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Clinton and McCain: Bizarre Love Triangle?

I had to watch Clinton's talk on Saturday on the big screen in the simulcast room because, well, I was a little hung over and had to run out to buy some Pringles to keep from passing out, and by the time I came back the main hall was full. (Nice to know I'm basically still behaving like a college student, even though I'm at Davos.)

When they first projected Clinton's face up on the screen, I had a strange moment where I thought: man, he has really aged a lot -- he looks like he's aged twenty years since I first saw him. And then I thought: it's actually been about seventeen years since I first saw him. (And then I started to think about the fact that my twentieth high school reunion was this year. But that's a whole other thread.)

Clinton seemed a little down at first, almost like he'd just received some bad news backstage, but his mood seemed to improve as picked up some of the energy from the crowd. WEF founder Klaus Schwab began by asking him for his three greatest worries about the future. Number one: climate change, an issue he returned to throughout the session. He peppered the talk with a number of literary references -- Ken Wilber's Theory Of Everything; Max Weber's Politics as Vocation. (For some odd reason, he studiously avoided mentioning any of my books -- go figure.) He offered up six separate shout-outs to Bill Gates, who was beaming in the front row. He was equally generous to John McCain, also in the house. He talked about how Richard Branson was opening up a Virgin Music store in Gaza, saying something along the lines of: "It's not going to make Richard any money, but some kids there are going to get jobs; they're going to feel like they're doing something with their lives; and so the next time someone asks them to strap a bomb to their body they're going to think twice about it."

He talked a little about the Tsunami relief efforts. He had a great line about US approval rates in Indonesia, which went from around 30% before the disaster to 60% after the relief efforts kicked in. And then he noted that Bin Laden's numbers did the reverse: dropped from 58% to around 30% over the same period -- "and Bin Laden wasn't noticeably involved in bringing on the tsunami. He just didn't do anything to help afterwards."

Typically, he went out of his way to avoid sounding partisan -- to a fault, I would say. Every single line that could be construed as a criticism of the Bush Administration was qualified in some fashion: "I'm not being critical of the current administration -- we had the same problems," etc. Even when Schwab asked him about Iraq, he played nice, saying that whatever we think about how we got into the war, we're all united now in seeing that it turn out okay. It made me wish that he and Gore would agree to split the difference on the partisan/non-partisan speechmaking: Gore should tone down some of his Bush-should-be-arrested rhetoric, and Clinton should take off the statesman's kid gloves every now and then.

The best line of the event came near then end, after Schwab asked him to give advice to the next president, "who may be sitting in this room, or who may be your wife." Clinton smiled and say: "First of all, in this age of culturally changed circumstances, I should make it clear for the record that Senator McCain and I are not married."

Who Needs Oprah When You Have BillG?

Today was an interesting day at Davos. I spent the morning writing in my hotel room, but in the afternoon I headed up to do a lunch panel on the brain, and then in the afternoon I attended one of the plenary sessions in the main hall on the "digital lifestyle" -- a panel featuring the CEOs of Cisco, Google, Skype, and one ex-CEO by the name of Bill Gates.

It was, as far as I can remember, a very interesting conversation. I took dutiful notes, which I will at some point share with you. After an hour, they opened the conversation to the audience, and a few hands shot up, and naturally mine was among them. Geoffrey Moore, the moderator, called on me after a few initial questions -- which was lucky enough, since the hall probably seats about 800 people -- and I grabbed the mike and introduced myself as the author of the book Everything Bad Is Good For You. (I wasn't showboating -- you're supposed to identify yourself and your company/background when you ask questions at Davos.) I mentioned that I thought it was striking that the panel hadn't mentioned games the entire session, despite the fact that games are driving much of new technology consumption habits, particularly for people under 25. And then I asked two questions, the first of which was: "Are any of you guys gamers?" The second was about games and education, and the possibility of combining the two.

I sensed that something interesting was going to happen even as I was introducing myself, because Gates nodded emphatically when I mentioned the title of the book. The moderator ran through a quick survey of the panel: only Gates happily confessed to being a gamer, though John Chambers of Cisco did say that he'd learned to fly -- playing Flight Simulator, presumably.

Then they turned to my education question. Chambers said a few enthusiastic words about gaming and education and then the focus shifted to Gates. He said something along these lines -- I can't quote directly because I think I had a mild heart attack as he was saying the words: "First of all, it's a book that should be widely read outside of just this discussion... It's kind of counter-intuitive..."

Then there was a sudden rush of interest in the title of the book, which -- predictably enough -- no one could quite get right. "Everything That Is Good Isn't So Bad After All," etc. I had to be consulted from the audience for the correct title. And then Gates returned to the issue of games and education, which he seemed to embrace as well, though by that point I had stopped taking notes.

I went to the edge of the platform after the session, and caught his eye and said -- "Bill, thanks for the plug." And he said, "Hey, it's a great book" and then kept walking off the stage. Which sounds really cool, I know, but at that point I was so hyped up that I thought he was going to say, "It's a great book -- why don't you come visit Melinda and me at our lakeside mansion for a long weekend sometime." It was almost a letdown.

