West Wing Wednesday Night #37 April 27, 2011

Alexandra’s postscript

I will throw two more thoughts into the thinking pan:

– we will have the pleasure of hosting Karl Moore,   a McGill business school professor specialising in Strategy and Organization, writer for Forbes (see his latest “What American Executives Can Learn From Indian CEOs About Great Management“) and most importantly 😉 a regular at the Wednesday Night Salon in Montreal, who is visiting Vancouver to teach at a conference

– what holds the future for the Internet? – have a look at the four different scenarios imagining what the Internet may look like in 10 years –  (look at the videos or read the text)

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Welcome to the 1^st  edition of our 4^th  year of existence!!! … we hope to be able to bring you a 2.0 version of the Wed Salon West – more to follow.

We live in interesting times and with so much happening in the world, you may be forgiven if you are like the rest of Canadians, busy getting on with your life, blissfully unaware of the electioneering happening around you. “Election, what election?” seems to be the mindset of the majority, while a dedicated few are feverishly working away on campaigns, debates and discussions. At our little merry gathering this month, we shall remain non partisan and plan to not spend too much time on politics. Suffice it to say that never before have we seen so much at stake and so few who seem to care.

So amongst current events and other thoughts, let’s get on with topics for this month’s session – from global to local:

• Progress – believe it or not but the OECD has reached the august 50^th anniversary mark this year and demonstrates its youthful spirit through a video contest on the question of how we can indentify progress – the top 20 videos are still posted and are a cool insight into what bright young people think of the past and future. So let’s spend some time on the question of future progress – so much is possible, yet most of our daily functions are still done as they would have been in the 90s and the leaders debate sounds like a recycling of segments from the past three elections – what remains to be transformed and how would it impact us directly?
• Environment – Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans – having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country
  Whether you are for or against it, the vote passing or getting defeated has some interesting implications…
• Education – the Coalition for the future of Quebec has released a VERY controversial proposal to eliminate school teacher tenure in exchange for a 3-5 year contract with a 20% salary bump – everyone (teachers, directors, parents and school boards) is siding against the idea, without offering any counter idea of how else do you deal with the issues in education
• Two faced policies – the casino in downtown Vancouver and high gas prices (generating tax revenue) are two interesting examples of government acting in discord with its stated objectives, apparently blinded by the financial short-term incentive of easy money – how do you really call them on that?

As always bring your questions, comments, ideas and musings for the mutual enjoyment and knowledge advancement of the gathering. And come and enjoy!