Nelson Mandela Tribute Hangout

In advance of Nelson Mandela’s funeral service on Sunday in Qunu, South Africa, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Reverend Mpho Tutu, the first female Irish president, Mary Robinson, and Sir Richard Branson came together for a digital eulogy using Google+ Hangouts.The conversation was hosted by +PeaceJam and +The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, and moderated by CNN’s +Anderson Cooper. Fan questions were included that were shared using #NelsonTribute.

It was a pleasure to work on this event with a dedicated team of people drawn from multiple organizations including Google, The Dalai Lama's office and Desmond Tutu's office,

The event took place on Friday, December 13, 2013 at 7.30AM EST.

You can watch the conversations between these leaders and their personal memories of working with Nelson Mandela in this youtube video.

How to Float to the Top

This is an article I published today in the Huffington Post.....

When I am at a party, the question I dislike the most is "What do you do?" I often challenge the other person by responding, "I live joyously and consciously. That is what I do." But the very idea of living joyously and consciously is hard to grasp, let alone sustain, amid the demands of a high-tech workplace.

I get at least 200 or 300 emails a day, each one a data fragment asking me to respond in some fashion. My grandfather, who was a rice farmer in a small village in India, probably had to respond to four or five pieces of communication a day. For him, once the sun went down and the cattle were back in the shed, the rhythm of life changed. Not in Silicon Valley, where I work -- the rhythm is 24/7. There is no dial to turn down and say, "I want a bit less of it." So you have to accept that these are the conditions you are choosing to have, and then ask, "In the midst of this, how can I be peaceful, happy and content?"

The fact is that technology is like fire. Ever since we've discovered fire and known how to harness it, we've found it exceptionally useful. You can cook your food with fire, you can melt and blow glass with it. But if you misuse it, you can burn yourself or raze an entire city to the ground. Technology is a powerful tool -- but whether you use the tool to be productive or destructive, to live with peace or chaos, is up to you......

for the rest of the article you can click here to go to Huffington Post

Wisdom 2.0 Conference

I spoke at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in San Francisco  today on Envisioning the Conscious Corporation. It was attended by 1800 people. Speakers included Bradley Horowitz, VP of Product for Google+, Jeff Weiner CEO of Linked In, and Evan Williams, Co-founder of Twitter.

Here is my speech.