A BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

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THE
BLOGGER'S ROLE IN THE MEDIA

THE
BLOGGER'S ROLE IN THE MEDIA 01/22/2004 02:12 AM

Yesterday I received a delightful note* from Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Support Economy, which describes what I listed as one of the most important political & economic ideas of 2003. Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, who wrote The Future of Freedom, wrote to me last fall about my review of his book on these pages. And I've communicated recently with one of the editors at Fast Company. I didn't take the initiative in any of these communications.

The fact that leading writers and journalists know we bloggers exist, and take the time to thank us and clarify their thoughts (and ours) in correspondence with us, comes as something of a surprise to me. It is at once sobering and flattering that we even appear on their radar screens -- there are, after all, millions of us, and, at least in this corner of the blogosphere, we're not even A-listers.

I think in fact we play a much more important role in the media than we might think. That role is a result of the power of our networks, which are more dynamic, sensitive and agile than those of print journalists and book writers. We can sense quickly and effectively when there's something happening -- a shift in public consciousness or attitude, a new issue or idea gaining traction -- because of our connectedness, because of the strength of weak ties and those ties' ability to create at least small tipping points. If the mainstream media are the stomach of the media beast, its power plant, we are its antennae.

This role provides us with both opportunities and responsibilities we might not realize. The opportunity depends, of course, on what your blog is about, but there should be some general principles that apply to any of us in this periphery of the information society. Here are a few ideas on how bloggers could connect better with other media, and perhaps raise our profile and expand our role in the process:

Tell the media you're talking about them: If you cite a writer in your blog, and do anything more substantial than just link to something they've written, let them know. Even if it only brings results 10% of the time, invite them into the conversation. Many professional writers have no idea what blogging is about, and you can really open their eyes to the opportunities for connection and idea exchange.
Find their personal e-mail addresses: Work to bring print and audio-visual media writers into our networks: Try to dig out their e-mail addresses, encourage them to post them at the bottom of their articles, the endpages of their books, the bottom of the screen, the end of the broadcast, the media company's website. Letters to 'the editor' or to 'the network' or to 'the program' just don't cut it any more. We want to get personal. Once you've got their e-mail address, use it, but do so sparingly and always send them something they can use.
Make it easier for them to reach you: We bloggers need to do a better job of identifying our own e-mail addresses on our sites, so that mainstream media people can find them without looking for cryptic symbols in the corners of our pages.
Offer to collaborate: Volunteer to play a role in a favourite writer's follow-up or next article or next book. Feed them ideas, briefly, thoughtfully, as often as they occur, but but don't take it personally if they don't respond. Writers have lots of irons in the fire, and often live hand to mouth. Malcolm Gladwell's recent article on SUVs and learned helplessness was mentioned as a project in progress in an interview he gave five years ago. And remember they work for editors, and even if your contact likes your idea doesn't mean it will necessarily see the light of day.
Make yourself available: If you have the gift of speaking impromptu, the media are always looking for articulate subject matter experts who can give them quick sound bites on controversial issues. Just make sure you think before you speak!
Don't exaggerate or misrepresent: Identify and respect your sources, but don't be afraid to volunteer your own opinion. And never, ever, make anything up, or lie about your sources or your own credentials. You'll get caught, and you'll be toast.
Do the work that they can't: Understand that their writers make their living from what they do, and are very unlikely to pay you, or even share much credit with you, and don't want you writing the story for them. They do want you to do their research for them, however -- most writers today don't have time or budget to do investigative reporting, chase unsubstantiated leads, do background work, or double-check facts. They need people to do that for them, ideally for free.

Not very glamorous, admittedly. Or profitable. But it builds on our strengths -- connection, knowledge skills, research skills, numbers, breadth, time. Yeah, I know -- what we really do well is write. What we really want is a column in the big papers, or the monster magazines, with a book deal on the side. Patience. The mainstream writers are just discovering us. The editors will take a little longer.

divider

* I wrote:
Idea #8: The next economy will support consumers holistically to solve their problems, not just sell them products - In her book The Support Economy, Shoshana Zuboff argues that what is needed is a new economic layer, a 're-intermediation', between the producer and consumer, which consists of 'federations' of businesses and 'advocates' who work collaboratively to look after the busy consumer's needs cradle-to-grave and deal with the multiple suppliers in the product/service delivery process. I confess I don't share the author's exuberance that such 'support' will be affordable by any except the rich elite.

Professor Zuboff replied:
Federated support networks are not intended as a reintermediation or as an additional "layer". If that were the case, then your skepticism would be well founded. It would cost too much. You can't preserve the status quo and just add another layer, we will all drown in cost and administration and end up further away from the support we desire. Sometimes even the book's most avid fans think of advocates as some kind of super concierge. I suppose because that's the closest model we know that can help us imagine "support". But concierge services exist to buffer us from the adversarial DNA of the enterprise system. Our argument is that the conditions are ripe for the emergence of a new system with wholly different DNA. It won't need buffers, or layers, because it is either fundamentally aligned with my needs, or it fails.

Federated support networks exploit the digital medium to eliminate the administrative hierarchy we just spent 100 years building and expanding. That's what we call "infrastructure convergence", and without it there is no way to think radically about new cost structures. We needed that hierarchy, or at least some of it, when these integrative technologies didn't exist. We don't need it now.(this is the history of the literature on transaction costs, and Chandler's basic point.) The key issue now is the way in which a distributed model, now made possible by technology, can subsume the old models based on concentration. That is the step function that can eliminate massive cost and allow the whole enterprise system to be reconceived and reorganized around the needs of individuals and families, instead of around products or services. As Seymour Melman demonstrated half a century ago, managers are never going to stand in line to give up all the stuff that reports to them. These institutions probably can't be rescued from the downward spiral in their entirety (some assets will survive, but reconfigured). We need new ways of starting, just like Ford did a century ago.

I also really appreciated the Fast Co. Wal-Mart piece, and especially the way it vividly illustrated this endgame.

A CHRISTMAS
POEM, TO MY WIFE

A CHRISTMAS
POEM, TO MY WIFE 01/07/2004 01:36 PM

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
(though Anita’s convinced there are mouses around
and in every room of our house they abound
so Dave’s hammered up boards near the slightest of sound
and he’s left to believe there are none to be found).

The reruns of “Santa Clause”, “Frosty” and “Scrooge”
Were blaring away on our TV screen huge,
And Chelsea was barking away in her sleep
With visions of chasing alpacas and sheep;
Anita was laughing in midst of her dreams
(She was Santa with eight naked sleigh-men, in teams).
While Dave was still wrapping her presents at two
With the leftover paper, in orange and blue
(‘Cause the red, white and green wrap goes fastest, it’s true
And the ribbon’s all gone, so what else can you do?)

When all of a sudden there rose such a clatter
He ran to the door to see what was the matter
When what to his wondrous eyes should appear
But a man, with a wolf, and coyotes and deer!

Dave thought for a moment he’d tuned in “Due South”
(But there wasn’t a Mountie, or sidekick with mouth)
Just a strange little man with these creatures so wild
In the dark of the night of the birth of the Child.

The creatures all sparkled (the full moon aglow
Reflected the white of the new-fallen snow)

“Seeking room at the inn?” Dave cried out to them all
“Not at all” said the man, “We have no time to stall:
We are sending a message to those who can see
That the secret of life is in sensing the glee
In the moment, in nature, when everything’s still
Just a moment like this, here and now, on this hill,
And you just stand and look, smell, taste, touch, pause and hear;
It’s the same for a man, and a wolf, and a deer.

Though the end of the planet is possibly near
When you’re one with the world there is nothing to fear:
You are part of the dance of the ages above
And all that it takes to partake is the love
Of yourself and your wife and your kids and your dog
And the moon and the stars, and the rain and the fog,
And the land and the air and the sea and the sun,
And the sense of the truth that combines them as One.

So get out of yourself and of being apart
You are part of the science and part of the art
That connects all of us in the head and the heart.

You have put so much work in your trial to survive
You’ve forgotten the feeling of being alive,
So let go of yourself, and your sorrow and grief
And shower the ones that you love with belief
That life is too short to regret and delay:
You must live for the moment and live day to day
Like my friends the coyotes, the wolves and the deer—
They sense in their hearts that their death is too near
But the joy of the moment transcends all the fear—
They can see! They can feel! They can smell! They can hear!
They’re alive in a way you’ve forgotten to be
And they’re happy, connected, united, and free.

So when you awake Christmas morn don’t be coy:
Spread the word, spread the warmth, spread the love, spread the joy!
Say: I love you and Thank you, you’re one of a kind,
Say You’re wonderful, special and No, I don’t mind.

