Post # 100 :D

WOW!! This is my 100th post to my personal blog!!!

It all started back in September 2005, when I was moving from Brazil to Netherlands, for an AIESEC internship at ABN AMRO Bank. And now, 3 years and 10 months later, I start to get prepared to come back. I arrive in São Paulo on 24th of August for a new cycle in my life. I'm closing my chapter of 4 years in Europe.

At the Kaospilots, I graduated two weeks ago, in an incredible party organized by Team 14 and 15 (first and second year students). I was carried home at 6.30am, by Pedro and Florentine, my two guests who came from Amsterdam to party with me! And, even better than that, I managed to pay all my school debts in time!! (this is definitely a good theme for another post!). Unfortunately, my final exam didn't go well (this is subject for yet another post), and I'll have to go for a re-exam, to take place on 19th of August :S

I'm finishing the last changes to my final project for my client, and on Saturday I start another "crazy European summer trip". Like in 2007 when I hitchhiked across France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Czech Rep, or in 2008, when I traveled over 3.000km and 40 different cars across Denmark, Sweden and Norway!

This time I'm combining fun and work, adventure and reflection!

• GetWild Nature Quest: going back to Sweden, this time as one of the "hosts" of the 7-days Nature Quest, including 3 days-solo in the Swedish Mountains of Vålådalen (see map). 21 young people from Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and even Brazil and Iraq (!) are joining us this year!

• Molde Jazz Festival: Mark, Philip and I will hitchhike and couchsurf to Trondheim and Molde (Norway), where the famous Jazz Festival takes place. We'll meet our friend Inger-Mette and hopefully we get some paid job for one week!

• Sailing trip from Molde to Oslo: one week sailing with Skipper Christian Løken, who joined our team at the Kaospilots but left us to join the Volvo Ocean Race ;-)

• Madrid: some days working with Guga, good old friend, with whom I'm developing a business plan for our startup and we're part of a competition promoted by Artemisia Foundation. Deadline is 2nd of August!

• Italia: back to the roots, once again. This time I'll travel to Rome with Florentine and relax for a few days in the countryside, with good wine, good food. Good life!

• Denmark: back to Denmark, time for the re-exam, pack my stuff and fly home!!!!!

Who knows, maybe I meet some of you on-the-road, let me know if that might be the case!

Ah, my record says that I blog an average of once every two weeks!! At least I'll keep this average for the the next year to come!

(and many updates come on Twitter anyway. Follow me...)

Ushuaia - the end of the world...

A few days in Amsterdam would help to prepare and pack. A long meeting in Aarhus and I almost missed my train. Actually the time in Netherlands was fantastic but not for the preparation. Lots of things missing in the last minute. This blog post half-written. An excited and underprepared 'change agent' going to Antarctica. That's not good!

Luckily the flight was excellent and I arrived in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, for 2 days of preparation before embarking to Antarctica. The whole group of 60 students plus BP Leaders, professors, experts and facilitators is here, united. Tomorrow at 9am we gather. At 7am we practice Aikido (thanks Thomas!).

It feels surreal still. I just had dinner with Peter Senge this evening. Nice easygoing guy. He knows very well AIESEC, he was totally up for Pioneers of Change members to join the expedition, and surprisingly (for me), he knew lots about the Kaospilots!

I promised myself to disconnect from the Internet after this blog post. We won't have any communication or mobile signal while onboard, except for a basic satellite connection, where we can send a few packets of information: blog posts and photos for the official website. I'm one of the expedition bloggers so you can follow the website for more details: www.expedition-antarctic-2009.com. The position of the ship can be tracked and you can leave (me) a message, and it will be delivered!

Below is the (planned) itinerary, if the weather conditions allow...


View Larger Map

Two tales of a City

The opening lines of the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens (1859)
go like that:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct

the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present

period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its

being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree

of comparison only. (*)

My story is by far less tragic than the French Revolution, but it still has its
charm and drama - I guess. I'm back to Amsterdam, after 3 years, this time for a short
2-month period, until Christmas.

I'm working for the Global Reporting Initiative, starting-off a research on CSR
"landscape", trends and hubs at national and regional level. In my short period I'm in charge
of seeting up the methodology and research on Latin America.

When I arrived I thought my life would be simple, easy and fun - just like when I arrived 3 years ago, which actually also marks the beginning of this blog!!

In 3 years, most of my friends have moved away, or got very busy into their careers. Housing in Amsterdam became much more complicated and expensive. The banks and authorities seem much more bureaucratic then never. Albert Heijn is so boring. De Heffer gatherings do not exist anymore. Nice girls got boyfriends, fiancés and husbands. Yes, the city has changed, but more important than that - I have changed! A LOT over the last three years.

