Summit was designed not around a traditional conference theme, but to stoke comaraderie around curiosity. \u201cWe\u2019re in the age of the polymath\u201d says Summit co-founder Jeff Rosenthal. \u201cPeople are into everything. They\u2019re wakeboarders who are also engineers who enjoy painting in their free time.\u201d His co-founder Elliot Bisnow calls it a community for \u201cMulti-disciplinary thought leaders with the intention of shaping the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Now it\u2019s trying to turn that intention into concrete impact so Summit isn\u2019t just a party for the privileged.<\/span><\/p>\n Experiencing Summit is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. You\u2019re gathering with an exclusive, elite community while riffing on ideas to help the impoverished. You discuss gender inequality as guys ogle women at the hot tub, with the company accused of porting in Instagram models in the past. And you\u2019re flying to a remote destination like Tulum, Mexico or living it up on a gas guzzling cruise liner while championing the environment.<\/p>\n But over the years Summit has increasingly strived to give attendees ways to give back or at least offset their guilt.<\/p>\n A mile-long dinner table on Powder Mountain, Utah a Summit Outside. Image Credit: Ian Matteson<\/p>\n That\u2019s part of the reason for this week\u2019s event is happening in the center of LA<\/a>, which is much more accessible than a cruise through the Bahamas or a Utah ski mansion. It\u2019s why Summit has finally focused on hitting an even gender ratio, improving ethnic diversity (it\u2019s got a ways to go), and offering scholarships for artists and activists that can\u2019t afford tickets that typically start at several thousands of dollars. And it\u2019s what gave birth to the company\u2019s non-profit arm, Summit Institute<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Summit has helped raise $2.5 million to protect one million acres of land in Sarara Kenya, and partnered with The Nature Conservancy to create a 77 square mile reserve off the Bahamas where its cruises tour. It\u2019s also raised $50,000 for the Fish Face program that uses facial recognition software to determine what species are being overfished.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to write-off Summit as merely a playground for prosperous that\u2019s looking to improve its image. But my interviews with the team gave me the impression that it\u2019s earnest in its drive to utilize this wealth and passion, pushing Summitters to put their money where their woke mouths are. There\u2019s even a session this weekend bluntly titled \u201cNow what? Turning conversation into action\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t get invited to any gatherings\u201d Bisnow tells me about how Summit Series got started. The 22-year-old real estate newsletter author\u2019s answer to feeling uncool? Create his own aspirational event that people he admired would attend. So in 2008, Bisnow, Rosenthal,\u00a0Brett Leve, Jeremy Schwartz, and Ryan Begelman created what would become Summit Series with their first assembly in a Park City, Utah.<\/p>\n Just 19 people showed up.<\/p>\n Summit co-founder Elliott Bisnow kicks off the weekend at Summit At Sea<\/p>\n \u201cWe come from nothing, and it was just us cold calling people for a ski trip\u201d says Rosenthal.\u00a0But by fostering an atmosphere for ambitious ideas about both personal and global enlightenment, momentum grew.<\/p>\n Bisnow and the team charged another event in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico on credit cards, and a circle of rising stars in the startup world began to coalesce. That\u2019s when the Summit crew was invited to produce an event at the White House where they brought 35 entrepreneurs like Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to explore economic issues with senior Obama staff.<\/p>\n Shantell Martin illustrates the elevators on Summit At Sea<\/p>\n That set Summit on an audacious path to being more than a vacation company. \u201cThere\u2019s this underlying hope to create community that has influence, that has access, and that has the ability to affect change\u201d says Shantell Martin, one of Summit\u2019s eventual artists-in-residence. Her notebook doodle-style illustrations would later turn the chintzy Summit At Sea cruise ship elevators into immersive daydreams.<\/p>\n By 2010 Summit was organizing fundraisers with Bill Clinton at the Def Jam records co-founder Russell Simmons\u2019 NYC mansion, and throwing a three-day event in Washington, D.C. While attendance had grown to 750, Summit was meticulous about curating its core clientele. Most were either personally invited, or had passed screening interviews after being referred by an existing member.<\/p>\n Quentin Tarantino and Kendrick Lamar speak about art on Summit At Sea. Image Credit: Amy Harris<\/p>\n But entry doesn\u2019t come down to money raised, companies sold, or headlines grabbed. Bisnow says Summit is for, \u201cfirst and foremost, really nice people. People living their passions, doing good work in the world. It doesn\u2019t just mean running a business\u201d he explains. \u201cYou can be an \u2018intrepreneur\u2019 inside of any company, you can be working with the sciences or arts, excelling at teaching . . . we want to build a community of good-hearted people.