The Corporate Conference

From the archives dated December 2006.

In December I attended the C-MAP conference at Egersund, Norway. Reps from 17 countries were present. For a change, Egersund appeared lively this time. Perhaps it was because our trip coincided with the opening of Christmas Town – Egersund’s annual Julebyen celebrations.

The trip from Mumbai to Egersund has become familiar now. I was coming back after four months and I didn’t expect any problems. But I had not reckoned with the ever increasing security measures. At Amsterdam, having browsed through the over priced duty free shops. I stood in the long queue to enter the Scandinavian world. When my turn came they asked:

‘Are you carrying any liquids?’

I drained my coke can, kept it aside and smiled confidently.

‘No.’

The hand bag and I passed through the scanner. Whilst I sailed through I noticed that my bag didn’t. It was moving back and forth under the X-ray machine. Finally it moved forward along with a grim faced gentleman.

‘Open it’, he snapped at me.

‘It’s already open. You just have to pull the zip down.’ I said.

I demonstrated how easily my bag could be opened.

‘Take your things out’.

The gentleman was clearly unimpressed with the ease my bag could be opened. And it seemed he was wary of touching it.

I slowly took the things out. A hand towel, a diary, one set of clothes, my toilet kit.

‘Hold it right there. Open the zip of this pouch.’ The guy said.

I opened my toiletries and took out the toothpaste, shaving cream and skin cream. They were gingerly picked up and put on a tray.

The tray was taken to the head of the security, duly checked and brought back.

‘These are liquid and they go into the trash’.

‘I am sorry’. I mumbled.

I was nonplussed. If that was liquid, I better be careful. Tomorrow they might object my walking through the scanner especially after drinking all those cokes and coffee.

At Stavanger airport the weather looked daunting – cold and windy with rains. By the time I reached Egersund the smile on my face was wearing thinner. At night, in my hotel room I switched on the TV and watched ‘SKY TV’ channel. I adjusted my watch with the TV and went to sleep.

That was a bad move because SKY is a British channel and UK is 1 hour behind Norway. In the morning I had my breakfast and noticed – wrongly - that I had sufficient time to go for a walk and probably replenish some ‘liquids’ essentially required to appear well-groomed.

By the time I came back to the hotel there was a search party mounted for me. I found an extremely worried Terje looking for me. He was relieved to see me safe.

Terje took me to C-MAP headquarters. When I entered the conference hall I could see that I had made a grand entrance. Representatives from different parts of the world looked up to see India entering the hall. Perhaps I should had felt proud that some of the most knowledgeable professionals in Electronic Charts were looking up at me. But there are better ways to make India stand out.

Around 25 people took part in the conference. C-MAP was represented from Baltic (Estonia), China, Greece, Italy, India, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia (Norway), Singapore, South Africa, UK and USA. We also had visitors from Boeing, USA and Japan. Jeppesen Marine, USA who are in the process of taking over C-MAP was there too. It was a heady feeling to interact with an international group. I felt reassured to see a vibrant C-MAP all over the world. We are the number one in USA, Western Europe, Far East & the Indian subcontinent. What is left is Africa and South America. Do they really matter?

In a conference in which there are many countries represented one gets the opportunity of understanding the company philosophy better. We had presentations from major shipping countries which included India, Japan, China, Greece, US, Scandinavia & Malaysia. I enjoyed the presentation by Mizuho, a young petite clerk from Japan as she read out the impressive figures of her country in a sing song voice.

C-Map has followed a simple policy. The National Hydrographic Offices (HOs) are the owners of chart data and C-Map’s responsibility is to obtain this data, repackage it and supply it directly to the customer. In this business of providing nautical information service C-Map aims to be the best in the world.

The very simplicity of the corporate vision ensures that there is no confusion in the minds of both the supplier and the customers. C-MAP has remained extremely focused in its objective.

HOs in the world are invariably government agencies. Being non-commercial agencies they ensure the purity and accuracy of the collected data. But HOs generally do not talk to their customers. This is where C-MAP comes in – to provide the interface between the HO’s (producers of data) and the shipping industry (users of data).

The five days – Monday to Friday zipped through and before we realized the conference was over.

In the daytime there were presentations, animated discussions and workshops where we exchanged our views and experiences. In the evenings there were dinners and banquets with good food and wine. There was laughter all around.

Before I forget to mention, Egersund beer was a big hit. It is coffee coloured and has a distinctive flavour. It requires a little time to acquire the taste. The locals were quite proud of this brew. From time to time somebody would come and offer me a mug of beer and ask my opinion about it. Perhaps the Christmas spirit had already begun to make itself felt.

Egersund is a quiet town. One morning when the rains abated a bit I went for a walk. At 7 in the morning it seemed like midnight. It was dark and there was not a single soul around. Mercifully the street lights were all on.

I decided to trudge up the hill and visit Egersund Chapel which has a cemetery. On both sides of the narrow road there were wooden houses. The curtains were mostly drawn apart and there would be a light burning inside. One could easily see neat rooms through the windows. It all looked enticing.

As I rounded a corner I saw a big dog coming noiselessly from the opposite side. I don’t know who was more surprised – the dog or me as both of us looked at each other. In Egersund, there are no strays. When somebody takes a dog out for a walk it should be always held by a leash. Otherwise you have to pay a big fine. I wish Mumbai could control the stray-dog population by such methods.

On the last day we had a grand banquet. Here I met Steve, an Englishman with an Indian connection. Steve’s Dad was in India till 1947. He lived in Cox’s Bazaar (now in Bangladesh).

Steve himself had a story to tell. Twenty years back, whilst on a short visit to Norway he succumbed to its charms. He married a pretty local girl, Anne and settled down in Norway forever. Steve likes to hunt. Though he is not so particular about the quarry itself. Steve had an endearing way to describe a day he spent on deer-hunting:

‘The day’s hunting was non-productive in terms of how many deer we saw, but I regard hunting rather like I do fly fishing, that we should also appreciate nature, good company, the weather and that any game / fish is a bonus’.

On Thursday evening Egersund celebrated ‘Christmas Town’. It was a friendly gathering and the whole town turned up for the occasion. People were dressed up for the festive season and children turned up in big numbers. There were lots of Christmas carols in which people would sing along good naturedly with great gusto.

As I was walking around, Santa Claus turned up and boomed in his loud voice.

‘Now Raj Chakravorty will take our photographs’, as he draped his arm around a few children.

I duly obliged. It was pleasant to hear Santa pronouncing my surname perfectly. Not surprising because we knew each other from the office.

It was hard not to be affected by the friendliness around. Even the weather couldn’t dampen the town’s spirits.

Capt. Raj S Chakravorty