Desperation is the father of necessity

Bob Geldof has given a well-received, passionate and compulsive speech on... well, a whole host of things really.  Working without notes, he effortlessly managed to both make sense and re-write history (or perhaps more fairly, look at history through a very specific lens) in equal measures, wrapped up in the kind of eminently quotable phrases that make him a journalist's dream.

He spoke at length about change, and about opportunity.  The changes in him, the UK, and what needs ot happen to meet the challenges of tomorrow, and the opportunities that are presented by the web, collaboration, the developing world and more generally, within ourselves - we are the agents of our own destiny.

His key points (I will revisit this later):

• the UK is becoming more risk-averse
• decisions should be made more locally.  The paradigm must be collaboration, not [edit] competition.  Facebook, widgets, open source - these are the future.
• inter-dependence on almost everything means we need to communicate and co-operate better.
• Enterprise is the attempt at trying.  Failure is nothing.  99% of the things I've tried were failures.  It doesn't matter that I failed.  The manager enables the ideas of the entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur needs to know when to step back.  We're losing the ability to celebrate this.
• we are all connected and increasingly inter-dependent.  'You don't die of droughts, you die of politics'.  We cannot ignore the problems of others.  Why is China investing billions in Africa but 'our guys' aren't?

And he left us with a big challenge.  Where are the ideas going to come from in this new world?

• all change comes from the self.  There must be a commitment to change.

Comments

[Heli Rajasalo]

Good notes, Ivan. To the last one I would add something that especially resonated with me: not until you've made the commitment to change and change takes place, things can start to happen.

To me that means that whilst we (= the western world, the UK, the people, etc.) procrastinate and are stuck on finding the least offensive political way of helping the rest of the world or just getting involved, we are constantly losing out on opportunities to make a difference.

It's not a difficult thought, but when will we own up to it?

[Ruth]

Um, minor point, but don't you mean "collaboration, not competition..."? :)

[Ivan]

Oops. The perils of live blogging. Yes, I will edit that now.