Nolan Bushnell, a technology pioneer, entrepreneur, and engineer, is often cited as a founding father of the video game industry. But his new project is to revolutionize meetings. The man behind Atari Corporation, the video-game maker that transformed entertainment, Bushnell was also the first man to hire the late Steve Jobs, in 1974 (his new book is fittingly titled Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent).
The 71-year-old Bushnell not only has a knack for spotting talent, but also for taking risks as an entrepreneur. Besides Atari, other companies he has founded include Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater (now just Chuck E. Cheese's); technology incubator Catalyst Technologies; Etak, an early digital navigation system; and uWink, the first touchscreen menu ordering and entertainment system.
Meetings have always been important to Bushnell. At Atari, he would send employees to numerous conferences to make sure people were familiar with the brand and its ongoing projects. He is a regular at creative gatherings like Mindshare, a monthly networking event, and BIL, an unconference held over three days in Long Beach, CA.
"The power of a good meeting versus a bad one is incredible," says Bushnell, in between sessions at MPI's World Education Congress in Minneapolis, MN, where he led a Disney Destinations--sponsored Master Class. "We've all been to really bad meetings and conventions that are half-assed, and you say to yourself, 'That was a waste of time.' I've been to others that have started in the right direction, but I can't say they are all the way there yet."
He emphasizes that strong meetings should use technology to ensure that "every participant be much more engaged in the process."
The goal of his newest venture, BrainRush, is a lofty one: to revolutionize learning. Right now his focus is on students and education, but Bushnell says the concept can easily be applied to meetings.
Bushnell is also a big proponent of retreats. "Almost anyone can maintain a façade for an hour in a conference room, but few people can do that for three days in a different and isolated environment."
Champion the Bad
Meetings can actually become more effective if they "champion the bad ideas," says Bushnell. By way of explanation, Bushnell points to Atari retreats, where he would ask attendees to make a list of all the ideas that had been presented and rank those ideas from good to bad. He would then look at the list upside down -- taking the items on the bottom of the list and having his attendees figure out how they could make them work. "This process reversed people's normal mental dynamic," Bushnell explains in his book. "Every time we did this exercise, at least one of the bottom six ideas turned out to be not just good, but great, and eventually became a profit-making machine for us."
Inspiration is more likely to strike in creative places, says Bushnell. He used to take his employees skiing, to the beach, to the mountains. Sometimes it's as easy as going for a stroll. "Brain research shows that if you can talk and walk at the same time, you're more likely to come up with ideas," he adds.
One day, Bushnell's story may even appear on the big screen. A biopic about him, tentatively titled Atari, is in pre-production.
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This article appears in the September 2014 issue of Successful Meetings under the headline "Game Change."