Engagement, Freedom, and Malcolm Gladwell in Amsterdam

January 31st, 2009

This week I was in Amterdam speaking at a MIcosoft conference on driving engagement.

I found myself in an international school bedecked with the stars and stripes, standing on a podium in a sports hall adressing the gallery – I craved to get everyone to shout yes we can.

And so thank you Rachael and Joost for inviting me to come along and to talk about my journey from straight line thinking in communications towards something that I believe is more potent and more powerful that will affect us all at a societal level.

Then it was off to Freedom Lab in the centre of Amsterdam, to meet the fiercely intelligent nad fun to be with, Arjan Postma and his equally engaging partner Jörgen van der Sloot, and the rest of the Freedom Lab team. Our brainstorming was concentrated on the development of the next book project.

It was intense, and it was worth it.

If anyone is interested in the new project, if you want to get involved, then do get in touch.

We made significant progress. Then the boys decided to show me a film they had made from a telephone interview that we had a while ago. I had no idea what I was going to see, and it brought me to tears.

Then off to see Malcolm Gladwell present in the evening to listen to him talk about his new book. I was in fact really surprised, in that there was a political cut to his talk that was quite unexpected.

And I got to hang out with some great people and some old friends: Albert and Menno.

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