The one problem I’ve had with the distribution of everything on the Internet has been: how does anyone make any money off of all this? I never pay for anything that I get off the internet. I also never pay attention to advertisements on websites so I don’t see how anyone is making money that way either. The thought came to me after reading a post by Chris Anderson entitled, Ebooks want to be free. What about audio books? Feb 4, 2007. Talking about his book, The Long Tail, being pirated, he says, “My publishers want to make money, and I like them so I usually do what it takes to keep them happy, but in truth I just want to be read/listened to by the largest number of people. Leave it to me to figure out how to convert that reputational currency into cash--just get me in front of the biggest audience and I'll do the rest. My agent doesn't want to hear this, but I'd rather take a smaller up-front advance or lower royalties in exchange for more liberty in distributing free versions, because I think I'll actually be better off in the end.” What does he mean when he says, “just get me in front of the biggest audience and I'll do the rest?” What is he going to do? Because up until now I have read his book, his blog and anything else I can find that he has done and I have yet to pay one red cent. As I looked more into this I discovered that there are some advantages to distributing your stuff for free like more publicity, word of mouth and making revenues in different ways. But from my point of view I would say making money by giving it away is still a long shot. The more stuff is given away for free on the internet, the more people avoid buying the real thing, expecting it to come out for free at some point on the internet anyway. Whenever I hear about anything that has come out I always search for it online first to see if it is out there for free somewhere. And if its not I’m patient enough until it is.
“Free ideas spread faster than expensive ones,” says Seth Godlin in his post called You should write an ebook March 28 2007. Explaining how his first ebook, Unleashing the Idea Virus came about, he says, “I brought it to my publisher and said, "I'd like you to publish this, but I want to give it away on the net." They passed. They used to think I was crazy, but now they were sure of it. So I decided to just give it away. The first few days, the book was downloaded 3,000 times. The next day, the number went up. And then up. Soon it was 100,000 and then a million. The best part of all is that I intentionally made the file small enough to email. Even without counting the folks who emailed it hundreds of times to co-workers, it's easily on more than 2,000,000 computers. I didn't ask anything in return. No centralized email tool. Here it is. Share it. Some will ask, "how much money did you make?" And I think a better question is, "how much did it cost you?" How much did it cost you to write the most popular ebook ever and to reach those millions of people and to do a promotion that drove an expensive hardcover to #5 on Amazon and #4 in Japan and led to translation deals in dozens of countries and plenty of speaking gigs? It cost nothing.” So with this story it looks like giving away your stuff for free serves as a marketing and publicity tool. Bands also use this technique by giving away their music for free and making the profit at the live shows.
Cory Doctorow wrote an article for Forbes.com entitled Giving It Away, where he explains in more detail how profit can be made from giving your books away on the internet. “Most people who download the book don't end up buying it, but they wouldn’t have bought it in any event, so I haven’t lost any sales, I’ve just won an audience. A tiny minority of downloaders treat the free e-book as a substitute for the printed book--those are the lost sales. But a much larger minority treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the printed book. They're gained sales. As long as gained sales outnumber lost sales, I'm ahead of the game.” Many people aren’t going to buy your stuff anyway so you might as well give it to them for free; people like me who are moochers who never buy anything until it is made for free.
The most important thing that an author can have is the peers of others recommending their book. Doctorow continues, “Nothing sells books like a personal recommendation--when I worked in a bookstore, the sweetest words we could hear were "My friend suggested I pick up...." The friend had made the sale for us, we just had to consummate it. In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word of mouth.” That is a main advantage that free distribution provides-people are a lot more likely to buy something from a peers recommendation than from a companies.
“Having my books more widely read opens many other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans' tireless evangelism for my work doesn't just sell books--it sells me.”
So up until now I may not have paid anything for all the entertainment that I get off of the internet, but I am a fan of some people that I wasn’t a fan of before the internet made it possible for me to discover them. Possibly in the future if they offer something like an event that can’t be ripped, pirated or distributed for free, perhaps then I will end up paying them something. But who knows when or if that ever that will happen.
martes, 24 de abril de 2007
domingo, 1 de abril de 2007
Who Cares About Privacy?
The lines between what is private and what isn’t are being blurred for individuals and companies alike. More young people are putting more personal information out in public on sites like Facebook and Myspace than any adult would ever think of and yet they are fine with it, along with their entirely different definition of privacy. Businesses also are being pushed to go naked for all to see. In the April issue of Wired magazine they have an article called The See-Through CEO, which says, “The Internet has inverted the social physics of information. Companies used to assume that details about their internal workings were valuable precisely because they were secret. If you were cagey about your plans, you had the upper hand; if you kept your next big idea to yourself, people couldn't steal it. Now, billion- dollar ideas come to CEOs who give them away; corporations that publicize their failings grow stronger. Power comes not from your Rolodex but from how many bloggers link to you - and everyone trembles before search engine rankings.” They told me in high school that the days of graduating from college and working for one company that will take care of you until you retire doesn’t exist anymore. To be successful you need to start marketing yourself like a business, having versatile skills and abilities to compete in an ever changing work field. Now the tables have turned as businesses start to market themselves more like people who post everything about themselves on sites like Facebook and Myspace. We are all living in public more and more everyday.
