Innovate, Integrate

It was all in good fun but, more importantly, the banter among these brilliant folks — and the many others like them who spoke — was perfectly aligned with the theme of the conference and the place where the development sector is right now: It’s all about integration.

No one is going to yell, “This doesn’t work anymore. Throw it away and try this!” (Well, Bernard kind of did … but he’s a special case.) The challenge no longer is just to be daring and creative. That might have been true at the beginning of the millennium when the sector, in general, was abuzz over the ability to accept donations online. Now you have to be daring and creative and centered enough to know how to use bright ideas, new technologies and cutting-edge strategies to both complement and bolster what you’ve been doing all along. Sure, some of the old is rubbish. But so is some of the new. And there’s gold to be found in both camps.