So the 0.01% are arriving here in the stunning, snow filled valley of Davos. The flurries have been gently floating their way, succumbing to gravity all day. I suppose it is something like the ‘global’ financial crisis…so many factors are slowly succumbing to the new realities of realigned global power structures.

This is my fifth Davos. Each year brings with it new ideas, expectations and global crisis. I remember so clearly two years ago when ‘climate change’ as added by the audience to the list of global risks….much to the consternation of the organizers who choreograph this public events like papal audiences. Last year the emerging role of sovereign wealth funds, coupled with the irresponsibility of the US consumer seemed to top the list of conversational topics. And, the most fascinating for me at an intellectual level is the discussion around the end of capitalism.

This year I expect to see more posturing between those that have capital to spare and those that need it desperately. I also expect that Europe will come up in the open sessions quite a bit. I expect that the general fragility of the energy markets will be politely ignored. And, I expect to come away having learned something every day.

I am also looking very much forward to the sessions on Urban Infrastructure. Arup have played a key role in crafting the increasing presence of cities on the Forum’s agenda. The world needs healthy, successful, efficient and clean cities in order for the world’s economic engines to function. The WEF is really starting to understand this. And, I am excited to be able to play a strong advocate for shaping a better urban world.

WEF begins in earnest for me with a live audience debate on energy sponsored by CNBC.  This to be followed by a reception for this year’s crop of ‘Technology Pioneers’.  I was on the selection committee and look forward to see who go thru.

Many challenge the relevance of this global gathering. I believe, however, that a place where there is the opportunity for dialog is desperately needed. The world’s complex problems require the convergence of the political, businesses and civil society.  I plan to submit my thoughts and learning daily to this post.  Feel free to send me notes and questions and I will do my best to leverage them at this global fourm.

a special session on Haiti was shoe horned into the programme this morning. the panel consisted of

Klaus Schwab – WEF

Bill Clinton – Clinton Global Initiative

Robert Greenhill – COO WEF

Dennis O’Brien – Digisoft

Amorim – Foreign Minister from Brazil

Helen Clark -

Klaus Schwab

it is not about short term disaster relief and recovery. there are many who are already engaged in this. this is about the long term reconstruction.

Bill Clinton

this will be a collaboration between private sector and CGI/WEF. there is a call for those present to consider how to contribute as the companies wish. he described the situation on the ground. need:

1. safe sanitary shelter

2. more food

3. more water

4. better system of healthcare organization

5. reestablish schools

6. reestablish govt

7. reestablish functional infrastructure services

8. distribution network [100 trucks]

UN is setting up work for cash programs in order to get things back to normal.

10,000 NGOs operating in Haiti. Haiti lost 15% of its GDP in 2008 due to four hurricanes. This is horrible for the people of Haiti not just for the tragedy which occurred, but for the fact that they were on the way to rebuild their county and this has been a huge slap back.

the others then spoke passionately about the opportunity that Haiti presents.

sarkissian -

sharma -

jim leape – WWF

lars josefsson – vattenfall

robert hormats – US Dept of Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs

fatih birol – Chief Economist IEA

energy security depends upon diversification. natural gas should not be overlooked. HORMATS talked about the key role that shale and gasification will play. he calls this a natural gas bridge to supply a bridge. energy governance is also an issue that needs to be encouraged globally as ‘new reserves’ in ‘new countries’ [ie Papua New Guinea, Ghana] come on-line. this will help them get it right so that. the link between energy and water as well as energy, water and food is critical to understand. water security issues will soon be recognized as important as energy security. they need to be considered together.

SHARMA. we cannot neglect to recognize that there is avast difference between the current and near term needs of developed and developing countries. the responses, thus must be differentiated to the national differences. energy security cannot be spoken about without including food security. universal access to energy, so that every citizen has access to a minimum must be guaranteed. so for him, energy security is really about getting energy to the millions of poor citizens who are desperate for it.

LEAPE – we have to be careful to ensure that we are not forgetting that the climate is struggling. we need to ensure that renewables are at the heart of the transition. most important on policy front; we need to stop subsidizing oil and coal production and finding a way to put a price on carbon, transportation needs to go electric as soon as possible. many of these things can happen at a national level. developing nations need to get on a low carbon development path.

do we need an E20? the energy twenty?

we will see a gas glut within the next year.

only 30 countries have petrochemical reserves. 170 have to import it.

