Some of the readers of this blog may wonder why I have been so silent in the last month. Those that know me personally were probably aware of the sudden death of my friend and business partner, Jorg Meyer-Stamer. To see how much Jorg mattered in the development community, take a look at the orbituary site that we created.
I am still in shock that Jorg is no longer around. He was such an important force of motivation and inspiration in my world. It all started a few years ago when I was still employed in a GTZ programme in South Africa. Jorg was our leading service provider. At first I found arguing with Jorg exhausting, but over time I started to look forward to the mental challenges that he would pose to me. For a long time I had a feeling that he did not like many of my ideas, like my passion for business services or market failure. Over time our relationship evolved and become more of a mentor relationship, with Jorg constantly challenging me to think my ideas through, or to try harder to connect concepts that were not connected. We started working on some of my ideas together and I realised that he was always very interested in my ideas, and wanted me to follow my intuition with some deeper exploration. As time went by this mentorship relationship evolved into a deep friendship. Jorg did not treat me like a student (and fact he hardly ever did), but as an equal. When I announced my departure from GTZ Jorg immediately urged me to join mesopartner, the international though leader on territorial development.
Together, Jorg and I have presented more than 40 training events or sessions. Over time we became so
accustomed to each other that I could almost predict his next move, and he mine. We did not always agree on everything, but allowed each other the space for personal interpretation. Many people commented on how well we worked together as a team. We always evaluated ourselves critically after each training, and worked hard on improving all areas of our joint-performance. This means that even when we presented our favorite sessions, such as “market failure” or “stimulating competitive local economies”, it always felt new and improved from the previous attempts.
In March, when it became apparent that Jorgs cancer was very serious, he urged me to continue the work we started together. I am determined to do this, because I will forever be indebted to the generosity of Jorg. He took all of us with him on a challenging journey to demystify development and to share practical knowledge with the development community.
I miss my weekly Skype conversations with him about how the world is connected, and how many developmental concepts are disconnected. Jorg was an extremely productive person, and e-mails with ideas, new papers, presentations and general correspondence flowed into my inbox day and night. My inbox has gone silent now, and I regret ever complaining about all the e-mails coming from Jorg with more ideas, more work, more thinking. As I am trying to wrap up some of the projects that we initiated together I am intensely aware of the silence.
Yet, I am reminded of Jorg on a daily basis by his legacy of ideas, papers, tools, and models. For many people that have just discovered his papers, or who have just recently learned about PACA, the Hexagon, or some other ideas of Jorg, he is alive in the text and diagrams. Those of us that worked with him can hear his voice in our heads, explaining why quick wins are important, or how the law of unintended consequences works.
Do you have any great pictures of Jorg in action? Please submit them to the blogsite!
