Summit Reflections: Sam Simon

"I hope it's a Renaissance because Renaissance suggests enlightenment. And while we're clearly in a period of dramatic and permanent change, driven by change in technology, I think the biggest opportunity and challenge is that it be for the good."

SAM SIMON, Senior Fellow, Intersections International

Sam Simon has spent nearly 40 years working at the intersection of power and values in our nation's capital before becoming Intersections' first Fellow. His energies focus on programs intended to influence power with the values of peace, justice and reconciliation. Simon's career includes work with Ralph Nader, positions on the Hill and in government agencies and over 20 years heading a consultancy that specialized in bringing disparate interests together to develop win-win solutions. Sam has also been a leader in the media reform movement working closely with the Reverend Everett Parker of the UCC's Office of Communication and later with Reverend Robert Chase. His many leadership involvements include serving as Vice-Chair of the Board of Overseers of the New York campus of the Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion; Vice-Chair of the Board of the World Institute on Disability, and is former chairman of the board of the National Consumers League.

The following are edited excerpts from a conversation with Linda Gerber at the 2010 IVOH Summit.

How does your work connect to the open source world?

Well I'm personally connecting on multiple levels. To begin with my own work has been in media and I've known and worked as a media reformer and activist supporting, giving people access to media both as listeners and producers for 20 years. Taking it into my work at Intersections, we're finding that we need to use the arts and the media as a transformational device. We think art and transformational art whether it's television, dance, or theater can actually lead and transform people to do the right thing. I speak of it as leading advocacy. And increasingly media can be produced in this way by very small organizations. And so it's an important and critical tool perhaps in changing the world or for my religious background called repairing the world. We call it Tikkun Olam, which is wanting to make the world a more just and better place. And clearly transformative art and media and the access to be able to distribute it which is what open source does is a crucial part of that.

What has happened to you here at this summit that has inspired you?

The Images & Voices of Hope World Summit is at, first of all, an extraordinarily moving location, Peace Village. And the idea of bringing deliberative or meditative practice, along with an intellectual practice, and thought practice, and transformative practices, is very different and very moving. And it helps center oneself. And of course the wonderful people that are here. And the short time, it's only a short conference, yet we found so many people working on so many similar projects all over the country, in fact all over the world. And simply meeting and seeing people and the work that they are doing to change the world inspires us to think, inspired me to believe that what I'm doing can make a difference.

What are you learning?

I think the learning at the conference that's most fundamental is the fact that it's happening. "It" meaning use of media for transformational change in the world. Seeing a film of the virtual chorus itself is a form of learning. So what's nice about this is that we're experiencing the change ourselves. So as we meet to talk or think and collaborate we are ourselves part of the change and moved by what we see.

What new questions are you asking?

As excited as I am about the new media, the Conference raises in my mind the real question of how far along are we? Where's the line between aspiration and reality? What we want the media to be able to do and what open source media can really do -- that concern in that puzzle was defined when during a discussion, we talked about how great the new media, the personal media was. But the sign of the success was it got on broadcast television. And we are I think trying to figure out when is the day when the impact of the media, the new media, the open source media is equivalent to the broadcast media. And I don't know that we're there and I don't know if we yet know how we're going to get there. So I think that that's one of the things that has me thinking deeper as a result of being here.

Where is the opportunity in this open source - open access world?

The hope is that somehow a million small voices will come together and move those in the world that ultimately have access to the resources that will bring a new era. One of the opening presentations at the conference argued that we're in a Renaissance, that we're in a time of change. I hope it's a Renaissance because Renaissance suggests enlightenment. And while we're clearly in a period of dramatic and permanent change, driven by change in technology, I think the biggest opportunity and challenge is that it be for the good. We can't assume that those with it and working with it will always be those who are out for a better world. There are those who will use it for their own purposes to consolidate power, to maintain or continue tyrannical or evil regimes if you will. And the potential is quite great, but it isn't forgone conclusion. And so what we need to do is work at this with a level of energy and commitment being aware that it isn't a given. That without the groups like Images & Voices of Hope and those that are here that transformational age may well not happen.

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