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NEWSLETTER
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Five Great Moments from Aspen Ideas Festival 2015 By Judith F. Samuelson
What ideas stick from the 2015 Festival? Here are five to get you started.
Disrupting elections: The Pluribus Project is a new venture of the Aspen Institute that builds on the work of Stephen Heinz and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The goal is a lofty one: to rebalance power in the United States by infusing elections and connections with the power of the many, rather than the few. The MO is to support the innovators, including technological innovations in social media that will allow for “Disrupting Political Campaigns: Shifting Influence From the Money to the Many”. Watch Lucas Welch’s powerful presentation of how the change will take place. (It’s good to remember that technology can be my friend.)
When an idea goes viral: While the crowds surged into the big tent to see Katie Couric interview David Brooks on his recent book on character, I chose the lesser path and joined a small but grateful audience to hear Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, talk about “The Jesus of History versus the Christ of Faith”.
His talk reminds me of the great power of ideas to shift the conversation to a different place. It helps if the actors involved are gifted storytellers, but when the conditions are ripe for change, extraordinary things can happen.
Hope to address climate change: One of those moments took shape before my eyes watching Ronald Brownstein’s masterful interview of Tom Steyer on “Why California is Leading the United States in Energy Innovation”. Steyer’s key point: Get cracking and utilize a pricing mechanism to enlist markets and address climate change before it is too late. Watch to the end to see Tom mix it up with his nemesis David Koch, who had listened from the front row. A true Aspen moment.
What is an employee worth? And then another disrupter: Dan Price, who has earned more than 10 minutes of fame by cutting his own pay as CEO and raising wages in his Seattle tech company, Gravity Payments: “The $70,000 Minimum Wage”. Dan’s thoughtful analysis of the business drivers behind the real value of his employees has created waves in the market and across the airwaves.
Jazz: a metaphor for America: Finally, don’t miss the grand finale with three New Orleans natives: Walter Isaacson’s interview with masters of the art of jazz, Wynton Marsalis and young Jon Batiste, who will soon join The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as bandleader. Jazz, in all its complexity, is a metaphor for what makes this country great: ingenuity, innovation, collaboration, call and response, and syncopation—bound by rhythm and melody.
Watching Marsalis on stage on the 4th of July, while he listens to young Batiste play his rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”, is a wonderful moment—and a reminder of the great stew of the United States, where infinite possibilities for change and innovation still reside. What is possible now?
Judith Samuelson is the founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program (BSP),which was established in 1998 when she was head of the Program Related Investments program at Ford from 1989 to 1998. Aspen BSP respects the power of business to shape the long-term health of society and works to align business decisions with the public good. Judy is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and received a Bellagio Fellowship in 2013 from the Rockefeller Foundation to write on her experience influencing business. Follow her on Twitter, @JudySamuelson.
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