To me this is one of the nicest and most precious examples of being rewarded for following your passion.

Some years ago the Poetry jockeys were invited (as guests) to attend the opening of a new extension of the Uberhip Fashion Trade-fair Bread & Butter Berlin.

Together with PJ Rob we drove to Berlin little we knew it was going to be one of the worst ever car trips, Amsterdam - Berlin.

Gisteren heb ik tijdens de opening van het Talent naar de Top congres met performer  Ester Natzijl, een controversiële schaak wedstrijd tussen de 17 jarige, Judit Polgar en wereldkampioen Gary Kasparov opnieuw 'uitgespeeld'

Een week ervoor werd ik gevraagd om een theatrale opening te verzorgen voor het congres  Talent naar de Top ,  een initiatief voor meer diversiteit in de Top van het bedrijfsleven.
Omdat schaken een belangrijk thema was werd voorgesteld om op het podium een live schaakspel te spelen. 

Op zoek naar een link tussen schaken en diversiteit, ofwel...schaken en vrouwen werd al snel duidelijk dat ik geen vrouwelijke top schaakster kon noemen. Wel Karpov, Kasparov en Jan Timman met die namen ben ik groot gebracht.  Een beetje surfen leverde 2 opmerkelijke resultaten op.

In June,  I performed live on stage at TEDxBinnenhof. In the famous Ridderzaal, the knight's hall, of the Dutch Parliament I closed the event with a wrap-up poem. 

Among the hundreds of guests were the   The King,  Willem Alexander of Orange, and Queen Maxima, Ministers, and Ambassadors. The event had live streams in 41 countries, covering all continents. 

Imagine this; 10 days before the event started TEDx never heard of our project*, their program was full and with such high brow audience, security and protocol, there is never much room for change.   Yet with all these roadblocks in front of us how did we convince them to let us open- and close TEDxBinnenhof?

The answer to this is simple yet fueled with complexity;  we created a storyboard showing the customer journey with all the touchpoint and low-tech interaction tools. As such they were able to understand the idea much quicker, and became convinced of our promise to deliver quality answers, interaction and a shared experience in under 5 minutes.
As a result TEDx received hundreds of authentic ideas for a better world, almost instantly. What better way than to start with a question to the audience first and craft the answers to wrap the day poetically?  
A turn-key low-tech high impact production that inspired them to generate a database with ideas worth sharing.

To me personally, I needed this day to overcome my stage fright and writer's block which I had been carrying for months and for the first time since I co-founded the Poetry Jockeys performers in 1998. I needed something big to go through the pain and acknowledge the stuff I love.

*I am founding member of the The Red Line Project

Gamestormers, visual artists, brainstormers, conceptualisers, parents and kids I have made a mobile play kit.

Whether you go to a meeting, presentation or visiting friends and family this homebrew playkit has been helpful to me to: (co)create, explain and play.

Last Thursday I attended the monthly VTS (Visual Thinking School) at Xplane/Dachis office in Amsterdam. 

This months  theme was to 'Get Inspired by Names', using names as a starting point for visual thinking. 

It was full-house with 20 persons from different nationalities, age and background.
I want to share one exercise that our host, Matt Morasky, came up with: