EPCA Luncheon guests go hungry

I’ve just got back from the EPCA Luncheon – it was the first time there was an official luncheon with a speaker, and about 600 people signed up for it. The pre-organisation was a bit chaotic, but it went well on the day. We had a table made up of some customers and a few ICIS people. It warmed up with a showing of EPCA photos on big screens, with a great many of Paul and Oonagh playing tennis and Fried in his running outfit. You’ll be able to see them on the EPCA website.
The food was incredibly slow, and our table had to wait until after the presentation for our main course. My poor guest Fred had to leave after two hours without having eaten! Afterwards we were all given a framed piece of an oil painting to take away as a souvenir, and some delegates took away armfuls of them.

The speaker was Professor Michael Porter, sporting a rather fetching orange tie (as predicted here) and he gave an extraordinarily animated performance, with lots of expansive arm gestures but some rather old-fashioned slides. To read what he had to say on “Clusters”, you can read Nigel’s article on ICIS news. It was a very US-oriented presentation. He’s obviously a very bright guy and noticed straight away that the first questions from the floor in the Q+A session were all planted, including one from Theo Walthie (check out that moustache).