Falling Walls, raising silos?
Yesterday was the second Falling Walls Conference in Berlin. betterplace lab creative editor, Dennis Buchmann and I attended in full anticipation of a much-lauded event. Joana had told us that the conference in 2009 had been the highlight of her entire year. We were both, however, a bit disappointed. I've taken the time to write down my reflections here.
Let's start off with the good things.
The idea -- to bring together leading experts from a variety of disciplines to talk about the latest groundbreak innovations in their fields -- is a terrific one. The location -- the chic-industrial arts and events center, Radialsystem (which used to be a water pumping facility) -- was über-cool. The presenters -- from top research institutions like Max Planck, Humboldt University, and the University of Berkeley among others -- were clearly experts in their fields. And the breadth of topics covered -- from nano-microscopy to accessible, experience-oriented installation art in public spaces, and from machine-cutting practices in Japanese factories to the idea that sympathy can be cultivated as a daily practice -- was so ambitious that it felt like getting a liberal arts education in a single day.
Granted, I appreciated the talks by Manfred Prenzel on education, Doug Guthrie on China's gradual economic innovations, Olafur Eliasson on altering contexts in public spaces in order to jar reflection on traditional contexts, Tania Singer on the learned cultivation of sympathy and its implications for our lives, and Yael Hanein on advances in neuro-engineering to restore sight. These presenters were clear and clearly accessible.
The first Falling Walls conference, held originally in 2009 to mark the anniversary of 20 years after fall of the Berlin Wall, receieved so much acclaim after its first round, that the organizers decided to make it an annual event. I did not attend the first conference, but have heard that it captured an energy and excitement for innovation, and hosted Muhammad Yunus and Angela Merkel, among others.
The 2010 conference was, in contrast, notably different, at least according to those with whom I spoke during the coffee and lunch breaks. I offer up some critical feedback from my own perspective on some aspects of a conference which is theoretically a superb idea.
The Wall of Inaccessibility
Many of the speakers at the 2010 conference spoke on a highly specialized level that was a barrier to my understanding, and I would imagine to others' as well. While this may contribute a kind of "wow" factor ("wow, there's so much going on that I can't understand at all, so it must be exciting,"), it's not exactly worth spending nine hours of lecture time to come away feeling that I don't know what's going on and how it all connects together. This is not anything especially new for the format of academic conferences, where scholars regularly address other scholars in their field, but the difference is that (at least as I perceived it), this should be a kind of commons for people from multiple disciplines, as well as from practictioners. The language employed in presentations should necessarily address an audience of general knowledge.
I found, for example, the presentation of the challenge to film nano-crystals from multiple angles somewhat interesting (from what I was able to understand) and doubtless this has never been done before and is therefore exciting, but I still don't have any idea why this was so groundbreaking and what kinds of implications it has for anything that is happening today. The idea of multi-perspectivity could have been terrific to discuss in relation to the talk about Jewish, Muslim, and Christian influences on one another, for example. Or the interesting presentation about breaking down logistics systems from a centralized control center to autonomous localized nodes with decision-making capabilities could have had great discussional value for the talk on pain and the currently-inefficient distribution of opiates to people in need of treatment in developing countries. As it was, the overlap of topics remained low, while the level of discourse was often too high.
This kind of feeling persisted through the primarily scientific discussions on nano-technologies, complex mathematical equations, high speed x-ray laser-beams that are being shot over Schenefeld in Schleswig-Holstein, and a number of talks arguing for how to make nuclear energy sustainable, most notably by the EU Council President, Herman van Rompuy, (but no talks at all about innovations in renewable energies).
One of the results of this über-specialist division was that the speakers seemed rarely to overlap, or even to be able to speak to the others' topics. Only once or twice did the moderators or other speakers address how the innovations in someone else's field might be having an influence on their own. This was especially disappointing, as it showed just how much of a silo-mentality there still is among disciplines, and at the conference itself.
Shouldn't a conference of this magnitude pay attention to the accessibility of its rich innovative information, and break down those walls that keep the rest of us out of the specialists' language? And shouldn't these groundbreakers be encouraged at just such an event to engage with one another? That would be truly exciting and wall-shattering.
The Wall of the Conference Format
Just a note on the format of the conference format. There were four blocks of four to six speakers, each person presenting for 20 minutes in a row, with a follow up of 10 or so minutes of Q & A that was supposedly collected from the audience. Not only did this format seem endlessly long since, as I've described above, many of the presentations were completely inaccessible to anyone outside of the field, but even if they had ALL been amazingly interesting, there is only so long that even the most curious adult can sit in an audience and be talked to by someone standing at a podium.
