Monday, January 28, 2008
Final events, thoughts and twists
Now on the flight to Amsterdam and Davos continues on. Across the aisle from me is Dr Kumi Naidoo who is the Secretary General of CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) and was on the governance panel yesterday. He gently but effectively challenged Bob Zoelleck and Pascal Lamy on the role of citizens in the processes of the World Bank and WTO. Not surprisingly he strongly supported the young man who argued for the new technology of network participation. Having begun as a supporter of Hillary and FOB he was now very enthusiastic about Obama…arguing that he could inspire not only America but the world as well.
This morning was the closing session with a few memorable moments. Tony Blair agreed that a peace deal in the Middle East was possible this year, but he explained that he come to learn a different perspective on the barriers to a deal since leaving office. He argued that the leadership on both sides, Israel and Hamas are willing to go for a deal, but the “facts on the ground are stopping it.’ Those facts are that the Israeli’s still feel insecure and the Palestinians feel occupied and oppressed. Until those conditions change no meaningful and durable deal is possible. An important insight I think. Elie Weisel agreed and was slightly more positive mainly because both sides are very exhausted from conflict. He also went after the Chinese representative, the CEO of China Telecom to prevail on his government to let the Dali Lama back into Tibet…a moment of fairly high drama. (I did have a private personal conversation with Eli afterwards..a remarkable man).
Jamie Diman CEO of JP Morgan Stanley and the other business types all saw a downturn in the short run, a US recession and somewhat slower growth in China and India, but no global catastrophe.
At the airport lounge there were also interesting conversations as often happens. Joe Joffe, the editor of Die Zeit talked about the absence of the Americans and he observed, no Germans either…not a cabinet minister from Germany had shown up. He put much of both the US and German presence as arising mainly from important local elections in Germany and the Presidential election in the US. Though he did support the notion that the Bush administration had pretty much marginalized the US on the world stage.
Looking back I notice that there were no dramatic speeches this year. Gordon Brown, the French, Japanese Prime Ministers, Condi Rice, Mushareff, etc…all gave forgettable speeches. There was a lot of recommitting to Millenium goals, dealing with climate change, etc but none of it seemed particularly real. Much more real concern about the global economy and in the absence of US consumption driving global demand whether China and India would also take a dive. While the theme of the meeting was collaboration I come away with a sense that collaboration was not on the minds of most of the political leaders there. And business leaders were very cautious as well. No one was really pessimistic, except George Soros. Only the prospects for clean energy created a sense of excitement about the future. Science and technology did feature much more strongly than it had in the past few years with a great deal of interest in nearly all the areas of advance. Though University Presidents were not quite rock stars they were last year. Probably the biggest hit of the week was Al Gore who was quite visible this year and much admired.
And two final Davos twists. It is now Monday morning and I have just had coffee with Victor Halberstadt at his spectacular home overlooking the Amstel. Victor, one of the Davosians of very long standing had as always several interesting observations on Davos. First, that while there was a lot of talk of climate change and many calls for action, in his view it was not actually high on the agenda for most companies, especially outside the US. Mostly PR talk and little action. Second he shared with Martin Wolf the observation that the rise of state capitalism ala China, Russia, the Middle East and even Singapore may indeed be a fundamental shift away from the democratic capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon world. And the principle vehicles are the sovereign funds and the terms of trade. Third Victor saw the Asians as no longer particularly interested in what the Europeans think. Indeed the European presence was lighter than usual. In other words Victor saw for Europe some of what I had seen for the US, increasing marginalization and a shift toward Asia. Though. Victor had recently returned from an extended stay in India and become quite concerned at the internal stresses in the country. It is not that India will literally come apart, but that the political energy required to hold it together will absorb all their political capacity and leave them as weak allies and less dynamic than they might have been.
