Google Zeitgeist - Partner Forum 2008

I’m currently attending the Google Partner Forum held at The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire. The key note this morning was given by Gordon Brown, I read about this in the Times yesterday with some suspicion as they pointed out that perhaps this was a cynical alignment with the ‘Digital Industries’ and an attempt to update his somewhat ‘analog’ image but I came away from his speech not only impressed by his vision but also the glimpses of his humour and wit which the press usually comment on in absentia. (When asked if he had any advice for the adolescent Internet industry he recounted the saying that – “the first 500 years of any institution are always the most difficult” – also when commenting on his recent meetings with all three US Presidential candidates he commented that “all claim to have Irish ancestry”. Not exactly Oscar Wilde but certainly not the character depicted in the British press).

The main thrust of his comments where about the fact that we are in the middle of the “biggest period economic and cultural change since the industrial revolution”. For the UK he stated “the ultimate aim is to utilise all the innovation at our disposal to improve public services in this country and to give more power to those who use them”. More expansively he stated that we must embrace the opportunities presented by Globalisation without recourse to protectionist Government intervention. Mr. Brown claims he stands for an “open, flexible, free trade economy” and that we must not “lose site of the basic optimism where producers become consumers”.

Mr. Brown’s form of socialism calls for;

1. Free Trade
2. Greater flexibility in Markets (referring particularly to Oil and Food production)
3. More inclusiveness – (referring to helping people prepare and cope with change)
4. Global institutions that meet the challenges of changing times (“none of the Global institutions created in 1945 are working for the world of 2008”)
5. A Global Society which can “pursue the issues of Globalisation together”

Now I am aware within the space of 30 minutes there is a great deal that needs elaboration and clarification but to me it had the feel and idealism of the work of Anthony Crosland in ‘The Future of Socialism’. I was sat there thinking that it was perhaps a follow-on from the “Basic Socialist Aspirations” set out in 1956 (half remembered this morning but reproduced here thanks to a quick Google search that perfectly illustrates the utility of technology in forming of ideas);

“First, a protest against the material poverty and physical squalor which capitalism produced. Secondly, a wider concern for ‘social welfare’ … Thirdly, a belief in equality and the ‘classless society’, and especially a desire to give the worker his ‘just’ rights and a responsible status at work. Fourthly, a rejection of competitive antagonism and an ideal of fraternity and cooperation. Fifthly, a protest against the inefficiences of capitalism as an economic system, and notably its tendency to mass unemployment”

I was still thinking through Mr. Brown’s comments when the next topics were introduced - “Technology as an enabler in India and Africa” and “Technology as a tool for cross cultural connectivity” (a speech given by Queen Rania of Jordan). It couldn’t be any more apparent that the challenges set out previously and Crosland’s “Aspirations” are current and pressing. At the heart of both of these discussions was the place of technology and communications networks to enable change of every kind. As Queen Rania said, the use of technology must “help raise consciousness and build a bridge between perception and trust”.  I came away from these speeches reminded why for me that the use technology and the Internet in particular offers an optimism and opportunity that is unprecedented in our lifetime.