Quick Peeks

Lisa Devaney

Normal 0 Helicopters have now stopped circling overhead in London, as the world's leaders leave town following the G20 summit, but what remains is a brewing network of ideas and people who are inspired and hopeful to make changes that will solve issues of the economy, the environment, war, world poverty and many other agendas.

While it remains to be seen what kind of difference the G20 gathering will mean to our everyday lives, if anything, there has emerged, among some, a renewed sense that change for the better can be possible. This week, two happenings really got me excited and optimistic for what’s to come – when a group called we20  launched, and a group of 50 bloggers called G20Voice got to view the inner workings of the summit.

we20: Ideas For A Better World

We20’s aim was to get discussions going prior to the G20 summit about how solutions can be achieved for the major issues of concern, and put forth ideas and plans of actions that they hoped would win attention from the world’s leaders. To date, about 20 proposals on everything from the financial crisis to ending world poverty have been uploaded to the website, and the group is working to grow the grassroots movement online and offline. I posted a full write-up of we20 here, along with the insights offered at the launch by the economist John Kay.

The Blog-Eye-View On G20

Richard Murphy, who writes the blog taxresearch.co.uk, became the first blogger in history to be given an opportunity to question Gordon Brown, which was a fantastic moment displayed in front of the world’s media. The bloggers also interviewed Bob Geldof and other political and celebrity leaders, and saw Barack Obama’s speak.

Among the bloggers was social media consultant, and founder of the popular weekly networking group, The Tuttle Club’s Lloyd Davis. I saw Lloyd today following his exciting experience being part of G20Voice and got to hear his thoughts:

“What gets me is trying to understand what $1 trillion dollars really is, and how it will make a difference in our everyday lives. There is also a huge gap between the content of what was discussed in the communiqué planning, and how this information translates to ordinary people. The people at the top aren’t very good at communicating what the ideas mean to the rest of us and I think we need layers of communication to push through the concepts and better understand the complexity of what is happening. I don’t understand it all, and that leaves me, and others, to have to trust our leaders. But do we and can we trust these leaders? What also struck me is that here was a gathering of great leaders from 20 of the world’s leading economic powers, and not too long ago we were all in a tense situation of possibly killing each other. It is really important that we are at a point in history where they were able to sit down and talk to each other about the economy."

Davis has been blogging his thoughts from the G20 experience over on his blog Perfect Path.

Surrounding the G20 summit, was, of course, the thousands of people who have been protesting a multitude of issues throughout the last week. While violence got the majority of the attention, the protests managed to push the public’s thinking agenda toward key issues of jobs, the environment, war, poverty and more.

I was a participant in the protests this week and went along to both the Put People First rally, and followed along the Green Horse in a theatrically presented series of four parades called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the Bank of England, and also spent some enjoyable time at Climate Camp. It was an experience. While I was, fortunately, not an eyewitness, instigator or victim of any of the violence that took place, I did come very close to getting “kettled” and was so glad I got out in time. I’ve posted my personal thoughts about this experience on my blog here.

Glad that the city feels back to normal,

-Lisa