To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

Some kinds of activists are more willing to try stuff out, see if works and think on their feet, but some of the people who are working on [change] find that very difficult: They've been schooled into thinking you have to come up with the perfect plan in advance. It has become a bit technocratic.

When you get talking to people in positions of power, you find that often their worldview is framed either in terms of their disciplinary studies at university and/or the country where they first got interest in development.

There's a diversion between economic reality - integration, global village, everybody depending on everybody else - and cultural reality, which is people feeling invaded, undermined, threatened, wanting to have "stand-your-ground" legislation all over the place. It's alarming because at the moment, the fear is outweighing the benefits, and that's partially because the benefits have been so unequally distributed that lots of people don't feel better off. They feel threatened, angry and despairing.

In any system, there will be change happening without you.

Activists can get very preachy about things. It's more about understanding people's own experiences and tapping into them.

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.