March 20th, 2005
PC Forum: Who are the trustees?
Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, kicked off PC Forum with an apt topic—trust. Who can you trust? Gardner came up with the notion of trustees, people who are well known, widely respected, unbiased and impartial. They would be willing to resign on principle. He mentions George Kennan and Edward R. Murrow as examples of trustees in the past. He cited a survey taken in his home town of Cambridge, Mass. asking locals who they considered a trustee. The list included Alan Greenspan, Oprah Winfrey and Jon Stewart (The Daily Show). Enough said. Gardner also noted that people believe that the media is too scrutinizing, revealing flaws in everyone, with an end result that nobody can be trusted, although when asked who is closet to being a trustee, journalist Tom Brokaw (NBC) and Tom Friedman (NYT) were mentioned.
Professor Gardner then discussed living in a culture without trust, where people (especially the younger generation) think they need to cheat. The issue of trust in business, especially since the debacles of Enron, Worldcom etc., is one of the most onerous problems we face as a society. He concluded by saying that the best argument for a society of trust is the human imagination and committed leaders. He gave an example of Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach for America, which bring teachers to low-income rural and urban communities, as a citizen activist who embodies trust…at least from his learned perspective.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