And then in a glimmer of moonlight they’d gone
And David returned to the house with a yawn
And slept with the thoughts of the words that they’d spoke
But would he remember those words, when he woke…?

(no post tomorrow -- Merry Christmas everyone -- back Boxing Day)

HOW TO
SAVE THE WORLD READING LIST

HOW TO
SAVE THE WORLD READING LIST 07/18/2004 03:41 PM

In Beyond Civilization, Daniel Quinn says:

People will listen when they're ready to listen and not before. Probably, once upon a time, you weren't ready to listen to an idea than now seems to you obvious, even urgent. Let people come to it in their own time. Nagging or bullying will only alienate them. Don't preach. Don't waste time with people who want to argue. They'll keep you immobilized forever. Look for people who are already open to something new.

When presenting a new idea, you don't have to have all the answers. It's better to say 'I don't know' than to fake it. Make people formulate their own questions. Don't take on the responsibility of figuring out what their difficulty is. We each internalize information differently. If you don't understand a question, keep insisting they explain it until it's clear. Nine times out of ten they'll supply the answer themselves.

Above all, listen. Your close attention is sometimes more important than your articulateness in winning converts. And learning is always a good thing.

When I've talked to people about the ideas I've presented in this blog, I get the sense that maybe 10% really understand and appreciate what I'm saying. Perhaps another 40% are ready to listen and want to believe, but either my inarticulateness or their internalization mechanism garbles the message. After all, saving the world (or, as one recent commenter 'geo' put it more accurately "changing how humans live so we as a species can continue to survive") is not easy or obvious, or we'd all be busy doing it. This reading list is for that 40%, in the hope that better writers than I can convey more clearly and compellingly what we need to do and why. The remaining 50%, I suspect, are not ready. Five years ago someone gave me The Spell of the Sensuous and I gave up after five pages -- I just wasn't ready.

Here's the list -- 56 books and articles that forever changed my worldview, and my purpose for living::

What Life was Really Like Before Civilization: Revisionist History

Full House, by the late Stephen J. Gould. The presence of man on Earth was a random occurrence, and after the next Extinction Event life on the planet is likely to evolve differently. We are not the Crown of Creation.
The Wealth of Man by Peter Jay. The life of pre-historic man was easy, idyllic, and very pleasant. Hunt big slow game an hour a day, relax and enjoy the rest.
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, (online) essay by Jared Diamond Why the adoption of agriculture was 'a catastrophe from which we have never recovered'.
Original Affluence, by Marshall Sahlins. If you wanted to defend a new society that featured rigid hierarchy, agonizingly hard work, suffering, frequent starvation and slavery, wouldn't you try to portray the alternative life as 'short, nasty and brutish'?
Extinction, by Michael Boulter. Our planet's history is one of cycles punctuated by massive extinctions and new beginnings. Our only choice is whether to end this one sooner (a century) or later (several millennia).
The Axemaker's Gift by Jame s Burke and Robert Ornstein. How innovativeness has been increasingly corrupted to concentrate and retain power, instead of making the world better.

What's Going On Under our Noses: The Real News

The Unconscious Civilization, by John Ralston Saul. How and why we've become helpless slaves of the political and economic system we built.
Ockham's Razor, by Wade Rowland. What's wrong with our modern values, and where to look for new ones.
People Before Profit, by Charles Derber -- How rampant corporatism ravaged the vast majority of people worldwide in the 1800s, and is doing so again.
State of the World, by WorldWatch Institute, The 7 trends that most threaten eco-collapse: population growth, rising temperature, falling water tables, shrinking cropland per person, collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, and the extinction of plant and animal species.
World Scientists' Warning (online), by the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished. A great change in our stewardship of the Earth and life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated."
Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry. "We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story."
The Future of Freedom, by Fareed Zakaria Why we can't change another country's culture from outside it.
The New Rules of the World, by John Pilger An accurate, devastating portrait of the world in 2003.
The Demon in the Freezer, by Richard Preston. How vulnerable we all are to individual acts of terror, chaos and sabotage.
Against the Grain, by Richard Manning. How grain monoculture evolved, and how it's ruining the Earth.
Population Projections, by US Census Bureau. They're no longer assuring us that US and Global Population will level out at 300 million and 9 billion. Would you believe 1 billion and 12 billion by the end of the century, and still rising?
Global Warming, by NOAA. An online synopsis of US scientists' consensus on the causes and consequences of global warming.
This Overheating World - Worried? Us? (online essay) by Bill McKibben. Article in the UK journal Granta explaining the psychology, and cynical political expediency, of denial.
Are Cities Changing Local and Global Climates?, (online) by NASA. Studies of urban microclimates and how they contribute to local climate change and instability.
Restoring Scientific Integrity (online) by Union of Concerned Scientists. The Bush regime's distortion of scientific research to forward its own political agenda.
Climate Collapse, by David Stipp (online article) from Fortune Magazine. The possibility and chilling implications of global warming producing sudden drastic climate shifts.
Conservative Myths on Global Warming (online) by Blogger Carpe Datum. A brief but thorough explanation of the science behind global warming, and the reasoning behind scientists' connecting it to human activity and worrying about the risks of resultant instability
The Empire Strikes Out, by Kenny Ausubel. Corporatism and acquisitiveness run amok are ruining our world, but nature always bats last.
The Tragedy of the Commons, by Garry Harding. The commons, that which belongs in common to all of us, is disappearing -- Why nobody really cares.
Elizabeth Costello, by JM Coetzee. Why we tolerate a holocaust against our fellow creatures on Earth.
The Machine in Our Heads, by Glenn Parton. How the ecological crisis is rooted in a human psychological crisis.

About Gaia: What Nature is Really About

When Elephants Weep, by Jeff Masson. Compelling scientific evidence that animals feel deep emotions.
Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich. Compelling scientific evidence that animals are intelligent, complex, rational and communicative.
The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki. A passionate explanation of James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, the need to redesign how we live, and the importance of spending more time in nature.
The Hidden Dimension, by Edward Hall. We need space and a natural environment to be healthy and human. When we're deprived of them, we get mentally ill.
The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram. How to reconnect with nature, and rediscover wonder.

Radical Analysis, Radical Solutions (these are the most important readings, but you probably won't 'buy' their arguments unless you've first read much of the material above)

Ishmael, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization by Daniel Quinn. Also the IshCon discussion forum. The first two of these three books are fictionalized stories about human history from a different, anti-civilization perspective, with penetrating, astounding analysis and insight. Ishmael is more popular but I prefer The Story of B which recapitulates the entire theses in a series of 'lectures'. The two critical lectures are online here. Beyond Civilization is about what we should do about all this.
A Language Older Than Words, by Derrick Jensen. A profound and disturbing argument for why moderate answers to our current predicament won't work.
The World We Want, by Mark Kingwell. Why we are best served by trusting our instincts rather than what we are persuaded is moral or rational.

Toolkit for Change: Knowledge We Can Use to Save the World

Freeman Dyson's Brain (online interview), in Wired Magazine. The twin keys to building a better world are (a) establishing viable self-sufficient local communities to replace big centralized states and governments, and (b) selective more-with-less technologies like solar/wind energy coops and biotech medicines.
The Developing Ideas Interview (online) with economist Herman Daly. An economic and tax program that favours communities and commons instead of corporations, and a 'contract' to reduce our population and ecological footprint.
The Unconquerable World, by Jon Schell. Why non-violence and consensus-building are the only viable way forward.
The Support Economy, by Shoshana Zuboff A model for a post-capitalist economy.
Unequal Protection, by Thom Hartmann. The case for denying 'personhood' to corporations.
When Corporations Rule the World, by David Korten. The need to get corporations out of politics and create localized economies that empower communities within a system of global cooperation, overcoming the myths about economic growth and the sanctification of greed, and focusing instead on overconsumption, poverty, overpopulation, and reining in untrammelled corporate power.
Radical Simplicity, by Jim Merkel. How to free yourself from possessions and wage slavery without sacrifice.
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. What makes things change.
Ten Ways to Make a Difference, by Peter Singer. A pragmatic recipe for change.
The Truth About Stories, by Thomas King. The truth about stories is that that's all we are. Want a new society? Write a new story.
The Boycott List, by Responsible Shopper, and Good Stuff, by the WorldWatch Institute. What not to buy, and what to buy instead.
The Corporation, by Joel Bakan. An action plan for undermining corporatism.
Humans in the Wilderness, by Glenn Parton. How we might reintroduce humans, well-spaced-out, into a primarily wilderness Earth.
At Home in the Universe, by S tuart Kauffman. How self-organizing, self-managing systems work.
EarthDance (entire book online), by Elisabet Sahtouris. Eleven steps to cultural metamorphosis (my summary is here)
eGaia (entire book online), by Gary Alexander. How to achieve of peace, cooperation and sustainability (replacing war, competition and growth, the fuels of our current culture) and a future state vision with vignettes from individuals' lives in a balanced and harmonious future world.

