Copenhagen rules!

I just got back from a great week in Copenhagen! The ECCI-team did a great job in finding a form for the conference congruent with its theme… The keynote sessions didn’t take place in one of those big lecture halls. Typically stuffed away somewhere in the back of the building because A) they’re too big to get a central place, and B) because you don’t need windows in them anyway since contact with the outside world would only distract the audience from its main task: listening to the voice of that tiny creature standing in the front and looking at these immense powerpoint slides projected on the screen above the creature’s head… The keynotes at ECCI took place in the entrance-hall, the central place around which the rest of the conference took place as well. The keynote speakers were standing in the middle, a perfect place to interact with the others. And they did… we’ve been dancing, meditating, reflecting etc. And still, some speakers don’t need much, they tell their story and it is great to listen to.
Here are some quotes that I took with me from Copenhagen:

• Gulf-player Gary Player responds to a journalist who assumes that he is winning so much because he is lucky: “the more I practice, the luckier I get”.
• “Isn’t it wonderful to see skillful people work?!” (Jacob Buur)
• “If you manage knowledge, you don’t use it” (Bo Seifert)
• Rolf Smith facilitates people in undertaking Thinking Expeditions. He compares these expeditions to climbing a mountain. What touched me was that he said: “Most accidents in mountain climbing happen just after the top has been reached, when people have started their way back. Why? Because they loose focus!”
• "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people"
• “So much of what we call management, consists in making it difficult for people to work”
• “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"