Communicopia

Christopher and I just got back from an action packed week in the UK with The Elders, moving their online vision and strategy project forward (see my March blog post for more info on this amazing new global NGO, their vision, how important online is for them, and our role with them). On the weekend Elders co-founder Peter Gabriel offered us to stay at his world famous recording studio, Real World Studios, in Box, UK, which was fantastic.

So it came as quite a fun surprise to be reading the latest Time Magazine on the flight home, and finding out that Peter has been listed as one of the Top 100 most influential people in the world for 2008! Our Elders board chair, the Archishop Desmond Tutu, wrote a great article about Peter and what a wonderful, heartful, and visionary man he is.

On the weekend I got to attend the first ever Social Venture Institute in Toronto, at the Kingbridge retreat centre just north of the city. It was a fabulous weekend - not just because of the 24 degree C in the sunshine but the amazing quality of the presenters, participants, and nascent community of socially engaged business people forming in Ontario.

About a month ago, I was enjoying a quiet Sunday lunch with my wife in Kitsilano, my Vancouver neighbourhood, after a nice yoga class. While walking to the washroom, I checked my blackberry (come on, we all do this, right?) and in it was an email that reminded me why I love consulting work so much: your life can change on a dime. This dime was courtesy of the lovely Kathy Calvin, Senior VP at our client the United Nations Foundation, who we are working intensively with right now. Kathy asked me if I had heard of a new NGO called The Elders. She wanted to know if I would be interested giving a presentation on the Internet and its possibilities to support their global work. To the Elders themselves. In one month!