If you have something to say...
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
There is a lot of hype about impact investing. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship took this week at Davos to convene important discussions about how to harness the hype and create results that are both practical and impactful.
Very few people in the world will ever have the chance to experience an "interfaith moment" quite like mine. There I stood in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum with three smiling new friends from the four corners of the earth.
In just four years, an invite to the breakout annual conference has become a coveted opportunity for emerging leaders in business, art, and government to co-mingle with their peers in adventurous activities and dream up ways to solve pressing social issues.
As of now, it's not clear if Reuters magazine is just a one-off or not, though Impoco in Capital New York called it a "proof-of-concept exercise" to see if Reuters can "do a print product as part of our consumer-facing push." Consumer-facing? At Davos?
What makes companies embark on a transformational journey? I'm sure there are academic papers about it, but in my experience it's all about people and leadership of people in a position to make decisions.
The warm climate of Rio will certainly suit me better than the mountains of snow in Davos. But will I leave Rio with more hope that the fundamental changes we need can finally be implemented?
Session after session in Davos is focused on the future of our world, the economy and some of our biggest political and social challenges.
The following conversation did not take place... but wouldn't it have been interesting if it did? Geithner: Glad I found you. We really need to talk...
There is a tension between the urgency of our global issues and the time such a process would take. But without investing wisely now in the right mindset and course of action, we risk holding the same conversations all over again a year from now.
As global power brokers jet home from Davos, it's easy to be cynical about the value of such "gabfests," and wonder whether these face-to-face settings, with their massive carbon footprints, are worth continuing in an age of Skype and email.
Rising income inequality is a surprisingly strong concern for this gathering, and the search for new economic models is sincere, but avoiding Europe's combustion is, understandably, the most pressing issue.
If a community runs out of water, it affects everyone in the area, even companies that were good stewards of the resource. The collective nature of these resources means that everyone shares both the responsibilities for their protection and the risks of their scarcity.
No musing about Davos would be complete without a "Davos Moment" -- a quirky and unexpected encounter that stays with you years later like the sweet remembrance of Proust's Madeleine.
As politically and economically motivated uprisings sprouted around the world this past year, these problems also coexisted at Davos, one seeking to help solve the other while at the same time being blamed for being its primary cause.
OWS is, in a sense, running for office just as hard as Gingrich, Romney and Obama. But the task is far more difficult.
