No 151: Dance like no one is watching

For the past week I have been in Singapore. I have not been here alone. About 20,000 other people from across the global water sector are also here as it has been Singapore International Water Week (SIWW). With me on this trip are colleagues from Isle Australia, Isle Asia and Isle Europe. Son No 2 is also here, having foolishly returned home from university early. He is enjoying the life-affirming experience of zero-contract hours employment with his father. Child labour is so much more acceptable when it is kept in the family.

Isle has been here in force because we were responsible for delivering the TechXchange and the Innovation Pavilion. The TechXchange was a 1 day technical conference for 250 delegates that formally kicked off SIWW last Sunday. The Innovation Pavilion was a designated area within the (awe inspiringly massive) exhibition hall where c20 novel and disruptive technologies from around the world were being showcased. As outlined in Note 149, Isle had boldly designed an event that included an array of innovative and daring modifications to the usual conference format. These ideas had seemed inspired during the planning phase but as we got ever closer to kick-off these same ideas appeared wildly ambitious and destined to fail. Panic is an interesting emotion. It doesn’t bring out the best in me.

With just hours to go we found ourselves with an array of last minute hiccups. Key note speakers with delayed flights and lost luggage is one of those problems you can’t do much about. My offer to buy a spare pair of knickers was politely declined. I can’t think why. Is it not charming to have a strange man buy your underclothes? (I may have lost track of the fine line between what is acceptable and what is just plain creepy). Anyway, my fears were misplaced. It all eventually fell neatly into place.

The TechXchange flowed like a dream. The interactive debate session, complete with a real-time monitor showing which side was winning, had the audience spell-bound. Almost 2000 votes were submitted to the Voting App during the 45 minute debate period, with the winning side chopping and changing as the debate progressed. Slightly worryingly whenever I spoke my side seemed to lose votes. There is a lesson in there somewhere. This was followed by a high-energy Innovation Competition, which borrowed heavily from X factor. We stayed just about on the right side of any copyright claims. I can confirm that at the time of writing no threatening letters have yet been received from Mr Cowell.  

Our post-event celebrations somehow culminated in us gathering en masse in a nightclub in downtown Singapore. The beer, the live band, the great company and the relief that things had not blown up in our faces meant that we spent Sunday night dancing with abandon. Until this week I have never been ‘out clubbing’, let alone stayed out until the clubs close at 3am. Returning to my hotel room to find Son No 2 with a ‘And what time do you call this?’ look on his face is humbling, but not enough to stop you doing it again. And again.

Such was the success of SIWW that as the week progressed, so did our celebrations. We tried the various delights that Singapore has to offer, including a 4 hour karaoke session where I discovered both that Son No 2 is a rapper and that the future Water Minister for a local Asian country (name retained to protect her) is living reincarnation of Carol Carpenter. Our planned evening of salsa dancing was abandoned after just 2 minutes. Having seen the skill and coordination required to earn a place on the dance floor we decided to return, like dogs to proverbial vomit, to our beloved nightclub and dance until they shut the place.

On one occasion I looked around the dance floor to realise that there was just myself, Professor David Lewis (CEO for Muradel, an Australian tech company that can convert sludge to crude oil), Mr Wolfgang Vogl (GM for VWM Technology from Vienna, they have an on-line monitor that won the above mentioned innovation competition) and Adam Lovell (CEO for the Water Services Association of Australia). With a collective age north of 200 the four of us ripped up that dance floor. The faces of the beautiful young things standing on the side-lines were captivated by our skill and prowess. Dad-dancing is a talent every young person aspires to possess and we were there to teach. Despite what you might hear from other sources, they were not watching us with shame and pity. It was envy at our gay abandon. Why else would they eventually join us such that we became a throbbing mass of human energy, pulsating as one to the rhythm.  

SIWW held its Closing Dinner last night and the exodus from the city began. There was a feeling  that SIWW had provided a brief respite from a world in ever-increasing financial, political or environmental turmoil. Delegates returning to Britain for example are going back to a country with a different Prime Minister from that who was in power when we left. This week has served to remind us of some of the truly great things happening across the water sector. Everyone celebrates in their own unique and special way. We chose to do it by dancing; dancing with complete and utter abandon. Dance like no one is watching. It is truthfully life affirming (and I am told that with good therapy your children will eventually recover from the mental damage inflicted). 

This blog and previous editions can be found at: http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/