Invitation: Education, Creativity and The Kaospilots

I've been studying for two years in Denmark, and many people have been asking me, either by curiosity or interest, about this school with this strange name "Chaos Pilots?". What is it? How does it work? How can I study there? Is there anything like that in Brazil?

As this is my last week in São Paulo, before returning to Denmark and finish my studies, I would like to invite you for an informal conversation about Education, Creativity, Innovation, and much more...

September 9th, 2008 (Tuesday)
Location: The Hub - Bela Cintra 409 - São Paulo
Reception at 7pm, chat goes from 7.30 until 9.30pm
Cost: suggested R$ 5,00 (for drinks and snacks)

This invitation extends for all interested people, and curious about the subjects!
Let me know in advance if you're coming by e-mail henrique@kaospilot.dk.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
(...)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Warriors Without Weapons 2009

I met quite a few folks who supported the last editions of this program, and a few others who have participated. It's impressive, life-changing experience! The deadline has passed for the 2009 edition, but they still accept participants from outside Brazil.

Check the website www.warriorswithoutweapons.net and warn your friends and family, you won't be the same afterwords...





Hello! Do you want to change the world?

We are taking applications for the 2009 Warriors Without Weapons program. The program will gather youth from different countries that are willing to roll up their sleeves and really make a better world.

After 30 days working collectively with a local community, they will come back home with knowledge and experience to start to promote change in their local realities.

In 2009 the program will take place in Santos, Brazil from January 5 to February 5. The applications must be sent until August 15!

Do you want to know more about the program? Visit our blog at www.warriorswithoutweapons.net to learn how to participate.

Please, do you know someone who wants to change the world?

If you think this is a good way and have people in mind to participate. Would you send this invitation to them?

Thank you so much for your atention!

People from Elos: André, Cláudio, Edgard, Mariana, Mila, Natasha, Rodrigo Rubido, Rodrigo Alvarez, Thaís e Val.

1 month gone, 1 month to go

Half of my time in Brazil has passed already. Very fast, as I expected. Today is Friday, I can hear the helicopters flying all around Avenida Paulista ("the Brazilian Wall Street"), and in a few hours I'm flying to my hometown, see my family, a few friends and relax.

The days at the bank have been interesting. We have had a lot of meetings and hours of discussions. As the topics of the project are quite abstract, it was not a waste of time, but necessary for creating a shared understanding and a common "working language". During the first week, we spent one day at The Hub São Paulo (ver inspiring space) defining our Purpose and Principles, using Dee Hock's chaordic model. Five weeks later the project has a much better defined shape and we are ready to invite potential partners to join in and create a real network. I learned a lot about the methodology of Co-Creation, and I even facilitated a presentation/training for the Human Development area last week. They loved it and I felt quite comfortable about it.

Besides that, I've been practicing Yoga two or three times a week (offered by the bank for the employees, from 6.30-7.30pm), getting used to longer lunch hours (1h-1h30min) and longer office hours (no earlier than 6pm), and lack of coffee (I reduced the amount of coffee consumed in 95%).

Meanwhile I start to plan my year ahead at the Kaospilot, my third and final year. I need to find a host organization for my internship in October-December, and define my final project (Feb-May 2009). At last but not least, find a way to raise some money to pay Ove, the school money man :)

Clonado no orkut!!! (impersonified!!!)

(no version in English this time...)

Gurizada, essa é de rir pra não chorar... dilemas da vida cibernética-pós-moderna. Fui clonado. Minha identidade usada de forma ilegal, crime de falsa identidade, nessa vida virtual. E o pior, já é a terceira vez em que isso me acontece!!

Alguém criou um perfil do Orkut usando uma(s) foto(s) minha(s)... confira aqui! Como já pedi pra Google cancelar o perfil, ele desaparacerá em breve, por isso gostaria de copiar aqui a introdução do rapaz - sugestivamente chamado "Henrique Raniere"...

