One of the speakers at Mastermundo 2008 was Laurent Haug, founder of LIFT Conference. LIFT is a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn changes into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them. It is held in Geneva, Korea and since this year also in Marseille.

When we had the first prototype of the BrainstormTable, in close corporation with ModoVanGelder, and knew it now was actually possible to have them produced, I sent out a pdf to some people. One of them was Laurent. And he liked the project, so he invited us to come and present it at the LIFT Experience.

So, of to Geneva. Well, that would be too simple… Haha. Ehm. I was travelling with one of my students, Eric Schakel. Idea was to fly from Rotterdam Airport. However, just before check-in I realized that I didn’t bring my passport. Big oops… When I was packing my stuff, I got a phone call of a client. Resulting that I brought everything that I needed, except for my passport.

I tried to get on board anyway. However, Geneva is Switserland. All states which belong to the Schengen Agreement area are European Union members, except Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, which are members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Nevertheless, a passport check at the Swiss customs is still in place. Meaning: I needed a passport. So I tried to get a temporary one at the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee and that all seemed to work out. I was kinda running out of time, had an hour untill the flight would go. Which meant that I had only 15 minutes… I just needed an extract from the municipal basic personal data and two passport photo’s. Which are of course things that you have always on you in case you are planning to forget your passport… I managed to get that formal document from the city of Meppel because I happened to know one of the alderman quite well. So that was already kind of a miracle.

Passport pictures… If you have ever been to Rotterdam Airport, you know that it ain’t much. There are a couple of hints that make clear to a visitor that it is in fact an airport: you see airplanes, there is a traffic control tower and the signs on the streets pointing you to a building that is supposed to be the the airport. It’s just another business area, but then with airplanes. So when I asked where I could make passport photo’s, nobody really knew. Until I ran into someone that told me that I could do that at the Port Authority. Port Authority? At an airport? Whatever! I got the directions, had some minutes left while Eric was still enjoying himself with his parents, I ran into the given direction. And ran into the girl I tried to convince at the check-in desk earlier. She then told me that the gates were closing and it was pointless to continue my mission impossible. And that Eric had to get his butt on that plane.

Hm. I was so close. While Eric was airborne, his parents brought me to the train station. Simply because there was no other option. No more flights later that day, neither from Schiphol (due to a plane crash earlier that morning at Schiphol, killing 9 people and injuring over 80…) nor from close-by airports like Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium.

By the time I was home again, Eric was already sight-seeing for an hour in Geneva. I decided to go by car. Only a 10 hour drive. Had dinner at home, threw all stuff in the car, mentally prepared myself for a lonely ride, filled up the tank and headed for Geneva. It could have been so easy. Only a one hour flight. However, the weather was great, there were no known delays on the road, so what the heck.

Is was an easy ride with almost no traffic on the road, and it was already getting dark. Only me, my music, a couple of stops to fill up the tank — and myself with Red Bull pretending that it would keep me fresh and sharp as the commercials promise. Germany is great, that’s where you can win some time. And then you enter Switzerland. My god. First customs. Buy a sticker. And then you are only allowed to drive 80 km/h in Basel with camera’s everywhere and the rest of Switzerland mostly 100 km/h. The first 750 to the border were a breeze and took about six hours to arrive at the Swiss border at midnight sharp, the final 250 three full hours. And what is quite special, is that I drove directly to the right street, without a TomTom. Hurray! After parking the car and checking in, Eric an I celebrated my arrival with a bottle of Champagne. So: never forget your passport..!

LIFT was lucky. The weather was beautiful, LIFT and its visitors were too. We transformed our visit to LIFT into a Mastermundo edition. Meaning that we mixed great talks, with a lot of sight-seeing, which was a perfect blend. Since I was by car, halfway a conference day we headed for the mountains to enjoy the view and the snow. The day after the conference, we had a great breakfast on the lake and a guided city walk with most of the speakers. LIFT sincerely rocks. The speakers, the atmosphere, the quality level, the visitors, the cheese fondue…

Thanks Laurent!

Flickr slideshow.