PICNIC 08 – Introduction

Picnic 08 – introduction

This is the first post in a series where the Masters will blog some lectures given at the Picnic 08 conference which is held the next three days at the Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam.

Opening Picnic 08

Wednesday Sep 24 2008: 13.19, a little later than scheduled it is finally time for Picnic 08. At least, the music I get via the live picnic stream does suggest that Picnic is about to open. Five minutes later there is still no sign of mr.Job Cohen, Amsterdam’s mayor, who is supposed to open the conference at 13.00hrs. Then, at 13.30 the third Picnic is opened by it’s co-founders Marleen Stikker & Bas Verhart with the announcement that mr.Cohen will be speaking later that day.

As it usually is with openings, speakers but foremost partners are being thanked, and a brief overview of what to expect is being given. They state that for the next three days Amsterdam is the creative heart of the world, and they expect five to six thousand people attending this conference, varying from professionals to students (with these entrance fees?). Lectures are abundant with great speakers from all kinds of backgrounds. These different backgrounds are a necessity to give a push to new ideas, Marleen states, a so called ‘collaborative creativity’ that will ‘together shape the future’. Therefore the second function of conferences like Picnic is important and stressed: the opportunity to meet people from all kinds of disciplines and start new businesses.

We’ll keep you posted about this ‘cross media bonanza’.

Next up: Lecture by Charles Leadbeater; “We Think: the power of Mass Creativity”.