People Power: Collective Intelligence in the New Era of International Co-operation

medium.com

Gooch image from article

Excerpt:

We live in stark times: times when the values of openness, collaboration and global integration are being questioned; times when the notion of citizenship and engagement are being reframed; times when information sharing, meaning and truth take on a new dimension, in a digital, direct and fast paced 21st century. As an Organisation [Paris Peace Forum] emerging from the rubble of the Second World War, we know only too well that peace cannot be taken for granted. On a daily basis, we live and breathe how dialogue and co-operation can help strengthen a peaceful world and improve people’s lives.

Today, we are communicating in an environment where public opinion is divided based on very different experiences of life. If we want to get through to people, we need to speak a language that resonates with their experiences, rather than engaging on aggregate numbers and cold, inhuman data. The 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis provides us all with the opportunity to pause and reflect on the distance between classical economic thinking, and the models it was based on, and the reality people’s everyday lives, lives that are still feeling the effects of the Global Financial Crisis a decade later. ...

Anthony Gooch was appointed Director of Public Affairs & Communications at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in April 2008. Prior to this he headed the European Commission’s Media and Public Diplomacy [JB emphasis] operations in the United Kingdom, promoting the EU’s major global policy initiatives on issues such as Climate Change. He has a Postgraduate degree (DEA) in Political Science & International Relations from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris and an MA in Modern History from Cambridge University.