And the final Davos twist is that Victor ran into Tom Friedman on the plane to Amsterdam and it turns out that we will all be in The Hague this evening. (I have to give a speech there tomorrow and Tom is researching his next book on energy and the environment) So we will all have dinner this evening with a few people that Victor is organizing. Davos has its ripples.
Well that is probably all for this year. Unless there are some other interesting ripples that are worth noting….
This morning was the closing session with a few memorable moments. Tony Blair agreed that a peace deal in the Middle East was possible this year, but he explained that he come to learn a different perspective on the barriers to a deal since leaving office. He argued that the leadership on both sides, Israel and Hamas are willing to go for a deal, but the “facts on the ground are stopping it.’ Those facts are that the Israeli’s still feel insecure and the Palestinians feel occupied and oppressed. Until those conditions change no meaningful and durable deal is possible. An important insight I think. Elie Weisel agreed and was slightly more positive mainly because both sides are very exhausted from conflict. He also went after the Chinese representative, the CEO of China Telecom to prevail on his government to let the Dali Lama back into Tibet…a moment of fairly high drama. (I did have a private personal conversation with Eli afterwards..a remarkable man).
Jamie Diman CEO of JP Morgan Stanley and the other business types all saw a downturn in the short run, a US recession and somewhat slower growth in China and India, but no global catastrophe.
At the airport lounge there were also interesting conversations as often happens. Joe Joffe, the editor of Die Zeit talked about the absence of the Americans and he observed, no Germans either…not a cabinet minister from Germany had shown up. He put much of both the US and German presence as arising mainly from important local elections in Germany and the Presidential election in the US. Though he did support the notion that the Bush administration had pretty much marginalized the US on the world stage.
Looking back I notice that there were no dramatic speeches this year. Gordon Brown, the French, Japanese Prime Ministers, Condi Rice, Mushareff, etc…all gave forgettable speeches. There was a lot of recommitting to Millenium goals, dealing with climate change, etc but none of it seemed particularly real. Much more real concern about the global economy and in the absence of US consumption driving global demand whether China and India would also take a dive. While the theme of the meeting was collaboration I come away with a sense that collaboration was not on the minds of most of the political leaders there. And business leaders were very cautious as well. No one was really pessimistic, except George Soros. Only the prospects for clean energy created a sense of excitement about the future. Science and technology did feature much more strongly than it had in the past few years with a great deal of interest in nearly all the areas of advance. Though University Presidents were not quite rock stars they were last year. Probably the biggest hit of the week was Al Gore who was quite visible this year and much admired.
And two final Davos twists. It is now Monday morning and I have just had coffee with Victor Halberstadt at his spectacular home overlooking the Amstel. Victor, one of the Davosians of very long standing had as always several interesting observations on Davos. First, that while there was a lot of talk of climate change and many calls for action, in his view it was not actually high on the agenda for most companies, especially outside the US. Mostly PR talk and little action. Second he shared with Martin Wolf the observation that the rise of state capitalism ala China, Russia, the Middle East and even Singapore may indeed be a fundamental shift away from the democratic capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon world. And the principle vehicles are the sovereign funds and the terms of trade. Third Victor saw the Asians as no longer particularly interested in what the Europeans think. Indeed the European presence was lighter than usual. In other words Victor saw for Europe some of what I had seen for the US, increasing marginalization and a shift toward Asia. Though. Victor had recently returned from an extended stay in India and become quite concerned at the internal stresses in the country. It is not that India will literally come apart, but that the political energy required to hold it together will absorb all their political capacity and leave them as weak allies and less dynamic than they might have been.
And the final Davos twist is that Victor ran into Tom Friedman on the plane to Amsterdam and it turns out that we will all be in The Hague this evening. (I have to give a speech there tomorrow and Tom is researching his next book on energy and the environment) So we will all have dinner this evening with a few people that Victor is organizing. Davos has its ripples.
Well that is probably all for this year. Unless there are some other interesting ripples that are worth noting….
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Nerds dinner
I noticed an inadvertent comment in last post...
