What does “plenaried” mean in this phrase?

A recently-asked question, since deleted by its author, prompts the following question.

In a 12 March 2013 New York Times column called The Axis of Ennui, David Brooks concluded with:

What are the names of the people who are leading this shift? Who is the Steve Jobs of shale? Magazine covers don’t provide the answers. Whoever they are, they don’t seem hungry for celebrity or good with the splashy project launch. They are strong economically, but they are culturally off the map.

This revolution will not be plenaried.

What does the last sentence mean?

Adjective plenary has senses that include “Fully attended; for everyone's attendance” and “(theology or law) Complete; full; entire; absolute”. The noun phrase plenary session typically refers to “a session in a conference which is open to all (or a large number) of attendant speakers, who may each contribute prepared or ad-hoc material”.

But what does “This revolution will not be plenaried” mean?


David Brooks started his column explaining how he spends a lot of time on conference circuits. He goes on to explain that the big drivers of innovation are not always the young, photogenic, well-spoken people seen at these lectures, but rather less visible or less media-exposed engineers and business people.

"The revolution will not be plenaried" means that big changes will not come from the "30 under 30" or Ted Talk types that many assume are doing great things. Big changes will instead come from big companies that we might otherwise think are not capable of challenging the status quo.


This revolution will be driven by a small, anonymous collection of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.