ZUCKERBERG: Expert content still needed

“THERE’S something I always tell people, but they don’t really like it. If somebody ‘screws’ you, you ‘screw’ them back and never let them get away with it. Life is nasty.”

That was the blunt advice given by real-estate mogul and reality show host, Donald Trump, at the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 (YES 2009) yesterday.

Speaking via live video-conferencing from his office at the Trump Tower, New York, to the Putrajaya International Convention Centre on the fi nal day of the summit, Trump had a captive audience as he noted that it took much effort to become a great entrepreneur as “Rome was not built in a day”.

“Stay focused. It’s very important. When the market crashed, quite a number of my friends were badly affected. Some of them even went bankrupt but I never did. I worked harder than ever before and I was totally focused.

“Your ability to stay focused, however, will be totally useless if it does not come with discipline. The bottom- line, however, is our ability  to handle work under pressure,” he said.

Trump was a last-minute addition to the day’s roster of speakers — which included chess legend and activist Garry Kasparov, marketing director of Facebook.com Randi Zuckerberg, Andes plane crash survivor Nando Parrado and AirAsia CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

Zuckerberg shared with participants the many initiatives and successes Facebook has had in pioneering social interaction and change in the political, entrepreneurial and humanitarian fronts  — recalling the BC  News/  Facebook Presidential Debates and Comcast’s Facebook Diaries, along with highlighting new products such  as Facebook Connect.

During the Press conference later, Zuckerberg said Facebook has no plans to charge users and addressed concerns about identity theft.

“We take identity theft seriously. You can report a profi le if you feel that the behaviour is that of an imposter or not represented accurately.

If found in violation of our terms of use and services, we will take down the account,” she said. In response to a question about the future of traditional media sources and how it may soon be circumvented by social media and platforms, she said: “I think that things are changing. I don’t think it’s a question of traditional media
over social. You can see that organisations such as CNN have so many fans on Facebook.

“It’s clear that people still want expert content, they still want media content, they just want it in a different way, they want it where they are.”

She also advised public fi gures and leaders to utilise a public profi le — to allow for unlimited connections
— and urged leaders to get involved in the conversations that are happening on Facebook about how people feel about issues and to not let the conversation  happen without  them.

The whirlwind pace of YES 2009 continued well into the final day and as the summit drew to a close, thoughts of “what next” invariably followed.

YES 2009 director of youth  communities Khailee Ng was optimistic about what the summit had achieved and noted that the next step was undoubtedly up to the youths.

“It’s been a big inspiration for them to just be here at the summit. It breaks a glass ceiling of sorts where they think, ‘Oh, we’re so far away in Vietnam’.

They feel so disconnected from global icons but after this, they go ‘Hey, anything’s possible, I just spoke to Biz Stone’. So it’s  more of a confi dence thing.”  Ng added that another profound impact was the opportunity for youths in attendance to meet, network and be inspired by one another. The one lesson youths should take home was that in order to make change happen, they needed to engage with leaders.

“You’ve got to be humble and  not think that you are going to be the one to change the world. You’re not. You’re just trying to  facilitate change that’s already going to happen and you need to rope in other people to help you do so. Your vision is not just your vision, it’s a vision big enough for everyone to be in.”