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January 30, 2006

Davos 2006: Partying Like It's 1999

Hands down, the best event at Davos was the Google party on Friday night. Never mind the glittering guest list, which included the likes of Michael Douglas and Shimon Peres (who gave an off-the-record talk). Let's talk about the wines that were served at the Kirschner Museum on Davos's main drag. We started with Krug Champage, vintage 1990. Then moved on the Chateau Margaux 1989. Then Gruaud-Larose 1989. And then magnum bottles of Chateau Lynch-Bages—1955, if I read the label correctly, which at that point may have been a bit debatable. It all sure had a 1999 feel to it. Google, coincidentally, will be reporting 2005 results after the closing bell Tuesday. If the party in Davos is any indication, I expect the numbers to be pretty good.

Posted by Mark Vamos at 2:39 PM | 1 Comment

January 27, 2006

Live From Davos: The Accidental Brand

At Davos today, Michael Dell told an entertaining story about how his brand came to be called Dell--something he said he never intended. The corporate name was Dell, but the original trade name was PCs Limited. (Dell had wanted to call the company PCs Limited, too, until the lawyer handling the incorporation told him it was too generic.) But the company ran into a problem when it began selling in the United Kingdom. It couldn't call itself PCs Limited Ltd, or, as Michael Dell put it, "really limited Pcs." The folks in Britain asked headquarters what they should call their operation, but got no reply, so they just decided to use the Dell name. And eventually, that became the trade name for Dell worldwide. Michael Dell's verdict: "It worked out OK."

Posted by Mark Vamos at 10:35 AM | 1 Comments

January 26, 2006

Scandal At Davos

In tomorrow's newpapers, you'll be reading about a controversy that has erupted at Davos. ''Global Agenda,'' the magazine of the World Economic Forum, contains an article calling for a boycott of Israel. In an email to participants at Davos, Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF, expressed his ''great concern and pain'' at the article, which he says is ''in total contradiction to my own, and the Forum's, mission and values.'' The article was the result, he said, of ''an unacceptable failure of the editorial process, specifically an insufficiently short period for review of content.''

I managed to find a copy of ''Global Agenda''--they suddenly were in rather short supply here after the discovery of the article in question. The piece, by Mazin Qumsiyeh, who is described as having served on the faculties of Duke and Yale and as a campaigner for Palestinian rights, is as nasty a piece of work as I've read in some time. It's particularly nasty because it re-clothes many of the tropes of classic anti-Semitism (such as the idea that Jews control the media in the U.S.) in humanitarian garb.

I have the greatest respect for Dr. Schwab, and he's right that this article is utterly antithetical to the spirit of Davos. But it's a little hard to understand how this could be simply a failure of editorial process. Consider the headline of the piece: ''Boycott Israel.'' You have to wonder how much longer it would have taken to review the content of the article to figure out what it was about. The unfortunate, and inevitable, conclusion is that Israel is so demonized in so many minds that this language didn't come into question even in the house organ of a gathering that in the words of its founder is based on ''mutual respect and recognition, and not on confrontation.''

Posted by Mark Vamos at 5:20 PM | 6 Comments

Live From Davos: Development and Innovation

A Columbia University economist, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, spoke at a session on global competitiveness in Davos this morning. He offered what I think is the most succinct statement of the stages economies move through on their way to becoming innovation-based. First, he said, you concentrate on making something cheaper than anybody else. And when you can no longer make something cheaper than anybody else, you concentrate on making something better than anybody else. And when you can no longer make something better than anybody else, you concentrate on making something different than anybody else. That's the innovation economy.

Posted by Mark Vamos at 1:49 PM | 4 Comments

Survivor at Davos

In yesterday's post, I described a creativity face-off at Davos. Participants were asked to describe their vision of the keys to creativity, and the audience voted on those ideas until two finalists remained. As promised, here's the outcome.

Last to be voted off the island was Ideo's Tim Brown, who suggested that creativity is spurred by approaching problems with a beginner's mindset, and by exploring ideas through the use of rapid prototyping.

And the winner is: Google's Marissa Mayer, who argued for "a healthy disrespect for the impossible" combined with the virtues of constraints. In other words, aim high, but focus. Mayer described how an artist friend once told her that it was much easier to paint on a canvas that already had something on it--a mark or a line of some sort--than to begin with an entirely blank canvas. The existing mark is a constraint, something the artist has to think about and work around. And product developers at Ikea begin with a different sort of constraint, she said. They start with a price they have to meet--say $49--and then think about what they can make for that price.

Posted by Mark Vamos at 10:10 AM | 6 Comments

January 25, 2006

Live From Davos: Is It Time to Stop Worrying About China?

China's vice premier Zeng Peiyan told a plenary session at Davos Wednesday evening that his country's development over the next five years will create opportunities for the rest of the world. Specifically, he said China will focus on production for its domestic market, and on developing domestic energy sources, especially coal, nuclear, and hydro. In other words, he sought to persuade his listeners that the fears of China becoming an export juggernaut, and of China sucking up a huge share of the world's oil production are overblown. Does that make sense, or was he just telling us what we want to hear?

Posted by Mark Vamos at 3:23 PM | 6 Comments

Live From Davos: What's the Key to Creativity?

The World Economic Forum at Davos has a theme every year, and the theme of the 2006 meeting is ''The Creative Imperative,'' the idea being that business leaders and society as a whole need to come up with new and creative approaches to change. And so on this first day at Davos, I attended a session called ''Innovation and Design Strategy,'' a topic that is of course close to our hearts at Fast Company. It was, in a lot of ways, a very un-Davos-like session--more a reality show than a typical gabfest.

The eight panel members were each asked to describe what they think is the key to creativity. The audience then voted them off the island, one by one. Quick to go, for example, were panelists who pitched religious institutions and government as important engines of innovation. In the end, we were left with two finalists who are well-known to Fast Company readers, Ideo's Tim Brown and Google's Marissa Mayer.

Continue reading "Live From Davos: What's the Key to Creativity?"

Posted by Mark Vamos at 10:28 AM | 6 Comments