"The governance session is not well intended". I am sure it was well intended...but not well attended.
Before leaving the Kongress Hall to head back to the hotel I wound up in a long conversation with Esther Dyson, Ann Wojiciki the head of 23 and me and Tom Insel the head of NIMH about the future of genetic testing. Interesting observation from Tom that the technology is advancing so fast that most of today's business models will be very obsolete very fast...less than a year.
Walked back to the hotel with him and on to the Nerd's dinner with him and his wife. he agreed with the observation that came out of Michael Ovadia's and my research over the last year, that neuro science is ripe for breakthroughs. He was excited by the human robotic interaction panel and is someone who also believes that human enhancement is inevitable.
Nerds dinner was great as usual..It is for the high tech geeks who don't want to go to the black tie gala. It is hosted by Accel and Joe Schoendorf provides great wine. This year we introduced ourselves with only five years and newcomer Phil Rosedale founder of Second Life was the best... "maybe I am not here." Watching Alice Waters, across from me assess each course of dreadful Swiss food and awesome French wide was a delight. Had a wonderful conversation with Sergay Brin who was sitting next to Alice, about the evolution of their advertising model. And with Jack Ma the founder of Ali Baba in China who said that the new generation of leaders were slowly burdening what had become a very dynamic system with a level of caution and moderation that the pace of innovation and evolution were slowing rapidly...that the recent past of explosive transformation was likely to be a one time event driven by Jurong Ji.
"The governance session is not well intended". I am sure it was well intended...but not well attended.
Before leaving the Kongress Hall to head back to the hotel I wound up in a long conversation with Esther Dyson, Ann Wojiciki the head of 23 and me and Tom Insel the head of NIMH about the future of genetic testing. Interesting observation from Tom that the technology is advancing so fast that most of today's business models will be very obsolete very fast...less than a year.
Walked back to the hotel with him and on to the Nerd's dinner with him and his wife. he agreed with the observation that came out of Michael Ovadia's and my research over the last year, that neuro science is ripe for breakthroughs. He was excited by the human robotic interaction panel and is someone who also believes that human enhancement is inevitable.
Nerds dinner was great as usual..It is for the high tech geeks who don't want to go to the black tie gala. It is hosted by Accel and Joe Schoendorf provides great wine. This year we introduced ourselves with only five years and newcomer Phil Rosedale founder of Second Life was the best... "maybe I am not here." Watching Alice Waters, across from me assess each course of dreadful Swiss food and awesome French wide was a delight. Had a wonderful conversation with Sergay Brin who was sitting next to Alice, about the evolution of their advertising model. And with Jack Ma the founder of Ali Baba in China who said that the new generation of leaders were slowly burdening what had become a very dynamic system with a level of caution and moderation that the pace of innovation and evolution were slowing rapidly...that the recent past of explosive transformation was likely to be a one time event driven by Jurong Ji.
Global Governance and Tim Garton Ash
Now in the global governance session following a great discussion with Tim Garton Ash, Oxford history Prof on how to take on Niall Ferguson in my upcoming debate.
The governance session is not well intended...perhaps a lot of people are skiing. Bob Zoellick of the World Bank and Pascla Lamy of the WTO were pretty good. A sophisticated discussion with a bit of humor. The Mexican Finance Minister suggested that perhaps the US might learn something from the financial crises that have hit Mexico many times...though the consensus seems to be that the existing institutional system is basically adequate event though many countries are essentially out of the game.
Young questioner went to the same place as the young globalleaders...technology will take us in a different bottoms up direction. Then another question on global governance of environment. Pascal Lamy says that the network of existing network of institutions is probably adequate to the challenge...I must say I don't buy it.
Tim's key point: Niall Ferguson argues among other things that the world needs a hegemonic power, e.g. the British Empire and the US is the only candidate and won't do it. Tim suggests that a real concert of power is possible with the US , the EU and China. The US has to be willing, the EU able and China has to be on the same wavelength. He believes that their common interests in a stable order will lead them ultimately in the right direction. Indeed the experience of creating the EU is relevant to the process of realignment and sharing of power.