ACTIVE SALON
BLOGS LIST UPDATED

ACTIVE SALON
BLOGS LIST UPDATED 01/10/2004 03:19 PM

I've updated the Dire ctory of Active Salon Blogs. Please send me details on any missing and new Salon Blogs, and errors in the Directory. I promise to post any updates I receive at least once a week.

There are now 159 active (updated in the last month, or officially on vacation but returning) Salon Blogs. Comings & Goings this past month:

No longer blogging, it seems: The enormously helpful Charlie Z at Driver 8, the enormously successful Julie Powell of the Julie/Julia Project, Ray of Nobody Loves Raymond, whose blog is MIA, great story-teller Hugh Elliott at Standing Room Only, and Cat M. of Chronicles of an Anti-Apathetic. Their presence in this part of the blogosphere will be sorely missed.
Good news: Penny of My So-Called Lesbian Life is back.
Daniel X. O'Neil, the veteran Salon blogger at GoogObits who uniquely chronicles the deceased, has moved to his own site.
The flight from Radio to Typepad seems to have stopped, at least for now.
Of the roughly 100 new Salon Blog numbers assigned this past month, about 40 actually made at least one post, and the following 17 appear to be posting regularly. I especially recommend MallowDrama, Hermit's Notebook, Hoi Polloi and I Don't Know What Happened, which are off to sensational starts. Welcome, new Sloggers all.

Althaea Officinalis: MallowDrama

Hermit's Notebook, A

Theater of the Absurd

Much,Much,More of This and That

Letters to Jessica

Worms of Endearment

Arclist

Gabriela's Radio Weblog

Music Freak's dip into blog-infested waters

Hoi Polloi

I Don't Know What Happened

Living Backstage

You're Getting Very Sleepy

Frances D. Gonzalez's Radio Weblog

Blogcabin - Come Warm Yourself By The Fire

Pan's Garden

75003 Paris

Some stats for this past month:

Total hits this month for Salon Blogs were about 1.1 million, up about 8% for the month, but they were very unevenly distributed (even more than usual), with 850 thousand of these hits going to the top 11 blogs. For the typical Slogger, December traffic was about 10% quieter than November, due probably to the holidays. The median for active Salon Bloggers was only about 700 hits per month, about 30 per day.
Inbound blogs totaled about 3250, up about 5% month-over-month, with the top 11 blogs accounting for 50% of them. The median for active Salon Bloggers was 7 inbound blogs.
About 42% of active Sloggers are female, up significantly from just over 30% three months ago. That's great news, but I don't know what to make of it.

I'll continue to keep the Directory current, with your help, and will report at least bi-monthly on comings & goings and stats.

P.S. I've also updated my Tables of Contents (see top left of my blog). Since Google has, for some reason, stopped crawling How to Save the World, Google is no longer a reliable way to find things in my archives. I'm going to test some other search engines and change my search bar accordingly.

HELP COMPILE
"THE WEB USER'S ESSENTIAL LINKS AND FREE
DOWNLOADS" LIST

HELP COMPILE
"THE WEB USER'S ESSENTIAL LINKS AND FREE
DOWNLOADS" LIST 06/07/2004 02:25 PM

My Salon Blog colleague Ted Ritzer keeps a list of Useful Web Sites (for all web users, not just bloggers) originally compiled by Kevin Kelly, of Wired, The Well, and Whole Earth Catalog fame. Kevin no longer maintains his list, and instead has an intriguing Cool Tools site, but it's only for the rich -- virtually everything on the site costs money, often a lot of it. So Ted and I agreed it's time to update the Useful Web Sites list, and we need your help. What links and free downloads should every self-respecting Internet user have on their desktop?

The list should not include pay sites, nor should it include news sites, blogs or other sites that appear on blogrolls (too many, and too subjective). Nor should it include highly specialized sites (I have a personal list of favourite genealogy sites, but I realize that few people would consider these 'essential').

To make the list manageable, I've identified 21 categories for the essential links (let me know if you think I've missed an entire category). If I get enough response, I'll publish a list of the Top 3 in each category and keep it on my sidebar or Spurl it (Spurl lets you keep your web bookmarks online and share them with others).

The examples shown for each category are my personal favourites and some of them are eccentric, so they may not make the Top 3 list. Quite a few of them come from the excellent Jason Lefkowitz' Quality Software list (thanks to Internet Time for the link):

Search engines -- e.g. Google
Converters, voice recognition tools and translators -- e.g. Reverso Language Translation
Internet browsing tools and aids -- e.g. Firefox browser, Xne ws newsreader
Website composing and management tools -- e.g. HTML-Kit web page editor
Publishing tools - e.g. PDFCreator
Word processing and office productivity -- e.g. OpenOffice
File and desktop management -- e.g. FilZip compression software, Furl digital filing cabinet
Writing aids -- e.g. The 39 Steps, Rhymezone
Reference tools -- e.g. IMDB movie & TV show database
Music and book sellers -- e.g. FYE, CDBaby, McNally Robinson
Consumer information -- e.g. CNet product reviews
File sharing tools
Internet streaming radio/video -- e.g. ShoutCast
Connectivity and discussion tools -- e.g. Thunderbird e-mail, SightSpeed videoconferencing, Trillian IM and chat integrator, Skype VoIP
Multimedia tools -- e.g. PhotoPl us image editor, IrfanView image viewer
Website/RSS feed aggregation tools -- e.g. BlogLines site aggregator, Spurl online bookmarking
Network/community builders and expertise finders
Software download sites -- e.g. Download.com, Tucows
Investment tools and information -- e.g. MLS real estate finder
Electronic Payment and LETS tools
Anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-spyware/adware utilities -- e.g. SpyBot anti-spyware

What are your essential links and invaluable free downloads?

THINK
GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL: PETER SINGER'S
ONE
WORLD

THINK
GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL: PETER SINGER'S
ONE
WORLD 04/23/2004 09:24 AM

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I'm opposed to unregulated 'free' trade, very worried about the extraterritoriality of the WTO, NAFTA, Davos and other corporatist captives, strongly opposed to domestic corporations 'offshoring' jobs, using influence with the Bush regime and other right-wing governments to circumvent social and environmental laws and responsibilities, and a great believer in taking the pledge to buy local, and in community self-sufficiency.

At the same time, I'm a strong supporter of the UN and other multi-lateral NGOs, and I believe that we each have a responsibility for the well-being of all the people and creatures of this world. Some readers have said this view is inconsistent, and I wasn't quite sure how to respond to such charges. Fortunately, Peter Singer, in his recent book on global ethics, One World: The Ethics of Globalization, has come to my rescue. Singer sees no inconsistency between strong local autonomy, community, and self-sufficient economies on the one hand, and global responsibility on the other. The book is based on the Dwight Terry lectures at Yale in 2000, but has been updated to incorporate reflection on the events of 9/11 and the appalling Bush social, environmental and economic record.

I'll have more to say next week about Bush's fraudulent and despicable Earth Day media blitz, and the major media's shameless lack of critical evaluation of the utter nonsense that his propaganda machine has been churning out this week on the environment -- newspeak of Orwellian proportions. The first part of Singer's book deals with environmental responsibility, and his prescription for increasing it -- immediate ratification of Kyoto by the US and other holdout countries, and introduction of an emissions trading mechanism to make the realization of Kyoto feasible (subject to the need for some oversight on the disposition of the proceeds of such trading when it involves autocratic governments).

The second part of the book deals with the global economy, and Singer adroitly tears apart the Economist's (and other neocons') naive assertion that economic globalization somehow benefits both rich and poor countries. He then goes on to prescribe a substantial reform of the WTO and the GATT, which could actually lead to more equitable distribution of wealth and more efficient production of economic goods, while safeguarding human rights, labour and the environment. Unfortunately, the multi-national corporations and corporatists who hold sway in the WTO would never tolerate Singer's prescription, since it would entirely divert the benefits of economic globalization from their pockets to those of the world's poor.

