Bilderberg

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Bilderberg: The ultimate conspiracy theory

Later this month elites and power brokers from around the globe will meet, somewhere in northern Italy, for the 50th annual meeting of the Bilderberg group.

As the article from the BBC indicates, the Bilderberg group is a very secretive meeting of the world's elites, this year including John Edwards and Mrs. Bill Gates.

So, how does this article interest MeshForum? Well at least two ways. One, as a meeting and group that has lasted 50 years we may have lessons to be learned from what they do and how they do it. Two, as an example of networks it is an interesting one.

Especially as a secret or fairly secret network, it raises the question of how to accommodate pockets of secret information when trying to map out a network, especially a social network.

In fact in many types of networks what may be known is not that there is a direct specific link between two nodes, but rather that by going through some "black box" two nodes can be linked - in the case of social networks this might explain a linkage between Mrs. Bill Gates and John Edwards (or a Financial Times reporter who apparently also has attended meetings), in the case of a technical network the black box might be the internal network of a corporation vs. the "public" network.

It also raises the question for MeshForum about how open/closed a session to hold. On the one hand open sessions with access via people off site over the web and access by journalists and other media allows for the messages of attendees (and sponsors) to be spread far and wide and encourages the goal of MeshForum which is to connect networks and people around the topic of Networks.

On the other hand conferences where there is a line of privacy, even secrecy seem to be popular with the world's "elites" the security of privacy seems to be attractive to them, there may also be a multitude of political and legal reasons whey off the record meetings are more attractive.

Certainly, for example, were we to get someone from the Fed to attend MeshForum, that person's comments and remarks may be limited if those remarks are "on the record". If we have CEO's or other senior executives from publically traded firms, quiet periods and the like may limit what they can say about their ongoing business for fear of violating some insider trading/SEC regulation. Etc.

That said, it is my personal view that the best networks are open and exclusive. Open in that anyone who qualifies and participates is welcome, but exclusive in that networks often function best when they appear to be a group of peers - whether in an industry or in terms of intelectual interests or specific abilities (for example, I would be unlikely to be much a part of the "network" of triatheletes.