Bavarian Big Think launch event (held at a transitional point of Munich’s future)

I have been in Munich (Bavaria) for a couple of days for Siemens.  For one of the events (an executive forum for senior managers), Siemens had flown in my Trojan Horse from Shanghai and displayed it at the “Antikensammlung” at Koenigsplatz (http://www.antike-am-koenigsplatz.mwn.de/), where the event was held.  It was great to see the horse on display at one of the major museums in Munich as part of the Bavarian launch event for my book.

The topic of my talk, “Big Think,” was timely indeed.  As I write this, a massive wave of Small Thinking is going through the city: an initiative to stop the “Transrapid” – a fast speed magnetic train (based on Siemens technology) that would run from the airport to Munich. The train has been running in Shanghai from Pudong to the airport for years now but has been blocked in Munich by dubious public concerns  -- about costs and the environment -- and by a “do we really need this?” mentality. 

Does Munich need this? Absolutely. The airport is projected to double in size within a decade and thus needs a fast and reliable mode of transportation. The train technology is environmentally friendly.  Moreover, currently it takes about 50 minutes in a slow moving city train to get from the airport to the main train station.  On the way, at one station there’s an annoying several-minutes wait while the train gets connected with another train. What’s the point of that sort of “Gemütlichkeit” in the 21st century? Does the city of Munich, which considers itself to be a “high tech hub” in Europe, really want to move at such a snail’s pace into the future? 

Oddly enough, the current mayor, Mr. Ude, seems to think so and has banked his entire re-election campaign on such small thinking. I, for my part, have joined  www.bayern-pro-rapid.de   a group of people that feel it is time to leverage this bold idea and leave small thinking behind.