The third part of the book deals with international law, and Singer lashes out at Bush for his unconscionable refusal to ratify the International Court of Justice, and for the UN's continued hesitancy to accept a duty (not a right) to intervene in situations of genocide and other humanitarian crises, even within a single nation. Singer is sanguine about the limitations and dangers of 'global government', but supports strengthening the UN to enable it to act as a 'protector of last resort', and including in its mandate the responsibility to supervise elections in all member nations.

The fourth and final part goes back to ethical principles and proposes that countries must, in this world where national boundaries no longer have any logistic meaning, set aside national interest and embrace, once and for all, global interest, impartially. That does not mean cultural homogenization, but imposes a responsibility for the reduction of inequality, both of economic resources and personal rights and freedoms.

Always the pragmatist, Singer concludes by worrying out loud about how the responsibility for a global ethic could be managed:

It is widely believed that a world government would be, at best, an unchecked bureaucratic behemoth that would make the bureaucracy of the EU look lean and efficient. At worst, it would become a global tyranny, unchecked and unchallengeable. These thoughts have to be taken seriously. How to prevent global bodies becoming either dangerous tyrannies or self-aggrandizing bureaucracies, and instead make them effective and responsive to the people whose lives they affect? It is a challenge that should not be beyond the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration.

I'd like to believe that this was possible, because if it isn't, we're in serious trouble. We cannot expect national governments to set aside parochial interests, especially when this entails accepting a responsibility that would, for the richer nations, inevitably lead to a drastic redistribution of wealth to poorer nations and hence a sudden and sharp reduction in, at least, economic living standards (if not necessarily well-being). But as John Ralston Saul has so eloquently argued, larger organizations and institutions, whether public or private, are almost always, and inherently, less efficient, less agile, more resistant to change, more hierarchic, and less transparent than smaller organizations. So the challenge is to achieve the best of both worlds, having organizations of global scope and authority and responsibility, but broken up into sufficiently small, autonomous and dynamic units that they are sensitive, resilient, responsible and responsive to the people and communities they serve. We can only hope that "the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration", wherever they are, are up to the task.

ASHOKA: A
LAUNCHING PAD FOR SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURS

ASHOKA: A
LAUNCHING PAD FOR SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURS 01/03/2005 02:42 PM

In an article in this month's Fast Company, Keith Hammonds profiles an unlikely hero of social and environmental progressives: Ashoka founder Bill Drayton. Drayton, a former Director at McKinsey and the Environmental Protection Agency, is now a philanthropist with a difference: Ashoka provides a 'leg up' to those with vision, creativity, entrepreneurship and a strong ethical sense, by making them Ashoka 'fellows', who receive a stipend, funding for project costs, and the legal, management, intellectual and networking support of the Ashoka team. From a modest start 25 years ago, the group has grown to over 1500 fellows in 53 countries, including some highly celebrated and astonishingly creative social entrepreneurs who are household names in their home countries.

The support team includes representation from McKinsey (management consultants), Hill & Knowlton (PR) and the International Senior Lawyers Project (legal counsel). According to the group's website, "Ashoka Fellows are individuals who share qualities traditionally associated with business entrepreneurs — vision, innovation, determination, and long-term commitment — but are committed to systemic social change in Ashoka's areas of interest: learning/youth development, the environment, health, human rights, economic development, and civic engagement. Fellows receive up to a three-year financial stipend to allow them to concentrate fully on their programs, and in addition may apply for supplemental funding for collaborative projects and are eligible for training and technical assistance."

Here are a few examples of what Ashoka fellows are doing:

Anna Zuchetti of OACA in Peru has pioneered a sustainable development program for environmentally sensitive areas near exploding cities that is now recognized as a model for Latin America, and has won Anna a Schwab Foundation award.
Pisit Charnsnoh in Thailand has been honoured with a Rolex Associate Award for his work to preserve that country's coastal habitats, and in the process save the endangered dugong (sea cow).
David Green in the US has won a MacArthur Grant for establishing an enterprise for the manufacture and delivery of health care technologies for the developing world.
An international program, the Innovative Learning Initiative, is leveraging the successes and lessons learned by Ashoka fellows around the world who are focused on education of the young, identifying common principles and strategies that have effectively changed children's lives

What does it take to be an Ashoka Fellow? According to Fast Company's Fast Take, you need these five attributes:

Is there a new idea? If there isn't, the rest doesn't matter. If it's new, is the idea going to fly? And will it be big enough to truly change society?
Is this person creative? What is the quality of thinking? What is the history of her creativity? Experiences early in life are the best indicators.
Is this person an entrepreneur? True social innovators need to change a pattern across society. They are drawn to problems, constantly searching for the next advance.
What's the impact? Will it spread? Most entrepreneurs can easily seed their idea in one place. It's another thing to come up with a solution that will get traction elsewhere.
Is there ethical fiber? To be effective, leaders have to be on the up and up. They must change relationships -- and that won't happen if there's no trust.

If you have these attributes, and an interest in projects in one or more of the six areas of interest noted in bold above, Ashoka may give you the start you need. And if you're looking for more inspiration, check out Fast Company's Social Entrepreneur award winners.

THE STOCK
MARKET AS PONZI SCHEME

THE STOCK
MARKET AS PONZI SCHEME 05/07/2004 01:32 PM

(Warning: some financial math ahead.)

s&p 500

A Ponzi scheme, named after its early 20th century inventor Carlo Ponzi, is a form of pyramid scheme. Basically it involves selling a nearly worthless security to a small group of investors, with the promise of great returns if they promote the security to more investors, and so on, ideally, forever. Like any pyramid scheme or chain letter, of course, it eventually collapses when it runs out of suckers. The first ones in get rich, and the last ones in (much greater in number) get shafted.

As we all know, the stock market is focused on the short term, and fluctuates wildly in response to a single quarter's earnings, external economic events, even rumour. If you look at it holistically and long-term, however, it has all the markings of a century-long Ponzi scheme, the most lucrative, and potentially most devastating, in history.

Let's take a look at the US S&P 500 as a surrogate for the entire stock market, the entire market for equity securities of listed public corporations. The index goes back to 1917, but was revamped in the 1940s and recalibrated so that the index for the average of 1941-43 was 10. It slowly rose to 100 over the next 50 years, and then to 1000 over the next 12 years.

This broad index earned, in 2003, about $55 per average share of the component securities, using GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles). So at its current level of about 1100, it has a P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio of about 20. That means investors are willing to pay $1100 now for a share that will theoretically 'pay back' $55 next year, and hopefully successively more in future years, to justify the 'present value' of $1100. To think of ir another way, it's like a bank charging you $55 this year, $65, say, next year, and so on for at least 50 years, as 'interest' on a loan of $1100. The 5% interest in the first year isn't very attractive for such a risky 'loan', but since future 'interest' will be dependent on (hopefully rising) earnings, there is the prospect of a very lucrative return eventually.

So the S&P 500, like all equities, is said to 'discount expected future cash flows'. A general rule of thumb says that the P/E ratio approximates the annual expected growth in earnings, so that means the investor in the market is expecting earnings to grow by close to 20% each year, essentially forever. How is that possible? Well, it isn't. Earnings grow because (a) prices increase, (b) costs decrease, and/or (c) volume increases. In a 'free' market economy, prices are determined (theoretically, now) by competition -- new competitors will enter the market, and/or existing competitors will adjust their prices, to the point that their return on invested capital is just high enough to justify the investment risk. That level, in a low-inflation economy where the alternative 'risk-free' investment in GICs and bonds is only 2%, is roughly a modest 7%, with the extra 5% compensating the investor for the risk implicit in equities. And, in the long run, volume can't increase -- there's only so much market for anything, and once it's saturated, earnings should therefore level off at a flat rate.

Let's suppose we've more or less reached that state now. Let's also set aside the fact that the $55 earned last year by the average share is likely considerably inflated -- there are undoubtedly some more undetected Enron-type exaggerations out there in some of these 500 companies, and GAAP allows capitalization of stock options and other near-fraudulent practices that significantly overstate 'true' earnings. Is the $55 a fair return on investment in these companies? To answer that question we need to calculate what the investment is. According to the S&P, this $55 represents a 17% return on investment. In other words, the net assets or 'book' value of the average share is $55/17% or about $325. We already indicated that a reasonable return, given the risk, was 7%, which on $325 would be about $22 per share.

