The last chapter

8:11 am, Sinaia Hotel. My last entry before I leave at 10 am to catch my afternoon flight to Geneve for some R&R.

It did snow, while I was talking at the Plenary so I missed it. It snowed a teeny little bit again after dinner. But the bottomline is, no early white christmas.

Every single one has left, except Campbell, Mihaela and me. So we went to a Romanian restaurant last night. Embarrassingly I did not have any Lei to pay my share. They didn't accept credit cards either so Campbell footed the bill. And then we adjourned to an Irish Pub for beers and "black dog" (guinness stout) - which I paid with credit card, happily. And what did we talk about? Romanian politics. All it needed was a simple trigger. "So you guys have 2 Presidents now after the election?". And that launched Mihaela into a political analysis and commentary. We talked about the just concluded workshop, of course. We did a post-post workshop debriefing.

The workshop was high energy in the final run. The final presentations were excellent (especially my Panel, and I am NOT biased). But one young man stood up during the Q&A and said "don't be too happy with yourselves because you all did nothing extra-ordinary". Another member of the floor responded by saying that it is the process we should be proud of. What we have produced is only the tip (of the iceberg?) and much more work has to be done.

Would I have structured it differently? Yes, definitely. In particularly, I would have preferred that the participants had sufficient time and exposure to understanding scenario planning first. I would have also preferred that the trends and driving forces be addressed collectively before launching into creating the scenarios. But one thing you have to do when involved in a project is to go with the flow. Many things are not within your control. Many factors in the decision-making are not always obvious but nevertheless crucial for making the event a "success".

What was amazing was that we had six facilitators each doing it our way. We did not second guess each other. We didn't try to out do each. We did not intervene or interfere (too much). We kept the faith, so to speak.

After attending the debriefing and giving my inputs, and having a further understanding what the January 2010 session is all about, I have decided that I will most likely skip that event. But I am sure it is not the last chapter of my involvement with the Romanian foresight project. It has been a absolutely wonderful experience, making new friends. And being able to put into practice the constructivist paradigm during the panel workshop, and achieving resounding success, was really worth the trip.

 Panel One participants (many missing; it was a last minute spontaneous photo shoot), with facilitators, right after the final plenary. I believe I made all of them very happy. They will be on a natural high for at least the weekend.

 

The first slide of the WHWU (pronounced "Wow University"). Right up the the last minute, I wasn't sure how the presentation would turn out. They were still nitty picking on choice of words. And there was not idea whether the role-play would materialise. I left them to sort it out. In the end, it was a superb presentation.

 

Brave young man.

 

Philine, with mic, one of the international faci's.

 

 Adrian, the chief, responding to the floor at the final plenary.

 

Mihaela, right, at the debriefing.

 

 Me, Campbell and Riel at the debriefing.

Me and Ozcan, the MU winger, fellow faci. The headphones are for simultaneous translations.

 

 My Romanian lunch yesterday.

 

Peles Castle, built by the first Emperor of Romania. This formed the catalyst for the town of Sinaia. Took this photo on a walk yesterday afternoon. So far, have not encountered any bloodsucking creatures.

My job is (well) done

4:37 am, Sinaia. Was invited last night for drinks with a retired couple, the husband a professor and the lady used to work with the World Bank. She was in my Panel and was the futures teacher of Sohail, our USM guru on futures. (correction : Ana Maria and Sohail were colleagues).  It was straight to bed by 10:30 and up again by 3 something. I went out to the balcony and looked down at the digital display. Damn thing keeps saying its 3 degree C. I need it to go down to below zero otherwise I won't see snow.

Yesterday afternoon we had a plenary where each of the panels presented their ideas, i.e. scenarios for the futures of higher education in Romania. When I saw the first slide from my panel members, I was stunned. The transformation over lunch was incredible. After the session, as I walked in, the panel members cheered. A few came over and offered their hand. "We have voted you best facilitator", they said. "Thank you, thank you, but you guys were incredible. You must have been using three quarters of your right brains". Yes, it ended well. And after that, they were all pumped up. The group dynamics suddenly shifted. They were now one big team, instead of three separate smaller groups. I think they have also inspired the other groups in many ways, especially in making impact from the presentations.

