What makes LIFT so much more that a meeting for techno-visionaries? As a perfect metaphor for Web 2.0, LIFT has succeeded in creating a new community made up of those of us who want to stay in tune with the world & to connect.

I came away from LIFT 07 and LIFT08 with the certainty that the Geneva get-together is not only a thrilling platform for the discovery and confrontation of new concepts, but is also fast emerging as a spearhead for a “New Switzerland”, a place that creates and attracts bold minds.

Laurent Haug – your imagination, zeal and zest are the driving forces of this venture. By merging with the daring inventiveness of Cristiana Bolli Freitas and Laurent Bolli, together you have allowed creativity to flourish, a formidable component to a gathering which might otherwise have been just ... another conference.

Sylvie, David, Sonia, Nicholas(s), Marc-Olivier, Mathias and so many others whose thoughtful dedication brought it all together, you too deserve our thanks!

The greatest compliment we can offer you is to consider that we are all now part of the vibrant community that you have created. Vive le LIFT! And say hello to all our new South Korean friends when you are there…

So what was LIFT08 like? For me: fantastic!
The Creativity Utopia Workshop went beyond my expectations. Now the kind of third-loop-learning workshops that I do are usually a bit rough on the participants, you are asked to think, think critically, and to think from a place deep within yourself. I am however fair enough to also give the participants the chance to put me on the spot and make me think then and there. I was on the spot a few times. It is all about authenticity and self-expression, and that is exactly what the workshop was about. Remember that I never claimed to know what creativity is, and I still do not know. Shani Lee did take fantastic notes and I had very valuable feedback from Yann Mauchamp with whom I spent the wee hours after the closing party roaming the streets and clubs of Geneva. Rough is a bit of the nature of my being and there is a certain kindness to that roughness that Yann offered a term for: amour vache.

Here we are in the first workshop and what do I find – I cannot connect to the wireless network. Immediately, a window arrives that I don’t understand, “Windows is disabling your network adapter.” I’ll use Word instead.

So anyway, I’m in the first workshop with Dannie Just, an interesting woman – a physicist, a writer undergoing deep analysis, exploding taboos. The biggest taboo in the past year she tells me has been exploding the taboo about therapy and payment for therapy.

Now we are looking at the content of the workshop. She is asking the question, “What would make the workshop successful for you?” and before that, Dannie feels there is another conversation in answer to the question,
“What do we have permission to do here?”

We’ve had the introductions. And how we want to use the time. She says only that there will be a ten-minute break at 9.50am and 10.50am. And we shall reconvene on the hour sharp.

Dannie says, "My disciplines are critical thinking and action research. I am a writer, I often think out loud. I am liberal and challenging in use of words and beliefs." Later, she apologises that her language is often littered with swear words.

An exchange with a young woman,
“You look curious?”
“I am wondering what will happen now?”
“What do you want out of life?”
“I don’t know?”
“Do you mind if I use this interaction to illustrate something?”
A hesitant yes.

What is your motive for coming to a workshop about creativity?
Yes, you are curious, but what is the motivation?
What do you dream about? What do you want to do with your life?

Well, I am up early and ready to pack my laptop away for the long journey. My printer is playing up, so I have carefully copied the ticket number into my notebook. I felt that really I should be doing it with a pencil stub, carefully licking the lead before writing each number.

I have chosen my workshops for tomorrow. I thought it would be hard, how would I choose between so many interesting titles. But then it was easy ...

Creativity Utopia Workshop

"Let us start with the truth, the naked screaming truth. The creative do not care about creativity, they simply create... "

Yes, I like that idea. I've been immersed in creativity since October (before then I didn't know it was anything to do with me).

But then, I read,

"... For me the past year has been one of exploding tabus. Yes, exploding tabus. Your mileage may differ, but I on my part have found no other way to deal with tabus. ... "

Hmm, I love destruction :)~

" ... Utopia, on the other hand is the divine soup from which our dreams are made of. Utopia is the primordial soup of imagination and limitation. Utopia is paradoxland uncharted! ... "

... primordial ...

"... In this workshop we will explore tabus, utopias and forget creativity."

I can do that!

And after that I read,

Industrial IdeaProduction or «Why is "Dare to Share" the key to reliable innovation?»

Samuel Mueller = "hopelessly infected with the idea virus and eager to recklessly spread it around."

Who could resist?

It is my third LIFT conference and I feel like a little kid! All the people, all the ideas, unfortunately also the bloody fondue! Now back to life...

The Creativity Utopia Workshop is something that has me all excited at this late hour. However due to my own inaccessibility - not answering phone, out of skype or ignoring IM - for the past couple of weeks and Henriette's quite exciting OpenStage talk, she will let me do the whole thing by myself. I will miss her bubbles and enthusiasm in the workshop, and am looking forward to exploding tabus, exploring utopia and getting real about finding access to that wonderful chimera of one's butterfly's dream.

Transhumanism and Calvin did not make it as a program discussion, and that in itself is interesting to me. I was cryptic about what I was trying to get at... but then there will be Kevin Warwick as a live cyborg, and we are in Geneva anyhow and ready to give Calvin's heresy a good go.

Anticipation is a wonderful elixir, and when it comes to this conference, it is part of the crack that makes the whole so damn exciting. I could never predict how these things go, but then I could not ever predict much.

There are many ideas floating around and I am writing and reading a lot. There are the central issues of identity, public and private, evolving media, and humanity's relationship to both technology and psychology... and all of this I am writing about.

So, let's say, LIFT look and feel happens to be about people.
OK. It sounds logical. You can see a lot of people in the background!

But it's hard to see it as a background (like a pattern or color)
when you actually know all of these people! ( they look like real, no?)
I see them talking, walking, eating, discussing, reading.
I remember nice moments, I experience something more
meaningful than a nice design.

Well, I always hope so. The same way I believe we never
discuss as much as we should about visual power, which is something huge.
This is suposed to be a -post- so, Instead of discussing, I invite you to explore.
Get your eyes scrolling and looking for individuals that looks like someone you know!
It's a funny and easy thing to do while talking over the phone!

how it all started:
During one of my visits to Seoul, I got lost - it's easy to get lost there.
This time it was with Julian (bleecker) and Laurent (bolli not haug) trying to find a place that was in fact closed. By chance we found a nice bookshop. Very nice one. Kind of place full of books about art + design+graphic design in Asia.
Quite interesting.

There was a post card, full of drawings, black and white simple drawings
of people, academic studies fixed on the door. And immediatly
I knew - don't ask me why- that this card would be the starting point of the new look and feel for LIFT. I kept looking at Julian and Laurent but at that moment
I was seeing the community (all of us) faces getting together.
I found myself looking for drawing books: portraits, details, different strokes.

I bought one book. Absolute nothing to do with portraits...
But I got the image! The one that was on the door. And everything started.

Don't you think we're quite powerful together?
Hope you enjoy it!

a couple of friendly questions from me:

- I was a bit surprised when I saw the conference price in comparison to the price last year... what happened ?

- What happened to the student discount ? I mean do you plan on only having 20 students at the conference - who has to write motivational essays to go ? - there's isn't enough students there allready I would say.

I am afraid the Lift is gonna be yet "another european creative tech conference" for companies and not as much for entrepreneurs and students. In my opinion they are the ones that you learn from in the network - not the participants from the larger companies. They are often also the must enthusiastic and creative.

all in all, to me it looks like you're professionalising the conference... which is good.. but please - do keep some chaos...

guys - you know I love Lift dearly =) - but where did this come from ?

Henriette Weber Andersen