NEW YORK (7 March 2005) - Opts Ideas announced today a shift in the way it will do business. The award-winning company, formerly known as Opts Events, has changed its name and business model, "Because the currency we deal in is ideas, and we believe our name and our work should reflect that", explained founder and CEO Michael Christman, who founded Opts over 20 years ago.

Christman's vision sees publishing and event marketing overlapping-creating a niche that Opts Ideas is uniquely positioned to fill. "Opts is a publisher of content, and our medium is the live event", Christman said. "Imagine, instead of reading your favorite magazine, you could experience the articles live." "For our clients, the strategy is no longer to simply expose their audience to a message; it's to engage them."

Historically, Opts is considered a leading event production company, with as many as 60 employees on staff. Today, Opts Ideas has 3 Partners, including Christman. All ideas are conceived and vetted by the core team at Opts, with production outsourced to a network of veteran contractors around the country.

"We realized that we didn't need a large in-house staff to produce flawless events", said Lisa Holland, VP and Partner with Opts Ideas for over 15 years. "We have been in this business a long time and work with the very best people. Our projects are among the most creative and satisfying to work on, so we are able to build a virtual dream team for every job we do."

Opts Ideas' announced its first live publishing project today, called The Open Mind Series. Slated to launch in September 2006 at MIT, this series will address how brain research is benefiting society. The Open Mind Series will address topics of profound significance and relevance, including, depression's impact on the workplace, memory's role in addiction, and breakthrough discoveries that may treat the most widespread cause of mental retardation.

The series will be produced in collaboration with MIT's Picower Center for Learning and Memory and health insurer, CIGNA. The Picower Center for Learning and Memory at MIT focuses the talents of a diverse array of research scientists on a single mission: unraveling the mechanisms that drive the human capacity to remember and to learn, as well as related functions like perception, attention and consciousness. CIGNA is an employee benefits company committed to helping businesses provide the best possible coverage for their employees and their families, including quality behavioral and mental health coverage. As a Business of Caring ™, CIGNA believes in sponsoring good causes and promoting ways to help people help themselves.