Why are stocks earnings $55 per share when in a 'free' market they should only be earning $22? To answer this we need to look at the three components that make up ROI (or more correctly, return on equity -- ROE). These three components are: Margin (profit/sales), Turnover (sales/assets), and Leverage (assets/equity). Leverage can be inflated by excessive borrowing, which companies can get away with in times of low interest, but which boomerang when interest rates spike. Leverage can also be inflated by stock buy-backs, where the company essentially uses excess cash flow to buy back its own stock and hence increase the value per share of the remaining stock -- but this is a form of cannibalization, and leads to the same imbalance between debt and equity. Neither is sustainable. Turnover can be increased by lowering inventories, factoring and off-balance-sheet financing, but ultimately tops out -- you need to have a certain amount of money tied up one way or another in assets to be able to run an effective business. So you're left with Margin, which ultimately is the only explanation for the enormous ROE of $55/share, when in a free competitive market someone should be willing to accept $22/share.

The truth is that the market, and big corporations, are far from efficient. Many industries are heavily subsidized by governments to the tune of billions of dollars in kickbacks -- er, I mean, support payments -- per year. Big corporations also work as oligopolies to prevent smaller companies from entering their markets and charging more reasonable prices for their products. We, the consumers, are in fact paying $55 for goods and services that could be sold for $22 and would still provide the corporations with a very reasonable return. If and when government subsidies end, oligopolies are broken up, and the market for goods and services truly becomes free and open, the S&P 500 should then generate $22/share each year, a 7% ROE, still an attractive return in a low-inflation economy.

So we have a number of factors at work, conspiring to drive up stock prices in the unsustainable illusion that double-digit growth can and will continue forever, or at least until we're dead and it isn't our problem anymore. We have big corporations earning exorbitant returns, two and one half times a reasonable level given the risk, paid for by the taxpayer and consumer (the same people who then take what's left of their meagre paychecks and invest it, with insane trust in the brokers' unsustainable recommendations, in the stock market). And we have a P/E ratio that is already assuming that these wildly inflated, taxpayer subsidized, price-gouging levels of profit will continue to rise even further, at close to 20% per year, forever. Voilà, Ponzi scheme, par excellence.

Let's do the math. Take the $22 per share that big corporations should be earning per share in a properly regulated and open market. Acknowledge that the assumption that these earnings are going to grow in the future, when markets are saturated, consumers, corporations and governments are already buckling under grotesque and unprecedented debt loads and cannot afford to buy or pay more than they already are. Discount that annual stream of $22 of earnings for 50 years at a reasonable 7% discount rate. Know what you get for the fair value of the S&P 500 with these calculations? About 300. That is what, when you strip out the growth hype, the subsidies, the price-gouging, and the unsupportable P/E valuation, the S&P 500 should be trading at. Not 1100.

Eventually the Ponzi scheme will collapse. There may yet be time to con yet more foolish investors into believing that it will rise from 1100 to 1500 to 2000 or 5000 or higher, and if investors can be duped into believing that's what shares are worth, that's what they'll trade at. This scheme has been running for a century, and made many people millionnaires. But eventually we, or our children or grandchildren, will realize that the S&P 500 should be at 300, and since stocks always trade at what people think they're worth, that's where the S&P 500 will end up. The millions left holding the bag will lose most of their life savings, their pensions, everything.

(Oh, and if you change the assumptions about inflation and interest rates, the above valuation doesn't change. Future values and discount rates both go up proportionally, so the inflation-adjusted present value stays the same.)

Even the brokers can see the writing on the wall. They will now try to convince you that by wise investing you can 'outperform the market' by buying low and selling high, even if the market is ultimately doomed to do no better than go sideways. This is another great variant on a Ponzi scheme. It's the stuff that has hooked the new breed of gambling addicts called 'day traders'. For every investor whose holdings 'outperform the market' there will be, of course, at least one loser. But the magic of Ponzi is that it's always the other guy, the next guy, the not smart enough guy, who will get burned. You'd be better to play slot machines or buy lottery tickets -- at least the potential payout isn't overstated by 250%.

In addition to the perpetual-growth Ponzi scheme, and the 'outperform the market' con, brokers also make scads of money from IPOs -- initial public offerings. As James Surowiecki has elegantly pointed out, the IPO is a scam by which an aptly-named 'syndicate' of investment firms ('underwriters') buy a mass of shares from the company 'going public', at about half the price per share they know they can flog them to gullible investors, many of whom rely on these very brokers for investment advice. They then dump their shares on these investors, knowing that the price will promptly drop back close to the IPO price. The underwriting brokers get rich, and the unsuspecting customers get burned.

That's the reason Surowiecki and others, most recently Lawrence Fisher in yesterday's excellent analysis over at our mother ship Salon.com, have urged Google, potentially the most lucrative IPO of all time, to screw the brokers and either sell all the shares directly to the public by auction, or, even better, not to go public at all, and save the delirious investors the grief they will suffer when they find out Google has no direct line to God, and hence isn't worth a million dollars a share.

Eventually we, or our descendents, will learn (or have no choice but) to 'just say no' to dysfunctional stock markets and all the evils they breed. Until then, we'll continue to be addicted to short-term thinking, the illusion of perpetual growth, paying too much for everything we buy, subsidizing public companies with our taxpayer dollars, downsizing and outsourcing and offshoring as 'productivity enhancement', and putting up with the atrocious greed, corruption and devastation of insatiable global corporations that pull the strings of politicians like puppeteers, all in the name of 'maximizing shareholder value'. It's addictive gambling with a staggering cost, it's insane, and it's fraud.

AVOIDING THE
LANDMINES IN ENTREPRENEURIAL
BUSINESS

AVOIDING THE
LANDMINES IN ENTREPRENEURIAL
BUSINESS 05/04/2004 09:08 PM

Today, the average North American entrepreneurial business lasts just four years, the average sole proprietorship even less. Yet entrepreneurship is not rocket science; it's nothing more (or less) than making a living for yourself with your business partners, instead of depending on some indifferent corporation to provide you with a living wage. Running a business is certainly no more difficult than raising a family, or landing a job and building a career with a big company. The essentials of entrepreneurship could easily be taught in every school, and there'd still be plenty of time left for the rest of the school curriculum. But, perhaps because big corporations and the governments they control want the 'labour force' to be meek, subservient, fearful and insecure, most people have come to perceive entrepreneurship as a complex and difficult art, fraught with danger, unprofitable, emotionally scarring, and demanding of enormous courage and energy. "It's certainly not for everyone", I keep hearing.

Entrepreneurship requires self-knowledge of what you're happy doing, what you're especially good at, how much you're willing to put into your enterprise and what you expect to get out of it. Without this self-knowledge, you're likely to be as miserable in your own business as working for some unappreciative boss, and that unhappiness will bear directly on its success. Beyond that, all you need are common sense, self-confidence, and a modicum of four key, learnable skills:

creativity (the ability to discover and apply new ideas),
communication (written and oral),
information processing (the ability to distil, analyze and interpret it), and
interpersonal (listening, appreciation, connecting, persuading).

Then it's simply a matter of learning and following the process that every entrepreneur has learned by trial and error, to set up and operate your own business successfully, on your own terms, and actually have fun doing it.

One of the 15 steps in the process of establishing and running an enterprise is avoiding the landmines. In MBA school they now call this Risk Management. This article identifies ten of the major landmines for entrepreneurs, using some real-life examples. I don't believe any of the enterprises described below is still in business (though some of the entrepreneurs have moved on, learned their lesson, and succeeded in other businesses):

