"Davos" Should Come To NYC... Permanently... 365 Days A Yearyeah

With the 2009 Davos conference ending without any grand "problem solved" announcements, I would like to offer my prescription for what the world's leaders should do in the future. But first a little relatively recent "Davos history" from the last traumatic shock to the global economic system: the 9/11 attack.

In response to the 9/11 attack, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab did a remarkable thing. He moved his February 2002 Forum to NYC instead of holding it in Davos.

As CNN reported at the time the decision was made, this was "a move designed to confront head-on global issues in the wake of Sept. 11 and also ease security concerns." In announcing his decision, Klaus Schwab said

"In these extraordinary times, greater international cooperation is needed to reverse the global economic downturn, eradicate poverty, promote security and enhance cultural understanding. As the world's financial capital and the site of the recent terrorist attacks, there could be no better place than New York City to confront these issues."

"These extraordinary times", with there being "no better place than New York City to confront these issues" indeed. I agreed completely with this decision in late 2001 and feel even more strongly about the issue today. I'm sure there are many people who - if asked - would say the global crisis of today is greater than the global crisis which occurred on 9/11.

Since we are living in extraordinary times - possibly the most extraordinary in modern times, with the healthy and well-being of a great many individuals and organizations worldwide at risk - I propose that the World Economic Forum come to New York City again in 2010... that it stay here permanently... and that it stop being a conference that lasts for days and become an ongoing engagement activity, first for the world's leaders and then for all the peoples of the world.

I know from past experiences that lessons learned at conferences generally fade away after one returns to their "normal routine". Sure, deals struck between conference attendees survive. That's what deal making is all about. But lessons learned remaining learned? New ways of being continuing to be practiced? Hardly ever happens... unless there's a structure in place that supports maintaining new skills... maintaining any commitments to changes in behavior or organizational strategy made at the conference.

Therefore - for reasons having to do with both the extraordinary crisis we face and the developmental principles that teach us that long-term, systemic change does not result from one-time, short-term interventions - I propose the World Economc Forum transform itself into a full-time (24/7/365) planning and developmental process that will then have the capability to truly transform - not "fix" - our global economy.

"But why - if it's going to be a year-round activity - relocate it to New York City? After all, you can't expect all the world's leaders to relocate to NYC on a permanent basis?" you might ask. Here's my answer, in two parts:

First - Our global economy must go through a transformation, not a fix. And all transformations start with a change in mindset...with a person, organization, or other entity initially having the thought "I am capable of being fundamentally different." (Think: caterpillar transforming into butterfly. It doesn't just happen. There's a moment when the decision to make it happen happens first.) As I have argued before (insert previous HuffPost links), our global economic system is not a car with a blown engine that must be replaced. It is a car that is suddenly traveling across the ocean and sinking rapidly because its design is no longer adequate to its environment.

Our economic system - with its foundation based in Darwinian competition and the need for never-ending growth and consumption - now exists in a world where cooperation between all nations and using our resources sustainably are our new cultural priorities. This mismatch between our economic system (a human intellectual invention) and our cultural priorities (resulting from scientific facts) can be eliminated only by identifying (or "branding") the process with an appropriate, new identity. And that identity - that "butterfly thought" to replace the previous "caterpillar thought" - is, I suggest, New York City.

Second - Why New York City? Well, it's not just because former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, called New York "The Capital of the World" (and got American Express to pay for banners that hung from NYC's street lights proclaiming this to be the case and other things). And it's not just because NYC is the home of the United Nations (something it actually sort of shares with Geneva, Switzerland).

It's because New York City's inhabitants come from literally every nation on Earth. NYC has members of literally every culture on Earth living within its five boroughs. Mayor Bloomberg said as recently as this past Friday, as he began to deliver his budget message, that "Uniquely, people work together here in ways that perhaps they don't elsewhere." (You can watch the video here.)

You can argue whether the cooperation that exists in NYC is "unique" or not, but you cannot deny that this cooperation takes place between people of literally every race and nationality on Earth. And if you are looking to design, test, and then implement world-wide an economic system that is a transformed version of what has existed before, there is no better place to get the proper mindset... no better place to identify your ongoing efforts... than the city that is, literally, a microcosm of the world!

Finally, four additional reasons why New York City should be the "mindset center" of the transformation of our global economic system.

The first: As the home of Wall Street, this transformation would gain enormous momentum - and respect - were the place most identified as having created the collapse before the transformation be seen as now being the center of that transformation itself. "The belly of the beast".

Second: NYC is home not just to the UN but to The UN Global Compact, the leading global network for those business leaders who know their corporations must start being part of the solution, not the problem. The Global Compact is a very intellectually rich - yet still largely unknown - resource for those business and NGO leaders seeking support in transforming corporations to a sustainability-focused model. It operates out of a Learning Organization model, which has its roots in such continuous learning and improvement management philosophies as that developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and championed, in America, by the Baldrige National Quality Program. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has taken over for Kofi Annan, who launched the Global Compact at Davos ten years ago, in championing the initiative. In fact, the Secretary-General just delivered a strongly worded speech on the subject in Davos while The Global Compact's office released a special paper, Global Sustainability in the 21st Century: An Action Plan for Business.

Third: NYC is home of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Perhaps some of you saw last summer's retrospective at the Whitney Museum on the work of this legendary global citizen, systems thinker, and champion of the idea that all of humanity can prosper, once it realizes that its members are the passengers and crew on a spaceship - "Spaceship Earth" - which has the capacity to take care of all of us, when you include its daily energy intake from the Sun. Buckminster Fuller's vision, kept alive by this institute, is another intellectually rich - yet largely unknown - headquartered in NYC.

Fourth: NYC is the home of NBC/Universal's SciFi Visions for Tomorrow public service initiative. This effort is premised on the simple truth that "without a vision, the people will perish". It is committed to offering a positive vision for the future, using science fiction's ability to entertain and excite the public (think: Star Trek) to communicate that positive vision to the public at large. It's official Mission Statement says it

"...brings together leaders in science, technology, art, architecture, education and policy to champion a fresh and hopeful outlook on the future and to advance the idea that individuals can affect significant and positive change."

It has an absolutely stellar advisory board, whose members include Obama Transition Committee Co-Chair John Podesta, Sir Richard Branson, and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, and scenario planning expert Peter Schwartz. You can download this initiative's Dare To Dream report here.

As the 9/11 attack tossed the concept of "the end of history" into the trash, the global economic collapse has tossed the concept that "the existing system just needs to be fixed" into the trash as well.

Abraham Lincoln had it right when he said

"The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

We now know our global capitalistic system needs to be transformed. But I wonder if the leaders of the World Economic Forum realize their role in the matter has to be transformed as well. Meeting "away from it all" in a resort and then going home is now part of the problem, not the solution. To insure this transformation occurs, our global leaders must have be supported in achieving that goal 365 days a year!

UPDATE: Sunday evening -

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting all those who attend Davos relocate to NYC full time. What I am suggesting is that NYC be their "campus" in what is, essentially, a combination of (a) a very advanced year-round Executive PhD program - a "work / study" program - where they learn (and learn to apply) the new principles of sustainable development and design and (b) a 12-Step sort of program that trains them to "unlearn" the habits of the obsolete Darwinian / unsustainable world. The amount of time these leaders would spend in NYC vs. the time they'd stay virtually connected would be determined in the process of designing this transformed version of the World Economic Forum.

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