By Alec Hogg*
Flicking through the programme ahead of my annual trip to Davos brought the realisation, once again, what a huge privilege it is to be invited. The World Economic Forum sticks to 2 500 official participants. Half of them are global business leaders from the world’s top 1000 companies whose subscription entitles them to send either the chairman or the CEO – not both (excepting for “sponsoring partners” like Eskom who get to send a few more). Their financial contributions make the whole thing possible.
The rest of the invitations are split between politicians, academics, civic society and the WEF’s Young Global Leaders and Global Shapers, with around 200 white badges reserved for “media fellows”. That’s the list I’ve been on for the past ten years. The invitation from the WEF, which arrives in September, is easily the most eagerly anticipated of the year.
For me, the most valuable part of the event has been my longevity. Going back every year provides a perspective of the trends and provides an understanding that global changes into perspective.
Each annual WEF meeting goes past in a blur. Five days of concentrated wisdom from the world’s brightest minds is too much for most humans to absorb in a single hit. Some participants opt out by going skiing. I take notes. And find myself referring back to them regularly, sometimes for years. Because this is the place where the global economic agenda is set. It is where those who listen carefully can absorb trends which affect all of our lives.
This year’s meeting focuses on The New Global Context. It returns to the theme the WEF focused on ahead of 2008’s financial meltdown, after which the world’s economic rebalancing and need to deleverage focused minds. Attention is once more back on seismic shifts in the global landscape – the way power was moving from developed nations to developing ones; from West to East; from corporates to consumers.
In recent years the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath took priority. But with the USA firing on all cylinders (annualised GDP growth = 5%), China continues to scoot along at 7% growth, Europe getting to grips with its issues and the stimulus of a sharply lower oil price, the world suddenly is a much brighter place. So WEF has chosen to return to the big picture. It promises to be fascinating.
For first-time attendees, the WEF annual meetings is all a bit too much to take in. There’s a mind-blowing choice of how to invest your daily 24 hours. At times you need to decide between literally ten options most of us would comfortably travel for a day to attend.
There’s also the confusing logistics. Although you’re usually safe sticking with the Congress Centre or the Belvedere Hotel 500m down the road, many of the more interesting social invitations are at one of the dozens of hotels scattered in a small town the size of Estcourt in KZN. It took me three years to stop getting lost. Even though there are two arterial roads and, indeed, two distinct parts to Davos (Dorf and Platz), an ever-present blanket of snow has a way of making everything look so similar.
For me, time allocation has become a little easier over the years. Which has nothing to do with the programme which, somehow, seems to get better every year. Apart from the obvious networking opportunities, the social scene is also a big part of Davos’s WEF week. There are also a host of breakfast invitations to consider. Those dinners, nightcaps, parties and breakfasts cut deeply into one’s sleep, so by the official Soiree that closes the meeting on Saturday night, everyone is pretty wiped out. Then comes the learning. Starting on the trip back home to Sunny SA where I get to ponder and absorb all that’s been said. And hope that invitation for the next year’s treat comes along in September.
* Alec Hogg is the founder and editor of Biznews.com and first attended the WEF’s Davos event in 1993. He returned in 2005 and has attended every year since, this being his 11th consecutive annual meeting and 12th in all.
