First Quarter Review: Top Posts

Archive for the ‘Davos’ Category

First Quarter Review: Top Posts

April 22nd, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 2 Comments »

Starting in April, I think I’ll summarize my top posts from the past month, but as part of the series of posts reviewing the first quarter (and promise to myself to be reflect and commemorate more), here are my favorite 11 posts (so far) from 2010.

Three Exciting Announcements: This is the post where I announced NOLAlicious (now at it’s 15th edition and growing rapidly), my contract work with FSC Interactive on the Ochsner Health System social media strategy team and my segment on LPTV for social entrepreneurship. In 3 months, these 3 projects are among my favorite.
Dear Future Me: Of all the future me’s I write, this one by far is my favorite. It was also a big step to share it, and I felt really brave for putting this foot forward and challenging myself to be more open and honest.
Crisis Camp New Orleans: After the earthquake in Haiti, I knew I had to get involved. I looked around and asked friends and after about 72 hours heard about Crisis Camp. Since I was (and still am) new to New Orleans, I knew I needed to enlist someone to help make a local event like this a success and finding a great partner to do that was wonderful. Putting on Camps are a lot of work with a lot of reward and it was truly amazing the spirit of the people who came out that day to help create technology tools to help emergency response teams in Haiti.
I’m the new MySpace Wall Street Journal Citizen Journalist for Davos! What is there even to say? I truly was overwhelmed and amazed by the response I go from friends all over the place who voted for me, supported me, sent me notes of encouragement. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t even being to describe the way that attending Davos changed my life and my perspective on the world. My biggest wish is to attend again, it was remarkable and huge thank you again to everyone for your support in helping make this dream come true.
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Hub Culture: Davos 2010 Interview with Sloane Berrent

February 7th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 5 Comments »

While at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I walked by the Hub, a central meeting place for the Wall St. Journal writers and also where the Hub was interviewing Young Global Leaders, CEOs and social entrepreneurs about Davos and their experiences. They were gracious enough to ask to interview me and readers of The Causemopolitan might remember that I’m only now growing into liking myself on video. I’m being honest! It’s the third medium that I’m adjusting to (after writing and photos). Submitting the MySpace Journal video was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, it was really putting myself out there and without the help and support of friends here in New Orleans I don’t know that I would have had the courage to do it.

That said, big thank you to Edie Lush and Hub Culture for the interview above and for all you New Orleans readers out there, check out the interview starting around minute 3 where I really get into WHY I love New Orleans and what is of the most value in being here and being part of the community.
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World Economic Forum Highlight Reel Day 2

January 29th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

Continuing the thread about what an amazing opportunity it is to attend the World Economic Forum, see the highlight reel above from WEF’s YouTube channel featuring some of the biggest names in global leadership and governance in the world today.

The biggest names are heavily guarded with security and usually being whisked away to one room or another, but approachable if you can get their attention for just a moment. Walking down a hallway I’ve passed rooms where French President Sarkozy is meeting with the CEO of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab. I walked into a room yesterday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in a briefing with BBC Correspondent Nik Gowing about his ambitions for his G20 leadership and his vision for South Korea’s future. I stumbled upon a seating area where I was looking to rest for 10 minutes in one open chair and instead entered into a conversation about nuclear proliferation and how to work with governments in developing countries to stop making nuclear weapons with the Founder of Space Adventures, Eric Anderson, the Founder of Operation Hope, John Bryant and the Crown Prince of Norway, Prince Haakon. I grabbed tea with the CEO of News Corp and then we, together, scoped out and finagled ourselves into the second row of a session where Former President Bill Clinton was speaking on the state of Haiti.

And that list only goes to about 4pm!