Copycat businesses: Thirty years ago I did some financial consulting for a small start-up cruise ship operation. They acquired and completely renovated a ship, which was lovely, got the licenses, hired the appropriate staff, set up the business systems, and then waited for the customers to roll in. After all, the competing operations on the same run were all fully booked. But this operation was an unknown quantity, and before they realized that just being similar to a successful and busy business wasn't enough to succeed, they sailed off into the sunset, empty. Franchisees beware.
Over-estimating the market: Consultants love to sell you spreadsheets that will 'forecast' your income and cash flow. An inventor friend of mine used one of these to persuade himself to produce and sell a new organic nutritional supplement he had developed. His research showed that the annual sales of this type of product North America-wide was $X billion. The spreadsheet encouraged him to plug this number in, along with his estimate of what share of this market he could capture over three years. Needless to say, he never sold anywhere close to this amount of product, because that's not how you go about forecasting sales.
Being too far ahead of or behind the market: A client of mine bought the North American rights to a new technology that would extrude a rugged, colour-fast plastic that could be used in decking, fencing, and other outdoor applications. He spent a fortune setting up the manufacturing plant. Problem is, he did this in the 1980s, when plastics were distrusted as 'cheap', wood was cheap, and creosote in pressure-treated lumber was not yet known to be a carcinogen. Being 10-15 years ahead of the market cost him his life savings.
Biting off too much: A company that I was brought in to help liquidate had been doubling its sales and employee headcount every nine months. They were providing turnkey computer networking equipment and installations to mid-size companies, and had recently moved upscale to large corporations, school boards and government departments. As its receivables and inventories soared, it started paying more money for qualified talent, and its suppliers and bank both put it on short leash. Finally, despite record monthly sales, it simply ran out of cash. The owner turned down two very opportunistic 'investors', who wanted control of the business in return for working capital, and the bank pulled the plug.
Not listening to the customer, or offering a solution in search of a problem: A lot of entrepreneurs are inventors, scientists, artists, artisans, administrators, teachers or managers. Sales is not their forte, and they're more comfortable working with ideas, materials, plans or systems than with those pesky people called customers. If you're not at home spending a lot of face time with customers, better partner with someone who is. If you want to see what happens if you don't, just browse any of the free software sites on the Web and see how many downloads most of them have. Some of them are quite intriguing, but because they don't meet a customer need, they'll never be more than that. Great prescription for a hobby, deadly for a business.
Not consulting with or listening to the right advisors: A client of our firm in the early 1990s, a company which had been in the commercial printing business for 80 years, brought us in for some technology and corporate finance consulting. As we learned about the business it became obvious, first, that they could not afford the new equipment they proposed to buy, and secondly, that their profit margins were going through the floor. They had built their reputation on high quality printing work, but the market was no longer willing to pay for it. The new equipment would allow them to automate and eliminate some labour costs (and keep up with newer competitors with no sunk costs), but the cost of the new equipment would exceed the savings. We advised the company they needed to find some new markets, new higher-margin products, and new customers who would pay more for their quality work, or else drastically cut costs. They were convinced their customers would stay loyal, and the market for quality printing would rebound. They didn't, and the company shut its doors two years later.
Blowing the budget: As most women will tell you (but many men seem unable to fathom), budgeting is simply a matter of ensuring that the cash going out doesn't exceed the cash coming in. The problem is, every start up costs more -- sometimes two or three times more -- than initially expected. It takes enormous self-discipline, patience, pacing, and sometimes financial creativity, to mete out dollars at a rate that will ensure there is enough cash to launch the business under the worst case scenario. I know of a dozen businesses that closed before they opened because they failed to do so, and others that lost control of their business unwillingly because that was the price for a late cash infusion. 'Risk Capital' might be more accurately called 'Heartbreak Capital' -- it is obscenely expensive.
Groupthink: Back in the 1970s I was appointed Deputy Receiver for a computer and peripherals distributor. They had been put on 'close watch' by the bank, and I had to get authorization for, and sign, every cheque. While I was there I attended and took notes at management meetings. I was assailed at each meeting when I presented my factual reports on profit and cash flow. I was nicknamed The Undertaker for my 'relentless pessimism', and almost physically ejected when I questioned the validity of some unsupported fees that had been paid by the much-loved CFO, who was on leave of absence looking after a very sick relative. The six-man management team, intact since the start of the company and each heavily personally invested in the company, used to come out of their meetings with cheers and high fives, confident, contrary to all logic, that the company was poised for turnaround and sales 'in the pipeline' would soon bring a return to happy days. They would feed off each others' boundless optimism. They just needed to work harder. Happier days never came, and the CFO, it turns out, had defrauded the company to pay for his relative's substantial medical bills.
Litigation: A small biotech company whose CEO I met at a conference a few years ago was bemoaning the huge cost of registering and defending patents. He said they had been forced to sell off one promising product to a competitor in order to pay their legal bills to defend their other intellectual capital. That had slowed them down to the point they now feared that another competitor would beat them to market, rendering the results of the litigation largely moot. Big companies can afford armies of expensive lawyers. For small companies, significant litigation can spell disaster. The competitive advantage of the entrepreneur is agility -- when products get mired in legal wrangles, it may be better to cut bait and move on to other ventures than to fight adversaries with much deeper pockets in court.
Buying the MBA hype: Graduates of business school are taught how to be middle managers of large enterprises. Unfortunately, that knowledge often don't translate well to entrepreneurial businesses. A client of mine brought in a young, very successful MBA grad (he had his own daily spot on one of the local radio stations), who had, it appeared, no experience at all with entrepreneurial business. The company, which was modestly profitable, bought the young man's well-delivered 'grow or die' message and decided to 'go upscale'. They spent a small fortune on advertising, and set up a sales office and warehouse in another country. Unfortunately, the media in which the ads appeared were not the ones used by the company's customers, and there was not enough money to properly penetrate the foreign market. The expenses produced almost no growth and almost sank the company. They salvaged the situation, and their business, by finding an enterprising competitor in the foreign country who took over the hemorrhaging 'branch plant', and then striking a reciprocal marketing alliance with them.

Many entrepreneurs I know feel very lonely, exposed, and helpless. The big consulting firms aren't interested in them until they grow bigger or go public. The smaller firms are selling one or two specific products, and rarely have entrepreneurial skills to share. And these suppliers are expensive. The government is cheaper, but with a few notable exceptions they aren't very helpful either. As a result, many entrepreneurs have formed their own 'support groups', helping each other to avoid the landmines, and learning from each other's experiences and failures. Retired entrepreneurs are another good source of advice, and a quarterly business breakfast with a trusted entrepreneur or advisor with some experience in the trenches can be an excellent investment. These breakfasts don't need an agenda -- they're run as an informal 'interview', with the advisor asking pertinent, open-ended questions and listening and offering counsel and options and ideas. They are a critical element of what my new business, The Caring Enterprise Coach, offers.

Another technique entrepreneurs can employ to alert themselves to potential landmines is establishing an Advisory Board made up of people who have well-rounded business experience, knowledge of markets, and skills the entrepreneur and his partners lack. Such Advisory Boards are often reciprocal, offering mutual support and advice in lieu of fees. I am constantly surprised how few entrepreneurs use such 'support groups', relying instead on their own instincts, the counsel of inexperienced and costly 'professional advisors', and others (bankers, customers, franchisors, and various 'agencies') who have only a nominal, and purely financial, interest in the entrepreneur's success. Some 'support groups' and networks have been set up as money-making ventures, but these tend to be unwieldy and their members terribly needy -- ten people looking for advice and new customers for every one capable of offering useful information or counsel in return. It's best to create your own.

The problem, of course, is that most entrepreneurs are paradoxically too busy fighting fires and avoiding landmines, to be able to invest time finding and networking with support groups and other valuable advisors who can help them avoid the next round of fires and landmines. But, despite the failings of the first generation Social Networking tools, such tools hold enormous promise. Although Shoshana Zuboff coined the term The Support Economy to refer to federations of businesses working together to support their shared customers, the first true Support Economy may well be entrepreneurs supporting each other.

WHY DOES
SMALL BUSINESS VOTE CONSERVATIVE?

WHY DOES
SMALL BUSINESS VOTE CONSERVATIVE? 06/18/2004 01:09 PM

Time for another of life's imponderables. Both in Canada and the US, family farmers and small business people have, in recent years, consistently voted conservative, and show every intention of doing so again this year. This makes absolutely no sense: Most farm states and provinces are net recipients of government largesse (i.e. they receive in equalization payments and services more than they pay for, subsidized by the more urban and more liberal states and provinces). And even though in the past 20 years conservative governments have spent more than liberal governments, that money has largely gone to tax cuts for the very rich and defense spending, creating huge deficits that small farmers and small business people have to repay in taxes, and receive almost no benefit from.

I talked to a few local farmers and small business people to try to find out why they vote conservative. This small sample may not be representative, but what they told me was:

They perceive liberal governments to be based in, and focused on, the big cities. Even in the suburbs this anti-urban feeling is strong, and translates into an anti-liberal (rather than pro-conservative) vote.
They are very proud people, who like to think they are independent and don't need government help. So a liberal saying he's going to provide more assistance for small farmers and small businesspeople might actually be insulting them rather than wooing them. To those that have never lived through a depression (or learned its lessons), government handouts "encourage laziness". Small business still buys the 'free market' myth, whereas big business knows it's a myth and perpetrate it strictly as a power lever.
They really have no idea how government works, where the money goes, how they benefit from it, or how bigger corporations benefit much more than they do due to various government subsidies. The concept that tax cuts = service cuts, and that big corporations are at least as inefficient as big government, is lost on these guys. They don't understand that it's they who have to pay for that inefficiency, in inflated consumer prices and in taxes for big corporation handouts.
Quite aside from economics, they are socially conservative, as Lakoff defines the term. Homosexuality frightens them, liberated women frighten them, immigrants frighten them, government frightens them. They are terrified by crime (and, by extension, 'terrorism') and see it as a sign of moral decay, in black and white terms. They know in their hearts that you can't turn back the clock, but emotionally they want to, and that nostalgia and fear is a powerful weapon that Republicans and Conservatives are using to their advantage. Many people vote with their hearts, not with their heads, a lesson most liberals still haven't learned.

