(OFF) Thanks very much...
(David Price) This is the ........ - shrinking (check) presentation.
It was originally 25 minutes, last night it was 23,
now it's 22.
I've got a 45-minute presentation, I'm just going to speak twice as quickly.
No, I'm only kidding, it's only 20 -- 22 minutes.
And I've got to think of the time to make sure I don't go over.
About four moths ago, I was diagnosed with cancer of the colon.
And what was it? Seven weeks ago, I had the operation
which kind of went OK, got rid of the tumor,
But when the colon got reconnected, it sprung a leak
and I got a thing called sepsis, which I later discovered,
is fatal in 60% of the cases.
What essentially happens with sepsis is
the organs start to pack in, one after the other, so
my heart was fibrillating, I lost -- kidneys stopped working,
lungs stopped working, so they pumped me on a ventilator.
And my wife Claire (check) who is here somewhere
was told to bring the family around, because they didn't expect me
to get through the week-end.
As you can see, I survived, and this is actually the first talk I've given
since I was in intensive care.
I was in intensive care for a week.
So, when a sick -- no, no honest (Applause)
But when I say I'm delighted to be here, I'm not just being polite.
(laughter)
I'm talking existentially rather than conversationally.
But I wanted to start with that story because, in that process of the journey
from diagnosis to operation, I met with some remarkable people:
on forums and ingress (check) groups, but I also visited and interviewed people.
So I interviewed some people in the Netherlands
who are treating their loved ones, who've got end-stage cancer.
They are lay people, computer technicians
who, frankly, conventional medicine has given up, they're stage 4,
they said there is nothing more we can do,
so they're administering endovenous cocktails of drugs.
some of which are approved, some of which are off-patent,
some of which are off-label (check).
I visited a clinic, here in Germany, which I can't name, because
they kind of operate in the shadows in fear that they'll be closed down.
And what it seemed to me, once I looked beyond health
is that this is a phenomenon which is happening
in all kinds of areas of public life.
That we're seeing what I call people-powered innovation.
And I think it's a real challenge for institutions and organizations.
So, why is it important?
I think it's important because it's kind of a natural consequence
of the issues I talk about in my book "Open".
where, now that we're able to share and exchange knowledge,
we're now at a point where we want to do something about it,
we want now to be more in control of our own lives.
But I think it's particularly important for the people who are in this room today:
educators and human resource people. 3:05