stimulated then deflated

Had such a fascinating day. Spent it at the Turbine Hall in Newtown which used to be this derelict building characterised by broken windows and squatters and even think some people died there during a fire.
Anyway, the building has been revamped and is now the headquarters of Anglo Gold Ashanti, a huge mining conglomoration, as well as other smaller companies such as Freedthinkers, where I attended a workshop based on research they have done for the company I work for on women aged 35 to 50.
Thinking I might face a day of boring presentations, I was fascinated by the process they used which involved us moving to three different spaces in their offices during the day - one with the walls entirely covered in whiteboard with coloured khoki pens to write ideas on - as well as fresh salads, one chicken and the other couscous and roast veggies for lunch.
I left feeling inspired by the process which saw us create a slogan/promise as well as three visual images which together encapsulate the product we might produce.
So imagine how deflated I felt when a friend said that that is the type of process used by companies in their bosberaads or lekgotlas/lekhotlas or senior management brainstorming meetings (bosberaad being the Afrikaans word for it and now regarded as not being a politically correct term, and lekgotla being the Tswana term for it and the other spelling, lekhotla, the Sotho word for it).
Well I have been to quite a few lekgotlas for work and not once did we use anything as inspiring and jacked as that. It was all rather ad-hoc and at the most there was an outside speaker who came to give their opinion on some aspect of the company.
I feel so last century.

TURBINE HALL:
multimedia.thetimes.co.za/photos/2008/08/newtowns-turbine-hall/

FREEDTHINKERS:
www.freedthinkers.com


LEKGOTLA OR LEKHOTLA:
au.encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1481582543/lekgotla.html