COMMENT:A THOUSAND conferences and seminars are held daily across the world, during which 10,000 speeches are delivered while 200,000 eyes squint at powerpoint presentations.
Much of what is said at such events amount to little more than hot air and cliche. Over the course of a day, delegates droop, eyes glaze over or are cast towards heaven. At one moment or another, attention wanders to matters more urgent, interesting or pleasing.
Conferences – see reasons above, and more besides – are often dismissed as talking shops and gab-fests. That was a charge levelled against the Global Irish Economic Forum on its inaugural gathering two years ago. And such sentiment has not been absent on its return.
But that sort of criticism is cynical and unworldly. Attending conferences of any kind concentrates minds. There are few events from which you do not learn something and at which ideas do not cross-fertilise.
At least as importantly, contacts are made from which more ideas and opportunities can be generated.
Consider Davos, the ultimate talk and networking event, which takes places each winter at an Alpine resort in Switzerland. Measuring outcomes and deliverables from Davos is impossible, but busy people do not give up their time to attend for no reason. The Swiss do not spend money staging it for nothing.
Collecting members of the Irish diaspora from the four corners of the world in a single place is smart thinking. The diaspora is a huge resource that no one could say has been exploited to the full. Too few efforts have been made in the past to plug into it and tap its energy for the Republic’s benefit.
The forum does this, and should be applauded for its efforts.
The event concentrates the minds of attending ex-pats and those with tangential connections to the Republic on what is happening here. It also emphasises how they might contribute to its advancement from their positions of influence abroad.
Thinking and engagement generates ideas. Successful people have, more often than not, advanced because of a capacity to come up with ideas and demonstrate an ability to make them work.
Bringing hundreds of achievers together creates the potential for all kinds of opportunities, from the purely philanthropic to the strictly commercial.
If a criticism can be made of the event, it is how organisers attempted to curb private conversations. After chatting to someone in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, a tut-tutting official approached me to say that most of the courtyard’s expanse was out of bounds to journalists. We were to be corralled in a roped-off corner.
Organisers could take a leaf out of Davos’s book. Communal areas in the Swiss resort are open to all: politicians, corporate titans, reporters and Bono. There is no attempt to prevent private conversations. Mingling is the name of the game. That is how contacts are made, acquaintances renewed, information exchanged and influence peddled.
