Symposium Panel Discussions

Corporate Leadership:
How Smart Firms are Making the World Better and Safer

The first panel discussion — "Corporate Leadership: How smart firms are making the world better and safer" — included some well-known big business names: Rob Walton, Yvon Chouinard, Jeff Seabright, Dean Kamen, and Ray Anderson. James Murdoch of Sky Broadcasting moderated the panel.

I honestly think there was a huge integrity aspect to this panel discussion. I really would like to have seen a few total dinosaurs — nasty, polluting, wholly "brown" companies' CEOs — up on stage being asked the same questions as the five that were there. The problem with that is they never would have come. Classic Catch-22. The companies who are brave enough to face the hard questions are undoubtedly the companies that are genuinely concerned. The dinosaurs ignore it. There's a simple lesson in that — after all, the dinosaurs went extinct.

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Venture Philanthropy and Entrepreneurial Nonprofits:
Transformational Change Agents Business Tools and Social Goals

The Symposium's second panel discussion got underway around 11 a.m. I didn't think this would be as interesting as the first panel, but I was pleasantly surprised. This discussion reinforced my own views that society is still in the early stages of development. Why?

Well, when moderator John Abele of Boston Scientific kicked off the discussion by describing the myriad philanthropy models in the world — giving, mission giving ("venture giving"), loans, program-related investment, etc. — it was instantly apparent that much of what we want in the world (new technologies, research, efficient homes, safe neighborhoods, clean air, etc.), we seem to really want. Our government doesn't invest in it (much), we personally don't invest in it, and most businesses don't invest in it. It's the philanthropic types who are filling this void in many creative ways that, frankly, most of us might never hear about. When society is actually organized around investing in things we really want, we'll be on our way.

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Building Real Security:
Harnessing Resource Efficiency to Create Freedom from Fear of Privation or Attack

After listening to this panel discussion, real security, it seemed to me, is a no-brainer — a no-brainer in the fact that we need to achieve it in the developed and the developing world, and that achieving it is not rocket science.

In fact, I'd argue that real security cascades easily and straightforwardly from several other things. These other things include communication, empowerment, trust (and note that trust typically comes from either communication or empowerment, or both), resource efficiency, and an open mind (here we are talking about mindsets again!) about how to do things. And these things are all very closely related.

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