Some 300 business leaders have spent four days in Zermatt learning about the art of motivation. The international symposium on creativity brings together leading business figures with personalities from the world of the arts and philosophy.

Some 300 business leaders have spent four days in the Swiss resort of Zermatt learning about the art of motivation. Now in its tenth year, Zermatt's international symposium on creativity brings together leading figures from the world of business with personalities from the world of the arts and philosophy.

The idea behind it, says its organiser, psychiatrist Gottlieb Guntern (pictured above), "is to think about the world in different ways and to enrich these reflections."

Among other things, participants discussed the interfaces between the running of a business and creativity, tackling questions such as how to combine the need to make a living with our desire to design a life?

Guest speakers included the Spanish choreographer Antonio Marquès, the American physician Charles H.Townes, inventor of the laser and 1964 Nobel Prize winner, and the West Indian writer Derek Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992. They addressed the symposium on motivation and the difficulties involved in creating.

Creativity in computer science was the subject of an address by John Gage, director of the Science Office of Sun Microsystems. He has created a system which facilitates access to new computer technologies for a broader public.

The final speaker was T.Ryugen Ogasawara, head of a Buddhist temple and institute in Japan. He gave a presentation on the Japanese art of Zen gardens, the symbols of harmony between nature and culture.

By Richard Dawson

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