Cognizant is a regular at the annual WEF event in Davos, Switzerland. I requested Alan Alper, VP Corporate Marketing, keep good notes on everything he observed during this year's event. Here's an excellent ground level report - you can feel the vibe of being there, without having to endure jet lag, miles of walks, intense security and endless conversations and social activities like he did.
The Sights, Sounds and Smells
This is the first year that we were a Strategic Partner (an exclusive, invitation-only classification). We've been involved with WEF for a dozen years and we've slowly but surely moved up the totem pole. This meant we had five delegate badges where we used to only have three and previously only one. We got invited to participate in more private and public sessions inside the velvet rope, whether it's at the Congress Center or the associated affiliated hotels. When you're a strategic partner, they take better care of you. They have a special strategic partner lounge that we can use. It's five-star restaurant-quality food.
You get a different perspective of the event when you're a strategic partner. They really cater to you. I don't say we took full advantage of it this year, but I think we got more of an experience than we've had in past years in terms of being much more of a participant than an observer. We also had a bigger space this year on the Promenade, where we had a dedicated space for executive meetings, bilaterals as they are called, and events. We were the first anchor tenants of a property called TechLodge, which we shared with MasterCard. We were right on the edge of the secure zone. In fact, we were abutting it was very convenient for our execs to go in and out of the Congress Center and come back and have meetings at TechLodge, participate in the conversations we were having in TechLodge.
It was hard to avoid the climate change topic since it was really warm in Davos during WEF week. Some people called it the “Davos summer.“ It was at least 10 to 12 degrees warmer on average and less treacherous than it was the year before due to the lack of snow on the sidewalks. In fact, there were a couple of afternoons where I didn't even need an overcoat. You could walk out in a vest or a light jacket.
What the TV pundits talked about
Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, was there. She presented at the Congress Center and later in the week conducted a press conference with four fellow young female climate activists. It was probably the most inspirational 30 minutes I spent in Davos just listening to these young women who are passionate and seek to reason and debate with the leaders of business and of government on how to enact policies to treat climate change.
President Trump was there. But I have to tell you; most people didn't take much notice of him. His discussion about trade policy, the strength of U.S.'s economy and warning to beware of the prophets of doom were expected. He came and went and didn't really leave much of a mark other than all the traffic his motorcade caused around Davos. That was the only indication of his whereabouts.
His daughter, Ivanka was there too. She spoke on a panel with Marc Benioff of Salesforce on re-skilling initiatives. Obviously, that's a big issue. But I have to tell you; we've been involved with WEF initiatives on re-skilling for a number of years. It's tough. They do a good job of teeing it up and organizing the conversations, but then the follow-through falls a little short.
Also, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin challenged Greta (Thunberg) saying that he'll talk to her about the climate when she learns about economics. The overwhelming response this was not becoming of a leader of the government of the United States.
The substantive content we missed on TV
We hosted a lunch focused on the "tech-lash" (the backlash against Big Tech). Ben Pring (director of the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work) co-hosted with Lisa Choi Owens, from TED. This was TED’s debut in Davos. We invited an interesting cross section of sharp technologists, policy makers, thought leaders and business people who gave us their perspective on where the big techs have gone awry, the impact that it's having on society from an emotional, moral and business perspective. The bottom line: Most of the folks in the room feel big-tech has gone too far and needs to be reined in before it does further harm. We videotaped it. It's going to be part of something that TED calls TED Conversations, which will be available on its platform.
We also produced two events with Reuters. One was on leadership in the digital age. It's based on a research study that we did with MIT Sloan School of Management and published on the MIT Sloan Management Review website gleaned from a survey of 4,394 global leaders and 27 executive interviews that we conducted. We had on the panel—I thought it was very interesting—Ben, of course, was our primary speaker; Doug Ready from MIT who is an instructor there; and Becky Frankiewicz from Manpower, who leads North America.
The panel discussed the reasons why only 12% of those surveyed agree or strongly agree that their leaders have the right mindsets to lead their organizations going forward. They also covered the differences between what leaders say and what they do, which undermines leadership. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly (depending on your view), respondents felt that their leaders just don't really understand what they need to do to lead the organization going forward.
Another interesting data point was that only 40% agree that their companies are building a robust leadership pipeline. Less than half, 48%, said that their organizations were prepared to compete in the digitally-driven economy. In fact, 82% said that their leaders weren't digitally savvy. That provided the panel, and the audience, with lots of material to chew on.
The second event that we did with Reuters focused on "What It Means to Belong at Work". We surveyed over 11,000 people across the globe, across genders, generations and, the organizational hierarchy.
Not surprisingly, we found that it's a universal need. No matter who you ask, people want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like their voices are heard, that they can participate, and be viewed as a contributor of value. When they're seen that way, they're more willing to work harder, more productively, and more innovatively. Interestingly, most people see belonging as valuable as pay.
Another finding that we thought was somewhat interesting was that people still want a human face in terms of creating and facilitating belonging. While technology can help, face-to-face interaction was the most important element of building a "belonging" work environment.
Even though we've got all this collaborative technology, texting and video conference calling and chat-based environments, social messaging and whatnot, people still want to meet face-to-face. We published a report preview here.