But it was not all smooth sailing. You will find, quite often, some one, or a few, participants who are vocal, opinionated, loud and don't agree to how things are moving, or what is said, or how it is said. I once attended a two week training course on teaching approaches and I was a constant pain in the a@se. So I understand disruptive behavior. I told my local counterpart that for a constructivist workshop, chaos is necessary. Out the confusion comes a tremendous amount of energy to work. The key is to stay cool. Negotiation is all part of the deal. You can still assert authority without telling people what to do. Very often, vocal opposition comes from individuals who have a long connection with the issues raised. The other key is not to get all stressed out. Apparently one other panel was even more "terror" - the facilitator fainted during the session - from a combination of stress and no sleep (absolutely no sleep the previous night).

This morning they will make the final presentations. Many of them have been working long hours to put up a good show - most of them are the young ones who want to make long lasting impressions for their futures. Then my job will be done. In fact, my job for this session is already done. But this is not the end. The project still has many rounds to go. Will I be back? Well, it's in my contract to come back in January 2010. But it will depend on whether I can work around the teaching and other duties once the semester starts again after Christmas.

  Fireworks to mark the start of the Christmas celebration yesterday evening, just outside my window. There was a "turning on the Christmas lights ceremony" and the whole town showed up. The streets were packed with people.

 The sun came out at mid-day. On the left at the end of the street is a lovely park.

 

 A creative work from Irina.

 

 My ladies, after the triumphant presentation at the plenary.

All pumped up and ready to steal the show at the final presentation today (pics below)

 

 

 

 

My window to the world

7:13 am, Sinaia, Romania. My third day in Sinaia. The travel from Penang was pleasant and uneventful. The overnight stay in Zurich at the Hotel Apart (operated by Hilton) was nice. Three star, nice simple deco, very nice staff. And marvellous croissant for breakfast. Zurich airport was impressive. Whether you travel by business or economy, you check-in at the kiosk. Excellent technology. All done in about 30 seconds or so, including printing your baggage tag. And then you just drop off the bag at the counter. Hhm, perhaps one day, that also will be unnecessary. At the departure gate, I saw a guy putting his handphone on the 3-D barcode scanner. Wow, impressive. He downloaded his boarding pass on his handphone and then used that for boarding. Ah, but the technology did want to talk to each other, so they had to print a hardcopy boarding pass for him.

Coming from Otopeni Airport to Sinaia was in style. They sent a professional driver with a spanking new Mercedes. Young guy, a little too hard on the gas pedal but quite competent.

 Looking out my window on the 4th floor of Hotel Sinaia. It's freezing cold outside but as you can see, no snow, yet. Let it snow, let snow, let it snow.  Before I go home.

 

There's about 70 or 80 participants at the workshop here. Some very high level people including 3 or 4 ex-ministers. I anchored a panel on university and human capital. Being the constructivist that I am, and try to be, I offered them choices. Do you want to use this method or that method? Do you want me to present my slides on you want to talk? Well, they wanted me to choose, 'cause they say they don't know anything about the methods. Fine. They wanted to talk, fine. The local participants are very opinionated and protective of their turf. Nothing new. We just deal with it. Throughout yesterday, I heard words like "push the button", "they need to be more creative". So, there's lot of pressure. A lot is at stake. But people can't just suddenly be creative. It needs time. Push the wrong button or push it at the wrong time, everyone just shuts down. So, I looked at the work yesterday and I am pretty happy with the outcome. Talking about outcomes, same problem the world over (?). "Give us a sample", "tell us what it looks like". OK, here's some example. Hopefully, it doesn't kill creativity. So, we continue to learn by copying.

But today, I will push some buttons. Shake them up a little. Will they abandon their hardwork and move into unfamiliar territory? We'll see.

There are four panel facilitators (for four panels) and two roaming facilitators (so far, they sit and listen; but we have been warned they will be coming to interrupt today; let's see where it goes). All the facilitators are not from Romania. Some people questioned why? The answer is so that there is no baggage. We international facilitators don't bother too much whether the participant is who's who in Romania. If they talk too much, we pull them back.

At my panel. Note the translation booth on the left. Most of the time the local participants prefer to discuss in Romanian.

 

Introducing the facilitators. I am behind the camera lah.

 

Campbell telling people to dress-down ... and get to work. I am sure they all still be in suit and tie today.

 

The man, the driving force behind the foresight project in Romania. A very "people person", high on interpersonal intelligence.

 

Meeting to talk about individual approaches. We were pretty much given the licence to do it our way. In the hope that we come out with outside the box ideas or surprises.

p.s. the uploading of photos to the blog is like "zip", done.