Lens story about yesterday

(January 20, 22.30 US Eastern time) I’m putting this online now, (I wrote it while being on Sir Richard’s jet earlier) I’m residing in the Sheraton @ Washington DC (MASSIVE thanks Richard), and thought I’ll post this one ahead, the rest is coming tomorrow, we’re going to Party for Change. I think. Here’s to being cheeky!

Alright, so this is my day it seems.

As I am writing this I am on my way to Washington. To Capitol Hill to be exact as Barack Obama is going to make his inauguration speech.

How come Len? Well, Omar asked me to come along to the Big Improvement Day. The Big Improvement Day is a congress with governmental and business leaders that talk about the current state of being in the world and economic markets. Discussing new strategies on sustainability (which seems the magic word in the business world at the moment), social interaction and the future of business. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the whole day.
Which brings me to my current position, high in the sky over Grasmere (UK). I’m currently sitting in Sir Richard Branson’s private jet on my way to Washington DC.

Indeed, I’m just as surprised as you are. Have no words, am spinning on my feet. But I’ll try.
The scene was as followed; Omar and me were sitting in the ‘Big Room’ at the Rai (exhibition/congress centre) in Amsterdam, when Sir Richard Branson was announced as the next speaker.

As you can imagine, with a record as his and me being a new start-up entrepreneur, I was really interested in what he would have to say on the developments in business for the future. As it was, Ivo Niehe, who is one of the most famous Dutch interview ‘specialists’, was interviewing him. The conversation was quite interesting and got way more interesting (for us) when he said he was going to Washington in an hour to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

As it was a cross-media congress, it was possible to text-message questions for Sir Branson to a massive screen. And so, thinking ahead a bit, we figured Sir Branson was traveling in a private jet. Which led us to the following question: “Dear Richard, would you perhaps have space for two broke students to join you to Washington?”Once the question appeared there was some laughter in the audience, then Ivo Niehe looked back to the screen, saw the question, and simply put it to Sir Richard.

Who started laughing, to be continued by, “Well, if you guys have your passport on you, come along.”

(Dancing, screaming, jumping around in our heads) In real life, we looked at each other in awe and stumbled, “Is he for real?!” At which Bianca from the organisation, who was apparently sitting behind us, said, “Was that you guy’s question?” “Ehm.. Yeah.. Haha”

And so she took us backstage (thank your for that Bianca), and we were on our way. First there was a lot of fuss around us. “Who are these guys?!”, “What did you guys do?!” As you can imagine, we were quite confused about the whole story ourselves and were asked for a radio interview right away by FunX. ANP was asking for pictures and we were asked to step into the press conference that was being given by Richard.

Than, we were given 200 euro’s each by the CEO of Exact Software Rajesh Patel, “He’s taking you there, I’ll get you a hotel, awesome thing to do boys, have fun!”

Than well, we were almost at the airport already. To get into a private jet. Go to Washington. See Barack Obama. Sharing a jet with one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the world for 9 hours.

Fuck I love my life.

(To be continued)

source: http://kbiri.blogspot.com/search/label/www.pomtidom.com