Posts Tagged ‘Davos’

Edition 5: The World Economic Forum

Friday, June 11th, 2010

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In this edition of the Business21C Weekly we talk to Adrian Monck, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and his former colleague Gay Flashman, CEO of digital communications agency, Formative.

We pushed our friendship with Adrian Monck to the limits by dragging him into the Business21C Weekly studio the day after his hugely successful evening at the Sydney Opera House, An Evening in Davos to continue the conversation. What is the World Economic Forum? Where is Davos? And who is Davos-man? (He is rarely a woman, it seems). Finally, how do we get onto the Davos guest list?

Every year 2,500 world leaders in business, in government, in academia and the arts gather in a mid-sized Swiss ski resort. The code is, leave your entourage at home and check your ego in at the door. However powerful you are, the person behind you in the queue for lunch is probably President of a larger country, a bigger company, or has more Nobel prizes to his (or possibly her) name.

What gets done? What global issues are on the agenda? What is the Davos magic? What else is in the World Economic Forum’s portfolio of activities? And who sorts out the accommodation when there are more presidents in town than the town has presidential suites?

Gay Flashman, experienced broadcast journalist turned social media mover, and former colleague of Adrian’s at Channel 5 in the UK, turns the conversation to the 1.5 million Twitterers that follow the WEF. What can other businesses learn from the WEF social media strategy. And what is stopping them?