Christopher and I just got back from an action packed week in the UK with The Elders, moving their online vision and strategyproject forward (see my March blog postfor more info on this amazing new global NGO, their vision, how important online is for them, and our role with them). On the weekend Elders co-founder Peter Gabriel offered us to stay at his world famous recording studio, Real World Studios, in Box, UK, which was fantastic.
So it came as quite a fun surprise to be reading the latest Time Magazine on the flight home, and finding out that Peter has been listed as one of the Top 100 most influential people in the world for 2008! Our Elders board chair, the Archishop Desmond Tutu, wrote a great article about Peter and what a wonderful, heartful, and visionary man he is.
What is his secret? He has a heart-in our part of the world, we would give him our highest accolade and say, "He has ubuntu." It is that marvelous quality that speaks of compassion and generosity, about sharing, about hospitality.
Having had the great pleasure of spending quite a bit if time with Peter over the past few months working on the online strategy, I can fully vouch for everything the Arch says, it's all true!
The full article is here, and also describes the vision and idea behind The Elders organization, it's a great short piece. Congratulations to Peter for this great honour!