\u201d<\/p>\n That creates an extremely unique ambiance at Summit events where people genuinely want to meet each other. There\u2019s a sense that everyone has some special skill or experience worth hearing about, so it\u2019s common to strike up conversations with strangers. Yet talk usually focuses on excitement and impact rather than job titles and name-dropping.<\/p>\n The sense of camaraderie was most apparent in Summit\u2019s hey-day, with its first 1500-person Summit At Sea in 2011 where big-wigs let their guard down to dance on the deck through dawn. 2013\u2019s Summit Outside saw 700 people glamp out in tents and all sit down for a hillside sunset dinner at a single table over a mile long. There I huddled under the stars discussing gay rights activism through song with one of the playwrites of Avenue Q before he sang his new tune over an instrumental saved on his phone. When a stray ad exec bro mechanically asked who people worked for, they were chided for making the moment transactional.<\/p>\n Summit Outside\u2019s mile-long dinner table on Powder Mountain<\/p>\n Summit Outside was the triumphant inauguration of the organization\u2019s new home base on Utah\u2019s Powder Mountain that it had bought for $40 million with help from some wealthier members who are now building homes there. No Internet meant few distractions for a notoriously wired set who traded boardrooms for paintball and horseback riding in the wilderness. The band Poolside played poolside as Summitters swayed to the lazy dance rock, before night fell to the sounds of OutKast rapper Big Boi. Attendees were told they were the change-makers, responsible for delivering the empowerment vibration back to society. Cynicism was at a minimum.<\/p>\n This Summit rule became more and more critical as the community tried to scale.\u00a0The disparity between speakers and attendees widened, and some big-wigs would get mobbed between sessions while snubbing those without fame.<\/p>\n At 2015\u2019s Summit At Sea, there were 4000 guests on board, and rips in the seams began to show. Summit had become a known spectacle and status symbol, akin to a private Coachella. As friends-of-friends-of-friends were admitted, it was more about who you knew than what you\u2019d created.<\/p>\n An oversubscribed wellness panel packs in attendees at Summit At Sea. Image Credit: Daniel Fox<\/p>\n Summitters began to slip from being \u2018like-minded\u2019 into obvious homogeneity. \u201cWe\u2019re all white dudes. We know it\u201d Rosenthal says of the founding team. \u201cIt\u2019s all referrals. There is a limitation to that\u201d. New members mirrored the core, concentrated around Caucasians from NY, SF, and LA.<\/p>\n One of Summit\u2019s most popular perennial speakers, relationship guru Esther Perel, tells me \u201cA lot of people didn\u2019t feel particularly safe on the boat. Not women, not people of color. You can feel very small if you\u2019re not a big name.\u201d The natural excess of the Vegas-style cruise liners seemed gaudy when contrasted to the organization\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n Luckily, Rosenthal says \u201cWe\u00a0find criticism is the greatest gift\u201d. He understands that \u201cif we do things that aren\u2019t aligned with the culture even a little bit, then everyone is active participant in that. Any community can lose it\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Relationship guru Esther Perel calls on the crowd of Summit Outside to go make change<\/p>\n So Summit stepped up. It implemented more scholarships and discounts to improve socioeconomic diversity, selling higher-priced luxury accommodations to the rich in order to subsidize lower-priced options. It tried to internationalize the membership. It sought out top female entrepreneurs so that now Bisnow says \u201call the events are 50-50 men and women or very close to that.\u201d It improved accountability and reporting structures to weed out creeps. And it partnered with an anti-recidivism program to bring formerly incarcerated juveniles aboard the boat. Some \u201chad never left the country. None had ever been on a cruise ship\u201d says Rosenthal.<\/p>\n The strides were evident on 2016\u2019s Summit At Sea trip, which felt less boozy and sexually charged with leaders from a wider range of backgrounds.<\/p>\n Singer and social activist Harry Belafonte discussed racial inequality with John Legend, and civil rights heroes like Dolores Huerta and LeDonna Harris spoke about carrying on the fight in the wake of Donald Trump\u2019s election. Held November 9th to 11th last year, the boat became a place to commiserate Hillary Clinton\u2019s loss and unite for the upcoming struggle.<\/p>\n John Legend (left) and Harry Belafonte speak at Summit At Sea<\/p>\n Rather than a place to escape and forget the real world, Summit was returning to its roots of hoping to change it. There\u2019s still long way to go, though. \u201cThe problem is that the people who attend these diversity talks are the diverse people\u201d Martin notes.