Nicholas Christakis—physician and social scientist, WEC 2012 keynote speaker and co-author of the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives—will be connecting live with the MPI community network on Wednesday, July 11, at 2:15 p.m./14.15 (central standard time). This is a great opportunity to engage pre-WEC with a researcher dedicated to the exploration of social networks who, in 2009 and again in 2010, was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers and who in 2009 was named to the TIME 100, TIME magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people.

Dr. Christakis' lab, the Human Nature Lab at Harvard University, is currently focused on the relationship between social networks and health. People are inter-connected, and so their health is inter-connected. This research engages two types of phenomena: the social, mathematical and biological rules governing how social networks form ("connection") and the biological and social implications of how they operate to influence thoughts, feelings and behaviors ("contagion").

People live in networks and have since the beginning of rational thought. Through multiple and many-faceted paths that include family connections, friendship connections and work connections, we are interconnected to many hundreds and thousands more connections, most of whom we do not know. We still affect them and they still affect us.

Christakis' work examines the multiple types of rules that govern how we form these social networks, and the rules that govern how they shape our lives. His work also sheds light on how we might take advantage of an understanding of social networks to make the world a better place. 

Before you join us next Wednesday, please enjoy some pre-conversation videos and reading that will answer many questions and open up more:

http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_how_social_networks_predict_epidemics.html

http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/10/qa_wih_nicholas/

To join us on computer to type your questions in directly on the webinar platform, please register at www.mpiweb.org/education/online.

Alternatively:

To text a question prior or during our conversation, please text to 254-442-0230. To tweet a question prior or during our conversation, please tweet to @MPIwebinars. To email questions prior or during our conversation please email to webinars@mpiweb.org.

We will get to as many questions as possible in the half-hour, and continue the conversations on the MPI Twitter, LinkedIn and community forums, as well as in the WEC Daily and blogs.

We also have two other great webinars next week that you may be interested in: "Business Value of Meetings: Let's Measure Together" and "Using Webinars to Engage Prospects." Just click on the names of the webinars to sign up. 

(Image (CC) jurvetson)