New Reality? It’s All Relative. – Alison Levine

Alison Levine is a guest blogger for the World Economic Forum. She is an adventurer, explorer and mountaineer. She is president of Daredevil Strategies and currently serves as an adjunct professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She is attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

If you were me, what would you do to prepare for your first World Economic Forum in Davos? You’d talk to those who had first-hand knowledge of the event, right? So I did that. And here is what some conference veterans told me:
 
1.    “It’s going to be really cold.”  Cold? Ha! I’ve climbed Mt Everest. Twice. I spent 6 weeks skiing across Antarctica. So it’s -5 ºC? Fantastic. I’ll pack my swimsuit.
  
2.    “The hotel rooms aren’t very luxurious.”  Are they nicer than a tent pitched on a steep, icy slope at 24,000’/7315m? Will they withstand 75mph/170kmph winds? Can you get up to use the bathroom at night without fear of falling to your death? Super. This will feel like the Four Seasons.

3.    “There is no room service and the food isn’t exactly gourmet.”  I’ll bring my camping stove and fire up some freeze-dried meals in my room. And if I have an extra packet of rice left over I can feed Kate Moss for a week.

4.    “You will have an opportunity to interact with business, political, academic and cultural leaders who want to facilitate global, regional and industrial change. These are people who aim to improve the state of the world. Now.”  Whoa. Improve it now? NOW? Maybe we should give ourselves a little more time?  But the reality is that we don’t have more time. I damn well better have my A-game on in Davos. Because this isn’t a lecture series. It’s a call to action.

This year’s meeting theme is ”Shared Norms for the New Reality.” That could mean lots of different things, based on your own reality I guess. So what do you get when you combine George Soros, Sean Parker and Peter Gabriel? I don’t know. But I’m about to find out…