Each day is like that here. A glorious amount of over-information that I imagine will continue to permeate and sink in for months to come. Tomorrow is the final “official” day of panels. It’s hard to believe it will soon be over and I’ll be back in New Orleans, telling everyone about all the good New Orleans gospel I’ve been spreading to anyone who will listen about all New Orleans has to offer. But not yet. No sir, no yet. For now, I edit and upload videos, I edit and upload photos, I write and hyperlink blog posts to share with all of you. I sleep (barely) and eat (sometimes) and buck up to soak in all the Davos has to offer working through the exhaustion and the wall and the feeling that as much as I’m absorbing is as much as I’m missing.

I’m already plotting my return for 2011.

Don’t forget to watch my video interviews of some of the best and brightest leaders of today and tomorrow on the MySpace blog.

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

January 29th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 10 Comments »

Let me share something here that I’m not sharing over on the MySpace blogs. Rather let me gush for a second. Davos is truly spectacular. There is something about an invite-only conference that allows every attendee to walk up to one another and say hi, introduce yourself, make conversation. Everyone who is here has done something special to be here. Sure, there are a few lucky ducks (like myself) who have found there way here, but heads of states and CEOs and global leaders all under one roof make for very interesting conversation.

Which leads me to my next point – the people here care very much. There are a lot of conversations about just about everything you could imagine. Water conservation and sustainable of global fisheries, the future of the middle east, what the World Cup in South Africa this summer can raise awareness of current hot topic issues in Africa, the crisis in Haiti. There are a million things happening in the world right now and chances are someone here is an expert in that field.

There is a dark side here too. Or rather a pessimism. Last year, 9 of the global CEOs of banks were no-shows. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t have shown their faces in the wake of such a catastrophic global financial meltdown and so weren’t here. Last year, the infamous and exclusive parties featuring vertical wine tastings or grand-cru french wines were canceled. It was deemed inappropriate to be lavish and thought to shed a negative light on the conference. CEOs of global companies meet here in Davos, this tucked away Swiss ski town and who knows what happens behind closed doors.

But let me say this. There is a line from a TED Talk that I love that goes, “It’s too late to be pessimistic. It’s too late to think we can do nothing. We must look forward to the future. We must look to building something greater than what we have today.”

That is the essence of Davos. Optimism that the work everyone is doing here is inspiring something greater for not just the next generation but 7 generations out. Among these leaders within their communities, I feel as if anything is possible for myself. I feel a freedom to be bold, to keep pushing forward, to have faith in what I believe is my own personal mission in life – helping people discover cause and ways to give back. Here, anything is possible and if I take away one lesson from Davos, it’s an almost “Santa Claus like spirit” where we believe what we want to believe. And so I choose to believe in hope. I choose to believe in the future. I choose to believe in you.

We Did It! Davos Bound!

January 26th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 4 Comments »

We did it! Thanks to ALL OF YOU and my many other supporters, you have helped me win the opportunity to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as the citizen journalist for MySpace and the Wall Street Journal.

You were the sixth judge. Every vote you cast, helped me with the community vote. The other judges were the CEO of MySpace, CEO of News International, Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Head of Communications for the World Economic Forum and the winner from last year. You’re in good company.

I’m on a jet plane TODAY for Switzerland and I’ll be there all week representing all of you and meeting world leaders, global thinkers, CEOs and activists. Where can you catch all the blogging goodness? So glad you asked!

First, all posts (blogs, photos and video) start on the MySpace Journal page. Those will also be syndicated on The Wall Street Journal online.

After 24hours on those outlets, I will repurpose some of the content on my blog and you might see it around the web in other places too. And I’ll continue to blog and write about my experiences when I’m back. And of course, you can catch my up-to-the-minute updates on Twitter where I’m @sloane and will be using the hashtag #wef. Let me also recommend following @davos and their awesome Twitter list of WEFMedia.

If YOU were attending Davos, who would you want to meet? What question would you ask of our world’s leaders?

Ask me and I’ll do the digging and reporting for you. It’s going to be a whirlwind, but I can handle it. Don’t worry, I got this! Can’t wait to share my experiences with you.

Davos Bound,
Sloane

World Economic Forum Highlight Reel Day 2

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

We Did It! Davos Bound!

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