Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

When it comes to recruiting, motivating and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. She argues that the old standbys of corporate HR—annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs—often end up being a waste of time and resources. McCord was the chief talent officer at Netflix for 14 years and helped create the company’s culture deck. Since its posting, the culture deck has been viewed more than 15 million times. She draws on her experience and offers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.

Twenty years ago, Heidi Kuhn, a former reporter for major media networks, founded Roots of Peace, a charity dedicated to removing the worldwide scourge of land mines and creating thriving farmland in countries dealing with and recovering from conflicts and economic instability. In Afghanistan, for example, over 5 million fruit trees have been planted. Kuhn, who has received numerous prestigious rewards, will discuss her work for Roots of Peace, an organization that turns seeds of terror into seeds of hope.

An unspoken fear haunts many women today—the fear that breast cancer is inevitable and that the clock is ticking. Everyone knows someone who has been affected. That’s because breast cancer has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. What can we do about it? The answer is: a lot. Research shows that breast cancer is a largely preventable disease. In this seminar, Christine Horner shares lifesaving information, including the many research-proven natural approaches—what to do and what not to do—that can dramatically protect against breast cancer and help women who have this disease improve their chances of surviving it. Horner spearheaded legislation in the 1990s that made it mandatory for insurance companies to pay for breast reconstruction following a mastectomy. Join us and learn over 30 different lifesaving dietary, supplemental and lifestyle choices proven to be highly effective against the development and progression of breast cancer. These same techniques also help protect against many other diseases and help one achieve and maintain excellent health. MLF Organizer Name Adrea Brier Notes MLF: Health & Medicine

This event is the latest in the San Francisco Foundation’s series on People, Place and Power. Less than a month into his presidency, Donald Trump tweeted that the “fake news media is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people.” How does this rhetoric change the public’s trust in the media and the role journalism plays in a democratic society at a time when social media has changed the way we receive information? With misinformation and partisan content influencing public opinion, journalism is reimagining its role in what has become a fact-free, post-truth environment. According to a 2016 Gallup poll, only 32 percent of Americans felt “they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media.” The media are finding ways to adapt in this current environment while continuing to inform an increasingly divided audience. The San Francisco Foundation is bringing together the Bay Area’s leading journalists and social media professionals to discuss the convergence of journalism, social media and the news. Notes This event was recorded in-front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on January 17th, 2018.

Ai Weiwei is an artist who uses many canvases to express himself. From art installations to architecture, social media to the big screen, Ai is one of the most transcendent figures in the world. His latest project, Human Flow, details human migration and the refugee crisis. The film was shot over the course of a year and covers human movement in 23 countries, people looking for safety and shelter. Whether they’re fleeing from war, politics or climate disruption, Human Flow is a thought-provoking, poignant journey through a harsh reality that large parts of the global population are not yet free. Ai, whose father was the renowned poet Ai Qing, spent his early years living in political exile with his family in Xingjian, a remote area of China. That experience, he believes, helped him empathize with the hundreds of refugees he interviewed over the course of making the film. “So since I was very young, I experienced all those very harsh political conditions like the discriminations, all those,” Ai remembers. “So that make me much easier to approach this film, Human Flow, and to see this human tragedy as part of my condition, you know. I feel there’s some connections in there.” Climate change is one of the factors that has contributed to the global refugee crisis, Ai maintains. One example? Drought conditions in Syria. “I think before the Syrian war there’s seven years of drought,” says Ai. “Many people think that also contribute to the upheavals in the nation.” Ai’s hope in making Human Flow is to shine a light on a worldwide crisis, “to see humanity as one, you know, human rights as one. “If someone’s right is being violated, we all get hurt,” he continues. “If we don’t have this kind of understanding the problem, you know, someday we all can be get hurt. Because if we only have for this kind of visual condition to see us as one family…then we can have our empathies and we can come up some kind of solutions.”