Sou romântico, quase um amante a moda antiga, como diz a música do Rei... "do tipo q ainda manda flores"...
Sou do tipo q se apega facilmente as pessoas.
Sou calmo, tranquilo,fiel, não sou muito ciumento, só cuido daquilo q amo e q me é importante.
Sou um pouco tímido, mas estou aberto a novas amizades.
No momento, estou solteiro, e a procura da mulher q vai me conquistar e preencher minha vida por completo. Sei q é difícil, mas sou paciente e sei q ela está por perto. Estou muito carente... alguém se habilita??? (risos)
Sou muito ligado a minha familia e acho q isso é a base de tudo, e tudo q tenho e sou eu devo inteiramente a eles.
Tenho bom humor... mas sem exageros.
Trabalho muito, mas sempre arrumo tempo para me dedicar a pessoa q estiver do meu lado, aos meus amigos, e aos meus passatempos prediletos.
Acho q é isso!
Vlw

É brincadeira, né? Coisa de pentelho cheio de espinhas na cara. O pior é saber que ele tinha mais de 100 "amigos" e uns 40 e tantos FÃS!!! E eu!??

Ainda em 2006 minha amiga Licia encontrou um "Henrique Paulo Vedana", que foi desmascarado antes de poder fazer muitas amizades (embora ele tivesse até testemunhos!). Há um ano atrás, foi a vez do "Sr. Vedana", denunciado por um internauta Baiano "detetive particular", que também me advertiu sobre um sujeito do Acre estar usando a minha foto para seduzir gurias num desses sites de namoro online... sujeito bacana, né? (O Baiano, claro!)

Dessa vez foi minha futura hóspede pelo couchsurfing, que apesar de ser uma guria inteligente e interessante, deixou-se levar pelas palavras doces do solteiro Henrique... reconheceu as semelhanças, pensou que Raniere era meu nome do meio, me avisou, e ainda deve estar em dúvida sobre quem roubou as fotos de quem! ;-)

A foto maldita...


Essa foto foi tirada pela Laura, no inverno gaúcho de 2005. Eu estava gripado tomando um chimas em Santa Maria (dá pra ver a Roberta ao fundo) com velhos amigos. Dois meses depois eu estava embarcando pra Holanda e criei esse blog veds.nomadlife.org para documentar a experiência no exterior... e dei upload dessa foto como teste >>>

E não é que o Google Images "tagueou" a minha cara de doente, e todas as pessoas procurando por fotos de chimarrão passaram a ver a minha lata. Algumas pessoas, que hoje acabaram sendo amigas minhas, me adicionaram no MSN ou mandaram e-mail. Outras pessoas usaram minha foto em PPTs, sites de namoro, Orkut e outras coisas mais... até sobrinho da Mãe Elô eu virei!!!

Não quero assustar ninguém, mas é fato... caiu na rede, é peixe. Botou coisa na Internet, é imprevisível o que pode acontecer. Pra bom e pra ruim. Muitas coisas boas já me sucederam por ter um perfil no Orkut, no Couchsurfing, no Linked-in, no Flickr, além dos blogs no nomadlife.org... mas tudo faz parte dessa nova era e dos seus dilemas...


E ae, já deixou recado pro Henrique Raniere? Vai lá, pode sacanear a vontade... :D

Chaordic Principles and Learning Networks

I arrived in São Paulo two weeks ago. It's funny and nice to be back here 3 years later (I lived here before in 2003-2005). I got invited by an old friend Zoe, who works for Banco Real, to join a project on Corporate Education. As they defined it, they want to pioneer the future of corporate education in Brazil, in a very innovative and interesting way, through co-creation of multi-stakeholder networks, where educational experiences take place, creating value for all participants, society and for the bank (and other institutions). Banco Real recently received the award of "Most Sustainable Bank in the World", given by the Financial Times. It's amazing to see how much the language and 'walking-the-talk' is developed here. Not perfect, but far ahead of most of the private sector.

There are three key concepts involved in this project called "Vanguard in Education":

• Experience Co-Creation: developed by C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy in their book "The Future of Competition", a new paradigm for ceating products and services engaging stakeholders. The "consumer" becomes a key player in the creative process, The individual experience is central in the conception of "value".
  
