Collegial problem solving has the potential to deliver more progress than ever before thanks to the internet’s near all-encompassing reach. I am here for that.
Reliable flows of timely, accurate information and ideas help people join together to overcome common problems. Technology has given us the tools needed to achieve such information flows with incredible efficiency.
But having the right tools does not on its own get a job done. On social media our information signal typically gets lost in the noise. This is because social media is not made to solve problems, it is there to increase our social use.
In noisy, deceptive and cantankerous information environments like social meda we will tend to cling to single sources. This leaves us vulnerable to putting too much faith in things which later turn out to be wrong.
To overcome this problem I use the communication resources available to create genuine collegial information spaces. At the centre of this is delivering a common pool of facts, drawing on decades of journalism and curated third-party sources.
I use this foundation to host lively debates on important topics centred on key opinion formers in the field. These also provide a wider platform useful for the dissemination of innovation, insight and ideas from the community at large.
The publication Alcohol Review helps foster global efforts to reduce alcohol harm. Since the early two-thousands I have also brought the approach to technology in government, health, online politics and sustainable finance.
Technology has enormous potential, but it can never replace the human effort and imagination needed to foster collegial information spaces. I hope to play a continuing role in fulfilling this pressing need. ■