Out to build bridges - Storytelling time

I come from a long line of pioneers, builders of bridges between people, and so - privately and professionally, in intercultural communication and change management - this is what I love doing, and what I do best.

My Great-Grandmother built bridges half around the world with courage, my Grandfather survived Siberia building bridges with music and my Mother built bridges between people all her life with human kindness. Let’s start by telling the story of my Great-Grandmother, from whom I got a keepsake, a family heirloom, a coin that you have probably seen me wearing, because I wear it each day every day – for example in this picture.

It shows a fantastic bird on a tree spreading its wings and tail, a bird of paradise native to New Guinea on the other half of the globe, just north of Australia. It’s a Five Deutschmark coin from 1894. Germany, compared to other nations, had relatively few colonies and for a time, half of New Guinea was one of them.

My Great-Grandmother, when she was 22, packed a trunk and a travel-harmonium, boarded a ship and set out to Papua New Guinea to marry her fiancé, my Great-Grandfather, who, I believe, was building bridges – ok, it may have been buildings too – as a construction engineer.

She settled with her newly-wed husband in their home, cultivated the garden “everything was so fertile, you just had to squeeze a tomato to have instant fruits from the vine”, she’d tell us when I was little, and she had six children, five of whom survived to adulthood – a good quota in those days –, and her first-born was my Grandfather. I remember childhood pictures of him, produced on metal plates, riding a huge tortoise in the front yard, which consisted of enormous palm trees and ferns in front of a quaint Victorian house.

Because my Great-Grandmother was a very pious woman, she bonded with the native population by playing them religious songs on her harmonium, which is something that works like an accordion, but the size of a chest of drawers and powered by air pumped through pedals. 

A lush life, perhaps, but very different from what she had left behind. After World War I, the German part of the island was given to Australia and she and her family moved back to Germany.

Whenever I think of the life she must have lived I can’t help thinking how courageous and adventurous she was, moving so far away from everything that she knew at a young age, leaving family members and friends behind, at a time where travel – and letters - took weeks on end by boat, no phone connection, without our post-modern conveniences of wifi, mobiles, pads and pods and instant connection.

And maybe part of that is why I relocated to Canada. I’ve come to think that after the fact, really. Sure, the differences between a Canadian and German life may be smaller, but, hey, living in the prairies has its own challenges, some of which you quickly learn when you buy boots and coats that are -40 degrees Celsius proof.

I’ve been here for 10 years now, and over the years, thinking about my Great-Grandmother definitely helped me be stubborn and resilient on one hand and open-minded on the other, and I am proud to be able to bond with people, building bridges on the foundation of courageousness, music and human kindness.

Competitive edge in Diversity: Female project management experts take off

On 09 July 2007,  Entrepreneuresses and female project managers from all over Germany met at the Frankfurt “Cosmopolitan” on invitation of Roswitha Müller-Ettrich (Munich, founding member and Head of the Board of Trustees of the GPM, (German project management association-IPMA) and Dr. Dorothee Feldmüller (Bochum, IT-project management and consulting; Leaders’ Team of GPM Chapter Dortmund). 

Dr. Katharina Kettner took part in the newly founded GPM work group as an associated expert for Diversity and Inclusion.

Strategic objective is the creating space for themes of gender within project management, and will be basis for enhancing collaboration and effectiveness in project management work by diversity, as well as tackling questions of marketing achievements, image and profile, for example by means of success stories.
Talking about successes and failures is an important element of future oriented management. Diversity belongs to the field of intercultural competencens, by which added value can be improved in many projects. Contrarily, ignoring cross cultural differences not only wastes nerves, but also assignments, time and money.

Kaffee - Kultur - Kommunikation: wave-concepts Eröffnung - Konzept ging auf

Wie war's denn so, am Nachmittag des Freitag, 10.10.2003 in der Galerie "Zwischenraum" am Hellweg 16?

Die Resonanz war ausgezeichnet: Die Party war gut besucht, aber es herrschte kein Gedränge. Künstler, Kunden, Kollegen, Journalisten, Mitarbeiter der Stadt, Studentinnen, Freunde und Familie machten eine bunte Mischung an Gästen, die sich im stilvollen Ambiente gut unterhielten und gut unterhalten wurden.
Die leichte Mischung von Information, bildender Kunst und der Musik von Betty LaMinga www.LaMinga.de und Heinz Hox machte neugierig und weckte Lust auf mehr.
Sogar auf mehr Weiterbildung! Dabei erwies sich die Kaffeemaschine tatsächlich unmittelbar als Kommunikationszentrum, gleich zu Anfang, wo's sonst leicht peinlich werden kann. Der aromatische Kaffee und die hervorragenden Leckereien von Gloria's www.kaffee-to-go.de hätten jedes Versprechen in den Schatten gestellt.unmittelbarer Erfahrung.


Auch die Skulpturen, Malerei, Graphiken und Photographien von Regine Bergmann, Avelke Edel, Beate Braumann, Frauke Schützig and Dirk Lohmann (Photographie) kamen gut an: Sie motivierten u.a. die jüngste Besucherin, Leyla Wissuwa (8), auf der Stelle zur wirtschaftsorientierten Kreativität und die älteren Gäste zur Beschreibung des Unbeschreiblichen.

Für Entlastung in der Vorbereitung, für den reibungslosen Ablauf, für die unaufdringliche Betreuung der Gäste sorgte unser wunderbares Team: Cordula Feld und Nadine Ohm.

Dies war eine gelungene, anregende Party! Herzlichen Dank an Euch alle und an unsere Gäste!

Corporate & Banner Design: Iris Bender
Druck: Techische Dokumentation Montag