Michael Hewitt-Gleeson

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Michael Hewitt-Gleeson.

Michael Hewitt-Gleeson (born Melbourne 1947) is the co-founder and principal of the School of Thinking (SOT) that was initially based in New York for 14 years (1974-1989).

Presently operating as an internet service that is based in Melbourne, SOT lessons are available in over 46 countries and have already reached over 70 million people worldwide since 1979. ^[1] His invention, SOTNET/Trainee-Trainer-Interactive, has made SOT one of the world's largest training school. ^[2]

Hewitt-Gleeson is the No. 2 world authority on lateral thinking, ^[1] author of Software For Your Brain, and inventor of cognetics. ^[2] In 1984-85, Hewitt-Gleeson brought cognetics to interactive TV with his design of Viewer-driven Television (VTV). ^[2] VTV used an interactive television format where the programming was driven in real time by the viewers, not by the station.

[edit] Academic and professional background

Hewitt-Gleeson holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science, International College, Los Angeles (1980). In 1980, Cambridge Professor Edward de Bono was Hewitt-Gleeson's tutor for the world's first PhD in Lateral Thinking in which the latter proposed the Theory of Newsell. At the commencement of the project, Professor de Bono wrote on August 17, 1978:

"Your application of the principles and attitudes of lateral thinking to selling in your Newsell approach is, to me, an interesting and powerful approach to an important area. What particularly interests me is your proposal to test theoretical constructs in a very practical manner in your field work." ^[1]

Hewitt-Gleeson's other professional appointments include:

President, Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT), New York (1983)
Managing Director, Edward de Bono & Associates Inc, New York (1977)
Co-founder with Edward de Bono, School of Thinking, New York (1979)
Principal, School of Thinking, Melbourne (1988).

Hewitt-Gleeson has been an international consultant on strategy to international organizations and corporations from the United Nations, and the White House to IBM, Fujitsu, BMW, and Jack Welch of General Electric. ^[2] He has lectured widely in more than 15 nations in the world, including Canada, China, France, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, apart from the United States, and Australia.

His works has been featured in Forbes, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Personal Success (cover story May '91), Readers Digest (April 1983, cover story, worldwide editions), and Wall Street Journal, amongst several others, and also in numerous radio and television programs worldwide.