BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Month: January 2008

  • Davos08: Me and my DNA

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    23andMe, the DNA company, offered free tests to 1,000 of the Davosati, unlocking our DNA for each of us, telling us about certain genetic propensities, identifying our heritage, and opening up a new social network of the gene.

    We went to a booth in the fancy party hotel and spit — and spit and spit and spit some more — into a plastic tube and created a web account. Investor Esther Dyson even brought a few kits with her to the fancy final-night dinner party and had moguls salivating. In a few weeks, I’ll have my report back. This one is on the house for Davos participants. Otherwise, it costs $1,000.

    I’ll confess that it is a little freaky. I’m unlocking secrets that have been with me since birth and my family since Adam. In there could be my fate, God forbid, if I have a propensity toward one disease or another. There goes a bit of free will out the window. On the other hand, if I can avoid disease because I am informed, I’ve just gained more power.

    I also am dying to get the report on my ancestry. It is filled with mystery because my family tree grew on the rocky slopes of Appalachia. That is, we’re hillbillies. My grandfather’s father is unknown — we think his name was (and thus mine should be) Reilly (or is that Riley?), but we’re not sure. So for all I know, I’m Irish. My wife looked at pictures of my grandmother on the other side and insists she looks black. So maybe I’m African. We all want to know our roots. I was jealous of my wife’s ability to track her family to Germany and for us to meet them. I’ll never be invited to the Reilly family reunion.

    It’s just information, my DNA. That was the point made by Craig Venter and Richard Dawkins at the DLD conference in Munich last week. Venter pretty has pretty much proven that he could take my DNA and put it in you and suddenly you’d be blogging and talking fast. We are merely vessels — media — for the data in our DNA.

    Does this give me fantasies of cloning myself? No. There are enough of me. And if another of me turned out to be wildly successful, I’d feel like such a failure.

    It’s hard to imagine that I’ll end up joining some social network around my genes, but I won’t rule it out, especially if there turns out to be a problem. As I’ve recounted here, by revealing my heart condition (atrial fibrillation; in control; thanks for asking), I’ve gained support and information from the experience of others. It even helped that Tony Blair had the same condition treated, because the media covered it and linked to yet more resources.

    I’m sure doctors are hating this. At the Davos session I moderated on stimulation (no, not that kind), I sat next to two doctors who hated their patients coming in with information on the internet. They complained that some had misinformation and some were suffering from online-induced hypochondria. I argued back that their response should be to point their patients to good and reliable information resources online. I said that they, like media, should act as curators.

    So unlocking our DNA may well link us to communities of information that can be helpful.

    Finally, I wonder whether there’s information in aggregate that will come out of this new industry. Can we discover more linkages between disease and genes because there is now more data that we provide in return? In other words, maybe the lung blowouts that I share with my father (and Patty Hearst, by the way — another celebrity disease connection) can be attached to a gene if enough of us report the condition and turn out to have common elements in our DNA.

    And with this free offer from 23andMe at Davos, perhaps the company will be able to find out just how weak the gene pool of the rich and powerful really is.

    I’ll report back when I get my data.

  • Davos08: What happens in Davos stays in Davos?

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    I continue to wonder whether off-the-record can work anymore.

    At a closed Davos session, I witnessed a bizarre anti-American meltdown by a government official. It went on for sometime before I finally had it and called this person on it, saying that the rant was anti-American and that I was offended. I’m not telling you anything more — including what else I said — so as not to identify the official because the session was off the record, as I was firmly reminded by a WEF person and as the moderator reminded the room five seconds after the event (which is to say that they knew this was newsworthy). The rule is clear and I’m respecting it.

    But the next day, the official’s outburst was the topic du jour among all the dozens of people at the meeting and they talked about it with more people. And all those people are powerful: journalists, media executives, business titans, government officials. So the off-the-record rule is no shield for a brain fart. The people who witnessed it could and very well may affect that official’s career.

    The argument for making things off-the-record is that participants will feel freer to talk and to be candid. And that seems to make sense. But at a place like Davos, you’re still talking among people who can affect policy, business, brand, media, and careers. And they talk. Just because it’s not in the press or on blogs doesn’t mean such a lapse won’t have an impact.

    Now add to this the live nature of media today. Someone could have broadcast that moment live or Twittered it as it happened. No one in that room did or likely would because we all want to be invited back to Davos. Yes, that motivates me to follow the rule. But at any other event that is supposed to be off the record, there is surely someone in the room who won’t care. And once it’s out online, it’s out.

    All this is further confused because my own policy is that I am generally on the record — my life is an open blog — unless I label something, which I try to do to be clear and which usually involves someone else’s information or privacy I want to respect. This had an impact on a session I moderated, which fell under the off-the-record cloak. But I said I was on the record and at least one other person piped in and said she is always on as well. Then someone who didn’t pipe up got quoted on a blog (no big deal, by the way). So it’s hard to know who and what are off-the-record nowadays without a scorecard.