The governance session is not well intended...perhaps a lot of people are skiing. Bob Zoellick of the World Bank and Pascla Lamy of the WTO were pretty good. A sophisticated discussion with a bit of humor. The Mexican Finance Minister suggested that perhaps the US might learn something from the financial crises that have hit Mexico many times...though the consensus seems to be that the existing institutional system is basically adequate event though many countries are essentially out of the game.
Young questioner went to the same place as the young globalleaders...technology will take us in a different bottoms up direction. Then another question on global governance of environment. Pascal Lamy says that the network of existing network of institutions is probably adequate to the challenge...I must say I don't buy it.
Tim's key point: Niall Ferguson argues among other things that the world needs a hegemonic power, e.g. the British Empire and the US is the only candidate and won't do it. Tim suggests that a real concert of power is possible with the US , the EU and China. The US has to be willing, the EU able and China has to be on the same wavelength. He believes that their common interests in a stable order will lead them ultimately in the right direction. Indeed the experience of creating the EU is relevant to the process of realignment and sharing of power.
Filling it in
So it is Saturday afternoon between sessions so I thought I would add and fill in from last night. Though a few quick things from today already. Had a major session on water this morning, but while it was interesting...no big surprises. More interesting were two conversations. The first was with Bob Shiller the Yale economist who was right on the sub prime crisis and housing markets which I underestimated. He supported the view that this recession could be long. He drew the analogy to japan in the nineties. If we manage it wrong it could last a long time indeed. he also agreed with the comment that this would lead to a power shift away from the US toward the capital rich countries. He also had noticed how irrelevant the US had become.
I also had a great conversation with Lisa Randall the Harvard physicist and author of Warpped Passages... a marvelous book on the frontiers of physics. She agreed with the hypothesis that we need a scientific revolution to understand such phenomena as dark energy or the breakdown of quantum gravity, but that she was unsure of if and when it would actually happen. The Large Hadron Collider could be the trigger.
So back to yesterday....
The Young leaders yesterday really focused on the enabling power of the new communications technology to transform governance in many ways from the conduct of politics, to the structure of governance to the delivery of public service. They were fairly sure that as these new technologies has already transformed many aspects of life the next arena would be governance.
At the lunch on the digital transformation of media Chad Hurley of You Tube and most of the others argued that the transformation would continue to accelerated. The big push back came from the head of Liberty Media and the publisher of the New York Review of Books...nut surprisingly.
The discussion of Bill Gates compassionate capitalism speech went on today...after a press cocnfernece he held with Bono and Michael Dell while extolling the RED campaign. No one I heard had a kind word for Bill. he apparently will have to do a lot of penance for tough business practices before anyone takes his conversion and epiphany seriously.
The Clean Energy session was really great because we had very knowledgeable people and little ideology as well a real diversity of arenas. Perhaps the best moment was Craig Venter's move from physics to biology. he was quite lucid, precise and convincing of the potential of the biologically driven models. In the end the opinions were quite positive about being able to implement a variety of new technologies fairly quickly...a very upbeat session.
The nuclear power and climate change dinner was fascinating. Gerd leipold from Greenpeace set the stage with why nukes weren't the answer, responded to by Lady Barbara Judge the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and her Minister John Hutton on how and hwy Birtain had moved toward nukes as a response to climate change. Jim Rogers of Duke laid out the decarbonization vision, which was aggressively challenged by Ed Markey in a truly impassioned speech. Shirley Jackson, President Of RPI and Clinton's head of the Nuclear Regualtory Commission took a rational and analytic view of why Markey was wrong. In this she was supported by her counterpart from India and Japan. At the end of the evening Gerd made a final set of comments that very effectively challenged whether nukes could actually make any meaning full contribution to dealing with climate change. A great conversation but I am not sure we changed any minds.