The other day me and my friend Matt signed up to live at an apartment complex together for the summer semester where there are six people per apartment. They sent us an email showing us the other roommates that we would be living with. Having random roommates assigned to live with you can be a little weird since you have no idea who they might turn out to be. So we decided to look them up on Facebook to see if they would be types that we would get along with. It was a little weird how easy it was to look up a stranger on Facebook and see everything about them willfully posted on the internet, including: where they’re from, their pictures, favorite movies, bands, friends, and what the last thing they posted on a friends page was. This got me thinking about why we willfully publish what would normally be private information on the internet for everyone to see. Maybe it is the side effect of everyone being obsessed with reality TV shows for so long that everyone wants to, and now thinks they can be a star. Whatever the explanation is it’s not going to change anytime soon.
In an article called, Say Everything, by Emily Nussbaum in New York Magazine, she says, “And after all, there is another way to look at this shift. Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Every street in New York has a surveillance camera. Each time you swipe your debit card at Duane Reade or use your MetroCard, that transaction is tracked. Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.”
For a long time it seemed that people were very serious about having their lives be private. The Patriot Act and Spyware are two good examples. The Patriot Act was signed by President Bush on October 26, 2001 and was formed in response to the terrorist attacks against the United States. It dramatically expanded the authority of American law enforcers to investigate and prosecute the supporters of terrorism. People threw a fit about the Patriot Act because on March 9, 2007, the US Justice Department released an internal audit that found that the FBI had acted illegally in its use of the act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens. Spyware is another example of the public’s fear of invasion of privacy. Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. The complaint about Spyware is that internet companies track your business on the internet so that they can modify their marketing tactics towards you to personalize them. People say these things are an invasion of privacy, but who cares about privacy anymore? Everyone wants to be spied on. Everyone is just loading up all their information about themselves anyway. There is so much information out there in the first place that I don’t have time to read it all. As far as I’m concerned Spyware can spy on me as much as it wants if it means figuring out what I’m most interested in so that it can sort out the crap that doesn’t concern me and give me all the recommended stuff that I will want to read.
Somehow it feels like all these networking sites are creating a false identity in everyone. I’m having a hard time figuring out what I think about it. It’s like everyone can now finally be a part of reality TV. The fact that people change their relationship status on Facebook for everyone to see as soon as they start going out with someone new is odd. As if they have a huge fan base that just can’t wait to see what their relationship status is. Too often pictures are taken at parties or events for the sake of making sure that everyone sees how cool you are on your Myspace page rather than serving as memories, like most pictures should. It’s dumb to do something just for the sake of taking a picture to make sure everyone knows about all the cool stuff you do. In essence, every young person in America has become, in the literal sense, a public figure. Everyone wants attention and wants to think that they have lots of fans but the truth is, as Dr. Phil puts it, “You would care a lot less about what people thought about you if you knew how little they did.”
No one is more confused about this whole thing that parents. They keep saying that this lack of privacy is dangerous because there are stalkers and perverts out there that can find you. But obviously kids don’t think so because it hasn’t deterred millions of them from doing it. In Say Everything once again, Emily Nussbaum says, “that’s pretty much the standard response I’ve gotten when I’ve spoken about this piece with anyone over 39: “But what about the perverts?” For teenagers, who have grown up laughing at porn pop-ups and the occasional instant message from a skeezy stranger, this is about as logical as the question “How can you move to New York? You’ll get mugged!”
The benefits are obvious for both the individual and the company. For the individual the public life is fun. It’s creative. It’s where their friends are. It’s theater, but it’s also community: In this linked, logged world, you have a place to think out loud and be listened to, to meet strangers and go deeper with friends. For the company, getting people to talk about them is good for business because recommendations from peers works 100 percent better than recommendations from the company itself. Chris Anderson says in a blog, In Praise of Radical Transparency, “The small cost of some competitor getting early wind of a new feature is more than outweighed by the good will generated among customers by candid insights into product development.” And Jeff Jarvis says in his post, Radical’ transparency, “The point is that what you really want to do is open the windows on either side of your house and let the people standing around talk directly to each other, with or without you. You do your job, still, creating some stuff that people want to gather around. But then you enable them to share more. And now you have a new role — helping them.”