Yesterday the US House of Representatives passed a Republican bill that would give $140 billion in tax breaks to "businesspeople and farmers". Who benefits? "Companies with foreign corporate profits, timber companies, oil & gas drillers, movie studios, wine distributors, manufacturers of bows and arrows, and tobacco farmers". The rest of us, including small farmers and small businesspeople, will foot the bill. But I'll bet that if small farmers and small businesspeople are even aware of the bill, they won't be outraged and might even be more inclined to vote Republican because "it's pro-business". And the Democrats, whose Southern flank supported the bill because of the tobacco subsidy, are really in no position to shout foul. In a country with only two parties both feeding at the same trough, the rich & powerful win and everyone else loses.

In Canada, which has five parties to choose from, the 'first past the post' electoral system undoes the benefits of party pluralism. With the three small parties all socially liberal, Canadian liberals are forced to 'vote strategically', which means voting for the Liberal Party instead of their real choice, the NDP or the Green Party, to prevent the 30% of Canadian conservatives, who have only one voting choice, from stealing the election. We'll find out in ten days whether they did so or not.

Alas, both the US Republican and the Canadian Conservative parties are consistently and heavily propped up by small farmers and small businesspeople. Without that support, these parties would be history. It doesn't make any sense, but it's the reality that both right-wing parties are counting on for election success this year. It's a brilliant con.

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART ONE

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART ONE
01/07/2004 01:07 PM

This is the first of five articles in a series that will be published intermittently this month. This article summarizes what I believe were the most important ideas of 2003 in the world of blogs and blogging. The other articles in the series will propose the most important ideas of the year in:

business,
politics & economics,
arts & science, and
the environment.

BLOGS & BLOGGING -- THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003
process

During the year, the blogosphere doubled in size, and began to mature into a true alternative medium for information and connection. My nominations for the most important ideas of the year* in blogs & blogging are:

The Internet is a World of Ends - Doc Searls and David Weinberger finally explained to bloggers and to e-business what the Internet is and how it works. As a result, bloggers (and blogging tool developers) now realize that there will never be 'standards' for blogs, blog censorship, clear rules on what is and isn't appropriate in citing others' work on your blog, standard blog taxonomy and categories, an official definition or list of blogs, unarguable or untamperable rankings of blog popularity, or controls of any kind. It's a jungle out here. There are no rules. The blogosphere, like the Internet, is owned by no one, open to everyone, and made better by each of us. A cornucopia of unrestricted and open innovation. Its value flowers at the ends, and, fellow bloggers, we are the ends.
Blog popularity is subject to Shirky's Power Law - "In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will always get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), by the very act of choosing". It's the old 80/20 rule. The later you are starting to blog, the harder it becomes to find an audience. Not impossible, just harder. There are anomalies: new blogging communities and new 'hot topics' can allow savvy bloggers to quickly galvanize a readership. But if you want to be popular in the blogosphere, it's more important to be first than best.
Blogs have Tipping Points and manifest the Strength of Weak Ties - Ever noticed how hard it is to get your family and close friends ('strong ties') to read your blog? That's because they see no incremental value in doing so. But friends of friends, people two or three degrees removed from your network, do. Weak ties probably got you your job, found your life partner, provoked your most innovative ideas, and sourced most of your blog's readership. And you can exploit these weak ties to push a new idea, find new readers, perhaps even save the world. It's easy: Just Test the credibility of and degree of interest in what you're saying by sending messages to selected mavens (bloggers who incubate new ideas and stick with them until they catch), A-listers (bloggers who already have a huge audience), and connectors (bloggers, like me, who have an audience that crosses diverse communities of interest); focus on a few subjects and address them profoundly and creatively, instead of talking a bit about everything under the sun; and believe: persevere until your message finds its audience.
Blog functionality is a critical component of Social Networking, and Social Networking will transform blogging (and also transform the Internet, the media, the way we communicate, and even the evolution of business) - Social Networking Applications (recently voted Technology of the Year by Business 2.0 magazine) will go beyond just allowing you to publish what's on your mind and browse what's on other people's. They will allow you to map and manage your networks, the communities to which you belong, your strong and weak ties. They will evolve blogging from clumsy, mostly one-way communication to a rich, two-way seamless multi-media communications medium that will allow you to identify and connect simply and powerfully with people you want to know better (for personal, practical or business reasons). Build deep relationships. Collaborate on awesome projects. Find the next president.
Blogs could be the platform for a proxy for each of us as individuals, our electronic filing cabinet and electronic identity - A blog consists of information about you, and knowledge you've accumulated. What if you expanded it to be a repository for all the information about you and all the knowledge you've accumulated, your 'locked' filing cabinet. You control it, you decide what does and doesn't go into it, and who can have a temporary key to what parts of it. Then at work, it could be your proxy, the repository of knowledge that shows your value to your employer and the value you've added to the company. And it could be your resume. At home it could be your medical patient record. Your bookshelf catalogue and refrigerator/pantry inventory and recipe book. Your bio for the dating service. Imagine the applications that could be built on this knowledge. Your intellectual property, under your control. Amazing. Scary.
The abandonment of 80-90% of blogs is a positive phenomenon - Media who just don't 'get it' have pointed to the abandonment of most blogs as an indication they're too technologically complex, or have no broad appeal, no staying power. What this abandonment really represents is a large number of people deciding that writing really isn't that important to them. The focus should instead be on the 10-20% who are still blogging. That's millions, potentially hundreds of millions of people regularly honing their writing skills, getting valuable commentary from readers on their writing and their ideas. Instead of a wasteland of abandoned effort, the blogosphere (along with perhaps IM) could actually be the most important development in written language since the printing press. As newspaper readership plummets and the next generation opts for oral communications over written, the timing of this phenomenon could not be more significant.
Blogging is increasingly a platform for achieving mainstream recognition - Just as the main readers of most business websites are competitors, not customers, the mainstream media are perusing blogs for new ideas and trends. So far they haven't really caught on to how the blogosphere works, so the process is serendipitous, creating brief fame mainly for A-listers who provide alternative viewpoints to stories of the day where no mainstream media pundits are at hand. But the mainstream media and bloggers are both learning how to use each other. Some bloggers have launched books based on their blogs, and some blogging self-promoters now have columns or spots in regular media. Those who think there's no money and fame in blogging are too quick to judge blogs' importance in the information society.
The culture of blogging is evolving faster than the technology - The frustration of bloggers with the tools available to them is palpable. That's not the tool designers' fault: They operate on a shoestring and their 'customers' all want something different. They'll eventually build tools that are both simple and flexible, as both the technology, and the understanding of its use, mature. In the meantime, impatient bloggers are working around the impediments, learning about HTML and CSS themselves. This is World of Ends innovation at work, producing a proliferation of new blog 'products' and hybrids. Group blogs are one example of a blog phenomenon that will only last until more dynamic mechanisms for cross-posting and guest privileging are developed in next generation blogs. The key is to go with the flow. Be part of the evolution or be left behind.
Blogs, like diaries, are a substitute for intimacy - Bloggers (and perhaps all writers) are a million voices howling in the dark. There is an inherent loneliness in writing, and the blogosphere provides an opportunity to make new connections with little risk. You don't need to reveal your identity. You can throw ideas out there that you might not dare voice face-to-face, for fear of being laughed at, or carted away. You can reveal things to 'strangers' that you might not be willing to tell those close to you. You can think out loud. You can test the waters, safely. The only consequence is that when you meet a fellow blogger or reader face-to-face, or even voice-to-voice, it can be psychologically jarring. It's almost as if you've broken the rules.
RSS is blurring the distinction between blogs and other media - RSS, the ability to syndicate your posts and let people subscribe to them, transforms the metaphor of a blog from a diary to a publication. That crosses the main divide that separates it from mainstream media. Although the future of any medium is impossible to predict, I believe RSS has played a pivotal role in forestalling, and perhaps completely subverting, the plan of many of the major print media to start charging money for their on-line editions. I know for a fact that was in the cards as recently as a year ago.

What do you think? Have I missed some important ideas?