Ben and Becky were part of this panel also. They were joined by Caroline Casey from an organization called The Valuable 500. It's an advocacy group for the disabled. She's legally blind and she tried to hide her blindness over the years. She finally realized that doing so was doing herself and others like her a disservice.
She came out of the closet, as she put it. Now she's advocating for these folks. She made a really interesting comment about, we talk about having a chief diversity or chief inclusion officer, but it really needs to be a chief belonging officer. That the only way we're going to get ahead by instilling a culture of belonging that really transcends conventional diversity and inclusion because it gets at the essence of creating an organization that's warm, welcoming and meaningful for all.
The President of our Cognizant Digital Business, Malcolm Frank, spoke on two private WEF panels. one on business models built around data, the other focused on the responsible use of AI. Our former CEO and current Vice Chairman, Frank D'Souza was also part of our delegation. He chaired the IT and electronics at the Governor's Community Meeting, which focused on data stewardship, the ethical use of AI and diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. Brian Humphries, our CEO, attended that meeting as well.
Then, lastly, there was the New York Times debate that took place on the promenade. That was all about whether tech can be responsible enough to self-regulate and exercise additional self-control. Interesting debate. It went down as you would expect. There’s a huge tech backlash. People don't seem to trust the big techs right now. In fact, this was a big, big topic in casual conversations and sessions up and down the Davos Promenade
Tristan Harris, who is the director and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology; Sharon Burrow, General Secretary of International Trade Union Federation; and Lisa Witter, Co-Founder and Executive Chairperson of an organization called Apolitical were on winning team, which argued for more regulation. Malcolm was selected to participate on the other side. He was joined by Andy McAfee of MIT and Rebecca Masisak of TechSoup, a nonprofit.
In addition to the usual economic policy and regional business discussions, there were many WEF sessions at Congress Center that played off the meeting’s theme of stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world. That message seemed to radiate up and down the promenade, where the construct of “stakeholder capitalism,” where businesses seek to balance the pursuit of profits with the interests of regular people and the health of our planet, what are called ESG’s (environmental, social, and governance), really resonated.
On the technology front, there wasn't as much talk about Fourth Industrial Revolution as in previous years, but there were a couple of other initiatives announced. For example, the forum is partnering with a community of central banks and other international organizations and researchers on ways to evaluate and deploy central bank digital currency.
They also talked about a toolkit to help board members better understand positive and negative implications of AI. They also talked a little bit about cybersecurity.
Sundar (Pichai) from Google had an interesting presentation on how the intersection of AI and quantum computing will help to not only enhance data encryption, but, of course, to solve some of the grand challenges that are in front of us. He also alluded to big-tech’s need for greater self-governance, which as I said was a theme that reverberated up and down the promenade, and that the biggest risk with AI is that people are afraid to use it in amid the growing techlash.
Outside, I audited sessions on co-creating sustainable future societies and human species’ evolution, as well as the regeneration of agriculture, which focused on ways to create systems that reliably feed and sustain us over time. I also attended an afternoon session with Swiss Cognitive Group, a group of technology vendors based in Switzerland. The focus of their afternoon was all on AI; Ben (our resident futurist) presented on AI being the greatest story of our time.
There was a fascinating presentation by Juergen Schmidhuber, an academic and businessman who is considered the father of modern AI. He talked a lot about self-improving AI using deeper learning and neural networks, as well as a concept called evolutionary AI, which is all about algorithms that improve by themselves over time
Other observations
You've got all kinds of questions about growth versus degrowth; developing world versus the emerging world; tech as an accelerator for growth as well as a facilitator of better living, and then you've got the dark side where people are very concerned about social media addiction, phone addiction, disinformation; deep fakes; and all of that.
One interesting takeaway on the tech-lash gleaned from interactions in Davos: The younger folks out there do not appear to be as concerned with data privacy. They take it as a foregone conclusion that their data is going to be mined and applied. They're okay with it as long as they get what they want in terms of experience and curated services. They see technology as critical to solving the world’s grand challenges, and yet they are really concerned about the over-concentration of power wielded by the big-techs. These are principled and purpose-driven people, passionate about saving the world, but unwilling to blindly trust technology. It’s an interesting contradiction, but I wouldn’t bet against the next generation finding a way to navigate this slippery slope and making the world a better place than they inherited – something our generation aspired to but fell far short of the mark on.
I know last year I said it isn't just for elites and I still agree with that because, as much as goes on behind the velvet rope, there's much more action that takes place up and down the promenade in what we call the alt.davos experience. But even against a backdrop of growing anti-globalism and protectionism, I thought the mood was pretty positive, pretty optimistic, which I thought was surprising given that we were three weeks removed from a major war with Iran. People seemed rather comfortable, optimistic, and focused on how policy makers, business leaders and academics can collaborate to make the world better.
Besides being omnipresent on stage, Ben also wrote "50 thoughts from Davos". Would not expect anything less pithy and cynical from a former Gartner colleague!
Other Cognizant resources from the event are available here
Photo of one of the panels Alan and Ben were part of at Davos.