So I guess it’s time to get used to having no privacy. Because the truth is, we’re living in frontier country right now. We can take guesses at the future, but it’s hard to gauge the effects of a drug while you’re still taking it. Will this lack of privacy get worse or will it die out? What are the long term side effects to companies and individuals posting everything about themselves for everyone to see? Who knows? But until then, lets get naked.
The other day me and my friend Matt signed up to live at an apartment complex together for the summer semester where there are six people per apartment. They sent us an email showing us the other roommates that we would be living with. Having random roommates assigned to live with you can be a little weird since you have no idea who they might turn out to be. So we decided to look them up on Facebook to see if they would be types that we would get along with. It was a little weird how easy it was to look up a stranger on Facebook and see everything about them willfully posted on the internet, including: where they’re from, their pictures, favorite movies, bands, friends, and what the last thing they posted on a friends page was. This got me thinking about why we willfully publish what would normally be private information on the internet for everyone to see. Maybe it is the side effect of everyone being obsessed with reality TV shows for so long that everyone wants to, and now thinks they can be a star. Whatever the explanation is it’s not going to change anytime soon.
In an article called, Say Everything, by Emily Nussbaum in New York Magazine, she says, “And after all, there is another way to look at this shift. Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Every street in New York has a surveillance camera. Each time you swipe your debit card at Duane Reade or use your MetroCard, that transaction is tracked. Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.”
For a long time it seemed that people were very serious about having their lives be private. The Patriot Act and Spyware are two good examples. The Patriot Act was signed by President Bush on October 26, 2001 and was formed in response to the terrorist attacks against the United States. It dramatically expanded the authority of American law enforcers to investigate and prosecute the supporters of terrorism. People threw a fit about the Patriot Act because on March 9, 2007, the US Justice Department released an internal audit that found that the FBI had acted illegally in its use of the act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens. Spyware is another example of the public’s fear of invasion of privacy. Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. The complaint about Spyware is that internet companies track your business on the internet so that they can modify their marketing tactics towards you to personalize them. People say these things are an invasion of privacy, but who cares about privacy anymore? Everyone wants to be spied on. Everyone is just loading up all their information about themselves anyway. There is so much information out there in the first place that I don’t have time to read it all. As far as I’m concerned Spyware can spy on me as much as it wants if it means figuring out what I’m most interested in so that it can sort out the crap that doesn’t concern me and give me all the recommended stuff that I will want to read.
Somehow it feels like all these networking sites are creating a false identity in everyone. I’m having a hard time figuring out what I think about it. It’s like everyone can now finally be a part of reality TV. The fact that people change their relationship status on Facebook for everyone to see as soon as they start going out with someone new is odd. As if they have a huge fan base that just can’t wait to see what their relationship status is. Too often pictures are taken at parties or events for the sake of making sure that everyone sees how cool you are on your Myspace page rather than serving as memories, like most pictures should. It’s dumb to do something just for the sake of taking a picture to make sure everyone knows about all the cool stuff you do. In essence, every young person in America has become, in the literal sense, a public figure. Everyone wants attention and wants to think that they have lots of fans but the truth is, as Dr. Phil puts it, “You would care a lot less about what people thought about you if you knew how little they did.”
No one is more confused about this whole thing that parents. They keep saying that this lack of privacy is dangerous because there are stalkers and perverts out there that can find you. But obviously kids don’t think so because it hasn’t deterred millions of them from doing it. In Say Everything once again, Emily Nussbaum says, “that’s pretty much the standard response I’ve gotten when I’ve spoken about this piece with anyone over 39: “But what about the perverts?” For teenagers, who have grown up laughing at porn pop-ups and the occasional instant message from a skeezy stranger, this is about as logical as the question “How can you move to New York? You’ll get mugged!”
The benefits are obvious for both the individual and the company. For the individual the public life is fun. It’s creative. It’s where their friends are. It’s theater, but it’s also community: In this linked, logged world, you have a place to think out loud and be listened to, to meet strangers and go deeper with friends. For the company, getting people to talk about them is good for business because recommendations from peers works 100 percent better than recommendations from the company itself. Chris Anderson says in a blog, In Praise of Radical Transparency, “The small cost of some competitor getting early wind of a new feature is more than outweighed by the good will generated among customers by candid insights into product development.” And Jeff Jarvis says in his post, Radical’ transparency, “The point is that what you really want to do is open the windows on either side of your house and let the people standing around talk directly to each other, with or without you. You do your job, still, creating some stuff that people want to gather around. But then you enable them to share more. And now you have a new role — helping them.”
