Aspen Ideas Festival Social Media Recap: Day 4

July 1, 2014 • Kara Burney, Guest Blogger

Day 4 of the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival featured the annual Afternoon of Conversation event with prominent leaders from the worlds of business, academics, and politics, including Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra K. Nooyi, Former US Vice President Al Gore, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

As interviewer David Gergen noted, the first three featured speakers in the Afternoon of Conversation were all distinguished female leaders. The commentary and candor offered by these three highly accomplished women led many fellow Aspen speakers to take to social media to share their favorite sound bites. Here are a few of the tweeted takeaways that resonated most with the audience at the Festival and beyond.

Drew Faust on Leading Harvard University

In her conversation with David Rubenstein, Faust shared the statistic that 60 percent of Harvard students are on financial aid, noting that education is fundamentally about equality and justice. The United Kingdom’s Executive Director of Digital, Mike Bracken, took to Twitter to share Faust’s emphasis on the importance of public service, while Twitter’s Head of News, Vivian Schiller, shared Faust’s quip regarding her university’s notoriously stringent admission standards.

Wow. 20% of harvard students apply for teach for america annually. Also harvard opening up pathways to public service. @aspenideas

— Mike Bracken (@MTBracken) June 30, 2014

Harvard President Drew Faust when asked how parents can help get this kids admitted: "Make them interesting" #AspenIdeas

— Vivian Schiller (@vivian) June 30, 2014

Hillary Clinton on the Integrity of Leadership

Post by Aspen Ideas Festival.

Clinton’s highly-anticipated conversation with Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson brought an outpouring of commentary from fellow speakers on social media, most notably on the issues of political participation, women’s rights, and the integrity required to make a run for a political office. Below are a few of the trending sound bites from environmental politics and policy reporter Ben Adler, President of the Brookings Institution and Former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, and Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter.

Hillary endorses automatic voter registration for every citizen when they turn 18. It's a good idea. #aspenideasfestival

— Ben Adler (@badler) June 30, 2014

.@HillaryClinton at #AspenIdeas Festival says "women & girls' rights part of our foreign policy is not a luxury – it's an imperative."

— Strobe Talbott (@strobetalbott) June 30, 2014

"Anyone seeking office who says they'll never compromise shld b automatically disqualified." #HillaryClinton #AspenIdeas

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter (@RosabethKanter) June 30, 2014

Indra Nooyi on The Misconception of “Having It All”

In her conversation with Chairman of the Atlantic Media Company David Bradley, Nooyi shared insights into both the changing trends in American food and beverage consumption and the challenges and required strategies to balance professional responsibilities with family and personal commitments. The latter struck a chord with PBS’s own Gwen Ifill, who tweeted Nooyi’s comment about the myth of “having it all.”