Written by: Emily Pan Moro, Churchill Club Volunteer

He does not want you to think he is a hero.  A little less than a year ago, he did not even want you to know his name and identity.  Yet Wael Ghonim, who was head of marketing at Google, Middle East & North Africa, has been a catalyst for change, utilizing one of today’s most widely used social media tools—Facebook—to bring on a revolution in Egypt.  Born in Egypt, Ghonim, who attended Cairo University and later on American University in Cairo for his MBA, shared his inside story of how he came to lead the Egyptian uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in January 2011.  Laura Sydell, NPR Correspondent, guided the conversation while the activist’s story captivated guests’ attention.

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Accidental Revolutionary

Frustrated with the turmoil developing in Egypt and with how the regime was “violating human rights,” Ghonim assumed the identity of Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat who became the key opposition leader against then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.  Ghonim created ElBaradei’s official Facebook page and used the page as a springboard to promote democratic reform.

Soon after Ghonim saw a photo of a young middleclass Egyptian, Khaled Said, who police had beaten and killed.  He decided to put the spotlight on the police and expose their brutality.  He created another Facebook page titled “We Are All Khaled Said” anonymously, frequently making video posts and updates, quoting from news sources.  The page eventually became a center for protest planning and communication.  

During the interview, Ghonim emphasized to the audience that there was no real strategy or plan to his actions; it was coincidental he became one of the leaders of this “leaderless movement.”  The Facebook page he created for Khaled Said is apolitical, just like Ghonim himself, and followers responded positively to the page because of its mainstream purpose and content.  Ghonim focused on organizing based on what the people wanted to do and looked forward to reader feedback.  “Red lines” for the revolution came naturally from the people’s input.  “Every revolution is a people revolution” Ghonim states. 

January 25, 2011

On January 13^th, Ghonim saw the strength of the people’s power when Tunisia’s dictatorship fell.  This sparked Ghonim to start discussing if Egyptians should follow suit and plan its own revolution.  On January 25, 2011 and working with a trusted group of people, Ghonim gathered activists and protesters to mobilize people on the ground, starting from the poorest neighborhoods to gain critical mass and leading to Tahrir Square.

The following day, authorities detained Ghonim and questioned him on his role in the protests.  During this time, Google started a large campaign to determine the activist’s whereabouts.  The campaign notified hospitals, police stations, and other organizations that their employee was missing and urged these institutions to protect him.  He was released on Feb. 7 after 12 days of arrest. 

A Humble and Mature Leader

Ghonim spoke modestly on stage as he recounted his experiences from the past year and shared his thoughts of Egypt’s social climate going forward.  In self-reflection, Ghonim realized he has become more patient as a result of organizing the protests, acknowledging that results take time.  When an audience member asked how he would respond to critics, Ghonim answered with the reply “I agree with them,” stating that his intention was never to become famous and he takes the bad with the good.  Given the choice a year ago, he would have remained anonymous. 

Ghonim believes Egypt’s revolution is still unfinished.   Going forward, he will fight against dictatorship and be the first to support causes that he believes in whole-heartedly using any tools that are available (“in a good way”) to communicate with people.  However, as much as he supports social media in promoting a cause, he firmly states:

“The first spark of a revolution is still within the power of the people, not in the power of social media.  Revolution starts on the streets, not online.  The people will bring change through collaboration and visions will mature in the next several years.”

Wael Ghonim is currently on sabbatical from his role at Google to start his own NGO supporting education and technology in Egypt.  His first book, Revolution 2.0 was released in January 2012. 

Hollywood and Silicon Valley converged at a Churchill Club  Premier event in Santa Clara on July 18 to discuss the growing connection between talent, technology, and opportunity.

Ari Emanuel (co-CEO and Director of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, talent agent, and inspiration for the popular television personality Ari Gold from Entourage) sat in between Jeff Weiner (CEO of LinkedIn) and moderator Kara Swisher (Co-Executive Editor of AllThingsD.com). While the meat of the discussion focused primarily on talent, conversation was buttered with business anecdotes, personal jokes, Taylor Lautner references, and the occasional high-five.

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The Economics of Talent:

“Economics has changed the relationship between money and talent,” said Emanuel. “For example, if you take a celebrity’s webpage, like—” “Taylor Lautner” chimed Swisher. “Let’s say his website gets 47,000 hits, but his eight different Facebook pages get over a million hits total. We can program his social presence by identifying where he is most popular—namely Facebook—and then combining all those pages into one for maximum efficiency as a fan and as an agent.”

Weiner said that social presence is based on the “platforms,” or basically the medium chosen to showcase one’s talents. “It’s not surprising that people become famous on YouTube or Facebook, because that’s what those platforms are intended to do,” he said.

Just as sites like YouTube showcase talent, LinkedIn provides a powerful platform for networking opportunity. Weiner shared a story about a female college film student who sent him a personal thank you note because her entire senior project was funded by one of her LinkedIn connections. “What its purpose comes down to is connecting, networking, ultimately sharing,” said Weiner.

Best Advice:

“‘Stay in traffic’ and ‘Great ideas and great voices are more important than ever,’” said Emanuel.

Weiner added: “Imagination is the only thing that cannot be commoditized. And, everything that can be converted to the web will be.”

Measuring Talent:

Perhaps the ultimate difference between talent and technology is the inability to measure and identify talent through a set system; essentially, there is no algorithm for talent.

“Identify or predict talent through data? I don’t think you can,” said Emanuel. “I don’t think you can predict Larry David…No, I don’t think you can.”

