BDA Summer Update: Letter from Keith
Dear Friends of BDA,
It¿s been a busy summer for BDA. A lot has happened since our meetings in New York on June 19.
Cari Guittard, Tom Miller and I, aided by our summer intern from Leipzig, Germany, Claudia Hoehne, have been active on a number of fronts.
What follows is a summary of key events and happenings.
Highlights of June 18-19 Meetings
Symposium at The Levin Institute
On the evening of June 18, BDA joined with The Levin Institute to stage a panel discussion in Levin¿s state of the art facilities. Panelists were Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, former Ambassador to the United Nations and member of the National Security Council, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, and John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. Garrick Utley, formerly of NBC News and now head of The Levin Institute, did a superb job of moderating the panel which was themed ¿America¿s Role in the World: Looking Beyond the Election.¿ While differing on certain issues, the panelists were in agreement that a new administration, no matter which party wins the White House, would give higher priority to improving our relations with the world. Ambassador Soderberg¿s new book, The Prosperity Agenda: What the World Wants from America--and What We Need in Return, spells out a strategy for a renewed US global engagement. The audience of 120 people engaged in a lively Q&A following the moderated session.
Senior Advisors Meeting
On the morning of June 19, BDA convened our bi-annual Senior Advisors meeting. The meeting was held in the world headquarters of Sesame Workshop. We are most grateful to board member, Gary Knell, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, for contributing his board room and catering for this meeting and for the BDA Board meeting which followed.
A highlight of the morning was a presentation of Panwapa, a new television show from Sesame Workshop. Panwapa is a fictional island with a premise that the island can float freely all through the planet earth¿s oceans allowing residents of the island to visit freely with children from many lands and differing cultures. Brett Pierce and Anita Stewart of Sesame Workshop took us through the on-line version of Panwapa which provides a number of interactive ways by which children can become more knowledgeable world citizens. Sesame Workshop is a model of public diplomacy in many ways. Sesame Street, with slightly different names in different places, is now in 140 countries and works with local co-production companies in 22 countries. Most important, Sesame does what anyone practicing public diplomacy should do¿it first listens carefully to the special concerns of those in the countries being entered, then, without losing integrity of the Sesame brand, it tailors characters and content to the local situation. www.panwapa.com
Advisors were brought up to date on BDA progress along the five paths of S.T.A.R.S. These included updates on the World Citizens Guide program, the Arab & American Business Fellowship program and BDA¿s participation in the Rice-Chertoff Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee. Advisors engaged in a lively discussion which included many positive comments and suggestions for which were noted and are greatly appreciated.
Regular Meeting of the BDA Board
In addition to conducting official board business at its regular meeting on the afternoon of June 19, members received a presentation by Dr. Patricia Alvey on the status of the World Citizens Guide Website. The new site, www.worldcitizensguide.org, was previewed and favorably received. It has already gone through a soft launch and shortly, the World Citizen Guide booklets and folders will be available for sale on the site.
The board also received a most interesting presentation by Jasmine Nahhas di Florio, Vice President for Strategic Planning at the Education For Employment Founndation (EFE). Thhe EFE organization is devoted to building innovative, scalable and replicable models for youth employment in the Middle East, North Africa and the broader Muslim world. Ms. Nahhas di Florio showed how EFE establishes local foundations to work with local businesses, learning their job skill needs, then working with schools to train young people for those jobs. EFE with headquarters in Washington, DC and its New York based Ron Bruder, have been profiled in Time Magazine, the Financial Times, Economist.com and many other media, most recently on the PBS television program NOW.
Board member Mark Morris reported on a Zogby/BDA poll of American voters, 68% of whom believe we should be building bridges to foreign publics. The survey also revealed that 70% of respondents believe that American brands boost America¿s image abroad.
Other reports dealt with programs outlined below.
BDA Programmatic Updates
¿ Arab & American Business Fellowship
With Tom Miller taking the lead on this exchange of young business executives, the class of 2008 is taking shape nicely. As you recall, our initial group of seven came from Arab companies in five countries and, last October, spent a week in New York, a week in Des Moines, Iowa and a week in Washington, DC. Though small, the project was deemed a success by all concerned and, based on our learnings from last year¿s pilot program, the 2008 version should be even better. One new feature is that funding has been secured to send ten young American executives to two Middle East countries in a reciprocal exchange during the same time period. The young Arab executives and the young American executives will then meet in Dubai at the end of their respective internships to exchange views and perspectives.
