S.T.

WELCOM TO THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

Some time ago, I had a chat with a friend of mine, Michele Petochi, who is currently working in Geneva at the World Economic Forum.

For those who are not familiar with this organization, the World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The last Annual Meeting of the Forum was held in January in Davos (Switzerland). Top business leaders, national political leaders (presidents, prime ministers and others), and selected intellectuals and journalists took part in this important event which is becoming more and more relevant throughout the world.

Here is one of the latest videos from the Davos 2008, featuring the exciting atmosphere that surrounds this event:

Going back to the conversation I had with Michele, during one of our nightly Skype calls, he told me that they were planning to build a social networking platform for the members of the Forum. I found the discussion about this initiative so interesting, that I proposed to do a Skype interview with him for my blog. Michele has been so kind to accept this proposal and below you can follow the conversation:

Can you just briefly introduce yourself, explaining what your exact position is at the World Economic Forum and what you are primarily responsible for?

I am Associate Director at the World Economic Forum, where I manage a network of heads of universities collaborating on topics of relevance for the academia and society at large, and I am a member of the WELCOM Team.

Following the success of the Davos Conversation, the official blogging platform that was released in occasion of the Forum in January, you are soon going to present WELCOM ( World ELectronic Community), the official social network of the World Economic Forum. What is this exactly and what are your expectations for this new social network?

In a nutshell, what we are going to capture is the extension of the offline model of the Forum (which has its most successful expression in the Annual Meeting in Davos and other activities throughout the year) to create an environment, in which the Davos spirit could persist. We do it through WELCOM, an online platform allowing for this extension timely and in full security.

In your opinion why is it so important to engage the World’s Leaders on an online platform like this?

I would say it is important because the engament of world leaders is invaluably important to solve the most pressing problems society faces, and what we have at the Forum is precisely an amazing opportunity to leverage, and extend over time and in full security, the discussion and action power of the leaders we bring together (it is about one third of world’s GDP getting together !!!).

What kind of feedback are you expecting from the World Economic Forum community?

We have already received positive feedback on the vision and the proof of concept and we expect to get additional feedback from pilot users over the coming months. This is a learn as you go process, in other words we expect the users prioritize the most useful features and the most compelling activities.

In which way will this platform differ compared to other social networks such as MySpace or Facebook?

It has somehow a little bit of different social networks, including the ones you mention. It will be different, for instance, in its demographics, and the numbers of these demographics (a few thousand people instead of several millions).

Have you ever considered the risk that the whole project could become a sort of “small-small World”, possibly becoming very exclusive, a bit snobby, and self-serving?

Yes. The user group, as you rightly point out, may indeed look like a small-small World. However, this reflects the characteristics of the Forum to be a unique and secure platform for world leaders to come together and address the most pressing issues on the global agenda and the business agenda. Therefore I would see WELCOM, as I also see Davos, as a key informal opportunity for the leading decisionmakers to learn more about major problems, solutions, opportunities hence, to make more informed decisions in their organizations, and positively affect society. The exclusivity of the Davos environment is a positive element that allows its members to connect and discuss with their peers in a more relaxed, but still very challenging setting, in which everybody is the same.

What is the kind of output you are expecting to get from this project?

As I said, we expect to create an environment in which the Davos spirit could persist, all year round, allowing the Forum community to follow up on Davos sessions, address crises, identify experts, connect and collaborate in a more effective, and timely fashion. Example: so far the Forum has been primarily offline. Therefore, let’s say company X, government Y and organization Z are intentioned to take common action on a problem, say issues of intellectual property in country A, and approach the Forum to facilitate this dialogue. Until now, the Forum’s answer has been: ‘OK, we have a summit in that region in five months, where we can address that issue’. With WELCOM, that community will be able to initiate conversations almost immediately online, and continue them offline on occasion of the summit. The offline activities, which are part of our traditional business model, will always play a fundamental role in fulfilling the mission of the Forum (continuing a conversation online, for example, will always imply a conversation that started as face to face), but complemented by a user generated, demand driven set of online activities, facilitated on WELCOM.

What are your plans in regards to communicating the results of this virtual collaboration to the public?

Part of the outcomes of activities on WELCOM will be interesting to the public, but opening them to the public will primarily depend on the intentions of the users. Let us not forget that we are entering a user generated content environment, therefore it will be up to the users to decide whether or not to publish something.

Will non members be allowed to participate or will they merely act as spectators in the debates. Are you thinking of or does there already exist some type of communication channel. Maybe the Davos Conversation platform could play this role?

Non members, meaning people that are not members of the World Economic Forum, will have no access to the platform as spectators, unless otherwise decided by the users themselves. For example, let’s say a group of Forum members decides to create a community on water scarcity in the Middle East and to create a series of videopanels on the topic. They may well decide to post these panels to the public. But again, that would be only up to them. Note that some user generated activities on WELCOM will happen withouth even the Forum knowing, if invisibility is a characteristic those, who created a community, have decided to attribute to it at the time of its creation
The synergies between the Davos Conversation and WELCOM are natural. For example, a section on the Davos Conversation will be probably dedicated a space on WELCOM.

What main features will define this social software?

Video is definitely one.

Thank you so much for your time, and for the opportunity to talk about such an interesting project. I guess now we can say WELCOME to the future of World Economic Forum.