I go to different bars, I listen to different music, I hang out with different people, I eat different food. How can we change so much and be the same person at the same time? I start to realize that I'm more of myself, each day, and to be conscious about that evolution is a revolution by itself! Scary eh? Yeah, sometimes... hard to understand? Yeah, sometimes...

Amsterdam will always be one of my favourite cities, a kind of tricky place that feels like an extremely comfortable couch. You love it, but you might fall sleep too easily. Amsterdam has a similar effect in people: the easygoing, laid back, relaxed and fairly safe atmosphere needs to be balanced with excitement, risks, emotions and danger, in order to keep someone awake (in life) - oh well, in January I'm back in Denmark, back to the Kaospilots, for my last 6 months in the roller coaster! :P


(*) Freely available by the Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98.txt

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.

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!

My Nature Quest & John Milton

I've been a couple of weeks ago in a natural reserve area called Vålådalen, in the middle/north of Sweden. It's a sacred place which still belongs to the Sami People (indigenous people from Northern Europe), and it was the scenario and teacher for an amazing 6-days "Nature Quest" with John Milton and Göran Gennvi. John is a shaman, a wise man, a brujo, according to the old indigenous traditions from Mexico, North America and many parts of the world. He is best known as the guru and coach of highly influential business thinkers such as Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski and Otto Scharmer. The whole chapter "Seeing with the Heart" in their book Presence is dedicated to John's "Sacred Passages".

We all belong to nature and we are all interconnected, but since we (civilized humans) decided to live in cities having individualized lives, we "forgot" our connection - represented by our intuition, presence and mindfulness. Such journeys remind us and helps us to reconnect - basic need for a deeper understanding of sustainability and (perhaps) a key way to find new solutions for our current global problems.

This week was organized by Martin Cadée, Director from the Kaospilot Netherlands, who has been himself last year in the desert of Utah on a Sacred Passage. We were a group of 15 Kaospilots from the schools in Aarhus, Stockholm and Rotterdam, plus a couple of business people.

We camped by a beautiful lake, with view of the snow in the mountains (even in the summer), and the company of a LOT of mosquitoes. We had one day of lectures and conversations with John Milton by the fireplace, inside a little tepee, seated on raindeers' fur, before we head up the mountain. We spent 3 days solo, without any books to read, any journals to write, any MP3s to listen, any mobile or persons to talk to, any watch to check time, and any food to eat (except a special fasting tea made with maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lime juice, on water). The idea was to get rid of all sorts of distractions, and without being able to "DO" anything, allow your self to "BE", by meditations, Tai Chi and Qi Gong practices, and contemplation. At the end of the three days, the return in silence, a slowly and profound sharing of the experiences and a sense of joyfulness.

In the last morning we were together, we also discussed on how to take this practices further, perhaps integrating it into the Kaospilot curriculum, and bringing more young (urban) people on such journeys.

Personally, I felt extremely positive after this experience. Clarity. I had read several books from Carlos Castañeda when I was 17 and by that time never had support from others, or any "masters" around to guide me. It is a sort of spiritual quest, but more than that, it means self-knowledge, awareness raising, and the ability to stay focused and attentive. A warrior's skill. I'm now looking into future opportunities to work and explore more this field, both as projects for my final school year and as for my own personal development.

Shanghai? What the f... are you doing there????

I have arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon and I realized I "forgot" to tell some people about it. Not nice... :D

I came here to spend three months, until end of April, and this is part of my Education at the Kaospilots. Every class of students (called Team) goes abroad for three months during their 4th semester, with the goal of exploring new trends and movements outside Europe. Previously the Kaospilots have been to Durban in South Africa after the end of the apartheid, in San Francisco during the Internet boom, Havana and Vancouver. This year the choice was Shanghai, China, with the overall purpose of studying and researching Social Innovation.

Shanghai is believed to be a "mover" in this early 21st century, capable of create changes that would influence east and west societies. Sort of London, New York, Paris of this new millennium... with over 18 million people and being the financial and economical capital of China, host of the World EXPO 2010, we can assume this statement might become true. Anyway, many challenges and many opportunities, and a bunch of young creative hippies from Scandinavia are here to find out - and publish it - in the 12 weeks...

Besides researching on Social Innovation, we will be working for 4 weeks on projects with local clients, which gives both funds to travel to China and also opportunities to work together with Chinese people and learn with them. The project I'm involved with is together with HaPe International, a toy company who has created a unique line of products based on bamboo. Our task is to use our creativity and idea development capabilities and create a new toy for their 2009 catalog, using sustainable materials such as bamboo, cotton, wood... very challenging and pretty interesting task. We will have the chance to visit their factory, their research & development department and even the Anji bamboo Forest near Shanghai.

