Here is the last installment of an Annual Meeting blog from George Polk. While it comes a little late, it’s really worth the read….

"Today started with breakfast with General Musharraf of Pakistan, after the carefully prepared and packaged presentations from other world leaders, Musharraf’s blunt and fairly unapologetic defence of his role was refreshing. My perception may be affected by the fact that my 3* hotel, despite the SF350 a night bill for a lousy room, couldn’t muster up any hot water this morning, so I had the pleasure of starting the day with a cold shower before making my way out into the still dark freezing morning. Or it may be the contrast between Musharraf (my second breakfast of the morning), and my first, an event sponsored by BT on the useful but far more mundane topic of driving innovation in organizations. As BT has done a surprisingly good job of turning an old monopoly into a strong, commercially driven organization (like many, I both compete with and supply BT), it was a good topic for them to sponsor, but it couldn’t compete with Musharraf for raw power. Musharraf is a tightly coiled spring, with a rawness and immediacy that is compelling whether you like him or not. I had the feeling that at any moment his chest would begin to swell, like the Hulk, until the civilian clothes fell away and he stood tall and proud in his general’s uniform. His speech is peppered with references to his past as a warrior – “I have killed men,” is not a phrase one imagines being used by either Bill Gates or Tom Friedman who were breakfasting next door. He clearly enjoys the shock value of his colourful references to his bloody experiences, and he views his current role as a battle where he represents good. He is a man who is clearly in control, for better or for worse, and he cannot help but place himself in the middle of all things. He uses the word “democracy” to describe a system where people have a say in government as long as he has the last word, arguing that the British version of the concept is not appropriate for Pakistan. As well it might not be, since (reflecting on the terrible record of first the colonial powers – and then the “elected” governments all have) has not yielded pluralism in the past. Interestingly, the most powerful objection to his rule raised in the questioning sessions was a complaint that he had not used his undemocratic powers to introduce crucial but unpopular revisions of the country’s laws against women. If the intention of the breakfast was to impress the audience with the power and vitality of the man, it worked. If it was to reassure investors that Pakistan was on a stable and economically dynamic path, I think it failed. In many ways, his talk couldn’t have been further away from the technology sessions of the day before, which continued after I last wrote with a talk on the socially disruptive power of technology-enabled community applications ranging from Linux to Wikipedia. We touched on a wide range of subjects, and we focused on what the effects will be on people and society of the shift from personal to virtual contact. The fascinating fact of the session is that it has now been discovered that when two people touch, the heartbeat of one affects the brainwaves of the other. How do you do that in cyberspace? I’m not sure that assembled people would know, since the most popular session of all remains the one from Thursday on how to understand and sustain romantic relationships. So popular that it is being rerun on Saturday…

–George Polk Founder and CEO, The Cloud, and World Economic Forum Technolog Pioneer