Cafeneaua Rogalski Grigoriu

Mirrors of our time

Scris de Eliza Rogalski Joi, 15 Mai 2008, ora 14:51

I met movie and commercial director Ralf Schmerberg in a foggy February afternoon in Berlin, while I was studying my first EMBA module in Berlin School of Creative Leadership. He had been invited by Michael Conrad to share with us from his experience as a director and a person with an astonishing story. At the beginning of his presentation, he spoke one hour about a movie he had produced for Nike and released in China. The movie was about a former Chinese sport star that failed to confirm his celebrity in a competition, for only 1 centimeter he wanted to break former records with. He was actually an “anti-hero”, but his emotional story about failure was something that Nike wanted to share and Ralf caught with mastery in this movie. Then Ralf moved to Dropping Knowledge, a project that really impressed me through its implications. The idea behind Dropping Knowledge is that people can improve their lives if they have access to knowledge. And knowledge is everywhere, but there is no single place where all the useful knowledge can be gathered and organized for the benefit of the humanity. An ambitious project created by an ambitious person that accepted my invitation to share some of his experiences with my colleagues and friends in Romania. Let’s think about how many problems we could solve in Romania, if we want to share and “drop” knowledge.

Eliza Rogalski: What is ”dropping knowledge”? What’s the story of this project?

Ralf Schmerberg: Dropping knowledge invites you to ask and answer questions covering social themes of global significance. It’s when you ask in order to understand, when you answer in order to share. Behind it, there is a group of people who care about social consciousness. We tried to find and experiment forms of communications and to spread it like virus. Years ago, I was a commercial director for a UN-funded campaign that aimed to raise awareness on AIDS in the States. That was the turning point. Speaking with a lady from the staff I understood that it was not just another social campaign and it was not about AIDS. It was about the re- framing of the US society – especially the Christian part of it – to change their perspective on AIDS. To them, AIDS was bad and evil and they usually suspected everything you tried to say about this disease. Millions of orphans in Africa suffered on it. We took them of ground of their arguments and made them become aware that if they did not help, they let children die and God will not like this. For a Christian, this was the ultimate guilt. From that moment, I started to realize there is so much need of help in this world and that money cannot do much. There is something else that can make more and this is knowledge. But knowledge is not accessible for most human beings. That was the moment when I started to think about something that can gather knowledge for the benefit of the people that need it. This is Dropping Knowledge.

Eliza Rogalski: Why do you think the other people would need that?

Ralf Schmerberg: Because we thought we need it for ourselves. And if you miss something for yourself, by nature there must be someone else as well having the same need. It reminds you of the power of the human voice, of the human being’s ability to contribute to the society.

Eliza Rogalski: What is your highest satisfaction about this project so far?

Ralf Schmerberg: A project that is just based on questions will connect us again with the powerful human ability to understand and gain consciousness about the world surrounding us. The strongest momentum for sure was the Table of Free Voices in Berlin Bebelplatz. The power to be part of the ritual that happened there means to me a life changing moment.

Eliza Rogalski: What was the Table of Free Voices*?

Ralf Schmerberg: It was a unique gathering of great open free thinking minds. A bunch of truth tellers seated together on a round table showing connectedness and the strength of the multiplicity of independent thinking. At the same time the huge table functioned like a portrait studio: each seat had its own camera device and was able to record every single moment of every single participant dropping their knowledge at that historic date.

Eliza Rogalski: Why did you organize it?

Ralf Schmerberg: That may be the only question in my life never answered. I have no idea where this will take me, and I actually don’t care. As a young man I had it as a vision. At that time I was not aware that a vision can start to demand your life and become a reality. I have been quite surprised how costly people can get to change the world. Sometimes that felt really disturbing: whatever we do, even if it is supposed to be good, we automatically connect it with a price tag. But besides that for sure I am touched by the experience of what you can do and lift together. Working so multinationally felt really unique and rare. We all became an idea of what it could mean to live together based on peace and harmony, understanding the world as equal and having the taste of a freedom that might be never reached.

Eliza Rogalski: What do people donate most? Money or questions /answers for the Dropping Knowledge platform?

Ralf Schmerberg: Most people come to our platform and donate content questions and answers. On the other hand, the people who also understand what it takes to do this give donations via internet. For sure, we would like to break down the language barrier to make Dropping Knowledge accessible to anybody.

Eliza Rogalski: What about the companies? Did they find this project interesting?

Ralf Schmerberg: Allianz supported us because their CEO understood straight away what our project is about. Whether it is a single person or a big company, it is the social consciousness that matters.

Eliza Rogalski: Can such a project sustain by itself?

Ralf Schmerberg: We don’t know, so far it is not possible, depending on how you define sustainability mixed with intentions. For us, it is a tough way to keep it alive day by day. It is easier to fundraise for children than for our cause. That’s why we need to strengthen the circle of people who protect Dropping Knowledge.

Eliza Rogalski: (one of the most powerful questions I saw to be raised by an anonymous on Dropping Knowledge was “Why does money devalue everything it cannot measure?” I asked Ralph how will Dropping Knowledge sustain without money?)

Ralf Schmerberg: It will sustain by its content and by its intentions. Something like this can only exist by people doing it by giving your time and money as well as your knowledge. Everything needs a heart and a breath and only if that goes away, everything dies.

Eliza Rogalski: Do advertising people volunteer for Dropping Knowledge?

Ralf Schmerberg: Yes, some of the people working with us come from the advertising and communication field, but it is hard fort hem to work for low or no money; they are usually not used to simplify their life enough to free time and put it towards their own heart beat.

Eliza Rogalski: If it’s hard for them to volunteer, than it’s easier to make advertising work that can solve terrible reality?

Ralf Schmerberg: Advertising is done by people and they come out of the society and the time they live in; to me, advertising is a mirror of time: if there is no courage in advertising, it means there is no courage in society.

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* In 2006, Ralf and other few people organized a huge event in Berlin Bebelplatz – the place where years ago books had been burned. The event gathered more than 100 personalities of the international political, economic, cultural and social life. For 10 hours, these people stood around a table and answered live to the questions that other people from all over the world had raised about life, economy, freedom, poverty, ecology and other topics that make humanity think about. The event enjoyed a lot of publicity and after that the online platform droppingknowledge.org was further developed for people to have access to knowledge and solve most urgent problems of humanity by themselves. Anyone can donate there money, questions or answers. I found about this story from Ralf himself, when I met him in Berlin in February 2008, on the occasion of President’s Lecture organized by Berlin School of Creative Leadership together with ADC Germany. His lecture about the power of questions and links between people was delivered in front of more than 150 advertising people. Donating a question or even an answer is something that really can make people understand how powerful they are in this world. It’s not the money, it’s the question that makes us powerful and Dropping Knowledge proves this. At the end of his lecture, Ralf was asked what industry (advertising industry, of course) thinks about this idea. His answer was “I’m not the industry. I am Ralf Schmerberg and this is my way of being a director, a professional, a human being”)