I made a promise to write at least once a week in this blog, and I am sure I will have a lot to write about. Keep in touch, more to come... :)

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... :)

Netherlands again, this time Rotterdam :)

I returned safe from Brazil, our project ended up to be extraordinary for us and it was an amazing experience. I still need to finalize some details and update our project website. While in Brazil I wrote a short article, that my friend Frauke published (click here). The article was also featured at the Kaos Pilots website.

After the final exams, loads of (crazy) parties and 2 weeks of beach-time in Århus (great weather), I came to Netherlands to support Kaos Pilots Netherlands (go to website kaospilots.nl) to select the Team 1, the first team of students. The school is opening doors in Rotterdam by mid-September. After two amazing days in Dordrecht (I really enjoy being observer and running workshops!), I managed to get some free days in Amsterdam, seeing old friends and enjoying a bit of the town. I even visited Rijksmuseum!! Of course the rain was annoying...

During these days I met with KPNL and an interesting proposal came on the table: to work for them during the summer, to setup the "Landing Zone" for Team 1, which means support in logistics, recruitment, location, curriculum and other thousand things, necessary for the start of classes in 2 months.

Well, I accepted the "summer-job" immediately, and just flew back to Århus to pack my stuff and go back to Rotterdam. I'm here until 20th of August, when my 2nd year starts in Denmark. The payment is less then working in Denmark, but the satisfaction and the challenge is much higher, especially working next to "education entrepreneurs", it gives me a lot of insights and I've learned a lot from this experience so far.

So, if you're near by, just come and visit me! :)

3 months in 20 bullet-points

A Chronological update about the last 3 months, in 20 bullet points:


February:

• worked 100 hours (cleaning) in one month, enough to make enough money to survive here
• excellent lectures and discussions on systems thinking, organizational understanding and an amazing workshop on Proactive Planning (personal planning)
• Started the 5-weeks course on Creative Business Design, and together with a colleague we designed Alegria Imports, aiming to bring cachaca de alambique (aged quality handcrafted cachaca) to Denmark

March:

• a major snow storm transformed Aarhus in a beautiful chaotic town. For the first time in my life, I hitchhiked to get to school (no buses available and my bike got frozen)
• the snow storm was probably brought by Vija, my third visitor from the Netherlands since I came to Denmark (Margreet and Colm also came to visit me)
• after the storm, I got a terrible flu, got down in bed for 4 days
• because of the flu and the terrible weather in Denmark, I considered for the second time the option of leaving school, get a job and pay my debts, moving to something else. Boring work like cleaning was driving me crazy. I sent my CV to many companies in UK, Netherlands and even Brazil
• Spring finally arrived here, and a couple of days with sun and 12C was enough to make me change my mind, and I decided to take the risk and simply reduce the workload, in order to enjoy school and social life better
• Sent application for Student Grants from the Danish Government. Low chances of success.
• Oslo: the whole Team 13 moved to Norway for 4 days, working and having fun with Team 2 from Kaos Pilots Norway. Great time, great support and my 350-euro-camera got stolen. No insurance.

April:

• Idea of a Final First Year Project in Brazil, and three amazing and beautiful girls from my Team wanted to join me. We had first to fundraise 8,000 euro in 14 days
• My request for Grant refused by the Danish Government
• Laptop (new MacBook), mobile, 512MB-pen-drive and notes from classes stolen from inside the school. Never seen afterwards. No insurance, no backup. 1 year of digital information lost (all photos taken in Denmark, all contacts, all documents, all videos, all music, etc etc). No perspectives of getting a new computer in the near future.
• For the third time in the last 4 months I considered giving up on the Education and searching for something else less "unlucky".
• the first 24 bottles of cachaca arrived from two Brazilian destillaries (Bento Albino and Profecia), for tasting and focus-groups. The results were below expectations.
• Back to an AIESEC Conference after two years, facilitating the National Event in Denmark, simulation for new members :)
• After 20 days trying hard, over 200 organizations approached, we gave up on Brazil and decided to take a project in Rotterdam.
• In the same day, two companies replied, sponsorship of 80% of the project guarantteed!
• Admission Workshop for team 14: as traditional for the Kaos Pilots, the students themselves are key players at the selection of the next team, being facilitators and observers of the 2-days workshop. Great experience, perfect delivery! And a new Team with full potential selected!
• A third company decided to sponsor our tickets to Brazil. A fourth company is considering our proposal. For the first time in my life, I have more money than needed for a project!

May:

• On Thursday afternoon we fly to Brazil from Copenhagen airport. Destination: Porto Seguro. The group: myself and three gorgeous Danish blonde blue-eyed girls. The mission: investigate the possibility of starting local-based tourism in Porto Seguro, around the Pau Brasil National Park, and kick-off the social entreprise as a sustainable solution for the area. Website: wiki.homebase.dk/PauBrasil