Last week I went skiing.
Sitting on chairlifts between runs, with time on my hands, and nothing in them to distract me, I was left to just look around and think.
I was struck by the thought that the real gift of skiing, is elevation. Elevation gives perspective. You get to look at a mountain peak at eye level; seeing eye to eye with the roof of the world.
Maybe it was the rarefied air, or the rarefied Tequila apres-ski. But something about being up there, alters your sense of perspective.
Mountain air clears your head.
I am going a little off-piste now with this post, with a chautauqua of sorts, a word I learned from Robert Pirsigs’ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where he explores the ‘quality’ we get, when we don’t treat technology and work as separate from ourselves.
I want to talk about our tribe, and the ideas and beliefs we share – and how our ambitions have shaped our journey over the past few years towards BlueTech Forum Ignite, which we are proudly hosting in partnership with NIKE June 1st and 2nd at their Global HQ in Portland.
I had two good books with me on my trip. Tribes, by Seth Godin and Humanity is Not a Plague: Living with 10 Billion people on Earth, by Cees Buisman. Both book authors are BlueNote speakers at BlueTech Forum Ignite.
In Tribes, Seth Godin defines a tribe as a group of people, large or small, connected to each other, with leaders and united by a set of shared ideas.
Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, described “Dubar’s Number” – the cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. The number is 150, and was described informally as the number people that if you walked into a bar, you would not feel uncomfortable pulling up a stool beside.
This principle has shaped how we think about our BlueTech Forum event. One of the reasons we have chosen not to expand in terms of size, is that above a certain size, you lose something in terms of that intimacy, which fosters the meaningful conversations we are seeking to catalyse. This is why we pivoted to the BlueTech Forum Unplugged model of regional workshop style events.
A delegate at our event once told me that you go to larger conferences to meet people – but you to BlueTech Forum to get to know them.
The first time I heard the word tribe used in relation to a Forum, was when David Sedlaktook the stage at Kew Gardens to deliver his keynote and said, that he felt he had ‘found his tribe’. That was possibly the best affirmation we could have hoped for that we were on the right track.
But tribes alone, are not enough. They need to be united by shared ideas, beliefs and goals. And then collaborate in small teams – that can be fed by two large pizzas.
Cees Buisman in his book makes the case that the real challenge we face, is not population growth but elevation of human consciousness. “Back to nature is not the solution, nor is an overreliance on science and innovation. In fact, large-scale technologies could even increase our problems. The growth of humanity depends on the growth of our consciousness.”
Mary Gauthier’s song Mercy Now, captures this idea of a chain of expanding empathy starting with her family, ultimately expanding to every living thing, which could ‘use a little mercy now’. A Buddhist idea wrapped up in a country song.
With each generation we would like to believe we are aspiring towards greater justice and tolerance. There are setbacks and it’s not linear. It feels right now that we are going backwards. But over the long arc of time, consciousness and empathy have increased. We now can identify with people not only in our immediate tribe but with fellow human beings on opposite sides of the world and increasingly with the natural world. Recognising that the Whanganui river has legal personhood, is a representation of this, as Li An Phoa, author Drinkable Rivers will discuss at the event.
There are shifts. They have occurred in the past. They always involve small groups. And they lead to social tipping points. “We hold these truths to be self-evident”, is how the second paragraph of the American Constitution opens, but these ideas were anything but self-evident prior to this. The Abolitionist movement, the Suffragette movement, were started by a small handful of committed people and then they reached a tipping point when 15%-20% of the social group was moving in that direction they carried the majority with them.
To move from Lighthouses to Tipping Points, we need more than innovation, we need engaged people who see possibilities that they want to ‘will into existence’. That is the tribe we seek to unite.
The BlueNote talks at the event, which will also include Julia Watson, author of LoTEK Water, are the capstone to a four-year arc, which began in Vancouver, when we came out of lock-down.
Bringing our tribe back together for a live event, the theme that year was Radical Collaboration for Regeneration.The idea of coming together to forge bonds and trust that would be foundational for radical collaboration. The world renownedanthropologist Wade Davis spoke that year and when he received a thundering ovation, it affirmed the audience was ready to be challenged to think differently.
We followed this up with Innovation with Impact– defining worthy, attainable goals, which could move the needle in our lifetime, in a matter of decades.
We are weaving all this into a White Paper: From Lighthouses to Tipping Points: Opportunities for Value Creation in Water, which builds on the ideas of a key-note speaker from Edinburgh, Efosa Ojomo, co-author with Clayton Christiansen and Karen Dillon of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation can lift nations out of Povertyand indeed those of Gary White and Matt Damon in The Worth of Water.
The manifesto that we are putting to the test is that we can solve many of the world’s most pressing water challenges and create value in doing so.
Working in the water space, we have that possibility of doing meaningful work, earn a good living, put our talents to good use and build successful companies. At BlueTech we are drawn to working with a tribe that has these shared values and are serious in their ambition and goals to create value in addressing water challenges. We want to work with serious people and as the song goes ‘Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on the affirmative, and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between’.
This all strikes a chord with me personally as I have a restless energy, am dissatisfied with accepting the status quo and always wondering why things aren’t moving faster. I have recognised and accepted, with some grace at this stage, that as a consequence of this, I am destined to spend at least half of my life in a state of general dissatisfaction with the state of things. The fact that things bother me, doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.
A key part of what we need, isn’t just new technology and innovation; a key ingredient is the ability to dream harder. We weave the future from the threads of our imagination, we move from vision to reality, reaching tipping points along the way. Rutger Bregman’s concept of “moral ambition” challenges individuals to redirect their talents, skills, and 80,000 career hours away from status-driven, “bullshit jobs” toward solving the world’s most pressing problems. It combines the idealism of an activist with the drive of an entrepreneur, advocating for a shift from personal gain to maximum societal impact.
To set the tone, the opening panel is How Ambitious Are you? (and how uncomfortable are you willing to be to get there?). This will include leaders from the worlds leading water solutions companies, including Anne Le Guennec, CEO of Veolia, Devesh Sharma,CEO of Aquatech International, Snehal A. Desai, Jennifer L. Honeycutt, CEO Veralto
EVP of Xylem, Guillaume Clairet COO of H2O Innovation, all moderated by the inimitable Patrick Deckerof Xylem.
None of this would be possible without great partners and I would like to thank Vetri Dhagumudi Global Director Nature & Sustainability at Nikesomeone who is never afraid to dream harder, challenge the status quo and helps lead, unite and inspire others to also join on this journey. Vetri will share examples from NIKE including one exciting new project in Indonesia, that embodies and expresses the ideas of Radical Collaboration for Regeneration perfectly.
So though back down on terra firma, it’s nice to try and continue to help elevate the conversation and the scale of our shared ambition.