    Life is simply becoming more public. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

  • Davos08: Notes

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    The odd from Davos:

    * People were constantly asking each other what the mood of Davos was this year, as if it were the pulse of the world. I liked the Piano Bar index: It was said to be less crowded this year than in the past. Uh-oh, downturn. I’d characterize the mood as wishfully optimistic — they all wished to be optimistic.

    * Good Tony Blair line: “In today’s world, left and right can be less important than open and closed.”

    * The YouTube Davos Conversation Page alcove turned into the Web 2.0 newsroom. Big media were outside in a tent — a “semipermanent structure,” they call it — sitting at crowded tables. The bloggers and vloggers hung out by YouTube. This also meant that they were on the floor, in the thick of the action, and picked up more stories.

    * People-watching is half the fun. One night, I managed to weasel my way into a reception thrown by Kleiner, Perkins for Al Gore and Bono. George Soros was hanging out in the corner. I met Elllie Wiesel on the line for the metal detector. Ran into David Cameron and shot the video below. I was at two dinners with Emma Thompson and sat across the table from Howard Stringer and Jeff Zucker. That’s how nutty this place is.

    * Best purchase I made was crampons for the heels of my shoes so I wouldn’t fall and break my ass on the steep climb to my hotel. I’m clumsy and it’s icy everywher, which is a perfect combination for personal disaster. Except I managed to spike my own pants. That’s just how clumsy I am.

    * Every man at Davos was breathless at the beauty of Jordan’s Queen Rania. During one session, I looked up at her gigantic image on the screen behind her and was also dazzled by the countless diamonds on her big and beautiful earrings. I turned to a master of the one-liner behind me and said I wondered what they were worth. His response: “She’s worth it.”

    * Davos versus other conferences: Better food, worse schwag. All I came away with was a U23D hat from Bono’s movie (which was promoted masterfully by Hollywood guy Sandy Climan and frequently by Al Gore), a Turkish tie (I didn’t know they liked ties), a YouTube kit hat (purposefully dorky), and a Google scarf (which you’d know only because it’s so damned red — there’s Google’s subtlety for you).

    * I was enthralled watching Israeli investor Yossi Vardi at DLD and Davos. He’s a power behind technology, business, and politics (which means international politics) at Davos. He brings his companies along like ducks behind him and generously introduces him to everyone he can; I enjoyed meeting them all. He pulls together an annual breakfast for Shimon Peres, where we heard leaders from Jordan and Palestine and America talk about their common ground and common projects. Everyone knows Yossi. I talked with him about his investment philosophy and hope to talk with him again and write about it.

    * Speaking of Yossi, there’s one leftover note from DLD in Munich that I didn’t have time to write about before I left: Yossi brought his friend, Israeli orchestral conductor Itay Talgam, to talk with the DLD crowd about management. It was magnificent. He showed us video of conductors Richard Mutti and Erich Kleiber, contrasting their styles and showing us how they inspired or limited creativity. Mutti is strict. Kleiber inspired and enjoys and gives his performers the room to create. I can’t do it justice in a blog post but if you have a convention or big business meeting, get this man there. Clay Shirky said afterwards that Talgam made him rethink some of the ways he teaches; me, too.

    * Marcel Reichert of Burda and I talked about magazines’ position in the new media world before he went on a panel and we agreed that they have a strength because there is already a community around them that is waiting to be connected. Marcel came up with a word to describe this that I love: They are “precommunities.” Communities waiting to be enabled.

  • Davos08: The Davos Question & answers

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    Here’s my answer to the Davos question. In a word: transparency.

    The question was: What one thing do you think that companies, countries, or individual must do to make the world a better place in 2008. A few hundred left responses before Davos. More than a hundred responded at Davos. Altogether, these videos have been watched more than 350,000 times.

    Yes, the question and many of the answers are save, even rather insipid. But this was a symbolic act that had an impact at Davos. This is what I wanted to do last year when the Davos Conversation was started (disclosure: I worked on that). I wanted to bring the faces and voices and views of the world into Davos and have the powerful there respond. And so it’s a start.

    Google cofounder Sergey Brin is asked what Google can do to help voting. His answer: YouTube.

    Rick Warren, pastor at a megachurch and author of megabooks, uses his moment to promote “the faith sector” to equal status to the public and private sectors of society. “The Christian church is bigger than China. It’s bigger than India. It’s bigger than China and India together,” he brags.

    Bono tells people not to let politicians slip on the Millennium Goals:

    Yo Yo Ma tells us to work hard and be loving:

    Hamid Karzai just tells us to be nice:

    Here’s my video of Henry Kissinger:

    Here’s the summary of the outsiders’ comments shown to the opening of Davos: