NET RESULTS/Karlin Lillington: If you are a journalist writing about business and technology, you tend to spend a lot of time zigzagging around to conferences and events.
They're good places to find out about new developments, interview some key management people and specialists in various areas, and (often the most interesting bit) get some unfiltered opinions on issues and developments from customers, product users, and informed onlookers.
Usually such events are run by a big company. Sometimes they are run by like-minded people focused on an issue rather than a product or process. Occasionally, the organisers are publishing companies or professional societies.
But the best run, and most interesting, conference I have even been to - and I attend a lot of them every year - is run by students. For the calibre of speakers and attendees, the same conference gets top honours.
The students are the business scholars at the famed Swiss business school, the University of St Gallen (helped out by students from Harvard). The conference is the ISC-Symposium (ISC stands for the International Students Committee), which, some 34 years ago, the students set up as an alternative to the formalities and controversy surrounding its Swiss cousin, the World Economic Forum at Davos.
St Gallen already has one Irish connection: Gallen was an Irish monk who either met a bear or fell into a thorny bush and decided it was a sign from God to set up a monastery on the spot (how's that for a business metaphor?).
Other Irish connections have been Dr Chris Horn, chief executive of Iona Technologies, who led a breakout session two years ago at the annual May conference. But the organisers would like to see greater Irish participation at this unusual event.
Why should you consider going? Because it's an extraordinary opportunity to meet senior figures in the international business, political and academic worlds, make global business contacts, and stretch your brain muscles.
The ISC-Symposium attracts about 600 participants. For business participants, only one person per company is allowed to attend, and that one person must be part of the senior management team. Speakers are notable - and often extremely well-known - people from all walks of business, academic, professional, political, activist and media life.
Some give keynotes. Many more lead small to medium-sized discussion sessions.
One of the unique elements of the ISC-Symposium is that some of the 600 are students from all across the globe, chosen through an essay competition. The presence of the students keeps the sessions from getting overly precious and often brings in a line of questioning that polite business types might not pursue. Needless to say, this can make things very interesting indeed.
The theme of this year's conference, which takes place May 13-15, is "The Challenges to Growth and Prosperity". Sub-themes to be discussed include global free trade, innovation as a motor of growth, the democratic challenge of economic reforms, something they are calling "the human factor", the future of social security systems, the challenge of Islam, and Asia as a model for growth (the last is posed as a question, not a statement).
This year's confirmed speakers include ministers from Germany and China, chairmen or CEOs of companies such as Bertelsmann, Lufthansa, Baker & McKenzie, Ferrari-Maserati and Adidas; the CFO of Nestle; the Nobel economist Prof Amartya Sen of Harvard; the director of the World Trade Organisation, Stanford Hoover Institute fellow Prof Bruce Bueno de Mesquita - well, you get the idea.
Why should the Irish business world attend? Because in business terms, we are quite insular. We tend to focus mainly on the US as a business companion rather than mixing with, and seeking opportunities from, a broader market.
In particular, we are only just tentatively forging links to Asia and the Far East. While some of our companies find these markets of enormous interest, I think few members of senior company management could stand up and say they have a working appreciation and understanding of the political, social and economic issues driving that part of the world.
This conference is a unique opportunity to gain those insights and to actually talk to key leaders from around the world. The setting is informal and unintimidating - it's very likely that you will end up (as I did) queuing for the buffet lunches between a judge of worldwide standing and the vice chairman of Goldman-Sachs, or joking with a Chinese minister over a pint later that evening.
But what the ISC-Symposium really boils down to, as far as I'm concerned, is a great forum for pushing your brain into some new places. If you attend, you will be challenged, annoyed, intrigued, informed, and forced to see what you thought of as cut-and-dried issues in new ways. And you'll meet some fascinating people. I can't imagine any better environment for improving your business acumen - or one where you will have as much fun.
For more information: www.isc-symposium.org
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