Once again, it’s the last month of the year already. The reservoir outside my office window has long frozen over (with fishermen sat atop it with their rods poking through holes made in the thick ice), and it’s brrrrr freezing, it goes without saying. There’s the somewhat disturbing crackle of the anti-ice chemical pellets underfoot and under-wheel; there are traffic jams seeming to be longer than usual; and there are days when you don’t set foot outside in daylight (it’s dark late in the mornings and early in the evenings). Business-wise, December is also a month for summing up, for progress reviews, for stocktaking, and for finalizing budgets and plans for the future.

So yes, December can be a dark, dull and wearisome month. For us at KL though, there’s one event to make up for all that. Of course it’s our annual Christmas/New Year blow-out. A small get-together – of ~2500 KLers and guests from around the world – for some serious festive letting down of the hair, kissing under the mistletoe and all that. And this year it happened last Friday…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOMIBd1gMCS/

Read on: Awards to the best KLers first…

Friday, July 15 in Moscow was one of the best days weather-wise of 2016 so far – all day sunny, a light breeze, and zero rain. But of course; the gods knew: it was the day of KL’s all-day 19th birthday celebrations, where 2000+ KLers from all over the planet congregated to party!

It’s a bit weird when you celebrate a company’s ‘birthday’. You find yourself hearing the following refrain repeatedly throughout the day when colleagues meet one another:

“Hey. Happy Birthday!”

“And Happy Birthday to you too!”

To be honest, I never thought we’d one day become so… grown up!

I really didn’t! Back in the late 90s we registered the company (KL, for those dozing at the back) to be able to better realize our super special expertise! We weren’t thinking too far ahead; you tend not to when you’re starting out: you’re doing all you can just to survive. So if a fortune teller back in 1997 would have told me that in 2016 we’d be going stronger than ever and having our 19th b-day bash attended by more than 2000 KLers, I’d simply not have believed her!

Read on: meanwhile, the people …

The Starmus-ship Enterprise journeyed further – for a third, fourth and fifth day! Yes, five full days for one single conference – and me present for (almost) every presentation (of the first three days): a first for me.

I’ve grouped the last three days into one post as five posts on one conference would be a little OTT… and anyway, the last three days were slightly less jaw-droppingly intergalactic than the first two. They were still really something however, including several Starmus ‘star’ moments, including this one:

Stephen Hawking.

This clever chap hardly needs an introduction. He started out by telling us a Brief History of Time His Life. Of course, you can read all about that on Wikipedia, but it’s a lot better from the horse’s mouth. Actually, not from the horses’ mouth, and not from his own, but from software that scans his eyes and selects the required words to make sentences. This, plus the synthesized words over the sound system really made an impression. What a guy! An amazing character. Huge respect.

Read on: Check out these views!…

Starmus is a quantumly stellar conference! I can’t remember a conference where I went to every presentation, from beginning to end, but I did here (well, almost). Thoroughly interesting, lively, engaging, stimulating. In short: out of this world – just like most topics spoken about.

All righty. Here’s my quick synopsis of all the speeches of day two:

Brian Schmidt.

The American-Australian astrophysicist. Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011. Thought-provoking presentation about dark matter, of which, he reckons, a large proportion of the Universe is made up, but which we can see with neither the naked, trained, nor micro-/telescope-assisted eye. Also told us about dark energy (sounds like a sub-genre of techno:), which, though also completely unknown and unseen, is “hypothesized to permeate all of space”! (- Wiki).

Galaxies rotate, the Universe expands: it’s as if there’s dark (unknown) matter and energy at play. Even though we can’t see it, it’s thought it makes up… 95% of the contents of the Universe! In other words, all that we can see around us only makes up 5% of what’s really there – 5% of the matter and energy of the Universe. EH?!?!!

Read on: Jokers, scientists and astronauts…

Hola folks!

Still on Tenerife – today at the Starmus Festival. Hardly your usual festival, Starmus combines astrophysics, fundamental physics and music. Never heard of it? Well, I hadn’t until this year, but here I am speaking at it already!

Briefly, this is a conference where the coolest, most distinguished scientists in the world give formal presentations and also speak plenty informally on the sidelines – about the stars, the cosmos and the microcosm, or whatever else is their particular niche they’ve devoted their lives to.

Talk about big names: Stephen Hawking, probably the world’s leading star of science, a physicist-cosmologist who has scientific theories named after him; Brian May – the guitarist from Queen – and also an astrophysicist; Brian Eno – ambient music pioneer, Roxy Music member, U2 producer and thought leader; the astronaut Alexey Leonov, Hero of the USSR and the first man to walk in space; and many more…

Read on: Big Bang and multiverse bubbles…

I reckon snooker is the most… progressive of all cue sports. The most fun and enthralling to watch too. It takes cool composure, a sniper’s precision, and strategic cognition to be a successful player. Don’t know the rules? Here they are.

As I told you yesterday, we were at the Riga Masters just recently, and I had the honor of awarding the cup to the winner – this one here:

The start of the final…

Read on: it was a long nail biter…

Hi folks from modish Milan, where it’s a sunny 28 degrees centigrade!

28º? So what? It is summer, after all. Yes, and temperatures in Moscow two weeks ago were approaching 28º. But for the last several days in the Russian capital it’s been hovering around 7º, and has hardly stopped tipping it down with rain (I even heard that there was hail at the weekend in St. Petersburg!) What’s going on? Moscow’s not in Greenland. It’s not on Kamchatka either (where snow in June fails to shock anyone). It’s on the relatively temperate Central Russian Upland! Still, I should be grateful it didn’t get as bad as in Paris…

Out of my hotel room window I’ve got a great view of the Milano Centrale railway station. What a grandiose bit of architecture…

Though I’ve been inside it a few times before and always been very impressed, I decide to have another peek – just to lessen my sclerosis.

Read on: Monumental, imperially, with a reserve for the future …

Phew. Another regional partner conference done and dusted. We have quite a few every year: North American (this year in Cancun); Latin America (recently in Bolivia, but this year I sadly couldn’t make it); and APAC (just the other week in Vietnam). There’s also an ‘Emerging Markets’ conference – the one that we’ve just done and dusted, in Barcelona – which covers Latin America (yep, they’re lucky – they get two conferences a year), Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As always it was as always: meetings, presentations, discussion, negotiations and so on: the serious bit. Then there was the fun bit: a gala dinner, this time in Barcelona’s Maritime Museum. Super place for a super supper :).

The 2016 season is in full swing, with winter and spring events following one another in quick succession. We have just completed our annual North American partner conference.

It was pretty much the same as always. Presentations, meetings, discussions. Products-technologies-services, strategies, promotion, problems, opportunities, ideas. Lunch, entertainment, networking. Two whole days. Got there – got together – got down to work.

From dawn to… dawn, pretty much :) Speaking of dawn, the sunrises were gorgeous:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BClHYOcuiYI/

Read on: looking for a better new place…

Right after the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona there was mad dash to get to Nuremberg for another exhibition – Embedded World.

This one is about automating all things that rotate, revolve, pull stuff up and down, heat and refrigerate, pump, chemically bond, move on wheels, float and fly, as well as ‘everything digital for men in orange helmets, and loads of other stuff like that. Big time cyber-industrialism!

Read on: meetings, discussions, presentations…