I was attending The Do Lectures — a series of talks, by turns inspiring, funny, jaw-dropping, but mostly humbling. The speakers come from diverse walks of life brought together by a common thread — a great story. There is a very special atmosphere in this field — a suspension of cynicism helps and any negativity is drowned out by the spirit of can-do that hums throughout.

And I got to find out what Sir Tim Berners-Lee, father of the World Wide Web and, I was delighted to discover, a Wired reader, thought of Wired’s “The Web is Dead” article.

“Not so,” he told me, “rumors of the demise of the Web are very much exaggerated” (or words to that effect).

A fascinating encounter. And his talk the following morning was equally fascinating. Beyond the insights you perhaps expect from him — “Stop thinking of the internet as another place; it is just part of the Information Society” — emerged a man who is a bewildering mix of humility, staggering intellect and unfettered ambition.

Most of us mortals would be satisfied to have achieved what he has in 10 lifetimes and yet he feels that the job has only just begun, because 80 percent of the world is still not connected and he will not be satisfied until they are.

So it struck me on my drive home, as I listened to coverage of the pope beatifying a cardinal, that he should have made a detour down the M4 — because we had some prospective saints of our own. Take Maggie Doyne — 23 years old and running an orphanage and school in the Nepalese Himalayas — both of which she built from scratch.

And this was not a story about daddy’s money paying for her to be altruistic — this was a heartfelt story about courage, resilience and youthful belligerence.

Maggie, wide-eyed, diminutive with a Joan-of-Arc zeal, had us transfixed. Stifled sobbing all around. And when she announced that her ambition was to feed, house and clothe all the other 80 million orphans worldwide — nobody blinked. Having said that, she could do with a hand, so check out blinknow.org.

The one thing Maggie does not need is a lecture in improving your motivational mindset — she got one anyway! Preceding her was Phil Parker, an osteopath, NLP master and hypnotherapist, who argued convincingly that a simple change in the language we use can resolve inertia and unlock ambition. He encouraged us to switch from negative or “passive” language to active language to gain control of a situation.

Looks like our parents were on to something with their incessant cry of “There’s no such thing as can’t”.

Another practical life lesson was provided by David Allen. He quite literally wrote the book on “Getting Things Done” and he shared with us his tips, after a lifetime of study, on how to download the unnecessary information clogging up our minds to free up what he calls “psychic space”. David seems to be one of the happiest and laid-back of men — clearly practicing his preaching. He also provided my favorite insight of the weekend on the subject of procrastination: “There is no reason to have a thought more than once — unless you like the thought”.

Other speakers of note include Jay Rogers, who has set out to change the way cars are made and disposed of; Paula Le Dieu, who is determined to recover our lost cultural heritage hidden beneath an ocean of copyright; Alasdair Harris, who will not rest until fish stocks get back to sustainable levels and Ed Stafford, who walked the length of the Amazon for two-and-a-half years to highlight the plight of the rain forest.

Yes, I know it sounds worthy — but I cannot help but be in awe of this brilliant group of people — their enthusiasm is infectious.

Having said that, it is hard to keep up this heady level of world-changing ambition, so a change of pace and some balance was needed. Thankfully this was provided by Steve Edge who galloped through his life story. Severe dyslexia, home education, living with a chimpanzee, commuting to work on horseback down the Old Kent Road at the age of 15, working with Jim Henson on The Muppets and George Lucas on Star Wars and Indiana Jones shortly after.

Steve Edge is a great showman — if you do nothing else today watch his video. In this extraordinary circus in a field in Wales, Steve Edge was the ringmaster.

Rupert Turnbull is the publisher of Wired UK Magazine

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See Also:

• How the Web Wins
• The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet
• Mashups Are Dead, But the Web is Alive
• The Web Is Dead? A Debate

Authors: Rupert Turnbull

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