When the tough-on-crime politics of the 1980s overcrowded state prisons, private companies saw potential profit in building and operating correctional facilities. Today, more than 100,000 of the 1.5 million incarcerated Americans are held in private prisons in 29 states and federal correctional facilities, with annual revenues of $5 billion. Lauren-Brooke Eisen’s work blends investigative reporting with quantitative and historical research to examine private prisons through the eyes of inmates, their families, correctional staff, policymakers, activists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, undocumented immigrants, and the executives of America’s largest private prison corporations. Neither an endorsement nor a demonization, Eisen’s Inside Private Prisons details the complicated and perverse incentives rooted in the industry, from mandatory bed occupancy to vested interests in mass incarceration. This book is a blueprint for policymakers to reform practices and for concerned citizens to understand our changing prison systems. MLF ORGANIZER NAME George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities

World-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall talks about her life’s work, the link between deforestation and climate change and why she sees reasons for hope. Yvon Chouinard, the reluctant entrepreneur who founded Patagonia, Inc., explains how charting his own path through the wilderness led him to create a multi-million dollar sporting goods company committed to environmentally responsible design and production. Jane Goodall, Founder, Jane Goodall Institute; U.N. Messenger of Peace Yvon Chouinard, Founder, Patagonia, Inc. This program was recorded by the Commonwealth Club of California.

San Francisco and Detroit are each home to highly diverse and vibrant communities with strong community leaders and anchor institutions, but they suffer from historic disinvestment and are in need of greater economic vitality, more investments, updated infrastructure and civic attention—especially for issues relating to children. In neighborhoods across these two geographies, community leaders, advocates and policymakers are seeking solutions and looking for equitable development strategies that can allow communities to thrive. In this forum, Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, and Tonya Allen, CEO of Detroit’s Skillman Foundation, will discuss with KQED’s Mina Kim how they have attempted to tackle the enduring challenge of strengthening communities in their regions. What have they learned? What went well? What would they do differently?

Droughts are drying up lakes, floods are washing away homes and melting glaciers are raising sea levels. Rising waters represent the most visible and tangible impact of climate disruption. Protecting people and property from all that water, while simultaneously ensuring billions have enough to drink, will have unfathomable costs and alter the lives of most people living on Earth. Join us for a conversation about too much—and too little—water on a planet that is entering unchartered territory.

Rebecca Tinsley, who graduated from the London School of Economics and was a BBC reporter, became a humanitarian after reporting on the war in Darfur. She will discuss her work for Waging Peace, the first nongovernmental organization (NGO) she founded. She will also discuss Sudanese dissidents and her second NGO, Network for Africa, which helps forgotten survivors (e.g., former child soldiers in Uganda) as well as communities torn apart by war and genocide. She will sign copies of her novel, When the Stars Fell to Earth, which is centered around the conflict in Darfur. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Celia Menzcel NOTES MLF: Middle East

David Bacon has spent his life as a union organizer and activist focused on issues related to labor, immigration and international politics. In his landmark work of photojournalism, In the Fields of the North/En los campos del norte, he combines haunting photographs with the voices of migrant farmworkers, documenting the experiences of some of the hardest-working and most disenfranchised laborers in the country: the farmworkers responsible for making California "America's breadbasket.” José Padilla will add to Bacon’s account of abuse, which also includes sexual abuse, in the labor contractor work system. He will comment on California Rural Legal Assistance’s (CRLA) role in fighting and winning against an almost feudal labor system in America’s fields. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Norma Walden NOTES MLF: International Relations

How can owners of coastal property prepare for rising seas? The coastline has been in the same place for basically all of human civilization, and that’s now changing in very unpredictable and unsettling ways. Oceans will rise faster than in the past, but no one can say how fast that will happen or what’s the best strategy for protecting trillions of dollars in waterfront real estate. A week before Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey, John Englander published a book, High Tide on Main Street, predicting such a disaster. A resident of Florida, he is now a consultant to countries and cities on how to build cities that can withstand severe weather changes. Will Travis is a national expert on balancing environmental and economic priorities along the San Francisco Bay and was a top California policy official for nearly 17 years. Kiran Jain is the former chief resilience officer of Oakland and now is an executive at a startup that connects investors with municipal infrastructure projects. Join us for a conversation about envisioning, creating and paying for a new way of life by the water. This event was recorded in-front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on November 15th, 2017.