* Yes, I know some of these ideas are themselves not new this year. There is nothing new under the sun. But I would argue that the application and implications of these ideas were first manifest some time in 2003

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART
TWO

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART
TWO 01/16/2004 11:01 AM

This is the second in a series of articles that will be published intermittently this month. This article summarizes what I believe were the most important ideas of 2003 in the world of politics and economics. The first article in the series covered the world of blogs & blogging, and future articles will cover business, the arts & sciences, and the environment.

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POLITICS & ECONOMICS -- THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003

I make no apologies for the fact that this list reflects my perspective on the political compass (-8.2, -8.0). Those with conservative or authoritarian views are welcome to make their own lists.

Constitutional liberalism must precede democracy, if the democracy is going to endure - Fareed Zakaria makes this point in his best-seller The Future of Freedom. The ill-advised approach of imperialists throughout history, including the US today in Iraq, of trying to impose democracy before the institutions that nurture and sustain it have been introduced and taken root, is doomed to failure. The future of Iraq is inevitably division, civil war, and more totalitarianism, and only the Iraqis can, and will, decide when they're ready for the bold experiment with democracy, on their own terms.
The alternative to 'free' trade is 'fair' trade, not no trade - The work of economist Herman Daly shows that the 'market' is efficient at deciding how best to allocate scarce resources to producers, but incapable of governing the equally important tasks of ensuring distributive justice in the allocation of economic products, and the optimal scale of production of those economic products. Governments, representing the best interests of their people, must be free to intervene in markets to regulate these latter two attributes of an optimal trade system.
A non-violent, global, connected, consensual politic has the power to withhold consent for war or tyranny - In his book The Unconquerable World, Jon Schell cites the success of Ghandi's and King's non-violent activism, and the peaceful disintegration of the Soviet bloc, to argue that popular refusal to obey an oppressive government, irrational law or unwarranted call to arms can undermine the mightiest of governments or tyrants bloodlessly, and bring about needed domestic and international reforms in politics, law, peace-keeping, and social and environmental programs and institutions.
Terrorism is a reaction, not an action - The work of George Lakoff demonstrates that liberals and conservatives have fundamentally different worldviews that dictate, among other things, how they believe violence and disobedience to authority should be dealt with. The conservative 'strict father' worldview believes in might-makes-right authority, strict obedience, and severe punishment for disobedience. The liberal 'nurturing parent' worldview believes that people are basically good, that fairness should dictate policy, and that consensus and discussion are healthy. Where conservatives see terrorists as disobedient children who need to be disciplined, liberals see terrorism as a symptom of deprivation and desperation, and see the need to treat the underlying symptoms (poverty and oppression) to solve the problem.
Our education system breeds a sense of helplessness, acquiescence, fear, guilt about poverty, and self-loathing - As the writings of John Taylor Gatto reveal, the education system is, despite the valiant and well-intentioned efforts of teachers, the means by which the vast majority of people today are subdued, dumbed-down, kept in line, and reduced to passive consumers instead of active citizens. Without reform of the education system, other political, economic and legal reforms will be ineffective.
The search for endless productivity improvement is a race to the bottom - In its study of the success of Wal-Mart, Fast Company magazine showed how the company's single-minded preoccupation with ever-lower prices at any cost was driving the North American economy to massive offshoring, the sacrifice of quality, and the bankrupting of some very good companies. The spiral has been called 'the race to the bottom' and I illustrate it in the diagram above that I call 'The Wal-Mart Dilemma'. We need to strike a balance between low prices on the one hand, and the preservation of North American jobs and high product quality on the other. If we don't, Wal-Mart will decide for us, and their choice is clear.

The American middle class is disappearing - Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren's new book The Two Income Trap shows that massive increases in costs of housing (especially in areas with prestige schools), health insurance, transportation and education have opened up a chasm between America's 'haves' and 'have nots', most notably pushing middle-class parents to the verge of bankruptcy in huge numbers. What's worse, the shame and stigma of bankruptcy is preventing the afflicted parents from seeking recourse against usurious lenders, or even talking openly about this growing, life-destroying problem. The resultant massive concentration of power and wealth in America (see chart above) has enormous implications for the country's future.
The next economy will support consumers holistically to solve their problems, not just sell them products - In her book The Support Economy, Shoshana Zuboff argues that what is needed is a new economic layer, a 're-intermediation', between the producer and consumer, which consists of 'federations' of businesses and 'advocates' who work collaboratively to look after the busy consumer's needs cradle-to-grave and deal with the multiple suppliers in the product/service delivery process. I confess I don't share the author's exuberance that such 'support' will be affordable by any except the rich elite, but so many people I respect loved this book and its ideas that I felt I had to include it.
Our fixation with helplessness distorts our perceptions of risk and leads us to make dysfunctional decisions - In an article explaining our passion for SUVs and the dangerous feeling of invincibility they give us, Malcolm Gladwell explores the concept of Learned Helplessness -- our perspective failure to realize that the risks posed to life and limb by forces outside our control are dwarfed by the factors we can control. And it's in the media's and politicians' best interests to pander to this misperception -- to get us focused on things like terrorism, Mad Cow and SARS that no one can really do anything about, distracting us from far greater but less sensational dangers we can, with money and effort, fix -- things like air and water pollution, tainted food from corrupt and underregulated meat packers, drugs in sport and airplane cockpits, drunk drivers, kids with guns, corporate frauds, gerrymandering, and our fatally flawed education and prison systems and treatment of the mentally ill. Things that destroy hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
US debt threatens global economic collapse - Even the US-dominated Internation al Monetary Fund is now sounding the alarm that the massive and irresponsible debt built up in three short years by the Bush regime is the greatest threat to the global economy, and with it, our jobs and life savings, since the reckless conditions that precipitated the great depression.

CANADA HEADS
INTO POLITICAL CHAOS

CANADA HEADS
INTO POLITICAL CHAOS 06/13/2004 10:15 AM

Two weeks ago I reported on the upcoming June 28 Canadian election, and predicted that there would be a Liberal minority government, with the NDP holding the balance of power. Since then, groupthink has taken hold, and the anger that many Canadians feel about the incompetence of the federal Liberals to detect either wasteful spending or the 'sponsorship' fraud by some government workers, plus the anger of many Ontarians about the new Provincial Liberal government's reneging on promises to avoid tax increases, has led another 8% of Canadians to vow not to re-elect them. This 8% swing has been predominantly older men in Ontario, who seem unwilling to believe that the Conservatives are as right-wing as Liberal Prime Minister Martin has portrayed them, and younger people, whose support for the Green Party has significantly increased.

The province-by-province projections now stand as follows -- 155 of the 308 seats are needed for a majority:

	Liberal	Conservative	NDP	Green	Bloc Québecois
West - 95 seats	27 (28%)	55 (40%)	13 (22%)	0 (10%)
Ontario - 106	48 (35%)	51 (38%)	7 (21%)	0 (6%)
Québec - 75	15 (30%)

A BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

A BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)

A BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

THE BLOGGER'S ROLE IN THE MEDIA

A CHRISTMAS POEM, TO MY WIFE

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD READING LIST

ACTIVE SALON BLOGS LIST UPDATED

HELP COMPILE "THE WEB USER'S ESSENTIAL LINKS AND FREE DOWNLOADS" LIST

THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL: PETER SINGER'S ONE WORLD

ASHOKA: A LAUNCHING PAD FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

THE STOCK MARKET AS PONZI SCHEME

AVOIDING THE LANDMINES IN ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESS

WHY DOES SMALL BUSINESS VOTE CONSERVATIVE?

THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART ONE

THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART TWO

CANADA HEADS INTO POLITICAL CHAOS

A BLOGGER'S
CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

THE
BLOGGER'S ROLE IN THE MEDIA

A CHRISTMAS
POEM, TO MY WIFE

HOW TO
SAVE THE WORLD READING LIST

ACTIVE SALON
BLOGS LIST UPDATED

HELP COMPILE
"THE WEB USER'S ESSENTIAL LINKS AND FREE
DOWNLOADS" LIST

THINK
GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL: PETER SINGER'S
ONE
WORLD

ASHOKA: A
LAUNCHING PAD FOR SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURS

THE STOCK
MARKET AS PONZI SCHEME

AVOIDING THE
LANDMINES IN ENTREPRENEURIAL
BUSINESS

WHY DOES
SMALL BUSINESS VOTE CONSERVATIVE?

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART ONE

THE MOST
IMPORTANT IDEAS OF 2003 - PART
TWO

CANADA HEADS
INTO POLITICAL CHAOS