Compassion fatigue was a term popular in the late 80s and 90s, in the wake of Live Aid and all its offspring – the wave of socially responsible, human-rights-centred creativity that followed it. This was swiftly followed by 'compassionate muso' fatigue, as the likes of Sting and his (recently zero rated) rainforest campaigns soon became tarnished by the impression that they were looking at a smoke-tinted world from the clean air of a limo headed fast uptown. We became suspicious of water-walking multi-millionaires such as Bono et al who appeared, at least, to be remaking the world in their own ego-sphere.

An exception has been Peter Gabriel, largely because his understanding of the transformational human potential of technology has been allied with a quiet determination to prove it, rather than be adored for it. He was inspired by his father, who had a vision for on-demand content delivered via the analog telephone in the early 1970s.

'Telephone' means 'far voice' and sometimes distant voices can be the most inspiring, if only we can find a way to hear them. Gabriel has inspired enough people to recently (and quietly) receive a Nobel prize.

Gabriel's projects have been as varied as online music delivery services OD2 and We7 on a commercial basis, and Witness, the Hub, and the Elders on a humanitarian one. The Hub is essentially a human rights YouTube, and Witness is the surrounding organisation. The Elders, meanwhile, is an international group of respected figures, including Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and others, who act as 'the elders of the global village' to address our more intractable local crises. While the latter is a flawed and romantic idea, the Elders have influence because they are people who, once again, it is hard to put down the telephone on.

Today, compassionate CEOs are the order of the day, so it was no surprise to find Gabriel sharing the Dreamforce Europe stage in London with its host, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.

Benioff's Salesforce.com Foundation is behind the '1/1/1' corporate social responsibility message – donating one percent of time, one percent of product, and one percent of equity to good causes. (They've recently added another '1' for '1 with the earth' [sic], but that may be over-cheesing the world cuisine; but then again, calling it 'OneWorld' would have inspired a writ from NetSuite).

Witness and The Hub have benefited from the Foundation's work in terms of donated equity and product, and the London Dreamforce event gave them one percent of Gabriel's time to talk about it.

In conversation with Gabriel, Benioff said: “All the wood is coming [together] behind the same arrow” in terms of technology's potential to change the world meeting people's desire for humanitarian change. Gabriel said of the mobile phone: “For the first time we have to potential to put anyone in the world in touch with anyone else, and what are we going to do with that?"

Asked how real such change could be, he added: “How can you solve a problem like all the starfish washed up the beach? Well, if you can throw one back it makes a lot of difference to that one, and then to that one, and then to that one...”

So why am I telling you all this? Because it occurs to me that the outsourcing industry in particular should be the one to take up Benioff's challenge to donate one percent (or more, much more) of employee time, corporate or personal equity, and product (or service) to causes that benefit local communities.

It's hardly a difficult message, after all.

Far more companies than governments seem interested in environmental transformation, for example, and our industry, with its global reach and deep links with emerging economies could really make a difference by pouring funds and time back into communities and humanitarian projects that need both.

I will be speaking to Benioff in the near future and will ask him to share his views with sourcingfocus.com about the specific ways in which this forum can help – not him, but to set up that kind of initiative within other companies and organisations and to make it work as an agent for change.

Wouldn't you and your company like to be involved with something like that?

• In an ironic demonstration of the risks of using hosted services, the servers hosting Peter Gabriel and the affiliated WOMAD and Real World websites were stolen from Gabriel's ISP on Monday morning.

The Hub

Witness

The Elders

Salesforce Foundation