Davos and the World Economic Forum

Once again it's time for Davos.  Or more specifically the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.  For the better part of the week – some of the best minds in the business, economic and academic world – not to mention UN officials and assorted royals and entertainers – have come together to schmooze, network, appear on important panels and of course sit for endless media interviews.

There are many such gatherings – some famous like this one, some just small think tanks trying to save the world or even a small part of it.  Davos looms large to me because the TV network I work for always sends a large team to beam back the weighty interviews and report on some of the weighty panel discussions.  So for all the years since my (and Apple's) first iPhone I've been dutifully browsing the WEF app and checking WEF's tweets.

I was talking to a friend in Europe today who was all excited about an upcoming Aspen Institute retreat. Where ostensibly the participants – all credentialed big thinkers – will come up with more ideas to save the world.

Which brings me to the reason for this rant.

I politely suggested to my friend – as I have before – that maybe this time all those brilliant minds  -- instead of producing  really big new ideas -- might produce some rather small but practical ones which might actually work in the real world.  And also produce some practical ways to implement those practical ideas.

My friend said a recent survey found people really want ways to fix what’s broken.  Like the US Congress.  Or middle class jobs. Or Greece.  We agreed that may be an opening for practical change – if the change agents can find ways to help the rest of us understand that our society will simply perish otherwise.

I’m not against big ideas.  All societies need people with the ability to see our problems and suggest fresh ways to solve them.  It’s just that so many of those suggestions or plans or philosophies will never actually work in the world most people actually inhabit.  OK – full disclosure.  I got through philosophy in college – a prerequisite to my beloved broadcasting classes – by reading a book on the history of philosophy by Bertrand Russell. One manageable chapter for each unmanageable philosopher from Aristotle on up. As a philosopher himself Russell must have realized that obsessing about a tree falling in the forest was simply useless if not impossible for a realist like me.  Oh wait a minute… wasn’t there a chapter on Realism too?

Maybe my “just do it” brand of realism isn’t quite what Russell was describing. But that’s what we need.  A group of deep thinkers whose names we all know. Who will get together at one of these high profile forums or quasi-secret retreats.  And return to our real world with some real, do-able plan to just fix it.

Ode to Steve Jobs

Last night when word came that Steve Jobs had died – it arrived via AP alert. On my iPhone 4. In a restaurant.

When I went to the Twitter universe to get more information – that Twitter app was on the same iPhone.

When I got home I tweeted several late articles on Jobs – which I found on the 12 news apps I have on my iPad 2. (Most of them are on my iPhone too).

This morning, at the gym, I started writing this blog piece on my iPhone – on Word 2007. Courtesy of the Documents to Go app.

There's an app for everything now thanks to Steve Jobs. But maybe not one that says simply “thank you”-- for changing the boring, the mundane -- to fun, to elegance- to – well - iLife.

I got my first iPhone in 2007-- 6 months after it arrived. It changed everything. OK -- the iPod had been around for years by then, not to mention the Mac laptops and desktops. I had never wanted one of those. Nor do I now. They were always for people who wanted computing made easy. I started using a computer in the days of DOS. And I’m proud to have learned – and (thankfully) forgotten it. In the Mac versus PC match-up – I’m the PC.

But then came the iPhone. And suddenly I lusted in my heart for it.

Tomorrow I will pre-order my fourth iPhone. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with my one year old iPhone 4. That’s the genius of Steve Jobs. I don’t NEED the iPhone 4S. Most of us who buy one won’t need it. We just WANT it. Desperately. The way a starving person wants bacon and eggs.

Take this a little further --- to the iPad. I would venture to guess there is almost no one who really NEEDS an iPad. Certainly I don’t. With an iPhone, a powerful year old Vaio ultra-light laptop, and several desktop PCs at home – you could fairly say I’m more than covered.

But again – that's Steve Jobs' magic. I could only talk myself out of getting the iPad for a year. Then I just HAD to have it. And I DO have it now, courtesy of my incredulous husband.

Wants versus needs.

Marketing genius.

In the run-up to the iPhone 4S announcement Tuesday, more than one analyst talked about the bond between a piece of glass and its owner. A bond many of them called “love”. Well – maybe not the undying, ‘til-death-do-us-part love. But certainly a kind of love. How often do I tell someone how much I “love” my iPhone? Or for that matter, my iPad?

And don’t be offended, iPad 2. But I love your smaller sibling more.

I carry my iPhone everywhere. Walking, running, hiking. Into the radio studio at work (appropriately set to vibrate of course). It waits in line with me at Starbucks – bar code app at the ready. It’s always willing to Skype my friend or business contact in Europe or video the bridge collapse near my home and post it to YouTube. It finds me a restaurant, buys me a movie ticket, tells me when the next N train leaves the Times Square station. I can read books on it. It alerts me to all kinds of news events instantly and gives me instant access to all kinds of media and information. It’s like a little friend who knows all, sees all -- and tells only what I want it to tell.

OK maybe I’m a little over the top. But remember when I grew up we were tethered to the phone line, the living room TV, the desktop computer. Each in its specific place.

The iPhone set me free. To wander the world as I wish. Virtually. Or for real.

So thank you Steve Jobs. Like most of your devoted followers, I never met you. Never learned first hand what kind of a person you really were. But I knew you were a person who grabbed at opportunities the rest of us either didn’t see, or were afraid to see.

You changed my world, Steve Jobs.

You changed everyone’s world.

And tomorrow I will do just what you would have wanted me to do – along with millions of others just as over the top as I am.

I will buy Apple’s new iPhone 4s.

I totally don’t NEED it. But I totally do WANT it.

Perspective

It’s been a week of putting things in perspective. And it’s only Wednesday.

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 went a long way toward reminding me what really matters in one's life and one's world.

Then there is the ongoing cleanup from the double flooding endured by so many financially fragile homeowners here – and in so many other places. Some of those sad people flew flags on 9/11 from gutted, stench-ridden homes. An acquaintance offered one explanation. These people have lost everything - yes - but what they’ve lost are "things". “Things” can be replaced. The people who died on 9/11 can never be replaced. The flood victims recognize that much greater sadness -- honor it and remember it -- because they are beginning their journey back.

Finally (I can only hope it's finally) -- today I opened an Email from a dear, now retired friend on the other side of the world. After his usual update on weather and his wife's garden - complete with smiley faces - came the real reason for the email. I am ill, he said simply. I have pancreatic cancer. All our plans are over. I must go to the hospital for chemotherapy.

Not just cancer -- bad enough in any form. But pancreatic cancer. One of the most deadly. Very few people survive for more than a short time. Of course I thought of Steve Jobs — but he had a rare form of pancreatic cancer, later had a liver transplant and has now said he can't run his beloved Apple any longer. There has been no update on Jobs' health ... but he's looked thinner and thinner in event appearances.

As I said at the beginning --- a week to put things in perspective. How bad is life if you are healthy and solvent, with an intact house and furniture – and someone who loves you?

So please, the next time I bitch about some inconsequential, stupid, perceived slight or annoyance or dislike – someone please hit me. Hard.

You don’t know what a charmed life you really lead, until you see what can happen when the luck runs out.