• Chaordic Governance: combines chaos and order in a harmonious way, competition and cooperation. It was inspired by Dee Hock's work when developing the concept of VISA International through the 60s-80s and beautifully told in his book "The Birth of Chaordic Age".
  
• Networks: people find meaning and get engaged when colaborating with other people, instead of working alone. People get even more engaged when colaborating with other people from other organizations, based on knowledge networks and interests.

Instead of hiring a specialized consulting firm with a developed model to be implemented, the bank decided to look for young, entrepreneurial innovators to co-create and implement the new platforms. Kaospilots would naturally be a place to find people like me! :P

These first 2 weeks were designed for a better understanding of the project today, its needs and also get a better feeling about the bank and the context. Banco Real is starting a merging process with Banco Santander (from Spain), which will create one of the largest private banks in Brazil, with over 50,000 employees. It does affect many people, their careers, etc...

The team behind this project is also very promissing. International, diverse and passionate. Chaordic and self-organized :) Half of the team have been involved in AIESEC before (like me). For the next two days I'll be taking part in a national seminar "Networks and Development", hosted by LEAD Brazil and SENAC. Researching!

Summer plans?

I came back from China in the end of April and after spending 2 weeks in Amsterdam working for GRI and seeing some old friends, I arrived in Aarhus focused in finishing the semester and figuring out my summer plans... my original plans of staying in Aarhus working on a cool marketing project got canceled and I got a bit confused in the middle of a thousand ideas and no concrete decisions. Anxiety and impatience are not good companions for those moments, I must confess.

Cutting the crap (I guess no one wants to read about my inner conversations with myself over the last month), some good things came out and some more traveling is taking place!!

I'm taking part in a summer leadership/meditation retreat facilitated by John Milton (www.sacredpassage.com) in the mountains in Sweden, camping for one week, spending 3 days on a solo-trip where the sun never sets! I'm really looking forward for this experience and to prepare myself this this journey I decided to hitchhike all the way from Aarhus to Valadalen Natural Reserve, near Aare, a 1,500km road trip! I will have the company of my beautiful Danish friend Louise so I think we won't have problems to get rides! ;-)

After Sweden, I'll be in Copenhagen for a couple of days before heading to Brazil, where I will work on a project for the 2 months (from mid-July until early September). I'll be based in Sao Paulo and I'm looking forward to meet old friends, meet new people and start planning some cool future projects!! I'll be at the AIESEC Alumni Congress, for sure!!!! (I didn't imagine that happening...)


I'll blog more on the hitchhiking trip when possible, and share some thoughts from the camping retreat...

Three months in a nutshell...

I arrived back to Denmark this Monday, after spending three months back in Brazil. The initial reason for going there was my process assignment for the Kaospilots, where I have been working for the Projeto Agua for three weeks. Besides that, the whole trip became packed with different experiences, lots of traveling, meeting old friends and creating new relationships. So, in a nutshell...

October:

• Left Copenhagen and stopped one night in Madrid, nice city!
• One week for preparation for my assignment, while meeting lots of AIESECers, playing some football and meeting old friends, going for Vitor Ramil concert, and of course spending some time with my family at home.
• Two days in Florianópolis, meeting with my client and preparing together for the period in Paraiba, where the project is located
• One day in Sao Paulo, trapped in the constant rain, meeting the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce and playing football in the rain with good old friends from AIESEC
• Two weeks in Urucu, a small community of Sao Joao do Cariri, 300km from Joao Pessoa in Paraiba state, for my assignment.

