Irving Wladawsky-Berger

A Tale of Deception

Sometime in 2002, a colleague from IBM’s communications team asked me if I would be willing to talk to some people that were doing a documentary on corporations and social responsibility.  I was told that the request had come to us from the CEO of Burson Marsteller, a global public relations firm, who himself had been interviewed for the documentary.  He contacted a friend in IBM and recommended that someone from the company should also participate, given IBM’s strong interest and long history in social responsibility.  Moreover, we were told that the highly respected Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was somehow involved in producing the documentary, presumably to be broadcast over the CBC sometime in the future.

It all seemed quite reasonable at the time.  My IBM colleagues felt I was the right person to do this interview given my interest in the subject as well as my personal involvement in the kinds of activities we would likely cover.  They contacted the people involved with the documentary, and asked them what kinds of issues they wanted to focus on, so I could be as well prepared as possible to answer their questions.  We got back a very good set of questions, mostly asking about the kinds of initiatives IBM was engaged in that we felt would benefit societies around the world. 

It was not difficult to come up with such a list given the many relevant projects IBM has been involved in, from the use of advanced supercomputing in personalized medicine and pharmaceutical research, to the use of IT and the Internet in particular to improve education around the world.  I was also prepared to talk about another important aspect of social responsibility, namely IBM’s exemplary record in support of diversity in its work force. 

So, sometime in 2002 I went with my colleague to a suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City where the interview was being filmed, and after some friendly chatter, proceeded to do the interview.  Mark Achbar, one of the directors of the documentary was asking the questions.

Reflections from Another Part of the World and a Different Side of My Brain

I spent the first week of September in Chile and Argentina.  Three yeas have elapsed since I last visited Santiago, and I have not been to Buenos Aires for almost four years.  It was very good to be back in these two very nice cities.

I love to travel in Spanish speaking countries, - I go to Spain and Mexico from time to time in addition to Argentina and Chile.  The reason is not just because the people are so wonderful.  After all, in my experience, the people have been very nice in just about all countries I have been to around the world.  But, being totally immersed for days on end in my native language, is a particularly pleasurable experience, and one that, as I have thought about it, is not only personally appealing but also important to my mental health.  Let me explain.

It is well accepted that a good physical exercise plan should include different kinds of workouts, some focused on aerobics to increase cardiovascular endurance, and some anaerobic in nature to strengthen our muscles.  In addition to its benefits on our physical health, a regime of exercise also improves our mental health as well as helping to reduce depression.But, advances in brain sciences have begun to show the importance of also exercising our mental faculties.  Throughout our lives, our brains need stimulation to be healthy, in the same way that our bodies need physical exercise.  A lack of mental exercise and stimulation can result in severe problems, from the time we are born to old age.

I am convinced that as we learn more about the workings of our brains, we will learn how different kinds of stimulation best help different parts of our brain, much as we have learned how to best exercise different parts of our bodies.  Furthermore, I am sure that future advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging will show that for those of us who were immersed in different languages at different times in our lives, we can best reach feelings and concepts stored in our brain by using the language were were speaking at the time we experienced and learned them.

Soft, Smart, "Pink" Power

I first learned about the concept of soft power two years ago or so.  The term was coined by Harvard Kennedy School professor Joseph Nye in his 2004 book Soft Power: the Means to Success in World Politics.  It is all about influencing behavior based on the legitimacy of your objectives without commanding it with threats or payment.  It relies on the ability to shape the preference of others through co-option, rather than coercion.

Soft power is particularly critical in our times, due to the nature of the conflicts in which we increasingly find ourselves, in particular, the global war on terrorism.  These conflicts are sometimes called the The Long War, especially within the US Military, as a way to describe our present global struggles against a variety of enemies spread around the world, which will likely last for decades.  These enemies are organized into small groups, distributed and very local - that is, living among civilian populations - but they coordinate, recruit and fund their actions around the world in a whole new set of ways.

Such conflicts have much more of the feel of a battle of civilizations or cultures.  The main objectives of the amorphous enemies in the Long War seems to be to destroy our very way of life and impose their own.  Thus, winning the Long War is perhaps as much about winning the hearts and minds of people and nations as it is about defeating, or at least containing, an enemy that is amorphous and often hard to find.

The Health Care Debates, Tribalism and The Golden Rule

Earlier this summer, I was in Berlin to participate in a Smarter Cities conference hosted by IBM.  I had not been to Berlin in a while, and was looking forward to seeing it, especially since it is one of my daughter’s favorite cities in the world.  I was not disappointed.  Berlin is a very nice city indeed, with lots to see and do, full of young people and positive energy.

But, you cannot visit Berlin and not be struck by its history, especially if you are Jewish.  Its Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe is haunting in its simplicity.  Newsreel images of Berlin Nazi rallies sweep through your mind.  And a question keeps coming up.  What happened?

Richard von Weiszacker, - who was mayor of the then West Berlin from 1981 to1984, and President of Germany from 1984 to1994, which included the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of  East and West Germany, - spoke at the conference on the history of Berlin. He reminded us that before the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, the city was the intellectual center of the world.  People everywhere learned German to be able to read the best textbooks and academic journals in their fields, much as they do now with English.  How could such an advanced civilization engage in such monstrous acts?

Numerous books have analyzed this question.  The answer that makes the most sense to me is rather simple.  Civilization is a relatively recent and thin veneer on human behavior.  People are capable of terrible actions against their fellow men, especially when they are under severe stress and are incited to blame others for their fears by skillful demagogues.