Todays leader: money, power, ego and wearing blinkers

TEDxRotterdam 2011 in drawings

Frank Los is a drawing artist. But that’s not all.

He can be seen as the incredible sum of a caricaturist, poet, master of ceremonies, magician and stand-up comedian. The theme of his act are the drawings he makes in three minutes, by using not only his drawing skills, but his philosophical thinking, poetry and knowledge of human communication as well.

Frank Los is always looking for new “victims”. And he found more than a few at TEDxRotterdam on Octobre 13th. Throughout the day he drew inspiration from the perfomances and the visitors in Het Nieuwe Luxor. This resulted in a series of drawings on Old and Future Leadership. Just click the drawings to view an enlargement.

all the performers

all the partners

all the guests
in Het Nieuwe Luxor, at the streaming locations and as well as online worldwide

for an amazing 2011 edition.

You will lead the future!

TEDxRotterdam 2011 Future Leadership brought together 33 performances to inspire 1300 last year students and 200 CEOs in Het Nieuwe Luxor Theater. Next to that, hundreds of people watched the event live at one of the streaming locations throughout the country, 20 top students traded places with CEOs of Dutch top companies and different groups of young professionals worked on new ideas to real life problems.

Relive the entire day through our Youtube-playlist or watch the impression of the day.

Check the Flickr-photostream for pretty pictures on the event and read everything the press had to say about it on our seperate press-page.

Read, listen and watch her impressive talk at the same time, and get moved yourself (again).

We’ve been talking about future leaders this whole morning
maybe it’s time to face it now;
leaders have been dissappointing for thousands of years
From Julius to Jesus, Churchill, Obama, Che,
they’ve had their moments but
didn’t it always end
in pity, shame, dissatisfaction?
Didn’t they always betray or prematurely die on us?

See, the problem with leaders; they’re on their own
with often lousy sense of direction
they get lost
It took Moses (a very famous leader) forty years to move his crowd
through a tiny desert!
Bush confused the sanddunes of Afghanistan and Iraq
Mother Theresa lost her faith ended
a wandering soul

They’re too caught up in little leader lives
blindly raising fists
at injustice and camera’s
pretending readiness to fight
to help and hurt
they drift away on ego’s extacy
not realising their every step
is directed from behind their backs
it’s the murmuring masses
pushing their leaders to the top
a heavy weight

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
Oscar Wilde wrote that.
The same man who said when you’re lying in the gutter you can always look up at the stars.

In this time of countries functioning without governments,
politicians without power,
revolutions without leaders;
it’s stars we need.
Not the few dancing on our screens.
To determine where you are
you need a milkyway
the infinite galaxy we need,
all the signs from east to west,
the shimmering dots in between.

Here we sit, full of freedom, looking up
and aching,
not for another lying leader,
but for an illuminating crowd

A crowd like a bloodstream
flowing warm
guiding us like cells
through one body
passed limbs and lungs.
A crowd like a tight human shield
against the dangers of
hate and wind,
against the lonely nights
no prophet or president protected us from.

The future question will not be who leads
but who will follow me?

Who will be my crowd?
Stand guard, listen, track my likes
reply my life, be antidote to silent sunday afternoons
the dark space seperating you and me
Who will connect this frightened skin
to the breathing livestream?
Undo the stranger
in me?

Remember, once, we all moved the same direction
like birds flying south, using speed, altitude
and the quiet sound of our hearts, thumping as one.
Before the gods came and books with lies of race, blood
tribes and chosen ones

We have our own book now.
No prophets and devils,
apples or snakes.
No paradise lost.
No story; just us.
Every page a face,
acting, reacting
on the simple facts of live

The future leaders will be the followers
Testifying of our rightfull place
under the stars
no matter how we expand
our profiles will be hands
reaching hands

This is all we have
each other and the need to share
Stranger by stranger becoming comrades
Untill the only stranger left will be earth itself
who doesn’t know how to accept a friend request

When this final stranger shrugs its skin
when we breath the last trees
waves lick our toes
wind makes our buildings bow
when food melts in the fields
icebears climb our shores

when the final bomb
when hunger
when storm

We will clutch to to the web
like anxious spiders.
We will share our last pictures of light.
Twitter hope like birds before sunrise
and know we’re not alone;
we are the breathing
centre of human space and time
starsigns made of flesh
lighting our own ways
we will not go gentle into that good night
We will share and share and share
the live

Forget about leaders, to survive
it’s followers you need

.
—

The mindmaps are accessible for everyone on the website Connection of Minds powered by MindMeister. MindMeister is an online service for easy online mindmapping. Enjoy or relive the TEDx talks in a brain friendly way and don’t forget: the mindmaps will stay available, just like the TEDxTalks!

Click here to see the mindmaps of all the talks made by the team of World of Minds.

www.worldofminds.com

TEDxRotterdam is not alone in feeling inspired by the musical crossover of Ming’s Pretty Heroes and the Red Limo String Quartet. The fresh musical formation was created exclusively for TEDxRotterdam and has now also received an excellent opportunity to play at one of the most popular Dutch radio broad cast stations: 3FM.

3FM has invited Ming’s Pretty Heroes and the Red Limo String Quartet to give a sneak preview of their TEDxRotterdam performance live on air. So tune in Sunday 10 PM and get a foretaste of a dazzling performance that the invitees will be able to experience real life at TEDxRotterdam next week!

www.3fm.nl/socialradio/app

As of yesterday, September 27, registration for TEDxRotterdam 2011 is closed!
Everybody who applied for a seat in the Nieuwe Luxor Theater will be informed soon.

And for those who have already been invited, please confirm your invitation before 18:00 on Friday 30 September. Don’t forget, because after this deadline your invitation will be withdrawn and you cannot attend the Future Leadership edition of TEDxRotterdam.

It’s a trailer, that is being aired several times daily on the popular tv channel Comedy Central.

If that won’t inspire the last students to lead the future and/or subscibe to the TEDxRotterdam Future Leadership conference, what will?

Check the streaming locations here.

Watch it here, get inspired, subscribe to TEDxRotterdam and be there on October 13!
Deadline = September 26

Production by: Andrew Shannon & Piotr Bakker
Camera & Editing: Andrew Shannon

Special thanks to:
Hogeschool Inholland Rotterdam
Erasmus University Rotterdam
University of Amsterdam.