Today was the first day of Shift 2010 at Teatro Aberto in Praça de Espanha, Lisboa.
This year’s theme is DIY – Do It Yourself, quoting shift’s website, with a single purpose: to empower you, so that you can empower others.
We were welcomed with the following pack:
I started the conference by attending to an amazing workshop given by Yasmina Haryono and Rui Madeira – Staying soft in a world gone hard.
This workshop really broke some ice between those who attend. We created a PlayDoh version of our interests with various colors, Orange corresponded to technology, green design, red research, blue business and yellow other interests (you can look for my version on my flickr). After going back in time with the PlayDoh, we were divided in groups of 3 and 4 and had one of four problems to solve. My team and I chose ‘Clear the European sky from the volcano ashes’ and we came up with the really cool idea of creating a RedBull ‘Volcano’ Race to clear up the sky. This was a really amazing workshop (repeating I know!) with lots of good ideas and laughts.
After the the workshop it was time for the opening keynote, where it was proven that Murphy Laws really do exists – some speakers couldn’t come to Portugal because of the volcano ashes and, to keep it up, the projector broke down. Tough luck for the organization 
Next was time for Christoph Fahle‘s talk, for those who don’t know him he’s one of the founders of Betahaus. He talked about his experience of starting a coworking space and evolving it into a business. He also gave THE 2 best definitions for a coworking space: ‘café and office payed as a fitnessstudio’ and ‘like an internet platform on the real life’.
Next on schedule was João Guerra Santos with ‘Fitness Yourself’. João gave a nice talk about what it takes to have the commitment of practicing a sport and he give various tips and how to’s like a running for dummies book. In the end he gave a piece of paper with some sites that can motivate you to start running.
After all that exercise, Joshua Sierles from 37 signals came to talk about ‘Working on road’ and his nomad lifestyle. He pointed out that the most important collaboration tool is trust and awareness is the key for everything and then he gave some tips that help him ‘survive’ his lifestyle, shed, discover(y), look (everywhere), stay (stick around somewhere), scope (your work), reward yourself, exercise (key point!), packing and resources (try couch surfing). Maybe this was the most expected keynote of the day and it didn’t disappointed, but everyone has to admit that not everyone can have that kind of lifestyle.
And last but not least I attended to ’5 para a meia noite: how the first cross-platform show in Portugal made us rethink all’ by Ricardo Tomé and Bruno Lima Santos. They explained to the audience all the re-thinking of a new production process, all the assets needed, the approach taken to make it a reality and the importance of connecting to the public. They ended the presentation impressing everyone on the room with the real audience numbers.
First day was great, hoping tomorrow will be the same. See you there!
