The intellect should be nurtured in all fields, and therefore this summer would not have been complete without one of DDB Latvia’s most valuable annual events – IQ camp. This year’s menu consisted of lectures by Uldis Pīlēns, Arturs Mednis and Mika Mitrēvics.

First course: Uldis Pīlēns. A man who managed to captivate an audience of 40 people without the aid of a single PowerPoint slide. A man with enormous professional experience in a number of fields ranging from concrete production to trading wines. A man who believes that there are three vital information levels in life: philosophical, professional and operational. A man who believes that “knowledge devoid of thought is futile, but thought without knowledge is dangerous”.

Second course: Arturs Mednis. Blogger, Twitterer , social media expert. He explained that if Myspace and Facebook were countries, they would be the 5th and 6th biggest in the world in terms of their population size! Nobody any longer doubts the capacity of the media to influence the public, but Arturs explained the secret of how to influence the media with one Twitter message!

Dessert: Miks Mitrēvics. One of the hottest young artists around, who makes seemingly worthless items valuable and confers meaning upon impersonal objects. Miks is representing Latvia at this year’s Venice Biennale and justifiably so, because he has a perfectly rational explanation for everything including a toy train connected to a solar battery, a veneer board and photograph of clouds. The only thing that matters is the story behind it all.

After this delicious intellectual meal, we sat back to enjoy the sun and sea accompanied by the great music of Viesturs Celmiņš and Miks Mitrēvics and all felt spiritually revitalised. And still do! See for yourselves!

_{Photo: Kristaps Kalns and Aivars Liepiņš, "Diena".}