Future conference 2008

Fürstenfeld, April 24th - 27th 2008

"How was it?", Verena asked. It was Monday morning, day 1 after the "Future" conference. Our Communication team meeting had just begun. Karin was quick with her answer: "Stefan, you can share some of your experiences", she said and smiled.

"It was really good", I spontanuosly said. But then I hesitated. Again, I did not know how to describe what I actually liked about the conference. "The dynamic of the conference, this whole atmosphere just lifts you up somehow", I tried to explain.

Yesterday, when we were sitting in the train back home, Taras asked me the same question. "What do you think about the conferenc?" I could not give him a definite answer either.

Now let me try again.

What I didn't like

1. The mineral water (The most disgusting water ever. However, many people said that it was good for their stomach.)
2. Leadership panel (BOOORING! People fell asleep.)
3. The queue in front of my bath room (I was sharing my room with 4 (!) girls which was great but ensured that the bath room was oppupied for around 95% of the time.)
4. Shaving and taking a shower at 3.30 in the morning (as a consequence of 3.)
5. Some of the food (My personal favourite was the "rice soup"...)

It was easier to come up with things I did not like. Using the following formula, you can easily calculate what I liked about the conference.

Whole conference - what I didn't like = what I liked

For people who did not attend the conference, this explanation might be a little bit insufficient. So, what else was good?

The Milky Way

On Thursday evening, the Induction track played a game called "The Milky Way". The Facis had set up around 10 tables in the room, which would represent 10 stations. There was a cow, a factory, a commercial department of the factory, some retailers and some customers. Each station received some information, like for example how much milk they had on stock, what their minimum price to sell was, etc.

When the game started, it immedeately became loud and busy in the room. People went from one station to the next trying to buy or sell milk, negotiating hard and enthusiastically. I was in the commercial department of the factory and my team started off pretty well. My team members were good at selling and we made profits on every package that went through our department.

The game lastet about 35 minutes. After it had ended, Vlad asked if anybody in the room had been trying to reach the goal of the game. "The goal of the game?", one heard people think. Before the game had startet, Vlad had shown us the goal of the game: Milk should be passed from the cow through the different stations to the customers.

There was no need to negotiate, no need to strive for profits, no need to put pressure on suppliers or buyers - all of that did not have anything to do with the goal of the game. But still, everybody in the room did exactly what we were not supposed to. And nobody followed the goal.

This simple game made me understand that it is easy to go wrong, that I can go wrong easily. Just do what everybody does. Just play the game as all others do. To me, this was much more than a game. It showed me, how easily I can be irritated and forget to do the right things.

Dialogueing

By looking into people's eyes, you can see into their souls.

One part of the impressive session by Kevin was to find a partner and to do nothing but looking into the partner's eyes. For 5 minutes. Quietly.

That might sound simple. Actually it is simple. But we are not used to it.

I was looking into the eyes of a girl called Jelena and the five minutes we looked at each other connected us in an undiscribable way. The conversation with Jelena that followed was incredible. I could talk to her so easily, even though I did not know her name in this moment.

Look into people's eyes. It is amazing what you can see!

Brainwashing

The whole conference washed my brain somehow. It took me to another atmosphere, a world sperated from the real world. It made me think a lot, especially about myself. It feels like I know what people mean when they say "I am an AIESECer". And what is more, I think want to be an AIESECer myself.

I don't know what exactly it was, but the whole conference made me somehow believe in myself. It made me believe that I can do something, that I have potential ant that I can change something. Maybe it was the brilliant Facis I met or maybe it was the OC members that were at work when I went to bed and again (or still) when I woke up. Maybe it was the hilarious roll calls or easy talks with people from other places in the world when we had dinner. Maybe it was the committment of everybody involved or maybe it was the talks with my LC members on the train. I don't know. Perhaps it was a little bit of everything.