State of the Gateman Address

I went along to the Gateman Goes Global lecture yesterday evening, in part because I wanted to see the famed Gateman (half of which the UBC student population seems to have had for an Econ prof), and the other part because I was interested to hear about what kind of work he does in Kenya.

I’m not sure if it’s the flu/overexhaustion/whatever illness I’m currently suffering that is speaking, but I was a bit disappointed.

Let’s split it into a one-part good and two-parts not-so-good evening.

Message-wise, I thought that what Professor Gateman was trying to say — to do business with compassion — was important. The concept of a social business is one I ran into when I started reading Muhammad Yunus’s book A World Without Poverty (and which I have to finish) so it wasn’t all over my head. But I don’t know… I found myself disagreeing with a lot of what was being said, the whole thing was clearly addressed to just business students (with some economics ones thrown in) so there was nothing about what anyone who’s not a businessperson can do, and I wish he’d spoken more about what he’d actually been doing personally, but I suppose the message is a start.

Organisation-wise, well, clearly the marketing was excellent given the number of people who turned up (well into the hundreds). Starting the actual event was quite another issue: a girl told me the doors would be opened at 6:15 (since the event was starting at 6:30), but we didn’t get to go inside until 6:50, which was somewhat ridiculous. If the event had started on time, I suppose I wouldn’t have been so cross about the 20 further minutes of promotion that the International Business Club and Economics Students Association were obliged to give.

But oh, the crossest part of the night was probably with my fellow students. When Professor Gateman paused his lecture and handed the mic over to a UBC alumni to talk about her experiences in Africa and with social businesses, a fair number of students started to get up and leave, and they kept leaving all the while she was talking. I absolutely could not believe how rude people can be. If you must leave because of an emergency or other plans or whatever, leave during an interval, not in the middle of someone’s speech. I can’t imagine how discouraging it must be to see so many people walk out while you’re trying your best to say something you feel is really important.

All in all, I am rather disgruntled with my fellow UBC students. And my sore throat is clamouring for my attention now.