The road to Pittsburgh with Parag Khanna

Friday marked the beginning of a 100-day countdown to Copenhagen, where the world’s governments will meet in December 2009 to hammer out a new agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Oxfam made a splash (literally) by staging an event at the London Aquarium, drawing attention its hope that some kind of safe, fair deal to cut emissions by 40% by 2020 and set aside $150 billion to help poor countries adapt to the effects of our carbon pollution will be reached. Before Denmark however, comes the last ’stop’ on the road, the next G20 in Pittsburgh.

After attending the London Summit back in March, one of the things that was very obvious was a sense of preparation in all of the answers that were given, no matter what the question covered (funny that, coming from a roomful of politicians).

This time around, one of the most important things is to try and get a real sense of how things have moved on since then. Instead of doing this on the fly, I’ve enlisted Parag Khanna to help me prepare. Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, his focus is on cultural development and its affect on policy.

Starting with the location of the Summit itself, Khanna told me just how appropriate Pittsburgh as a model is for replication of economic and environmental transformation really is. “There aren’t many transferable models in terms of eco-environmental transformation – it really depends a lot on the raw materials like the labour force, geography and markets. One could envision Detroit having green cars and other non-polluting technologies for the future if its infrastructure is properly converted.”

But Summits are usually just a chance to take a lots of ’shaking hands’ photos, make grand statements about aid that are never fulfilled (in London, the G20 agreed to treble the resources of the IMF from $250 billion to $750 billion but the deal to do so has yet to be put in place) and generally put a smiling face on something that’s actually already been decided behind closed doors.

Will Pittsburgh be any different? Since the last talks, most economies have shown signs of stabilisation or modest recovery and stock markets have risen strongly, with the MSCI Global index up by nearly 60% from its lows in early March. We should be in a steadier position to make some changes, though Gerard Lyons said in The Times last week that ‘imminent but fragile global recovery is not blown off-course by premature policy tightening’.

“There is a real complacency that might be setting in, something analogous to what happens when consumers lose interest in fuel efficient transport simply because oil prices go down. It is likely that G20 countries are going to retain the strong domestic focus that was deeply evident despite the optics of the summit. Each wants to retool its economy with a strong emphasis on domestic job creation, and that requires cleverly wiggling free of open market policies,” Khanna continued.

It’s also been noted that balancing the diplomatic niceties at power groups like G20 with the bare knuckled fights at formal negotiations under the UN framework is tough. But Khanna pointed out that actually, the G20 meetings are pretty hard going as well: “On issues like protectionism, climate, and tax havens, G20 leaders and diplomats have had extremely tough debates. So both the G20 and the UN are a mix of behind-the-scenes bickering and public photo-ops.”

At this stage, its still not certain how an agreement will be reached. The ClimateWorks Foundation says that UN climate change talks will fail to reach a meaningful agreement with the proposals made so far. “The technologies required are largely available today, the policies needed are known, and the costs are manageable”.

But if it’s really that achievable, what’s the problem? Khanna elaborated on these points: “Technologies are available but have not been deployed at the right scale, in the right places. The policies are known but many countries have only half-heartedly mandated them, and few enforce them. Costs are manageable, but in diplomacy the game has been about pushing the costs on others rather than absorbing them.”

The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change has launched a ‘Road to Copenhagen’ document which details each country’s promises. Japan, the US and Russia fall predictably far behind the other participating countries. Pressure will undoubtedly be on them during Pittsburgh and Copenhagen. The UN talks leading up to Copenhagen have not eased this either, as they have been slurried by disagreement over who should be required to take action. Rich countries taking the lead or poorer ones reducing emissions straight away?

As Khanna rightly points out, this debate has grown stale, and threatens to turn the process into another version of the NIEO debates of the 1970s in which poor countries railed against the rich in pursuit of redistribution policies. “It won’t work,” he says. “Rich countries should actively reduce emissions, but some ‘poor’ countries like China and India have more than enough money to pay for new technologies as well and stand to gain tremendously from moving in that direction now.”

Like many, including the NGOs directly involved in the G20Voice project, Khanna agrees that the April G20 summit made a raft of promises which have not been kept, ranging from refraining from trade protectionist measures, to providing agricultural support for developing countries. “Unfortunately since the G20 is not a legal/treaty-based body, it can’t really bind its members beyond peer pressure. NGOs and others are right to worry that even as Western economies appear to be recovering, they are no closer to agreement on the way forward on climate change, development finance, and other areas.”

Combine this last point with that of the ClimateWorks statament, one of the most important questions is likely to be: ‘If the solutions are possible and the funding is theroretically there, how will the G20 overcome a need to implement them without being held to a legally-binding?’

What do you think?

The Million project; a Marketer’s dream come true

I don’t usually cross-post from The Really Mobile Project, but I’m really interested in the influence on social behaviour that the Million project will have, so have decided to put it live on Vikkichowney.com as well.

I read a piece yesterday about the Million project in New York (named as such to reference the city’s 1.1 million students), which is an incentive-based scheme that rewards good behaviour and grades with mobile credit. In their words, the project aims to provide ’short-term incentives to motivate students, increase classroom participation and contribute to student’s overall success in school’.

The brainchild of Roland G. Fryer (a Harvard economist who also takes the position of Chief Equality Officer for the city), it was first implemented last year as a pilot program. Throughout June 2008, nearly 3,000 middle school students aged between 11 and 14 participated, from seven public schools across the city that had been chosen by The U.S. Department of Education.

