The "World of Health IT" conference (WHIT'07), a European HIMSS derivate, is coming up in October in Vienna, Austria. My journey will take me to Brussels and Berlin before finally venturing to Vienna.
It's kind of odd, but a number of things are happening in recent weeks that make this trip to Berlin quite special.
Our partner for PHR, ICW, will hold a partner summit in Berlin the week before WHIT. As stated many times, I'm a big fan of connected PHRs as a center piece for consumer directed health care, and I'm looking forward to learn what is next for ICW.
It also gives me a chance to go back to Berlin. A journey to Berlin is always very emotional for me, mainly because I love Bertholt Brecht. I grew up in what was then called West Germany (now there is only one Germany, but growing up this distinction was important) and had not had a chance to visit East Berlin during my trips to West Berlin. So in May 1990 I took for the first time the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, which was still divided into an East and West partition, and walked to the Brecht monument in front of the Theater am Schiffbauer Platz. There, I just stood next to Brecht and read along with the statue "Questions of a worker who reads", crying tears of joy and excitement. That's unification for me. ("Fragen eines Zeitung lesenden Arbeiters" is, however, not my favorite poem - but that's another story)
Last time in Berlin, I met my long time friend who had moved to Berlin, at this very place, the Brecht monument. We paid homage to Berthold before walking to the "Staendige Vertretung". There we were, two high school friends twenty years later, both traveled and far from home, close to our spiritual godfather Brecht, drinking our local brew Koelsch in a place that is full with memories of the Bonner Republic that doesn't exist anymore - the Republic of Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Herbert Wehner and Helmut Schmidt.
But that's not all. The last two weeks I was watching "Das Leben der Anderen", making of and background, which invokes yet other memories of the "other" German post-war republic. Interesting that the author and director of this movie was born in Cologne, West Germany (like me). Maybe it takes some distance to gain perspective. Anyway. ICW sent me a model of a Trabant car as an invitation token. They will organize a rally through Berlin using those cars at the eve of their event. But I'm going to skip that. The Trabant reminds me too much of the Republic portraited in "Das Leben der Anderen", the other republic. And I'm sure Brecht, could he blog today, would agree with me that the Stasi Republic betrayed much of what Brecht believed in. So I will instead go see Brecht and remember the Bonner Republic.
Finally, the "Aeltestenrat des Deutschen Bundestages" will be here at the EBC tomorrow and I'm looking forward to host them. While I'm a bit scared to do a presentation in German, it's good to speak the language of Brecht and Heine once in a while, and a good preparation for the time in Berlin and Vienna. Maybe I should do my next Blog entry in German?
![[my boss] about public sector (Government, Education and Health care)](http://www.unitedfeatures.com/ufs/images/comics/characters/cast_dilbert_The_Boss_sm.gif)