Two of five Californians live in poverty or just above the poverty line. A staggering three out of four couldn't weather an emergency expense of $700 or more. In these tough economic times, progressive entrepreneur Joe Sanberg hopes to create a future where everyone who works can afford life’s basic needs. This is why Sanberg has been the leading advocate for a California state earned income tax credit (CalEITC), a cash back tax refund that works in tandem with the federal EITC to ensure that all who work are able to afford life's basic needs. After successfully advocating for the state-level credit to be adopted, Sanberg created the grassroots campaign CalEITC4Me to connect working Californians to $2 billion of state and federal credits since 2015. Last spring, his organization won a massive expansion of the credit so that three times more families—1.7 million—will be eligible to earn the credit. Sanberg is also co-founder of Aspiration.com, a socially conscious online financial firm that puts people and the planet first. In his advocacy and entrepreneurial pursuits, Sanberg focuses on keeping the dignity of the human experience central. Join an uplifting and time-sensitive conversation with Sanberg about how we advance public policies that address California’s economic crisis. This event was recorded in-front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on January 10th, 2018.

Join INFORUM as we screen three of the films vying for a 2018 Oscar nomination for best documentary (short subject) from The New York Times’ Op-Docs. The screenings will be followed by a panel featuring several of the filmmakers, moderated by a New York Times culture reporter. In "116 Cameras," filmmaker Davina Pardo introduces us to a Holocaust survivor who takes part in an innovative new attempt to preserve survivors’ stories in holographic form for future generations. In "Alone," filmmaker Garrett Bradley explores the dilemma of a single mother deciding whether or not to marry her jailed boyfriend. In "Ten Meter Tower," by filmmakers Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson, fear of jumping off a 10-meter diving tower is pitted against the personal loss that would arise if you didn't dare. What do we look like when we hesitate and when we make a decision? What does it look like when we overcome our fears? Kathleen Lingo is commissioning editor of Opinion Video and executive producer of Op-Docs. Since joining Op-Docs in 2013, the series has published over 200 short films and virtual reality and interactive documentaries, two of which were nominated for Oscars (“4.1 Miles” in 2017 and “Our Curse” in 2015). Op-Docs films have also received seven Emmy nominations, earned two Emmys (“A Short History of the Highrise” in 2014 and “Notes on Blindness” in 2015) and won two Peabodys (“Highrise” in 2014 and “Notes on Blindness” in 2015). She began her career in documentary film working at Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions. She went on to work on nonfiction projects such as “The IFC Media Project”; the HBO documentary El Espiritu de la Salsa, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010; and WNYC’s “The Takeaway." Filmmakers Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck collaborate under the banner of Plattform Produktion in Gothenburg, Sweden. Together, Van Aertryck and Danielson direct and produce both feature-length documentaries and short films. Their short films have premiered in the official competitions of Berlin, Cannes, Sundance and Toronto, earning several awards. Their recent short film, “Ten Meter Tower,” has been seen by millions through The New York Times' website. Their films aim to have a critical and humorous approach and are distinguished by their minimalistic style as well as theme-based rather than plot-driven narratives. Davina Pardo is documentary director and producer based in New York City. She recently produced Very Semi-Serious, an HBO documentary about New Yorker cartoonists, which received a 2015 Emmy for outstanding arts and culture programming. Her award-winning documentary shorts include “Minka” and “Birdlings Two,” and her work has been supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, IFP's documentary lab and Independent Film Week, and the Sundance Institute. Pardo previously worked as David Cronenberg’s assistant and associate produced the Academy Award-winning documentary Freeheld. Garrett Bradley (b. 1986) was born and raised in New York City. She received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in film and a bachelor’s from Smith College in philosophy. Bradley’s first professional work began in high school as a concert photographer, during which her work was published in Rolling Stone, Vibe and The New Yorker. Bradley’s debut feature-length film, Below Dreams, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014. The film followed the lives of three people making their way back to New Orleans in search of a better life. A recipient of 2017 Sundance/Cinereach art of nonfiction fellowship, Bradley has been honored with fellowships from Art Matters, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Warhol Foundation. Bradley has received numerous prizes—most recently the 2017 Sundance jury prize for the short film Alone, released in February 2017 with The New York Times’ Op-Docs. NOTES In association with The New York Times

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of nine resettlement agencies in the United States. They currently resettle 15 percent of all refugees who come to the United States each year—totaling 2,800 just in Northern California in the past year. Karen Ferguson will discuss the Trump administration's perspective on refugees, the work the IRC is doing in Northern California and how they expect that work to change. She will inform the audience about the resettlement process and which refugee populations we see most often in the Bay Area. The discussion will also include refugee success stories as well as false rumors about one of the world’s most vulnerable populations. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Karen Keefer NOTES MLF: International Relations In association with Northern California Peace Corps Association This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on January 9th, 2018.