From the World Economic Forum in Latin America , tie optional

lya Prokopoff is guest blogging for the Forum. He is a Partner at IDEO in USA and will be attending the World Economic Forum on Latin America. You can follow him @ilpro.

After a lovely evening hob-nobbing with local politicos, misadventures on Forum buses, and a late night dinner at Zuka in Leblon, I wanted to post a few quick (and very early/emerging) insights as Day One of the Latin America Forum kicks off. 

As background, at IDEO, our goal is to deeply to understand behaviors, trends, and gain a sense of context (emotional and other).  My blog entries will focus on playing back those insights to provide points for conversation, interpretation, and iteration.  They’re not meant to be final nor academic; simply a clear perspective on the conversation I’m seeing unfold.

– Definitions are Different
Words like “innovation” have radically divergent meanings to individuals depending on their roles, organizations,  country of origin, and personal notions of change and impact.  Attempting to have a robust, high-level and interactive conversation where participants don’t share a common definition of the topic can be hard, at best and dangerous, at worst.  Just because we’ve avoided imminent danger (phew!), doesn’t mean we don’t still wish for the creation of a shared language. 

– Mapping to Knowns
Sessions here focus on large, heady topics like: education, sustainable food production, and infrastructure and experts weigh in, often from the US, Europe, or somewhere-else-that’s-not-quite-Latin-America.  There’s much chattering about the deficit Latin American countries face (as compared to the developed world) when tackling these issues rather than imaging the new paths that could be taken which the rest of the world might learn from.

– Get Positive and Hopeful
There are only two sessions that both my colleague, Beth Viner, and I are jumping out of our seats to attend.  The descriptions of most sessions are enough to send even the biggest optimist into a tailspin warranting a 60-day prescription of Prozac.  What if our presumptions— the answers we all know to be true — could be set aside before the questions were even asked?  Rather than mitigating risk and girding ourselves against impending doom, let’s find inspiration for a host of changes that might take us to a new place and allow us to think about these very real conditions in a new way. 

What do you think? 

Follow me @ilpro, my colleague @bviner and our company @ideo as we continue to explore and engage with WEF Latin America.  Can’t wait to hear from you.