FocusCatalyst and Neuroscience Research

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FocusCatalyst, an innovation consultancy that provides Guided Brainstorming for innovators seeking new insights and solutions to business problems, all based on the latest neuroscience research about insight.

With over 25 years experience in major ad agency account management, as president of her own ad agency and as VP marketing at several companies, Betsy was very frustrated with the traditional ineffective (and boring) ways to get input from clients.

So she developed techniques to tap into her client’s gut-level knowledge that even they weren’t consciously aware of.  The result was branding, messaging and positioning that positively resonated with her clients’ companies and customers on a deep level.

In her book, Focus. The Catalyst for Innovation. Guided Brainstorming for Innovators, she teaches that technique and many others that increase insight and innovation in business.

Betsy Burroughs Bio

Betsy Burroughs, president of FocusCatalyst, has over 25 years experience in marketing, advertising, sales and publishing. 

She has marketed products ranging from Informix software and NEC semiconductors to Sun-Maid raisins, Zee paper towels and Purex—working in account management at leading advertising agencies including Foote, Cone & Belding; D'Arcy-McManus Benton & Bowles; and TFB/BBDO. She has held sales and sales management positions at both International Data Group (IDG) and CMP.

At both her own advertising agency and at her marketing consultancy, her clients have included Google, Dwell Magazine, Linguastat, Business 2.0 Magazine, Online Community Report, Ziff-Davis Magazine Networks, CNET Networks, TechRepublic, EDN, Design News, Electronic News, Electronic Business, The Home Book, Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, IDG Executive Forums, The Millennium Project, The Tech Museum of Innovation, Meritage Skin Care and Redken Haircare.

She has held vice president roles at a number of companies including InfoWorld Magazine, Satmetrix and coworking pioneer, Gate 3 WorkClub.

She has served on the board of the Waldzell Meeting, A Global Dialogue for Inspiration, held in Lower Austria.  Speakers there have included architect Frank Gehry, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Warren Bennis, artists Christo and Jeanne Claude, authors Isabele Allende and Paulo Coehlo, many Nobel Prize winners and more.

She serves on the Advisory Boards for Linguastat, Inc. a revolutionary semantic Web company; The Luncheon Society; and Hatch Network.  She is also on the San Francisco Board of Playworks.

She is a member of the World Future Society and a member of the Silicon Valley Node of the Millennium Project—a United Nations-affiliated think tank that produces the annual international State of the Future Report.

As Vice President of Marketing for InfoWorld Magazine, she created the InfoWorld Futures Project and recruited an advisory board that included some of the leading futurists and thinkers in the country including Paul Saffo who was Director, Institute for the Future; John Seely Brown, who was Director of Xerox PARC; Jaron Lanier, considered the “Father of Virtual Reality;” best-selling author of Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore; and IDEO founder and co-founder and head of the Stanford d school, David Kelley and more.   (The best part of creating the InfoWorld Futures Project was getting to know these guys!)

Also at InfoWorld, she negotiated their sponsorship of Paramount Pictures' Las Vegas Star Trek attraction. She cites as one of her greatest thrills going on the set of Deep Space Nine—twice.

Betsy Burroughs is a graduate of the University of California at Davis with a BA degree in English.