Just reading this now. I love the approach and especially the tangibility of it—identifying specific institutions, eventually developing specific plans to influence them in specific ways.
Of course there are people spending billions of dollars to influence some of these institutions, but that doesn’t mean that a small, well-organised group cannot have an important impact with a well-designed, focused campaign.
My first reaction to the list itself is that it feels quite narrow (government institutions and IT companies). I wonder if this reflects reality or is just a result of the necessary limitations of a first iteration with quite limited resources. Nobody could question that every institution on this list is an important, influential institution, and if you manage to influence any of them in a positive way, that will be a great success.
My point is more that there seem to be whole classes of organisations and institutions with huge impact which are not represented at all in the list. And while one could perhaps argue that any one of the institutions listed is more important than any one of the institutions I suggest below, I’m not sure that necessarily means that the most effective way forward is to focus on just the types of institutions listed, vs. looking at what potential there is in a much broader group—especially focusing on the question of influenceability (on which I’d suggest several of the institutions listed above might score quite poorly).
Here are a few of the categories I would have expected to see in the list, but didn’t:
Oil companies, whose decisions are critical to the climate-crisis. Also OPEC, Gazprom and others.
Pharma companies who have a critical role to play in global health—for example their decisions about enforcing patents in developing countries or allowing low-cost copies.
FMCG Companies (Procter & Gamble, Unilever, …) whose products are used by billions of people every single day, so anything they decide about health, or waste, or water-quality impacts so many people across the globe immediately. They also directly and indirectly (including supply-chain and distribution and sales) employ vast numbers of people all around the world, and their employment practices and policies directly impact many millions.
Weapons manufacturers. Probably not realistic to hope they all just decide to stop making weapons, but they could do a lot by just not selling weapons so freely to authoritarian and inhumane regimes.
Scientific bodies. So much of the world is driven by technology, which isn’t just IT. It’s true that bodies like governments and the EU do influence scientific research, but there may be many much-more-easily-influenced bodies which can also impact this. Maybe something as simple as requesting a speaking slot at an annual conference in which we’d highlight the gaps and opportunities could help create a new body of relevant research and development.
Etc.
I’m not criticising the work—I think it’s fantastic! - but rather wondering if it would be worth someone doing a second iteration and looking at some of these bodies which may not have been so obvious. All the ones I’ve listed above just reflect my personal expertise and experience as a chemical engineer, so probably is also far too narrow. Would be interesting to see what ideas we might get from a group of others, maybe historians, geologists, teachers, lawyers, biologists, astronomers, …
Really looking forward to following this and seeing where it leads!
Just reading this now. I love the approach and especially the tangibility of it—identifying specific institutions, eventually developing specific plans to influence them in specific ways.
Of course there are people spending billions of dollars to influence some of these institutions, but that doesn’t mean that a small, well-organised group cannot have an important impact with a well-designed, focused campaign.
My first reaction to the list itself is that it feels quite narrow (government institutions and IT companies). I wonder if this reflects reality or is just a result of the necessary limitations of a first iteration with quite limited resources. Nobody could question that every institution on this list is an important, influential institution, and if you manage to influence any of them in a positive way, that will be a great success.
My point is more that there seem to be whole classes of organisations and institutions with huge impact which are not represented at all in the list. And while one could perhaps argue that any one of the institutions listed is more important than any one of the institutions I suggest below, I’m not sure that necessarily means that the most effective way forward is to focus on just the types of institutions listed, vs. looking at what potential there is in a much broader group—especially focusing on the question of influenceability (on which I’d suggest several of the institutions listed above might score quite poorly).
Here are a few of the categories I would have expected to see in the list, but didn’t:
Oil companies, whose decisions are critical to the climate-crisis. Also OPEC, Gazprom and others.
Pharma companies who have a critical role to play in global health—for example their decisions about enforcing patents in developing countries or allowing low-cost copies.
FMCG Companies (Procter & Gamble, Unilever, …) whose products are used by billions of people every single day, so anything they decide about health, or waste, or water-quality impacts so many people across the globe immediately. They also directly and indirectly (including supply-chain and distribution and sales) employ vast numbers of people all around the world, and their employment practices and policies directly impact many millions.
Weapons manufacturers. Probably not realistic to hope they all just decide to stop making weapons, but they could do a lot by just not selling weapons so freely to authoritarian and inhumane regimes.
Scientific bodies. So much of the world is driven by technology, which isn’t just IT. It’s true that bodies like governments and the EU do influence scientific research, but there may be many much-more-easily-influenced bodies which can also impact this. Maybe something as simple as requesting a speaking slot at an annual conference in which we’d highlight the gaps and opportunities could help create a new body of relevant research and development.
Etc.
I’m not criticising the work—I think it’s fantastic! - but rather wondering if it would be worth someone doing a second iteration and looking at some of these bodies which may not have been so obvious. All the ones I’ve listed above just reflect my personal expertise and experience as a chemical engineer, so probably is also far too narrow. Would be interesting to see what ideas we might get from a group of others, maybe historians, geologists, teachers, lawyers, biologists, astronomers, …
Really looking forward to following this and seeing where it leads!