Firm Follows Form

The Skoll World Forum is an international event, hosted in Oxford England each year. It brings together an impressive community of philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, foundations, NGOs, governments, corporations and individuals passionate about creating sustainable social change to address our most pressing global needs. Rather than having a singular format of speaker and audience, Skoll keeps it fresh with a mix of panel sessions, debates, delegate-led discussions, and plenaries. It’s impossible therefore to attend everything as a lot happens in parallel, and the most important conversations seem to happen between 10pm and 2am in various bars in Oxford. Here’s what I learned during my time there this year.

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At End Of Road You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. Enter Command >

This is how the first arcade text-based adventure game began. You played by entering 5 letter commands – there were no visuals whatsoever, you had to use logic and your imagination to figure out what might happen next. Your navigation of the game were  limited by a range of cryptic text-commands. It is also exactly how working in and managing a virtual team feels.

For most of the day, you have to rely on text-based cues from emails that you catch from people you care about separated by multiple time zones. Even when you speak with them during your weekly video calls you have to uncompress their week’s experience from the limited time you have together. How are they feeling, what’s going on at home you wonder, are they happy, are they overstretched, are they inspired by their work – these are just some of the questions that regularly cross your mind when you are running through the laundry list of tasks and team priorities. If you’ve ever had to work with someone who is not physically in the same room as you on a regular basis you know what it’s like to work in a virtual team. Why do we work like this and what can be done to make the experience smoother and more enjoyable for everyone?

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This is a reposting of my recent Guardian article on improving health beyond the workplace.

The way we travel, eat, work and generally live today is having a profound effect on our health and that of those around us. Diabetes and other chronic diseases, including obesity, are on the rise. According to the WHO, there are 36 million preventable deaths every year from these health problems – leaving a devastating social impact and a major financial burden.

Businesses suffer as well through absenteeism and retention problems, affecting their overall success. The good news is they are in a strong position to help, but to be truly effective, this can’t just start and stop in the workplace.

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Diabetes and other chronic diseases, along with obesity, are on the rise – alongside rapid growth in levels of work related stress and mental illness. According to the World Health Organisation, there are 36 million preventable deaths every year from these health problems – a devastating social impact and a major financial burden.

Last year, IDEO, Bupa and the International Diabetes Federation collaborated on an OpenIDEO challenge that addressed the question: “How might we create healthy communities within and beyond the workplace?” The global OpenIDEO community developed some excellent concepts and you can check them out here.

Through the process we learned some amazing things about health & wellbeing, particularly within the workplace or other kinds of communities. I hope these are useful to you if you’re working in this area or even if you’re just trying to make or sustain a change in your own health:

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In the snowy mountains of Switzerland, in the town of Davos, world leaders and thinkers have come together for their annual pow-wow to discuss how to address the world’s biggest challenges. Much of the dialogue emerging from the event seems to be pointing, somewhat predictably, to the recent economic crisis facing the world’s major economies, and to how we all need to become more resilient to massive change. Davos’ founder himself made a call for more strategic vision setting rather than temporary fixes. It reminds me of the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio, which I attended and was honored to speak at last year. Even at Rio (an event that happens much less frequently), the ability for our leaders to collectively address and agree on long term plans seemed impossible. And yet, with the challenges we face as a species we can’t carry on assuming this theory of change will work.

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This is the hypertext version of a TEDx talk I gave a few weeks ago, you can watch it here.

Imagine going back to the town where you grew up. You walk through the centre and find the shops boarded up, the streets are desolate, the shops where you used to buy candy or books – even your local post office is now gone – replaced with wooden boards and graffiti. How would you feel, what would you do – what you want to do?

Let me introduce Eric, he was born in Detroit, and grew up just outside of the city, and moved to Boston when he was 19. He settled down, got a job, and then last year he decided to go back to his hometown.

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