to share his presentation with our audience.

The always pleasant Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab, continues to break out in the U.S. as a major force of the future and open-mindedness. The subject of an award-winning 2009 One+ profile (back when he was CEO of Creative Commons; currently the chairman of that enlightened group), Ito has made some impressive appearances in the media this month.

In the latest issue of Fast Company, Ito is included as a top disrupter, a bold thinker, in the business world. He's named "The Über Consultant" with the tagline "Fight for flexibility."

This week, Ito penned an editorial for The New York Times, "In An Open-Source Society, Innovating by the Seat of Our Pants" (for the record, not his headline), explaining how the Internet is a philosophy rather than a technology and is altering not only creativity but the way we think about creativity.

I don't mean to continue harping on the virtues and philosophies of Ito, but I can't help it. Each time I see his name leading a story and each time I read a tweet from @Joi, I wonder how his thought bubbles could aid the meeting and event industry... We need more thinkers like him.

Simply put, you need to pay attention to Joi Ito.

Image (CC) Mizuka

It's hip to be open--and increasingly recognized as business smart. Relevant examples? See Google's open-source Android mobile operating system--now the world leader due largely to the lack of cost for phone manufacturers to use and customize it to their liking. Android has also enabled phone manufacturers to reduce the cost of the devices and thus bring smartphone technology to those consumers previously ignored, the billions of people priced out of using advanced tech.

Creative Commons, publisher of the outstanding new (and free!) book, The Power of Open, is another success story. Leveraging innovative new approaches to the stringent copyright world, Creative Commons has revolutionized intellectual property ownership and usage for the digital age. The Power of Open (currently available in English, Japanese and Portuguese) shares best practices through real-life examples in the implementation of open-source ethos and provides some invaluable Creative Commons 101. This is a great place for meeting professionals to get started in Creative Commons education and a resourceful read for those already working with the new standard in copyright.

You may recall back in July 2009, when Joi Ito was CEO of Creative Commons (he's now chair of CC and director of the MIT Media Lab), we published what would become an award-winning profile about him and his group's works: "Ambassador of the New Breed".

Combine the One+ Ito profile and The Power of Open and you've got a strong pair of works from which to embrace Creative Commons and real openness.

Digital Garage, a company Ito co-founded and where he remains director, will be responsible for marketing, public relations and marketing research to help LinkedIn crack the cultural barrier/challenge that has regularly prevented foreign-based social media companies from taking off in Japan.

“Japan is one of the most professional network oriented business environments in the world and LinkedIn has enormous potential to increase productivity of individuals and organizations in Japan and help Japan in its global context,” Joi Ito said.

As if that isn't a big enough challenge, Ito has also just been named director of the influential MIT Media Lab. He says launching LinkedIn in Japan will be his last "real job" before fully embracing the MIT Media Lab.

Back in July 2009, when Joi Ito was CEO of Creative Commons, leading tech writer Quinn Norton penned an award-winning profile of this "Ambassador of the New Breed" for One+.