Davos Newbies

Another world

It’s worth reading the Another World is Possible website to understand the opposition to the World Economic Forum.

“The WEF is essentially a multimillion dollar cocktail party in which the financiers and racketeers of global capitalism brainstorm and informally plan the imposition of ‘free market’ imperatives upon the rest of the globe. These imperatives further aid in the destruction of the environment, the exploitation of workers internationally and locally, the erosion of human, animal, and worker rights, and the forceful replacement of native cultures with a monolithic corporate consumer culture. Finally, the WEF is a mechanism by which the cycles of classism, racism, and sexism are indirectly reproduced and spread.”

Other than the multimillion dollar cocktail party jibe, I don’t recognise any of this (but I’ll admit to a long history of incomprehension of this extremist end of the anti-capitalist movement). Maybe I’ve been going to the wrong sessions in Davos for ten years.

Interestingly, the site does contain a reasonably up-to-date list of Davos in New York participants, and a statistical breakdown.

Sugar and spice 

The Financial Times has had a vexed relationship with the World Economic Forum in the past. There was something of a tradition, in the week before Davos, for the FT to run a damning article about the organisation and the event.

It seems the move to New York has changed things. According to the FT, “the change of venue… offers a chance to ginger up a recipe that some say was losing its piquancy”. Goldman Sachs’ Bob Hormats says, “New York will liven things up. It is a 2.2 gigahertz city. Davos is a 66 megahertz town.”

Curiously, no non-New Yorkers have been contacted for this round-up. To me, part of the point of Davos is there are no gigahertz, or even megahertz, around. Most of the participants spend 360 days of the year in a high-intensity world. There’s a decompression that occurs as you head up into the mountains (particularly by my favoured route, the train). Even in the Kongresszentrum, where the pace can be frantic, there are windows looking out onto trees, mountains and snow. New York, by contrast, is the most  high-pressured place on earth. And I’m sure I can guarantee that the conference facilities in the Waldorf don’t boast a single window.

The FT article does contain some interesting background information. Apparently Ken Lay and Enron were “struck off” by the Forum. Given that he is testifying on Capitol Hill on the Monday of Davos in New York, I suspect he wouldn’t have shown up in any case. President Bush is not coming, but “as many as 10″ cabinet members are. Cheney is a possible.

The protests expected on Saturday are being organised by a coalition called Another World is Possible. Some NGOs, including Friends of the Earth, have so far refused to participate in the protests because there is no guarantee of non-violence and respect for property. Another World, the FT reports, will only give such a commitment if the police say they will not use tear gas, rubber bullets and pre-emptive arrests.

What’s missing

In addition to “Why we love New York” (see below), there are a number of other points that seem to be missing from the programme. I had lunch today with a Davos regular who I consider a particularly acute judge of key issues. He felt there had been a conscious decision to keep truly difficult, uncomfortable issues off the programme. His plan is to go to workshops and say, “I’m not sure about the questions posed for us. What do you think of this?” A good idea, I think.

Two broad categories are missing for me. First are topics that are hard to categorise. The programme this year has been grouped under six grand themes. But it remains my conviction that the most interesting ideas fall between the cracks of categorisation. Anything that doesn’t have a comfortable pigeonhole has been deleted this year. The second missing category is a session without agenda. Particularly in the difficult times we face today, I’d like an opportunity to sit with a couple of dozen good people and just hear what’s on their minds. There have, on occasion, been such voyages of discovery in Davos. I hope one will pop up in New York.

Topics for discussion

Phil Wolff has suggested a few Davos in New York topics. Some of them, such as the digital and communications divide (most of the world doesn’t have access to a telephone), have been Davos constants for a number of years. But two I liked in particular: the tension between fighting terrorism and civil liberties, and what participants love about New York.

The tension between civil liberties and public safety will be a workshop on Friday afternoon in New York. Sadly, the New York discussion doesn’t make it to the programme. Phil’s own list would be a pretty good start.

Communication

Bill Seitz has asked me to clarify my item yesterday about the Forum encouraging participants to write editorials. My interpretation was that we were to contact the media folk, and get them to accept pieces — timed, presumably, to coincide with the Annual Meeting — on relevant themes. I don’t think I can share the list of Media Fellows without violating confidentiality, but the only one on the list that I know blogs is the stalwart Dan Gillmor.

Davos attack

I’ve just been pointed to an online novel about an attack on Davos, during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Daniel de Roulet’s Davos: Everyone is Coming Down posits an attack on the communications infrastructure during the Annual Meeting, creating a degree of chaos. It may just be the translation, but I don’t think de Roulet’s work will win any literary prizes.

Davos heating up

I received a flurry of emails from the World Economic Forum yesterday. One intriguingly promises a “world-class cultural event” on Thursday night. Usually, I’d take this with a grain of salt. But this event is to be produced by Quincy Jones (who incidentally produced Peggy Lee, who died this week), unquestionably the greatest-ever music producer. Quincy has been a Davos regular for a while, but the cost of bringing any significant artists to the Swiss mountains has always meant he has not exercised his skill in the Kongresszentrum.

More odd was an email encouraging me (and presumably a thousand others) to “help communicate the Forum’s message”. We’re encouraged to write “editorials” on our own concerns, and related to the themes of the Forum’s Annual Meeting. To help us, a list of the Media Fellows this year is attached. The six pages of Media Fellows is the kind of information the Forum would once have been keen to conceal. There are 10 people from Time, 11 people from the FT, five from Fortune and eight from CNN, registered as participants.

In my journalism days, I think I would have cringed at the thought of an onslaught from Davos participants keen to write “editorials”.  

Personal technology woes

I had personal experience last night of how poorly some major technology companies use the Web. I have a new mobile phone, a nifty Ericsson that will (when that day arrives) allow me to use GPRS networks. But last night it wouldn’t connect to a network. Instead, it gave me the message: “No access”.

The user’s guide does not explain this message. Nor does the Ericsson site. The site does offer a so-called Solution Finder. Its clever, Flash-based design doesn’t work.

I wondered, however, whether my problem was a network one, rather than a fault with the phone. So I went to the Vodafone site, to see if there were network problems. There is a well-signposted link for What’s New. Nothing about network problems.

Imagine my surprise this morning when the radio news informed me that Vodafone had resolved a computer fault that downed its network. It’s staggering to me that they didn’t think this was newsworthy on their site.

Addendum: A plus point for Sony Ericsson Mobile. I’ve just received an email in answer to my emailed complaint last night. It provides a detailed answer to the “no access” message with a clearly written solution. There is intelligence out there after all (even if they haven’t a clue about the Web).

The French exception

For most countries, a globally successful corporation is a matter of pride. Not, it seems, in France. Vivendi Universal, the media corporation forged by J6M (Jean-Marie Messier, moi-même maître du monde), is under government attack.

The highest administrative court has been asked by the French government to rule on whether the group’s number of non-European (read: US) shareholders could put it in breach of legislation. Vivendi owns 49% of Canal Plus, a French television chain which is also a major producer of French films. French legislation is designed to “protect” its creative industries.

As Messier has pointed out, his company is probably doing as much as anyone for French creativity. But he didn’t help his case when he moved his personal residence to New York and declared, “The Franco-French cultural exception is dead.”

The Soviet principle

According to Bernt Ostergaard, an IT analyst quoted in the Financial Times, Bluetooth seems to be working on the “Soviet principle. They pretend to make a product that works and we pretend to pay. Because it’s so cheap, it doesn’t matter.”

I’ve just acquired a new mobile phone that has a Bluetooth chip in it. I can’t say I’ve found any compelling applications for it yet.