At the Google party, the conversation with Peter Gabriel focused on his family and the work of the elders, as well as the new album he hopes to release soon and the new music he is writing for a new PIXAR film. The Elders continues to develop well and it is the main project he is focusing on. Carl Bildt agreed to help coordinate with the the right political and military forces to enable them to safely intervene in Somalia...which has become even worse than Darfur so it was a productive discussion even if we had to cope with very loud music in the background. As we left we had a brief hello with Bono who was on his way in.
I also had a great conversation with Lisa Randall the Harvard physicist and author of Warpped Passages... a marvelous book on the frontiers of physics. She agreed with the hypothesis that we need a scientific revolution to understand such phenomena as dark energy or the breakdown of quantum gravity, but that she was unsure of if and when it would actually happen. The Large Hadron Collider could be the trigger.
So back to yesterday....
The Young leaders yesterday really focused on the enabling power of the new communications technology to transform governance in many ways from the conduct of politics, to the structure of governance to the delivery of public service. They were fairly sure that as these new technologies has already transformed many aspects of life the next arena would be governance.
At the lunch on the digital transformation of media Chad Hurley of You Tube and most of the others argued that the transformation would continue to accelerated. The big push back came from the head of Liberty Media and the publisher of the New York Review of Books...nut surprisingly.
The discussion of Bill Gates compassionate capitalism speech went on today...after a press cocnfernece he held with Bono and Michael Dell while extolling the RED campaign. No one I heard had a kind word for Bill. he apparently will have to do a lot of penance for tough business practices before anyone takes his conversion and epiphany seriously.
The Clean Energy session was really great because we had very knowledgeable people and little ideology as well a real diversity of arenas. Perhaps the best moment was Craig Venter's move from physics to biology. he was quite lucid, precise and convincing of the potential of the biologically driven models. In the end the opinions were quite positive about being able to implement a variety of new technologies fairly quickly...a very upbeat session.
The nuclear power and climate change dinner was fascinating. Gerd leipold from Greenpeace set the stage with why nukes weren't the answer, responded to by Lady Barbara Judge the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and her Minister John Hutton on how and hwy Birtain had moved toward nukes as a response to climate change. Jim Rogers of Duke laid out the decarbonization vision, which was aggressively challenged by Ed Markey in a truly impassioned speech. Shirley Jackson, President Of RPI and Clinton's head of the Nuclear Regualtory Commission took a rational and analytic view of why Markey was wrong. In this she was supported by her counterpart from India and Japan. At the end of the evening Gerd made a final set of comments that very effectively challenged whether nukes could actually make any meaning full contribution to dealing with climate change. A great conversation but I am not sure we changed any minds.
At the Google party, the conversation with Peter Gabriel focused on his family and the work of the elders, as well as the new album he hopes to release soon and the new music he is writing for a new PIXAR film. The Elders continues to develop well and it is the main project he is focusing on. Carl Bildt agreed to help coordinate with the the right political and military forces to enable them to safely intervene in Somalia...which has become even worse than Darfur so it was a productive discussion even if we had to cope with very loud music in the background. As we left we had a brief hello with Bono who was on his way in.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Is he for real?
Tonight will be very short....it is 1:40AM and I have just returned to the hotel. So consider this more a 'table of contents' that I will fill in tomorrow afternoon.
A very full day. It began with a session for the Young Global Leaders on Weak Signals and anticipating surprise, which I co-led with Angela Wilkinson formerly of Shell scenario planning and now of Oxford. The participants found an interesting intersection between communications, technology and governance.
Then, a great conversation with our new partner Larry Keeley of Doblin Inc. who I knew of but had never met.
Lunch was on the post content world....really about the digital transformation of the media.
Much discussion of Bill Gates speech on why capitalism needs to be more compassionate...very much skepticism about Bill especially from Mitch Kapor.
