:Title:    Gross National Happiness Conference
:Author:   Linda Nowakowski
:Date:     Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:13:51 PST
:URL:      http://www.ned.com/group/ububu/news/2/

I am just back from the Gross National Happiness Conference in Bangkok and still absorbing it all.

There were a number of good developments there:

1) I got to meet Dr. Warr! Thank you so much for attending my presentation and introducing yourself.  He is planning on coming to Ubon  in January and I am hoping to present my research proposal while he is here.  (As Dr. Calkins is also in Thailand at the moment, I am hoping he will also be here in January.)

2) I talked with Dr. Michael Pennock from Vancouver Island Health Authority  who is working with the Center for Bhutan Studies in developing GNH indices and questions.  He is going to send me the entire list of questions in their 7 hours survey and that will help me with building the tool box I want to build and, if we translate some of these into Thai to use in Tak, it might provide him with information that they can use regarding cross cultural transfer.

3) I met  number of Thai people who are knowledgeable on Sufficiency Economy and speak excellent English.

4) It was just a basic thrill to see people in the flesh that I have read about and read their works: Ajarn Sulak, Helena Norberg Hodge, Dr. Ronald Coleman, and Mr. Nic Marks.

5) I have been skeptical of subjective measurements and it was reassuring to see a lot of papers in the academic session and in workshops that were talking about objective measurements.