Laurie O’Donnell

I usually get stir crazy after a couple of days at a conference but yesterday afternoon’s plenary session really was inspirational.

First up was Jorge Sampaio, this former president of Portugal and now elder statesman, who reminded us that we can’t take democracy for granted. As a student he struggled against the dictatorship in his country and today continues to work towards improving global citizenship, a cause that needs all of our support.

Dr Narenddra Jadhav, Hon Vice Chancellor of Pune University in India was next. This former ‘untouchable’ has a wonderful story to tell of a rise from the lowest caste to become chief economist of India’s central bank. His current role (one for which he had the honour of taking a 90% pay cut) places him in charge of an institution with 650,000 students – yes 650 thousand! What a challenge but also an opportunity to transform his country that he clearly relishes. Some wonderful work going on around rural development, volunteering, employability, modernising the curriculum and supporting people to escape from poverty.

Next up was Charles Leadbetter [keynote speaker at the Scottish Learning Festival in September]. He picked up on the themes from his ‘We Think’ (therefore we are) book. He started by discussing the slow progress of technology. Suggesting that it might takes time for internet technology to make its full impact on society (60 years?).

But just look at what has happened in the first 10 years of the internet – iTunes and music, google, e-bay, the decline of regional newspapers and massive changes to publishing just for starters.

So what is going to happen next? Leadbetter’s hope is that the ‘We Think’ approach develops and extends our human capacity to solve problems collaboratively but recognises that this is not the only possible outcome of the internet revolution.

The next speaker was Professor Lawrence Lessig, the founder of the creative commons licensing model of not for profit content reuse. Breathtaking in its range, presented at breakneck speed with sublime style. The main thread of this presentation was trust and in particular the mistrust the public has for politicians.  ‘Money has poisoned trust’.  He claimed that in the USA less than 10% think Congress is doing a good job. The major problems we face are not just technical. Better machines, for example, will not fix democracy. The problems are more fundamental and need human solutions.

The final speaker was Guido Jouret, Chief Technology Officer of CISCO’s Emerging Technologies Group. He discussed innovation as a process and the power of disruption [LO'D think about what iTunes did to the music industry or the car to horse drawn forms of transport].

He suggests an innovation recipe consisting of:

Think big

Disrupt

Start small

Evolve quickly

Start lead and others will follow

Communicate often and simply

Believe with passion.

He also argued that if you can’t describe an innovative technology in 10 words you need to work harder at it.  [LO'D - Glow in 10 words? 'Connects learners, teachers and parents to support communication and collaboration.' Can anyone do better?]

Just got off a train from Stockholm to Oslo and about to get ready to go out to dinner before attending a concert to celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize (:

Having a very interesting second day at this event which has 450 delegates drawn from 45 countries.

Some of the highlights for me were:
Deputy Mayor of Stockholm
Capital of Sweden is made up of 14 islands.
There are 1.9m inhabitants in the region and 800k in the city itself (similar to greater Glasgow and the city itself?).
Stockholm has 1,000 parks and broadband penetration rate is an impressive 98% (need to check if this is the same as broadband usage).
It is also the home of the Nobel Prize.
The city is using technology to become greener and safer with a focus on improving public services, including more people and becoming more prosperous. (Sounds good to me)
Stockholm aims to become Europe’s most accessible capital by 2010 (a fantastic aspiration).

Simon Willis, CISCO VP, Public Sector Sales European Market
A very wide ranging talk covering the beginnings of human civilisation around the river deltas of the middle east to the development of the Mediterranean as a commons used to connect people, facilitate trade.

He argued that there is a need to better connect government & public sector with the private sector and others including NGOs and universities.

IT has some tools to contribute that support connectivity & collaboration. He characterised the internet as a new river delta, a new commons.

Prof Carlota Perez
Roles of Markets & States in Shaping a Sustainable Global Golden Age
Really interesting talk from an academic who it would appear has a model that predicted the current financial crisis. But unlike pretty much every other commentator she is hopeful for a positive outcome and in her terms ‘a golden age.’

She cites 5 technology revolutiuons
1771 – Industrial
1829 – Steam, coal, iron & railways
1875 – Steel & heavy engineering
1908 – Age of the automobile
1971 – Age of IT & telcoms
(Next one – Age of biotech, nanotech)

She claims that it takes 40-60 years for each revolution to spread & reach maturity. They transform the whole economy and society as well as the key industries and their underlying paradigms. Transforming opportunity, distance, ways of working, communication and living. Each brings a new set of life shaping goods and services at affordable prices (to some?).

The current shift from 1971 (microprocessor) was from the logic of cheap energy to the logic of cheap information and an increased preference for intangible value.

Each paradigm opens new routes for private profit and the marketing of ‘new’ desirable lifestyles.

She argued that the potential paradigm shift enable by ICT not yet been fully realised (fabrication of products, process industries, product profile, personal transport, freight, energy, urban development etc). This is in part because the new paradigm is still wrapped in the old paradigm . In 1990s we had cheap oil ($7 a barrel) & cheap asian labour – which allowed us to stretch the old paradigm. But we need 7 planets to sustain the model of natural resource consumption that underpins current practice.

So will the new paradigm prevail? Yes but only if a positive sum game can be established between business and society, ie sustainability must create economic opportunities and improve the quality of life at the same time.

She argued that each tech rev propagates in two different periods
1. Installation – Creative destruction (where we have been)
Led by casino capital

Turning point (where we are now with the financial and social crisis)

2. Deployment – Creative construction (where we go next – hopefully!)
Led by production capital

So the pattern is bubble prosperities, recessions followed by golden ages. For each of the revolutions a golden age follows a big financial collapse.

Food for thought…

I am in Stockholm and Oslo this week attending a ‘Public Sector Summit’ organised by CISCO.

Apart from having to get up before 0500 to catch a flight to London on the way to Stockholm this is a pretty good way to earn a living.

The event starts this evening in Stockholm and finishes on Thursday evening with a concert and dinner in Oslo to celebrate award of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The agenda looks really interesting with a combination of keynote. The highlights for Tuesday morning look like:

• Professor Carlota Perez – ‘The Roles of State and Market in Shaping a Sustainable Global Golden Age’

• Government 2.0: Roundtable discussion on New Directions for the Public Sector

On Tuesday afternoon I am attending a specialist session on ‘Achieving Access and Equality across Education’ – something very dear to my heart. Hope there are some lessons I can take home with me because this continues to be a major issue and a significant challenge for education in Scotland.

On Wednesday morning I get the opportunity to get on a bus and do some visits to ‘technology enabled innovations’ in the City of Stockholm. It is great to see this stuff for yourself rather than to just read about it.

Overall I am looking forward to the event for three main reasons.

1. Opportunity to look at service innovation across the public sector (I spend most of my time immersed in education/children’s services and value the opportunity to find out what is happening in health, central gov etc)
2. Opportunity to look beyond Scotland
3. Opportunity to reflect on how we are doing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

I have not given any time to my blog over the past few weeks and I hope to post a couple of times a day as there is a wireless network at the venue.