If groundbreaking innovations in education have taught us anything, it's that this kind of environment is not conducive to learning. Manfred Prenzel, a presenter on the topic of developing interest in education, pointed this out briefly in his excellent talk (one of those that I truly understood and appreciated).
My suggestion is that Falling Walls try breaking the wall of the traditional academic conference format. Instead of one "lecture block" after the other, intersperse the structure with audience participation, in the form of small groups (I would have loved to have discussed some of the big concepts and ideas with other audience members who also seemed to be from very diverse backgrounds!); have a huge wall where people can write their answers to questions or post notes for solutions. Have a microphone in the center aisle where audience members are encouraged to come down and ask questions themselves. Have one session in which the participants don't give 20 minute presentations but rather only 5 minute ones and then are tasked with talking about the implications of their disciplines on others. I can think of dozens of ideas with just five minutes of reflection, which would have made the conference more conducive to real learning and collaboration.
The Wall of the Mono-Culture
Pehaps it's not surprising at a scientific conference in Germany that most of the speakers should be white, academic researchers from western countries, but I suppose that the title of the conference led me to believe that it would be a bit more diverse. Besides Shalina Randeria from India (who is however stationed at the University of Zurich) and Ichiro Inasaki (from Chubu University in Japan), the presenters were monotonous in their ethnic backgrounds, though the audience seemed diverse enough for Germany. But why weren't any speakers from Africa and South America represented, for example? And besides Olafur Eliasson, who alone somehow seemed to represent any "cultural" breakthroughs, the presenters seemed to be largely research- and academy-monotonous.
Perhaps this is the goal of the conference--to focus on primarily academic research at a high scientific level. However, aren't there also practiticioners who are putting groundbreaking theories and ideas into real action on the ground? What about grassroots organizations? What about musicians and artists? What about innovations in politics (the political presentations were, at best, just typical politics). One had the feeling that only science truly offers any innovation nowadays. Is this true?
There was one very interesting moment in the conference, following the speech of German President Christian Wulff: the conference speaker thanked Wulff and told him that in order to honor the topic of immigrant integration--one that is close to Wulff's heart--the catering and food service for the entire conference was being supplied by a company that is run by legal immigrants in Germany. While not wanting to discourage a gesture that was no doubt well-intended, I can't help but holding up the mirror to this kind of thought. Namely, immigrants in Germany can do more than hold food on a platter and pick up empty dishes for a lot of white intellectual Germans. As an immigrant myself, I can attest to the fact that integration in Germany won't be possible until Germans learn to view outsiders as equals and not just as service providers or manual laborers. Why not ask the CEO of the catering organization to be one of the presenters, to discuss why their work as a solely immigrant-run organization is so new and groundbreaking in Germany? Personally, this first-hand testimony and experience would have been much more interesting, inspiring and informative to me than to hear an American professor wax eloquent about the history of integration of Muslim people in France. And it would have also acknowledged that immigrants in Germany can be seen by Germans as equal and a part of innovative solutions, including in this important topic of integration.
I hope that the Falling Walls organizers can take a step back before next year for some self-reflection and can turn this incredible idea into reality in a more diverse, accessible, and creatively structured format. That would be truly inspiring example of "disruptive change," as one speaker put it and, in knocking down walls, they might just succeed in taking a few silos with them.
W., can you explain more to me what you mean with A) wrong selection criteria and B) wrong respect for academic merits?
I didn't realize that the event was streamed live. This seems like a good thing--availability to more people. And I agree with you that the event would be even better with a better-thought out format in the future.
The good point is, that the organizers decided to open the event with a lifestream. From time to time I was "attending". What you say is quite right. If you compare what you could do with that ressources and the core idea, I get angy and have to say that hhis is so old school thinking and doing, so 20th century meritocratic boredom. For me it is as if I could "feel" the decidion procedures behind the "walls" of the people organizing this.
A) Wrong selection criteria,
B) wrong respect for academic merits
C) even political influence maybe to keep it all "balanced"
D) wrong targets: it is not about change and debate, but to honor the professor X, Y etc. for his work ....
The diversity of scholars leading to non-communication/non-understanding - this is so absurd ... and then some moderator not capable of English, searching for words ...
To have not the same "lost opportunity" in 2011 the casting and format have to change. E.g. more like the TED conferenece, or with a limit in age (50?), prefering more the newcomers in science.