Peter Hopkins
President and Co-founder
Recent Activity
As President Obama doggedly prioritizes universal coverage over a thorough revamp of the healthcare system that would deliver truly efficient, sustainable care, “Obamacons”, like me, who helped elect him, have no one to blame but themselves. "Small government" minded in my political philosophy, and a registered Republican in my affiliation, I knew I was ultimately cutting off my nose off to spite my face in voting for the President. Nonetheless, I took the plunge under the weight of Bush fatigue and the jaded expectation that neither party could really be trusted to keep the size of government in check anyway—plus, Obama is just so damn charming. … Read More
August 31, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Politics & Policy
Peter Hopkins commented on How Do You Succeed In Business During a Recession? on June 3, 2009, 12:39 AM
Mendonca's idea that the challenges of adapting responsiveness, by making old processes and ways of doing business accord more with the new speed of business is spot on. I'd love to hear McKinsey's methodologies for identifying slow or static processes and how to gauge the what's possible in any given context or instant.
Peter Hopkins commented on Lenny Mendonca: How Can You Make The Most Of Technological Revolution? on June 3, 2009, 12:15 AM
The notion of real-time monitoring that Mendonca references is pretty striking -- especially his analogy that companies are now following consumer behavior with the same circumspection that national intelligence agencies follow foreign agents!
Peter Hopkins commented on Lenny Mendonca: Will Big Government Change The Rules Of Commerce? on June 3, 2009, 12:06 AM
I'd like to hear more about Mendonca's notion of how governments and businesses will interact differently in the future, especially in the long-term as its efforts to enhance productivity in labor intensive industries takes hold. Specifically, I wonder he envisions the process of unwinding these government efforts and scaling back government as a whole.
I'm the co-founder & President of Big Think, which is dedicated to promoting informed discourse online through video interviews and getting users involved in the conversation. The site launched in beta in January of 2008 and currently features over 400 expert contributors, from John McCain to Harrison Ford. Before my life at Big Think, I was a PBS producer, where I oversaw a partnership with Google to digitize and archive 5,000 hours of content from the Charlie Rose show and launch a new multimedia website to distribute it.
Peter Hopkins commented on Why Dictators Babble on September 24, 2009, 9:49 AM
Great piece, Lionel -- it makes perfect sense!