I am officially unwound! We are just finishing the European leg of a summer overseas. Sixteen days have passed since we left Texas, and I am so far removed from the frenzy I would believe it if you told me I had been gone for years. We started this trek in late June, arriving in Aarau, Switzerland, to present the results of a project that has occupied much of my free time over the past ten months. Last September I wrote about a trip to Cambridge, Mass., to join a global virtual collaboration project with students from MIT, the University of Cologne, the University of Helsinki, and SCAD. My team selected a project proposal to study student-led innovation in Educanet, a virtual education platform designed to compliment classroom activity throughout the entire Swiss public school system.
On June 29th, we traveled to Berne to present our results to the executive committee of education media in Switzerland. Early the next morning we boarded RailJet 162 bound for Trentino, Italy, by way of Innsbruck, and spent the following 3 1/2 hours with our faces pressed against glass, staring out into the hauntingly beautiful Swiss countryside. If all else went wrong, this brief stretch of rail would have made it alright. From Trentino we caught a city bus to Riva del Garda, to once again present the findings of our project, at the 2010 INSNA Sunbelt Conference.
The conference featured speakers from all over the world, in 15-minute bursts of insight and innovation, ten parallel sessions at a time, from 8am to 7pm for several days straight. I caught many great sessions, covering a diverse range of applications for identifying investment strategy clusters to disrupting terrorist cells and dark networks with social network network analysis methods and theory. The real joy, however, was getting to share the floor with my friends Peter Gloor, Hauke Fürhes, Ken Riopelle and Julia Gluesign, and the rest of the GalaxyAdvisors crew, and experience a tiny slice of what they do, the “academia of the cutting-edge.”
I’m sure I would have attended more of the sessions, had Riva not been so damn beautiful. The town sprawls across the northern edge of lake Garda, encircled by miles of vineyards and cradled between the Dolomite mountains, which doubled as launchpads for the violent thunderstorms that drained the heat out of the nights. So.. how was the food?!… right? Heart-breaking. We gorged on pizza, wine and gelato, trying our damnedest to fatten me up for the three-week trek into the Himalayas that would follow.
After the conference closed we spent a few days on the beach, then packed our bags and returned by rail to Zurich, and then Aarau, for a long weekend of rest. Switzerland certainly lives up to its reputation as being incredibly expensive, but it really depends on your priorities. If you want to run in circles seeing the sights, eating at restaurants and hitting the shops, get ready to shell out some cash. If you would rather take it slow, hit the grocery store for supplies and picnic on great cheese, meats, bread and wine, and then spend your days reading in parks or hitting the public pool, you’re going to come out on top. We just focused on not-doing, taking our time to catch up on reading, and penned out a dozen blog entries that have been neglected in favor of the past year’s madness. Sometimes the best vacation is just a sequence of lazy days off in someone else’s town. And in the case of Aarau, that someone’s town happens to be beautiful!
This shift in priorities is, I believe, symbolic of Switzerland as a whole. However, it also seems “whole” isn’t even the idea. The Swiss employ a system of direct democracy, with almost total emphasis and control placed at the local level. The kantons vote for nearly everything, including their own tax rates and regulations, and in return enjoy a strong sense of ownership in the outcome of their participation. This translates into highly effective self-management and personal accountability. Taking from the community is considered shamefully irresponsible, and so free-loading and abusing public services are almost unheard of. As a result, they enjoy relatively low taxes, efficient services, pristine neighborhoods, parks and streets, and lakes so clean you can drink the water you swim in.
As I wrap up this journal entry, I am watching the day begin in terminal E of ZRH. Christine left for the U.S. about an hour and a half ago, so now it’s just me. In a few hours I’ll catch a British Airways flight to LHR, and nine short hours later I’ll depart for Delhi to begin the second leg of my summer escape. I’ve been away from the U.S. just over two weeks, but it’ll be another three before I can go home. This trip has been an amazing opportunity to clear my thoughts and reset my anxiety-ridden mind… something I’ve been talking about doing for years, but haven’t taken the time to do properly. The past eighteen months have been a whirlwind of personal development and adventure… now it’s time to reflect, synthesize, and let a new chapter begin…