November:

• On the way back from Paraiba, a stop in Florianópolis and a final meeting with my client, evaluating the results and planning next steps. I even got a job offer, so I assume they were satisfied with the results!
• One week back home in Porto Alegre, procrastinating and writing my final report for the kaospilots, followed by an examination over video-skype (quite nice, although the connection was not very good)
• Not much time to rest, I flew to Rio de Janeiro, to join the Global Journey on Sustainable Communities, where I was one of the co-hosts. It was an amazing experience, for 8 days with other 40 people from 16 different countries.
• One day to rest, by coincidence my birthday (Dec 9). I had a great dinner with Helena and other friends at her place, Indian style :), and in the next day we had an alumni barbacue and I (re) met a lot of old folks from AIESEC in Rio.
• No more rest, a night bus to Sao Paulo to join AIESEC and CONAL, the National Congress, where I was the Chairman. The conference was 5 days long for 500 participants, plus 2 days of pre-meeting for 150 participants, and we had 9 people organizing all logistics and 11 facilitators from the National Office. It was hard-core experience, and I really enjoyed being back after 2.5 years away from AIESEC in Brazil.
• Done with the conference, time to be back home, for Christmas. These were the days I spent only with my family, including X-mas eve, and resting from the long month I had, but at the same time getting prepared for going back to Europe - vaccinations for China, new passport, new driver's license...
• Soon after Christmas, beach-time. Together with some good friends from AIESEC we rented a big beautiful house in Ibiraquera, a calm place 70km south of Florianopolis, and we spent new-years there without mobile signal and without cars. Perfect weather, lots of meat and beer, poker games and good relaxed conversations...

January:

• The excuse for the new-years meeting was to prepare for the wedding of our friends Malhado and Cibele, and we went straight from Ibiraquera to Santa Maria, located 3.5 hours from Porto Alegre. The wedding was beautiful and I met friends I haven't seen together for 3-4 years. It was too fast but it was awesome.
• Back quickly to Porto Alegre on the 6th of January, just in time for goodbying my best girlfriends Jo, Jana and Lalau, and again traveling, this time to Paraguay.
• I spent 4 days in Asunción, visiting Clemen, who I had met during the Pioneers of Change event in December. I had a great experience and it changed a lot of ideas about my neighbouring country. People were so friendly and warm, and at the same time so similar to Gauchos... (people from Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil)
• Back to Porto Alegre, after 21 hours on a bus, I just had a few hours to pack. I had my plans changed and I had to stop in Rio, in Teresópolis, to participate and facilitate a planning weekend for the AIESEC International Congress Organizing Team. This event will happen in Brazil this August and I got a "little" involved with it :)
• From Teresópolis to the airport and to Denmark. Not yet home, I still staying one extra day in Copenhagen to apply for my Chinese visa. Yesterday I got the confirmation, they accepted it!

Sorry for the short summary, but too much happening at the same time and without a proper computer in hands, there is not much I can do. I wish I could keep you updated more often!

Two weeks in Aarhus, and then Shanghai for another three months... Nomadlife continues...

Back from my latest project...

Hello!

I got back from the Northeast region in Brazil, where I spent my last three weeks doing a process leadership assignment for the Kaospilots. I wrote an article about it in my KaosBlog - kaos.nomadlife.org (in Portuguese) and I published the photos on my Flickr account.

I'm right now supposed to be writing a final report... while enjoying springtime at my parent's place... :)

One evening in Madrid

Last Sunday I flew from Denmark to Brazil. Due to the itinerary of the flight, IBERIA offered me a paid overnight in Madrid, including hotel and breakfast. Not bad! As I have never been to Spain before, a good opportunity to enjoy one evening there. I searched and increadibly found three old friends, all from AIESEC, currently living there! And we all managed to meet that night - the curiosity is that they didn't know each other yet...

Kristine was from AIESEC in Aarhus last year, we became good friends and she left to Mexico and then Madrid. Ania is from Poland and we were both trainees in Amsterdam last year. We travelled together once and she had just arrived in Spain to work for a consulting firm. Lucas is a Brazilian alumnus, we spent new-years once together and he was working in London until one week ago!

After arrival in Brazil, a very easy week, relaxed, some preparations and getting ready for the next 3-4 weeks of busy work in the Northeast. I'm so much looking forward for that!

Tomorrow I'm joining my first real Brazilian-Gaúcho churrasco (barbacue) in two years... yaaaammy...