Results

We missed this in February — embarrassing since we’re fans of TED and (some of us) U2.

But timing is everything and, as we continue stirring up dust on the More Than Money theme, the G8 Summit looms just a few weeks away in Scotland; so maybe this post is not so much late as held for later release.

In any event, One of this year’s TED prizes went to Irish rock star and social entrepreneur, Bono (nee Paul Hewson). Bono’s acceptance speech included a word to business leaders at the TED Conference in Monterey, California.

I’d like to talk for a second about commerce. I know we’ve got some brainy corporate leaders in the room here. Don’t you think, that on a purely commercial level, that anti-retroviral drugs are great advertisements for Western ingenuity and technology? Doesn’t compassion look well on us?

And let’s cut the crap for a second. In certain quarters of the world, brand EU, brand USA is not at its shiniest. The neon sign is fizzing and cracking. Someone’s put a brick through the window. The regional branch managers are getting nervous. Never before have we in the West been so scrutinized. Our values - do we have any? Our credibility. These things are under attack around the world. Brand USA could use some polishing, and I say that as a fan, you know… As a person who buys the products.

But think about it. More anti-retrovirals makes sense. But that’s just the easy part - or ought to be. But equality for Africa - that’s a big, expensive idea. You see, the scale of the suffering numbs us into a kind of indifference. What on earth can we all do about this? Well, much more than we think. We can’t fix every problem, but the ones we can, I want to argue, we must. And because we can, we must.

This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It is not a theory. The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this and mean it, "We do not have to stand for this." A whole continent written off, we do not have to stand for this.

If you question the Rock star’s right to speak into commerce, note the success of Bono’s brand as a business as well as artistic venture — further leveraged as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners.

Beyond business acumen, Bono demonstrated his intellect (not to mention persistence and passion) by convincing then U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill to tour Africa with him in 2002. "He understood economic theory and he understood the impact of colonialism," O"Neill said. "He knew what it was like to go into an HIV-AIDS clinic and see three people in a bed all dying together and care about it and know it doesn’t have to be that way."

To which we add the question, "If it doesn’t have to be that way, then why is it?"

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:16-20