DO Lectures 2011: bringing about a better life

Held in west Wales, the 2011 DO Lectures brought together an array of goodness, and I’d like to share a bit of that experience. (Please note I’ve killed all raving superlatives, as they were cluttering the text, but consider them implied everywhere.)

  • the speakers presented original points of view, through stuff they’ve done, are working on, or have unique knowledge of, and that is either at the forefront or on the exciting margins of what is being done right now
  • topics were juxtaposed just so they could spark a richer understanding (I got called out for using the word “parallax” to describe this)
  • different degrees of involvement of the speakers: small, affordable ideas as well as huge, world-impacting projects, but most of them enthusiastic and passionate, with skin in the game
  • professional and consistent emceeing that summarized key issues at different points, brought cohesion, and kept the proceedings moving smoothly
  • the common motivation of attendees, and their caliber, ensured lunch-time conversations were substantial and earnest, freed of the petty concerns of profit-making or industrial optimization
  • the friendly and respectful atmosphere made us sometimes shy of tough challenges (I think Zach and the Chief Juicer got off easy), but provided the right environment for a wealth of new or unfamiliar ideas to be considered
  • Wales isn’t merely the venue: its geography and political climate are integral to the purpose of the lectures, and provides a frame of reference to welcome international input
  • the weather, landscape, accommodation, camping, food, entertainment, all were conducive to a sustained mental effort and if anything, I found the intensity of people’s involvement actually increasing over the course of the 4 days

Overall, deliberate variety brought welcome complexity to the event, giving depth to the exchanges, on stage or off. The conversations I participated in at DO will keep on giving, as I ruminate through the material I’ve had access to.

Enlightening lectures, starting with comedy

On the first night, Josie Long shared her anger at Tory politics. She rubbed some in the audience the wrong way: several people felt that traditional party politics have become irrelevant a long time ago. But she mixed hilariously bigoted attacks on the Conservatives with a hilariously intelligent plea for progressive taxation. She sees herself as a Renaissance woman: it is a joke, of course, but the idea of renaissance over revolution came back several times over the rest of the lectures.

Zach Smith talked about 3D printing and the distributed production of objects. I don’t think we’ve seen yet the true power of this technology: it’s still in its infancy (clunky, expensive, not very useful yet and with very rough results), but the potential is obvious and I have complete trust that he (and his bunch) will be solving those issues quickly. I’ll come back to this topic in another post.

Microcredit for the industrialized world

Geographer Faisel Rahman talked about microcredit, innovative banking services pioneered by the Grameen bank to help people in the third world get out of poverty by lending them small amounts of money towards the creation of new income streams, with a different approach to risk management. Except he’s bringing those to the UK, where they turn out to be sorely needed.

Poor people in the UK make significant use of financial services like doorstep or payday loans, at a huge cost (with APRs of 400-2000%!). But Faisel noticed traditional retail banking was simply not addressing those people’s requirements with its much more affordable loans, and particularly:

  • respect, customization, and human contact: doorstep lenders know you and paradoxically, they often know what it’s like to be hard up
  • clarity and simplicity: APR may be a standard measure, but $25 per week for a $500 loan is easy to understand
  • availability: there are many obstacles to contracting personal loans with traditional retail banks (address, income, credit history, etc.)

Traditional banks rely on an industrial service model: mass repetition of self-service offerings, with minimal human interaction through few minimum-wage operators, who have no personal commitment to the people they serve, vestigial ability to innovate or adapt to situations, and access limited to the knowledge deemed useful by the organization, such knowledge itself spun into proven selling arguments.

And his provocative point: what if private banking was the solution to poor people’s banking problems? Not only does it address their real needs, but it also creates jobs — Faisel’s banking innovations are sustainable (i.e. economically viable) and labor-intensive at the same time.

Good food for everyone

Colin Tudge also presented a labor-intensive solution, when talking about our food problem: as an alternative to the industrial model of centralized, for-profit, mass food production, his Campaign for Real Farming sketches a diversified, smaller, sustainable pattern. Decisions are made locally, relying on an efficient distribution and sharing of knowledge (fundamental research, empirical observation, best practice) but local

It offers:

  • the promise to feed all human beings (when we are 9.5 or 10 billion on Earth in 40 years)
  • more local production, and fewer geopolitical tensions around the availability of food
  • to reduce the weaknesses inherent to super-specialized, single-species farming, such as soil depletion or catastrophic diseases
  • lower dependency on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as on the companies that produce them
  • again, more jobs throughout our territories
  • and finally, better-tasting foods!

Nether of these talks were trying to solve our chronic unemployment problem, but both were economically viable, yet holding the promise of more job creation.

Hipsters will save the world

Frank Chimero raised the question of value in a digital world: if giving something away does not deprive me of that thing, then surely it doesn’t have much value. His rock experiment was not conclusive, but he suggested time and effort (doing things the long, stupid way) are true value that can be given as a gift. This reinforces the importance of doing things, a digitally native behavior, as opposed to merely making information available.

More talks I enjoyed: Alan Webber (unassuming, knowledgeable, friendly), Caroline Flint (radical midwife, not Labour MP), Chido Govera, Christina Wyly (big caliber, in good company), Tom Fishburne (who presented his own story), Mohammad Al-Ubaydli (who totally stole the idea I had the night before, and well, you know, actually implemented it at the heart of the NHS), Neil Denny, among others.

And I’ve made friends. You know who you are, and I can’t wait to see you again.

Thanks Craig for recommending this.

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