Barney Frank – US Congressman; Chair Financial Services Committee

Jacob Frenkel – Chairman, JPMorgan Chase

Lord Levine – Chairman, Lloyd’s

Anand Mahindra – MD, Mahindra & Mahindra

Kenneth Rogoff – Professor, Harvard University

Zhu Min – Deputy Governor, The People’s Bank of Chaina

Maria Bartiromo – CNBC Anchor

Back to the Future: the next global crisis

this had a really slow start and was a very weak session. moderator was a poor facilitator and the sound was challenging…ie feedback and too soft..

Barney Frank opened with the need for a military reduction and no concern for US debt. He is a one liner. and wants to downsize the military and downsize the expectations. he also plans to cancel the manned spaceship to mars and the agricultural subsidies.

we need to focus on the next war. we have to focus on security. especially the relationship between China and the US. this will become more significant and will create a problem for hard and soft power.

the idea that we can grow our way out of this situation is simply Vodoo economics. the public is not ready for the reality of the economics.

really interesting session to start off the week. Below are notes taken during the session…..

panel:

Dennis Naly

Arif Naqvi

Raghuram Rajan

Nouriel Roubini – very interesting and intelligent. look up his writing.

David Rubenstein – very pragmatic and intelligent. look up his writing.

Heizo Takenaka

employment issue remains a global problem, not enough jobs were created. issue of near term inflation is very real. also a problem with fiscal responsibility of sovereign funds of all nations. there will be a risk of withdrawing funds, but they must.

:

belief that the professional investors have survived a ‘heart attack’. lots of bargain hunting. lots of opportunities in the US. emerging markets will remain robust; far more robust than the developed nations who will have a continued slow growth rate. energy, both green and black, will remain robust. healthcare will also be a great place to invest based on the boomer investment. financial services were most likely also be attractive. the US government will not shrink its size and is investing in certain areas. the current congress has not figured out if it is going to work to beat up bug business or to go more centrist. in summary, a good time to invest and the risk of systemic failure is now gone.

one has to differentiate between optimism and realism. we shall see a few more shocks to the global financial system and we will see more bankruptcies in this year….big ones. emerging markets are a great place to be right now. this is because there is so much to do there. the past perception of risk there has been rally internal. in MENASA half the population is under the age of 25. this is huge. the world cannot do without oil. 60% of the reserves sit in the GCC. 30% of annual production comes from the GCC. the GCC share will continue to rise. there is a new feeling of attention to

this year Shanghi production will surpass HK for first time. there will be a robust recovery in the entire region of Asia. most will have 10% growth recovery. the Chinese GDP is really pushing much of this. there is also a large-scale fiscal expansion. four groups in the region. the emerging markets. the second group are those who can leverage the first. ie Korea. the third is country like Australia who have growth targets thru population growth. the fourth category……[not sure what he was on about]. he then went onto deflation. Japan has been suffering from deflation for the past 15 years.

move from a time of great fiscal uncertainty to one of political uncertainty. we could see an increased move to poplularism and protectionism. there will be a huge growth in India. it is a young population with a huge need for improvement across the board. that said, the jobs needs to be created thru better infrastructure. India need to convert the large number of rural jobs to other kinds of jobs.

The BRIC nations are an interesting case. Brazil still needs structural reform even though the country is doing quite well. Russia has big problems due to is single sided economy and the health issues as well as falling birth rates. India is doing well as is China.

There is an issue of overreaction that cannot be understated. We need to remember that economists cannot really predict anything beyond a few months.

How has the intellectual climate changed over the past year?

There seems to allot of fear for market forces. In the UK, the case of Iceland is a good case. There is a feeling that there is a ‘monster’ that needs to be moderated. In the US it is more about outrage at the excess of the financial sector. There is also an increasing feeling of the irrelevance of the financial sector….they are not lending or helping out, so curb or eliminate it. One big problem is that the emerging markets will take a lead from the developed markets and this could curb their growth.

So, fear is driving policy in the US, outrage in the US. Populist headline making seems to be the driver for fiscal policy in most of the rest. The concern is that these actions will not really deal with the fundamental problems. It is far more complicated than just compensation….it is really about transparency.

The US has a huge problem. the 3Ds: Debt, Deficit, Dollar. 230,000 deficit per person. The Dollar will sink unless there are actions. This is an even larger problem then the other things that the US Congress is concerned with.

Populism is being addressed, not sentiment. For example in the US the companies are doing well, but people are not. The bid question is who is THE consumer that is of the most important.

Tough years change behavior. No economist model can account for sentiment or emotion. And we have seen a few tough years.