BDA¿s partners for this exchange program are Young Arab Leaders Organization in the Middle East and, in the States, The U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy and the National U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce. As of this writing, 13 high potential young Arab executives have been confirmed for the 2008 program, which begins October 3 in New York. We are especially grateful to this year¿s sponsors which include three BDA board members: Gary Knell, President, CEO of Sesame Workshop which has agreed to sponsor two visitors, and Alan Siegel, Chairman of Siegel+Gale and Michael Rawding of Microsoft who have each agreed to sponsor one. Details of the program are on our website or contact BDA Vice President Tom Miller at Thomas.Miller@ddb.com
Please note we are still actively seeking American candidates for the Fellowship.
For More Information please go to: http://www.businessfordiplomaticaction.org/news/press_release.php?id=6060
¿ World Citizenship Program
Executive Director Cari Guittard is working with Advisor Dr. Patti Alvey to complete the on-line version of the World Citizens Guide, which will allow individuals and groups to purchase quantities of the guide. A hard launch of this new site will take place on October 1, 2008 during a World Citizens Town Hall Event at SMU in Dallas.
For more details, contact Cari at cari.guittard@sf.ddb.com
¿ CultureSpan Workshop
CultureSpan, the new workshop on global corporate diplomacy developed by BDA and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, is being marketed to both companies and government agencies. This excellent product, the development of which was led by BDA Board member Mansour Javidan and Tom Miller, consists of a one-day intensive seminar for up to thirty participants who are also given access to a toolkit to help them better understand the world and more successfully engage with international cultures. Please refer to the program brochure for additional information: http://www.businessfordiplomaticaction.org/files/culturespan_brochure_for_printer.pdf
For more details contact Tom Miller on Thomas.miller@ddb.com
¿ BDA joins with The Brookings Institution to seek input on restructuring public diplomacy at the federal level.
BDA has taken an active role in supporting a study being conducted by The Brookings Institution, at the request of the U.S. Department of State and Congress, to plan for a public/private interagency public diplomacy center which will serve as a program integration and coordination entity for the United States public diplomacy programs. Tom Miller has been working closely with Brookings and the U.S. Public Diplomacy Council to organize and conduct five separate listening events to which interested parties are invited and asked to share their views. Three of these events took place in Washington, one was held in New York and one in Los Angeles. So far, the views of more than 200 people have been collected. Separate interviews with individual subject experts are also taking place.
The study will be independent, non-partisan, and forward-looking. Its mission is not to comment on specific policies or politics, but rather to set forth a vision for an organization that can cultivate and draw on the talents of a diverse range of Americans from the public, private and non-profit sectors. It seeks to imagine what tools and structures America will need to conduct public diplomacy effectively in the next fifty years. Specifically, it will evaluate whether the proposed organization is necessary and, if it is, recommend the organization¿s mission and range of activities, governance and structure, and how it will interact with existing U.S. government agencies and private organizations both domestically and overseas. The study is due to the Congress at the end of September. It should be noted that BDA Board member Gary Knell has been chosen by Brookings to serve on the Advisory Board of this project. Contact Tom Miller for further details.
¿ BDA partners with The Language Flagship to stage corporate roundtable discussions.
The Language Flagship www.thelanguageflagship.org is a national leader in designing, supporting and implementing advanced language education. The organization seeks to promote a more active partnership with the corporate sector and has therefore reached out to BDA to help them stage a Metro Language Series of roundtable workshops aimed at broadening input from the private sector and gaining sharper insights into language and cultural factors that affect business success. Cari Guittard is leading this project for BDA. Two roundtables have been conducted in San Francisco and Seattle, a third is scheduled for September 24 in New York. Contact Cari for more detail.
On behalf of Cari and Tom, I want to thank all of your for your continued interest and support. I hope you¿re all having a good summer and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Warm regards,
Keith
