The Uncultured Project

I really thought I was going to be witnessing history with this YouTube/Davos partnership. What I feel we got instead was a missed opportunity.

I was kind expecting – or at least hoping – that when YouTube partnered with the World Economic Forum at Davos, they would be doing the same kind of thing that YouTube did with the Presidential debates. At the CNN YouTube Debates, the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates were asked questions submitted by the YouTube community. The candidates would listen to the question and then respond. CNN even flew a few of those YouTubers down to the debates so that they would have an opportunity to make a follow-up question or comment. Even if the debate didn’t move beyond canned responses – at least there was citizen interaction.

That I believe was what was missing with YouTube and the Davos Question.

First, since those submitting videos were asked to keep their videos under 3 minutes, I kind of assumed that meant there would be a 10 to 30 minute screening of the best videos for world leaders to see. What happened instead, was that a handful of videos were cut into a two minute montage sequence. As you can see here, half of that montage sequence was devoted to restating the original Davos Question (“What can we do in 2008?”, “Hello Davos!”, “Wow, that’s a big question. Big big question”, etc.,.). The remaining minute was just a quick laundry list of requests and ideas (lower poverty! more renewable energy! invest in kids!). What could have been the opportunity for powerful ideas and discussions to emerge ended up looking more like a wish list to Santa Claus.

Second, just like regular YouTube users submitted their answer to the Davos Question, world leaders, celebrities, businessmen, and future youth leaders were able to record what they’re take was on the question. But, for the most part, this was nothing new. Bono, of course, asked us to support the Millennium Development Goals. The executive director for UNICEF made a similar plea. There were a few surprises of course. It was good to see youth leaders like Whitney and Juan there with some good ideas. I was a bit surprised that most important issue the Director of the American Center for Disease Control chose to raise was “Exercise!”. What was absent, however, was any evidence of interaction with the community.

I was really hoping that the world leaders at Davos would be watching some of the videos and then commenting and responding. Ideally, it would have been nice if these leaders would have gone back to YouTube later to check and see what the response to their videos were. They called this “The Davos Conversation” but it didn’t feel much different than watching an interview on TV. There were a few exceptions, the US Director of Education decided to voice her agreement to a video by a YouTuber pleading for greater investment in children. And Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, decided to respond to a question raised by a YouTuber about Google’s potential to help in electronic voting.

If The Uncultured Project has taught me anything it’s that, if you are not satisfied with the way things are being done – you have to offer your own solution instead of critiquing others. This is where the World Social Forum can come in….

Why can’t the World Social Forum take the same technology (YouTube) and use it to the full potential the the folks at Davos did not?

I maybe in Bangladesh right now – but my mind’s on the World Economic Forum happening right now in Davos, Switzerland. For the first time in the forum’s existence, we really get to know more about the thoughts and views of those attending the World Economic Forum. This is because YouTube has teamed up with the folks at Davos. All of a sudden, Davos has helped turn Bono and Henry Kissinger into video bloggers. This is also the opportunity where people like you and me can get our voices heard at Davos. It’s called The Davos Conversation. It’s a huge step forward in democratizing one of the world’s most important forums.

One thing that surprised me is that I’m finding a lot of kindred spirits at Davos. Bono was there and, of course, he spoke in favor of the Millenium Development Goals that I’ve been talking about earlier. In fact, Bono writes the foreword of Dr. Sachs book “The End of Poverty”. The Executive Director of UNICEF was there and made a similar endorsement as well for the MDGs. But it’s not just celebrities and big wigs that were there making a difference – people from my generation were there too and were making their mark. Take Whitney and Juan for example:

Whitney makes a good point by pointing out that every year, Americans spend $20 billion dollars on ice cream. It only takes half of that to give a full education to every poor person on the face of this planet. It’s facts like this that actually made me a sociologist. My first ever class in sociology was at the University of Toronto. A professor there, by the name of Robert Brym, made a moving lecture which changed the course of my life forever. In a few charts and graphs and a few phrases – he impressed upon me two things: how easy it is to understand some of the world’s biggest problems and how simple it is to fix it…. if we really wanted to.

I also relate to Juan’s point about how we can’t expect our governments to solve all our problems. Politics is a nasty business. Too many politicians promise change but deliver the status quo. Do we simply elect the wrong people? Or is something about the nature of politics that makes it hard for true change to emerge? Don’t get me wrong – if governments could agree to fund the completion of the MDGs, that would be a surefire way to end poverty in our lifetime. It’s just that, change doesn’t come that often in politics. So we need a Plan B – a way to reach that goal through ordinary citizens like you and me.

It would also be nice to have a Plan C – but I have no idea what that would be…

In one of the last courses I took before I left Notre Dame to start this project, I had a professor who was highly critical of the World Economic Forum.

What’s the World Economic Forum? It’s an event that happens once a year in Davos, Switzerland. World leaders, economic leaders, and prominent citizens get together to discuss the future of the world. According to this professor, the World Economic Forum was not only something to be seriously critiqued – it should be boycotted. Many people share this professor’s view and, as a counter to the World Economic Forum, have formed something called the World Social Forum. Why all the criticism of the World Economic Forum? The argument is that the World Economic Forum is too elitist, with not enough grass-roots input, and too undemocratic.

Well in 2008, thanks to YouTube, that all changed.

This year, anyone with a message to world leaders could make a video and put it on YouTube. These videos would then be rated, judged, and evaluated by other YouTube users. Anyone with an account on YouTube can go to the channel called “The Davos Question” and view and vote on which videos should be seen by the World Economic Forum members. The Davos Question was a question put forward by the World Economic Forum asking us – what do we think needs to be done by corporations, individuals, and governments to make the world a better place? The videos with the highest ratings would then be screened in the World Economic Forum. Bono, Bush, and Blair – they would all see what you had to say. All of a sudden, ordinary joes with good ideas got a voice at one of the world’s highest forums. Fancy that.

Okay…. so it’s not that simple….

The biggest problem with getting a message across – no matter how good – is dealing with haters (or “haterz”). Haters are a problem for people who get popular on YouTube. Fortunately, I haven’t run into that problem – which probably speaks to how much I am an unknown on YouTube. But, for many people trying to put good ideas forward in order to answer the The Davos Question, a lot of them are being picked apart by haters. One of my favorite videos to the Davos Question was done by a high school teacher (and fellow Canadian) by the name of Greg. He calls for greater consideration towards the global poor. As you can see in his video, he’s articulate and he makes a passionate plea.

But, after his video got popular, what do the haters have to say?

Find out after the jump.

Continue reading ‘YouTube and Davos – Trying to Do Good Amid the Noise’