Here's a classic Davos moment. I know a few people here, but not nearly as many as I would at the tech conferences I usually attend. So I hit a little pocket early this evening where I hadn't put together a dinner plan with anyone, and after roaming the conference center for thirty minutes, I decided to take a solitary stroll through the town before heading back to my hotel in Klosters. Out on the streets, there are lots of bustling groups laughing and chatting as they walk down the sidewalks next to me. I'm not feeling sorry for myself exactly -- I like being alone in new cities -- but it does occur to me that it would be nice to be heading out to dinner with an interesting group. And then I see another solitary figure walking down the sidewalk, head down in what I imagine to be lonely dejection. Yet another poor, friendless soul, heading back to his hotel room...

And then I realize that it's Tom Friedman.

It seemed surprising enough to me that World Economic Forum wanted to do a panel on video games, much less one called "Video Games Driving Social Evolution." But I figured that given all the world-saving panels going on elsewhere, our little session would attract a few stragglers who couldn't get in to see Bono. Imagine my surprise when our panel was one of the first to fill up in its time slot, and eventually attracted a packed room with more than a few media CEOs.

But maybe the most telling thing about the session -- which was skillfully moderated by the Times' John Markoff, whom I had somehow never met over my decade or so of conference-going -- was the overwhelming consensus in the room that games were largely a force for good: complex, challenging, and full of promise for future application in more traditional educational contexts. The few skeptical notes were voiced almost with an apologetic, I'm-just-playing-devil's-advocate tone. It was great to see; I hope the audience enjoyed hearing the discussion as much as I enjoyed participating in it.

This new Pew Study on social ties looks pretty sweet (quoting from Dave W. because I'm too lazy to read it yet...):

Robert Putnam argued in 2000 that people are seeing friends and relatives much less than they were in the mid-1960s. For example, family picnics decreased by 60% between 1975 and 1999, and card playing went down from an average of 16 times per year in 1981, to 8 times per year in 1999.

Yet evidence from the Social Ties survey show that the situation is not so dire.

Merkel At Davos

I sat in on Angela Merkel's plenary address yesterday afternoon, which I gather is getting rave reviews for her tough talk about making Europe "competitive" again: taking on labor, reducing bureaucratic overhead, lowering taxes. She spoke entirely off the cuff, and in German -- despite apparently speaking English quite well -- and I suppose it was an impressive show, though there's a certain generality to almost all political speechmaking that turns me off. I've long thought that some combination of a talented politician and a talented speechwriter could revolutionize the way politicians give speeches. Not that I want them to sound like Jed Bartlett -- more like Steve Jobs, I suppose.

After Merkel spoke they brought on a panel of CEOs to engage with her, including Michael Dell and Henry McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer. I thought they were borderline rude in their responses, trotting out a series of smug American cliches about Euro stagnation. McKinnell condescendingly offered the advice that the solution for the youth employment problem was giving people rewards and incentives. "It's been my experience," he said, "that people like to be rewarded." Helpful. Dell gave a fascinating mini-course on economic incentives as well, explaining to the Chancellor that it's difficult to get people to work if they make as much money NOT working. Merkel took it all in with a cheery demeanor -- she told Dell "Good advice" in English -- but I kept waiting for her to strike back, and mention some of the American inequality problems that Europeans don't have to the same extent. But she stayed on message, though I wondered if she was smoldering a little under the surface.

I've arrived in Davos after a long night and half-day of travel (flying through Heathrow to Zurich and then taking a bus up to Klosters, the town right below Davos where I'm staying.) Registered and stopped by the welcome cocktail party last night, before crashing at around 9:30, and then woke up -- as I always do after flying to Europe -- at 3:30 in the morning, entirely awake. It's slightly surreal to be in a small, remote town in the middle of the Alps, and turn on the TV in the middle of the night, and BBC World is running top stories about the very town you're staying in.

The conference starts in earnest this afternoon with some big on-the-record talks, so I'll try to post something then.

Davos Bound

I'm headed off tonight to Davos for the World Economic Forum, where I'm participating in a few panels -- one on video games (at last Davos addresses some serious issues!) and one entitled, intriguingly: "Left Brain Seeks Right Brain For Company." Apparently, there's a little controversy about blogging policy there, but I'll do my best to blog the on-the-record events, and drop suggestive hints about all the rest. Should be fun, I hope.

I can't seem to link to it directly, but right now the upper left video on this page at Google's Video Store is last night's Charlie Rose interview with me. I seemed to be having some wardrobe problem with my shirt and jacket (now I know why people wear starched collars and ties!) but other than that I think it's a pretty fun little conversation...

Last minute notice: apparently, I'm on the Charlie Rose show tonight, talking about Everything Bad Is Good For You. If I seem a little behind the times in my discussion with Charlie, it's because we taped this interview in August, and they've been sitting on it for some reason since then. But I remember it being a relatively fun and lively conversation, so tune in if you're so inclined.