Politicians do not understand finance.

asset bubbles are not dealt with by governments and regulation.

in all of this talk, one forgets the shareholders. many bankers are now saying that ‘we did not feel enough pain’ because the shareholders are not holding the leaders accountable. there is a need for regaining this accountability.

the US will certainly inflate the currency so that the debt can be dealt with. [this is an important issue...we can anticipate that this will begin this year].

the digital and tech economy is doing really really well. there is a dearth of high tech employees. jobs are being designed out of this economy. there is a HUGE difference between innovation and employment. there is a fundamental imbalance between the new economy, the green economy, and the challenge of employment. [[[[I wonder if this is not just another way of saying that the REAL problem is overpopulation]]]]

big crisis tend to be around time so big technology change. there is always a period of turmoil until the technology integrates into the society.

this is all fine, but we cannot forget, nor ignore, the emotive part of this. there is a fear to invest, but a need to invest.

the last three bubbles have been from real estate. not technology.

Possible connections to the Design GAC from other GACs

Faith GAC

‘carbon tax on nations to then put into the moral economy’

‘values audit’ on companies

Benchmarking progress: happiness vs well-being vs contentment essentially an index on well-being

how to represent ideas so that decisions that could be made around sustainability

Sustainable Construction GAC

question of how to get beyond GDP to evaluate economies?

moving status from ownership to happiness.

how to design happy lives that use 1 Ton of carbon and only 5 Tonnes of non-renewable resources.

how to create inspiration from a different aspiration.

people should be inspired by the consequence of the choices. Mohkena

‘creating need drives greed’

Biodiversity/Oceans

needed a pubic information campaign

they really needed a communication design package

potentially a sustainability index that an individual understands

Humanitarian GAC

design a system to coordinate an international NGO /National etc for humanitarian disasters

Cities GAC

they want a typology of cities

cities are very similar, so there needs to be a mechanism for them to get together more.

Catastrophic Risks

creae a Intergovernmental panel for CR similar to the IPCC

Urban Mobility

cites are now more congested and lots of CO2 is emitted from traffic.

would like for us to create design briefs for transport interfaces

design brief for designers to design streets for all modes of transportation

transit depends alot on gov’t policy. these need to be made more transparent so that citizens understand the implications better.

Innovation GAC

they did nothing last year. now they are working on their identity and their tasks.

experiments yet to be determined.

Ageing society

if you can contribute to society, then you will live longer. need to find a way to enhance the participation of the elderly in society longer. need to design a continued contribution to society that is value adding. ACTIVE AGING

the pension system is not longer viable.

Chronic Disease

75% of all chronic disease is caused by smoking, eating not exercising. thus, anything the Design GAC can do to help with this area.

population growth

since it is ‘manifest’ there is a huge debate as to what to do. there is a need for a global system of growth management.

success is shown by using ‘for example…’ to DEMONSTRATE what we are talking about….

Introductions at the GAC of each of the members present:

Tim Brown – IDEO – San Francisco. an interest in sustainabiltiy and water.

Paola Antonelli – MOMA – NYC – contemporary design. wants to explain what design is; provide case studies; look for other councils to work with

Craig Branegan – part of WPP – San Francisco – Landor – more from the business side of design; wants to expand his view of design and how it can impact broader issues

Sundir – Elephant Design – Western India – design thinking is the only process which can change attitudes in india. been working on the older sectors in india to help this transition

Toshiko Mori – Architect; Small Think Tank called Vision Art just founded. wants to use design to translate goals for other councils to the

Alice – Design Critic – London – Design enthusiast and mediator – hope for another invigorating discussion and impact. we are not one of the ‘key councils’ but we can have and must have impacts.

Brian Collins – NYC – Intersections of the disciplines allow us to discover things that we were not aware of. personal interest in sustainability. bias to make things have tangible consequences. to help make things visible and get things done

Kigge – INDEX – Copenhagen – focusing on education and hoping to work with that council.

Kohe – Tokyo – Elephant Design – interested in the participatory process of design

John – Brown School of Design – the problem with conferences to change problems is that you never know what the problems are that we really can work on. very interested in the faith group. faith has been a huge driver and especially for this region.

Chris – Arup – London/SFO – focus on foresight by design and considering the next 40 years will bring. using design thinking to bear on plausible futures. growing interest in oceans.

Mokena – Arch/Urban Design – Cape Town – Design is a human right and something that can be synthetic and design thinking will be the way through the challenges which we see today.

Emma – WEF – full time job is prgramme development for Davos and Dalien. passion is to support and push Design into and thru the Forum activities.

Jens – Copenhagen – Design is not necessarily about humans. personal interst in urban mobility and or city groups, as well as values.