Conferences

I go to a lot of conferences and events for work, sometimes to learn and other times to network. I also organize a lot too, though usually on the small side with just a handful of participants sharing ideas and solutions to problems common to the other participants.

Beijing has an abuse off conferences. Most hotels only survive from the conference industry. They dominate here because everyone is trying to engage the all important government, and inviting them to conferences is a good way of doing this. Sometimes they are often investment related since the government is always doing its utmost to attract investment and consultants and service providers are always trying to sell their services and explain the latest changes to some relation our other. Or people are trying to train staff and salespersons which are always turning over. The are a million different industry associations all helping their members curry favour with the government and organizing those events.

In my world, the CSR (corporate social responsibility) world, they seem even more common. International organizations like the UN love funding conferences or projects that involve conferences to share projects results. There are all sorts of awards and a lot of trainings since it's a new-ish area. Then there is the philanthropy and charity space, which is  mushrooming and leads to events on charity operations, the future of the sector, and the situation of the issue the charity works on, e.g. disability rights. And with a new and evolving sector everyone is using to get in on it, from think tanks to PR agencies, consultants (of which we are sometimes one) and the media.

However I severely limit my time going to conferences here, often not learning anything new, not meeting anyone new, and not able to contribute, just listen. The events we organize are highly efficient, informal, interactive discussions on the most part, specifically for practitioners most of which are our members. occasionally we organize larger ones which are to raise awareness. Last week we focused one on how to manage environmental and social risk bringing together banks and other companies to discuss why, their approaches, guidelines etc. We also brought in the charities who have an important role to play, particularly in applying pressure to companies and exposing the bad ones (the good ones like this as it justifies their investments in being good and helps level the playing field, important in China where many still don't follow the law). It was fairly successful, I'm pleased to report.

The week before, of course, I had been at the BSR conference, the largest CSR conference in the world, with very high quality attendees and some very interesting speakers. There were also all sorts of events before and during the main conference which are more focused.  Two years ago, the last time the conference was in San Francisco, outside was the Occupy San Francisco protestors and one of the keynote speakers was Al Gore, talking about short-termism in the financial markets and how his investment firm (Generation Investment Management) seeks to prove you can make money by investing long-term, and in particular in companies that have positive environmental impacts. We did not have quite the same level of stature from the speakers this time, but we still had some really good talks on the role of technology in the future, how the media can be used to inspire people for good, how distributed solar will change the world, and how gamification can be used to change behaviors. Some interesting stuff and much more interesting than most events in China; and some fascinating people from all the big companies. The theme "the power of networks" was powerfully woven in throughout.

Aside from spending a lot of time at conferences recently, I've also spent good time with Hannah, who has really taken a liking to jumping (and finally got good at it). We've been to weddings, birthday parties, hikes and all sorts. We've also been to cooking classes (Hannah was pretty good at that, she'll be a better cook than me by next year at this rate). Still not much progress with her talking in any real language, but the listening is excellent. I think she's just realized she does not need to talk since she is so good at communicating with her hands and in her own language. One more positive news though is that we're finally sending a lot less diapers to landfill since she's got much better at using the potty!