<\/p>\n One solution has been for Summit to launch a calendar of cheaper, smaller, more intimate events on Powder Mountain throughout the summers and winters. With fewer friends and programming options, attendees are better exposed to new people and the ideas Summit prioritizes. After hitting the slopes atop the hill or practicing archery and yoga at\u00a0the bottom, attendees bond on the chairlift or by the fireside instead of raving to all-night DJ sets.<\/p>\n A more intimate Summit weekend at Powder Mountain<\/p>\n \u201cI liked how \u2018Kumbaya\u2019 it was from the beginning. Most conferences give you the schedule, and say \u2018here\u2019s your networking break’\u201d, sustainable fashion company Zady\u2019s co-founder and Trailmix VC partner Soraya Dorabi tells me about her Summit experiences. \u201cI\u2019m a New Yorker and we don\u2019t hug each other. But by the end of the weekend I was hugging strangers because I truly was inspired.\u201d<\/p>\n Now the goal is spreading that sense of inspiration beyond the Summit goers and getaways. That includes using Summit\u2019s homegrown social networking app to tie the community together after the events end.<\/p>\n While unticketed civilians can\u2019t attend this weekend\u2019s programming in LA, which the founders previously implied was part of the plan, hosting Summit in a big city for the first time in nearly a decade could make members feel more responsible to the world at large.<\/p>\n Alexa Meade paints Summit\u2019s movement artist-in-residence Lil Buck before a dance performance on Summit At Sea<\/p>\n \u201cIf it can be a conduit for galvanizing people to think broadly about philanthropy, then there\u2019s an opportunity if not a duty for them to do some altruism\u201d says Dorabi. \u201cWhat I\u2019d love to see come out of Summit is measurable impact.\u201d That could mean organizing post-event volunteering, more strongly soliciting donations, and teaching members how to communicate the event\u2019s philosophies to friends.<\/p>\n The weekend\u2019s headlining talk will see Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speak about charity with his brother Mark Bezos who leads the education-focused Bezos Family Foundation. That\u2019s a stern shift from Summit At Sea 2015\u2019s big panel with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick laughing it up about the potential of self-driving cars\u2026that we all know stand to replace millions of jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a larger purpose. I\u2018m not sure if they\u2019ve reached it yet\u201d says Martin, who hopes for continued progress while commending Summit for its artist-in-residence program she thinks more companies should adopt.\u201d Perel believes the founders have gotten the mess. \u201cThey\u2019re\u00a0building an\u00a0aspirational community that\u2019s very steeped in quality of life, integrity, entertainment, and high levels of self-expression\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to have a really positive impact while we\u2019re here on earth because life\u2019s too short\u201d says Rosenthal. The kool-aid flows strong at Summit, that\u2019s for sure. Still, a culture of in-person idealism, even if naive or with gaps, is a refreshing alternative to the exhausting trudge through Twitter snark and aimless clicktivism.<\/p>\n Summit is experiencing an offline parallel to Facebook\u2019s own rocky evolution. Both have succeeded in creating community. But connecting people isn\u2019t enough. Community can be squandered, and shallow interaction can drain energy from making real impact. It can\u2019t be enough to feel good without doing good. The foundation is there, though.<\/p>\n Summit\u2019s toughest climb will be ensuring awareness and sincerity are harnessed for action. Bisnow calls it \u201ca learning festival, the ultimate post-college education.\u201d But after 9 years, Summit seems ready to graduate. \u201cWhat\u2019s the reason that Summit should exist? To date it\u2019s all been about connecting people and having a great experience\u201d Bisnow concludes. \u201cOkay. Now, on a really big scale, how do we activate our community about the issues of our time?\u2019<\/p>\n Summit movement artist-in-residence levitates above the Utah mountains<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/ekWwpQCm-R4\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMake No Small Plans\u201d is the Summit Series motto, and it doesn\u2019t. The \u201cBurning Man meets Davos\u201d event company has bought a mountain, rented cruise ships, and this week, is <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-9840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/f446f_george_ianmatteson_01331.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1\")
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<\/p>\nFrom Basecamp To Summit<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n\u201cShow love to the start-ups and don\u2019t fanboy the big-timers\u201d<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nFrom Summit To Society<\/h2>\n
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