Of the evaluation list in searching for talent, Emanuel put data last. Weiner, on the other hand, said that in his process for recognizing aptitude, he puts data first and talent second. “There is a little difference between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but at the end of the day, we both need, and our work involves, talent,” said Weiner.

Emanuel agreed and added that if talent could ever be measured, then a more rigorous process is required for the “algorithm of talent.”

“But that’s the magic of it all! We can’t predict talent,” said Weiner. “Who said we needed another singing competition on television? Wasn’t American Idol enough? But now we have The Sing-Off and The Voice and The Glee Project. There are not enough television talent shows to contain the amount of unbridled, immeasurable talent out there!”

The Aggressive Talent World:

Business can be cut-throat…especially showbiz. Emanuel and Weiner wrapped up on the topic of their “aggressive career strategies.”

“I don’t know what my mother fed me, or my brothers, but I love what I do,” said Emanuel. “Every time I start a project or a movie, it’s like starting a business, and I love both. The reason I’m so aggressive is because I love it… You gotta go into something that you love.”

Weiner shared his key to success as well: “Ultimately knowing what you want to accomplish. It’s surprising how often people nowadays don’t know what they want to accomplish.”

written by Hannah Miller

The Churchill Club program on Oct. 27 with James Cameron and Eric Schmidt still has me on a very big high. To me it was an incredible dream to hear one of the world’s most successful and widely knowledgeable technology company CEOs in a candid discussion with the world’s most successful filmmaker—who is also a pioneering technologist, formidable creative force, and activist for environmental conservation. Their complementary core values, interests and intellect bridged their different worlds and made for fascinating conversation. 

They also had fun. “And tell us the plots,” said Schmidt to Cameron, upon hearing from Cameron that Avatar sequels 2 and 3 are due within the next five years. 

“Exactly, OK!” replied Cameron. “And if you think I’m going to say that, you could just show us your source code while you’re at it!”  Much laughter and applause.

Then Schmidt, “And by the way, a lot of our source code is open source, so there!” 

Schmidt opened the program and set the pace with a brief introduction (the best kind): “I am absolutely convinced that Jim Cameron is the most important media creator, director, and movie producer we will see in our entire lives,” and with that, invited him to the stage.  Their lively discussion ranged from 3D cameras and TV to making movies, Avatar, the environment, deep ocean exploration, the American Dream, and more. 

The audience later gave them a standing ovation.  And the next day we received dozens of comments such as, “I will always cherish the memory of yesterday evening and hope it will inspire many of us towards greater roles and contribution to society.” “Perhaps the best event I have attended, although it’s hard to beat entertainment/saving the world/technology future/exploring the ocean bottom all in one night.” “I was blown away by the passion and intellect of both presenters.” “Their interplay was wonderful!  Each was great!” 

Personally, I am grateful for the authenticity and rich conversation these two shared with us. I (and 600 others in the live audience) left enlightened, informed, inspired.

For your interest (and hopefully inspiration, too), here are some of Cameron’s remarks: 

Avatar: “To me the film was about contrasting grandeur and intimacy, and contrasting stark terror and absolute beauty.  I think it’s in these dynamic polarizations that we have a full experience.” 

Avatar’s success: “At its core I think part of the reason the film succeeded and fell on fertile soil around the world and all cultures, is that I think there’s something right now in the human psyche and the human heart, which acknowledges that we are becoming disconnected from nature, and that we have a debt to the natural world and that we are on a precipice.  …If we don’t take control of our role and our stewardship of the planet… the world that we bequeath to our children and our grandchildren is not going to be a livable place.” 

What drove you, long before you knew your films would be so successful? “…for me it’s about challenging myself, trying to do something people haven’t done before, and that comes from curiosity. I mean, all of the exploration stuff, wanting to go down and see what’s at the bottom of the ocean, is the same thing as wanting to see something on a movie screen that couldn’t exist before.” 

Environment concerns: “I’ve been very concerned about energy for at least 12 or 13 years. I went completely off the grid, with a 48- kW solar system myself in 2000.  Avatar is as much an expression of my angst around these [energy] issues.  You talk about mass extinction.  If global warming is left unchecked, which is the current plan—the business as usual plan is to do nothing, and that’s what our leaders have planned for us as of today—we will have extincted 70% of the species on the planet by the end of the century. This century—90 years from now.” 

What can we do to turn environmental disaster around: “We need to evolve, mentally, and philosophically, to something that’s never existed before. We need to become techno-indigenous people of an entire earth.  Not of a nation, not of a state, but of a planet.  I don’t know how we do that.  Maybe it’s one of those tipping point things in a good way.  You notice now that the rate of rollout of solar power is accelerating very rapidly; it’s been a very slow start and the total percentage is still small, but the curve is starting to inflect upward.  So I have to think that people of good conscience have to prevail.” 

Are you going to the deepest part of the ocean? “I’m four years down the line in building this vehicle.  I am going!” What do you expect to see?  “That’s why we go, because we don’t know.  If we knew what was there we wouldn’t go.  So, we’re going to see animals that have never been seen before.”  

Perseverance and perspective: “I was having a really bad day, down in Wellington, New Zealand, and I was two and a half years into the [Avatar] film…just having a meltdown.  Everything was going wrong, we were going over budget, and we hadn’t solved a bunch of technical problems, and I was just cranky with the whole crew.  I went home that night, and I woke up the next morning, and I thought, ‘you know, you did Titanic, you really didn’t need to work again.  If you did this to yourself again, there must be a reason.  It’s because you like it.  So, remember that you like it!’” 

--Churchill Club CEO Karen Tucker

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*Photos by www.zatphoto.com