LinKS blog

Did you read the article “Det nødvendige netværk” (The Indespensable Network) about LinKS in Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin and Erhvervsbladet, april 7, 2008?

Please follow this link:

Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin:

http://www.business.dk/article/20080403/nyhedsmagasin/80402125/

Erhvervsbladet:

http://www.erhvervsbladet.dk/article/20080407/news03/704060004/

Once upon a time in Philadelphia - late autumn of 2006 - a group of Danish executives were lounging in broad sofas – sipping cocktails and chatting. ”Why don’t we have anything like a genuine business club in Copenhagen?“ one of them said. That question was the starting point of Copenhagen LinKS Club.

On January 17th, 2008, we are prototyping the Club Concept for the second time. In company of 70 specially invited executives, entrepreneurs, expats, politicians and societal opinion makers, we will experience an afternoon at the club to be. The prototype participants reflect the future member segment of club.

The concept is the outcome of one year of fantastic co-creation in the Ideation Team and outstanding inputs from the first prototype in October 2007, where 40 executives assembled discussing tendencies, value proposition and strategic goals.

Concept

The club is to be “the third Place for Business”, enriching global business life. The club will create a window towards the global market, reflecting Copenhagen as a metro pole, offering topicality, innovation, sustainability and eventful networking as mainstay. This is reflected in the daily life of the Club.

Simultaneously , the club will offer a confidential, relaxed environment for high performance people who need to loosen the tie for a while and be themselves in the company of equals.

The Copenhagen LinKS Club will provide state of the art service and facilities. All members of the club will be selected and approved. And this gives a special atmosphere. At the club no one is a stranger, and everybody is a potential for interesting conversation. You think networking in terms of ”how might I be able to help this person?” not in terms of ”what can I get from this person?”.

Members are Owners

The Copenhagen LinKS Club will be a fund - not a business. Members are owners and the Club concept evolves in open collaboration with the board.

Ideation Team:

• Anne Qvist, Arkitema
• Hans Kristian Højsgaard, Timex
• Heidi Rottbøll Andersen, Living Institute
• Lars Bernhard Jørgensen, Wonderful Copenhagen
• Mette Laursen, LinKS
• Mads Kjær, MyC4
• Malene Smidt Hertz, Program Director
• Rasmus Ibfelt, e-Types
• Sten Donner, Copenhagen Capacity
• Stine Have, LinKS, Program Coordinator
• Søren Overgaard, e-Types

In LinKS, the LinKS alumni group have started an initiative of creating a new club concept for leaders, opinionmakers, innovators and great people: Meeting with a Purpose - the third place.

We designed this project as a true innovation process. We work in cycles and full prototypes - the first one will fly in October.

The LinKS alumni group is represented by executives from Wonderful Copenhagen, e-Types, C4-World, Georg Jensen, Arkitema and Copenhagen Capacity and now we welcome The International Club of Copenhagen, directed by the bridgebuilder, Hasse Ferrold. ICC is a club of executives, diplomats and spearheads from the Danish and international society. We welcome the distinguished ICC and do look forward to work on the future based on our collective intelligence.

The confusion about what the new initiative should be called have been solved in the most positive and constructive way, resulting in a coorporation with the already longtime established International Club of Copenhagen and we confirm that the name Copenhagen International Club will not be used in relation to the club house project to avoid confusion.

As usual this Forum was an extraordinary experience, businesswise, culturally and by networking opportunities.Steve Forbes and his team was in the usual top shape to set the scene for discussing the business opportunities in the Middle East, the new Silk Road across from Asia and the energy situation as a whole.

The host was the Emir of Qatar and the Foreign Minister bid us welcome in this extraordinary country. Small, like a city-state with about 850t inhabitants, maybe only 200.000 Qataris. Richest in the Middle East and the business life booming as never before. And this s not only about oil. The strategies are diversified and the future Energy City of Qatar hosts science within many energy solutions. On behalf of a questions of mine on the scope of sustainable energy ambitions, the Danish Oil and Natural Gas – DONG - immediately got a special invitation from the Energy City to participate in the development – I will take that home to DONG.

My impression of the Qatari business delegates that I met was top-professional extremely well educated and all perfectly fluent in Engligsh. I decided to do business here and I already started. I will tell you all about that in a special blog edition later.

One of the great moderators and leading editors of Forbes is Bruce Upin who is an expert within Innovation and has followed the energy industry in this perspective. Bruce is always a joy to be with and we had a coffee and a chat on the energy challenges of the world as well as innovation in general. bruce.mp3

Much has been written about Innovation lately - almost everything is about what and why. It seems that attention is on creative processes, fuzzy frontend or even stage gate optimization. Some how very instrumental.

The idea of diversity in group formation, social networks and relation building is in contrast not very offen represented in that discussion. Why is that?

I think some of the answers is to be found in the misunderstood and misinterpreted necessity for costcutting and overall optimization of production. And, what maybe is more important, because Human Resources in many organizations still is “compared” with other production facillities.

In recent years there has been an evolving movement towards explaining the obvious link between the number of and types of relations in personal networks to overall company innovation capabillity - and a new understanding of the importance of technology is definitly part of that picture.

How do your organization cope with “Knowledge Management” and Innovation capabillity? And do you see the same picture?