Robert Spaapen grew up in Cambridge, England. At an early age he was impressed by leading English comedians like Rowan Atkinson en Stephen Fry, who, as students, were performing in small theatres.Spaapen studied in Leyden, The Netherlands, and formed the comedy duo Basterd with Onno Innemee. They ...
Robert Spaapen grew up in Cambridge, England. At an early age he was impressed by leading English comedians like Rowan Atkinson en Stephen Fry, who, as students, were performing in small theatres.
Spaapen studied in Leyden, The Netherlands, and formed the comedy duo Basterd with Onno Innemee. They won prizes at the Amsterdam Kleinkunstfestival 1991.
Robert worked as a comedian, director and scriptwriter for television shows, but couldn’t ignore his English roots. He decided to become a stand up comedian and joined the Dutch Comedytrain.
His alias dr. Howard Beckman was born when he was invited to perform at the annual meeting of KPN, a Dutch telecom company. With his tailored fake speeches he has fooled many international managers and politicians. English humour at its best!
"Last week, we had our get “Together” days for our R&T EU department in DSM Engineering Materials. What did we really miss in two years most of us working at home besides the social interactions and coffees? It was the phenomena “Serendipity” Finding something good, without looking for it. Everybody will have experienced such a coincidental cross-talk triggering you on a development opportunity, or getting you in connect with somebody that appeared to be relevant to you. Innovation and creating something new is in our DNA with unique product like Stanyl® and EcoPaXX® and the way we co-create with our customers.
We invited Peter Ros as our keynote speaker on our internal event to elaborate on serendipity. Peter wrote a book called “Warorde” and shared his insights in a very accessible, inspiring, and fun way to make us more aware on how to give serendipity chance. A bit of chaos is never a waste!
It is anyhow important to have very clear in the back of your mind what the challenges are in business and for you personally. Then, with a bit of a feeling of urgency and ingredients like challenging the status quo, doing something new, and connecting the unusual suspects, it becomes more apparent to notice the coincident that changes potential. There was an older couple on our venue that was not part of our group, but did bump into our photo-booth. Probably, they forgot their smart-phone and acted uninhibited holding each other tight and making a selfie with our photo-booth to capture their special moment of being together!
Happy little accidents - It must be serendipity!"
"Very many thanks for giving such an excellent and very funny speech at our Annual Diner on Friday.
You could tell from the audience reaction how much they enjoyed it and what a difference it made to the overall enjoyment of the ocassion."