Each child received a Samsung u740 handset (now called ‘the Alias’), and despite my own personal feelings for that particular handset (the superfluous ‘double flip’ is pointless in so, so many ways), it’s built for heavy texters so I can see how it makes sense for this audience.

The phones themselves came with 130 prepaid minutes for the first month from Verizon Wireless (in ‘Million’ points, that could also be switched out for texts). After that, students were awarded additional points by doing well in classes. All of the schools took behaviour and attendance into consideration, then added their own benchmarks.

The Million project takes the view that ‘to resolve long-standing inequities in Education, we must be willing to promote bold ideas and test a wide range of innovative strategies. The goal is to create a broad cultural movement with deep roots in the community that fundamentally changes the way students internalise the link between education and success.’

Or do you mean ‘getting stuff for free’ and success? Sorry, that’s just me being cynical isn’t it? I’m loathed to throw in the ‘learning for the sake of learning’ point here, but it looks like I just have.

Anyway, translating the marketing garb above means that the people behind Million have realised that kids now live in a world where the Internet is forced down our throats at every turn and handheld mobile devices reign supreme. So therefore, it’s in this world that they are most likely to be reached and engaged. Well, I’m not sure I agree. Yes, use technology to engage and as a tool to support learning – but is this not just a bit of bribery?

I watched a TED talk a few weeks ago, which featured Dan Pink discussing the link between scientific research into how successful incentives really are and the way that businesses design their reward programmes. The good old ‘candle box’ problem demonstrates functional fixedness (only seeing an object as it has been presented to you, not its potential use). Dan talked through an example whereby those promised larger rewards performed badly when asked to complete this test, as they were so fixated on the prize that they couldn’t see the woods for the trees.

Time after time, it’s been suggested that anything even remotely cognitive requires a certain amount of flexibility. I’m reminded of a story in which children in Sweden (or Amsterdam possibly, it’s a shame I can’t remember) were given the opportunity to plan their own curriculums. The increase in performance, discipline and behaviour was astounding. And we’re all familiar with Google’s 20% free-time allocation to developers so that they can work on whatever they feel most passionate about. Google Suggest, Orkut and Gmail are among the many products that have been created as a result of this perk.

Let’s get back to the Million project though. As the project evolves, exclusive content will be developed and made available to students on the phones (wake-up calls from celebrities, gift certificates for shops, free tickets to events for instance). Plus, the hope is that teachers will be able to engage students as well, sending homework reminders or answering questions whenever needs be. I’m not entirely sure that the teachers will be wholly happy with the extension of their duties in this respect, and it strikes me that should one of them forget to remind a class about a test, it’s a bit of an easy route out of taking responsibility for their own actions for the kids.

The estimation is that students should be able to earn the necessary points to allow for ‘normal use’ of a mobile phone, and Million suggested that parents may want to consider putting existing contracts ‘on hold’ for the pilot period to save money. Now, you certainly can’t do that in the UK and I wasn’t aware that you could in the States? I suspect that it’s a more likely to be a badly worded section within the official FAQ, as they go on to point out that parents will still be responsible for any termination cost for canceling or suspending existing phone contracts. It’s still nice and confusing to anyone that doesn’t really understand the specifics of what canceling a contract can actually equate to.

In fact, when you read a little deeper into the aforementioned FAQ, you see that New York’s mobile policy will remain in effect and schools will treat Million phones the same way that they do any mobile: they are not allowed in schools. Is that not a big ask though? To expect a child of 11 to engage with the free phone they are being given, to associate a sense of ‘reward’ to it, but then not use it at school itself?

In what could be one of the most ridiculous rebuttals to this criticism (as I’ve discovered that many others share my concerns), New York’s Schools Chancellor – Joel Klein – actually uses the fact that you can ‘remove the battery’ as proof that it can be ‘tailored to not be used during school hours’. The fact is, if they think that a) kids don’t just put their phones on silent during lessons or b) would ever purposefully remove the battery before coming to school, they’re kidding themselves. And that’s not even considering the fact that most children with phones have been given them by their parents in case of emergency on the way to or from school, so rendering the phone useless before they’ve even left the house is just ridiculous.

Additionally, as ad agencies Droga5 and Poke have a fairly big part to play in this, the phones are being pitched to potential sponsors as a way to market their products to every single student in New York in the near future. David Droga, head of Droga5, said in a presentation at Advertising Age’s Idea Conference recently;

“There’ll be some room for advertising on the phone. After all, the phones – while provided for free to the students – won’t be completely without cost. As such, marketers will be able to infiltrate the students’ world through responsible sponsorships. There are lots of brands out there that have a place in students’ lives.”

As mentioned previously, there will also be opportunities to provide discounts or send out special offers to students, which is just another good way to sell more products. Looking online at parent’s reaction to this, they seem to less than happy about a continuation to deny mobiles to students who need to communicate with their parents if they get into trouble, but will freely give them away as a way to sell them products.

Whichever way you look at it – good or bad idea – the period of your life where getting access to phone credit is top priority is short-lived. How will those kids that have worked hard throughout this period to get something for free find the motivation to do so in college, or in their working life?

I’d love to see some more quantifiable results from this project, but right now it seems like a smart way to use a technology that younger people relate to on paper, but in reality, a great opportunity for marketers to plug directly into the minds of the younger generation.

Lovebox: Day Two

The last of my non-tech related posts of late, so bear with me as I return to Lovebox Weekender for a second day of festivities.

You can also watch the full interview with Bombay Bicycle Club (whose namesake I actually found while wandering around Maida Vale on Saturday) on YouTube.