The afternoon went particularly well...a three hour session on clean energy with really great participants. The speeches of the Asean Prime Ministers and nice conversation with the Singaporean PM. The annual Accel Partners cocktail party known for the best wine and art was followed by the dinner I chaired on nuclear power and climate change. The evening ended back at the Accel party for a good glass of wine and a brief conversation with the editor of the FT.
The evening ended with a long conversation with Peter Gabriel who was on crutches having broken his leg skiing at New Year. It was at the Google Party...the highlight of which was introducing Peter to Carl Bildt, Sweden's Foreign Minister on cooperation with the Elders.
More later....
A very full day. It began with a session for the Young Global Leaders on Weak Signals and anticipating surprise, which I co-led with Angela Wilkinson formerly of Shell scenario planning and now of Oxford. The participants found an interesting intersection between communications, technology and governance.
Then, a great conversation with our new partner Larry Keeley of Doblin Inc. who I knew of but had never met.
Lunch was on the post content world....really about the digital transformation of the media.
Much discussion of Bill Gates speech on why capitalism needs to be more compassionate...very much skepticism about Bill especially from Mitch Kapor.
The afternoon went particularly well...a three hour session on clean energy with really great participants. The speeches of the Asean Prime Ministers and nice conversation with the Singaporean PM. The annual Accel Partners cocktail party known for the best wine and art was followed by the dinner I chaired on nuclear power and climate change. The evening ended back at the Accel party for a good glass of wine and a brief conversation with the editor of the FT.
The evening ended with a long conversation with Peter Gabriel who was on crutches having broken his leg skiing at New Year. It was at the Google Party...the highlight of which was introducing Peter to Carl Bildt, Sweden's Foreign Minister on cooperation with the Elders.
More later....
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Have I seen a MAC in Windows clothing?
Following the morning session with CNBC the CEO of Lenovo called me over to show me his newest laptops about to be released. They have come up with a super light very thin powerful laptop meant to compete with new Apple Mac Air. No hard drive, all flash memory, DVD drive and a number of other interesting features. Also very cute light weight home laptop for the non heavy user...very pretty...maybe they are getting somewhere.
That demo was matched in its own way by one later in the day. As I was sitting in conversation with Nick Negreponte he pulled out his new super cheap lap top for kids in developing countries. It was actually quite impressive...it might make it yet...but the takeup has been fairly slow.
The carbon trading dinner was quite interesting. There was a pretty broad consensus that some form of carbon caps and trading system is inevitable even if problematic. I challenged that but was pretty much on my own. Sir David Kay Tony Blair's Chief Scientist, now retired, described a new institution they are building in Britain, a climate bank to balance the impulse of the Bank of England. An old friend, Congressman Ed Markey gave a very optimistic little impromptu speech on how the US political landscape is changing in a positive direction with regard to climate change. I basically agreed with him. Following dinner he gave me a ride back up to the Belvedere hotel for late night events and we carried on an intense conversation on how far the Congress really needed to move if they were really serious about climate change.
Well it's after 1 and I am headed for bed.
That demo was matched in its own way by one later in the day. As I was sitting in conversation with Nick Negreponte he pulled out his new super cheap lap top for kids in developing countries. It was actually quite impressive...it might make it yet...but the takeup has been fairly slow.
The carbon trading dinner was quite interesting. There was a pretty broad consensus that some form of carbon caps and trading system is inevitable even if problematic. I challenged that but was pretty much on my own. Sir David Kay Tony Blair's Chief Scientist, now retired, described a new institution they are building in Britain, a climate bank to balance the impulse of the Bank of England. An old friend, Congressman Ed Markey gave a very optimistic little impromptu speech on how the US political landscape is changing in a positive direction with regard to climate change. I basically agreed with him. Following dinner he gave me a ride back up to the Belvedere hotel for late night events and we carried on an intense conversation on how far the Congress really needed to move if they were really serious about climate change.
Well it's after 1 and I am headed for bed.
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