So I guess it’s time to get used to having no privacy. Because the truth is, we’re living in frontier country right now. We can take guesses at the future, but it’s hard to gauge the effects of a drug while you’re still taking it. Will this lack of privacy get worse or will it die out? What are the long term side effects to companies and individuals posting everything about themselves for everyone to see? Who knows? But until then, lets get naked.
jueves, 29 de marzo de 2007
In Search of the Good Stuff
Somewhere along the way everyone’s tastes stray from what are the “hits” and go into “niches”. We are all interested in different things at different levels. When there was limited shelves, channels, and airtime, the depth at which we could indulge our deeper level interests was limited to what was available on the limited shelves, channels, and airtime. So people had to take what they could get and settle for less. Jeff Jarvis, in his post entitled Wither Magazines? Says, “General-interest anything is probably cursed. For the truth is that interest never was as general as editors and publishers thought it was, back in the mass-media age. Old media just assumed we were interested in what they told us to be interested in. But we weren’t. We’re proving that with every new choice the internet enables.” Once we realize that the deep stuff that truly interests us is out there somewhere, we begin trying to find something that helps us find the good stuff, as each of us defines good. And as the democratization of technology and distribution becomes more and more wide spread I know that more and more good deep stuff that I like is out there somewhere for me; I just need to find it.
Trying to find the good stuff is easier said than done. Google helps you get closer and Wikipedia helps you define it, but it still takes a lot of work. Most of the time you find corporate websites that give you recommendations based on their own agendas for making money. What you really want to find are people with the same interests as you who can recommend to you what is good. They are much more trust worthy than companies. 1,000,000 heads are better than your own at finding what you really want. Jeff Jarvis talks about this concerning his relationship with magazines, he says, “But I’m just too busy reading — or listening or watching — fresher, more focused, more personal, higher interest content on the internet. But some of that is still from or around magazines. I still have a relationship with these brands, only not always in print anymore. And even when I do still read the magazine in print, I want a relationship with the magazine — and, more important, my fellow readers — online.” That’s the trick; get recommendations from the people who are interested in the same stuff as you.
For example, I like music a lot but I am very picky with what I will listen to. But I know that the good stuff is out there somewhere waiting for me to discover it; it has to be. I go onto Myspace and listen to random bands in search of something good and rarely do I find anything of worth. My favorite bands have links to other bands in their “top 8 friends” but that provides weak results. When a band has 20,000 friends, who can you trust? At Amazon.com when you look at any product it gives you a column on the left hand side of peer generated lists of what they would recommend for those who like the product that you are looking at, but these are all really random and many times not very concise. These techniques are close but no cigar. How do I know how deep I am? Have I found everything within my niche that would be of worth to me? There has to be still more out there and I’m thirsty for it. And trying to find the good stuff goes beyond music; I also need help finding the coolest new independent digital movies, insightful blogs that talk about what I’m interested in, books worth reading, ect.
The solution would be to be part of a community of people with the same interests as you who can recommend to you what they like. Maybe a personal Facebook-like page where I blog and where members of my community blog as well. Together we sift through the vastness of cyberspace and recommend to each other where the good stuff is that we find. There would have to be someway to make it so that not just anybody could make recommendations in the community; they would have to pass a test or be referred by someone else or something. We could have our own “cool kids only” community where only the people with the best tastes-our tastes-are invited to contribute. Maybe something like this already exists?
This is what companies are being encouraged to do through radical transparency as explained in the April issue of Wired Magazine. On the topic of radical transparency, Jeff Jarvis once again says, “The point is that what you really want to do is open the windows on either side of your house and let the people standing around talk directly to each other, with or without you. You do your job, still, creating some stuff that people want to gather around. But then you enable them to share more. And now you have a new role — helping them.” So help me already.
Trying to find the good stuff is easier said than done. Google helps you get closer and Wikipedia helps you define it, but it still takes a lot of work. Most of the time you find corporate websites that give you recommendations based on their own agendas for making money. What you really want to find are people with the same interests as you who can recommend to you what is good. They are much more trust worthy than companies. 1,000,000 heads are better than your own at finding what you really want. Jeff Jarvis talks about this concerning his relationship with magazines, he says, “But I’m just too busy reading — or listening or watching — fresher, more focused, more personal, higher interest content on the internet. But some of that is still from or around magazines. I still have a relationship with these brands, only not always in print anymore. And even when I do still read the magazine in print, I want a relationship with the magazine — and, more important, my fellow readers — online.” That’s the trick; get recommendations from the people who are interested in the same stuff as you.
For example, I like music a lot but I am very picky with what I will listen to. But I know that the good stuff is out there somewhere waiting for me to discover it; it has to be. I go onto Myspace and listen to random bands in search of something good and rarely do I find anything of worth. My favorite bands have links to other bands in their “top 8 friends” but that provides weak results. When a band has 20,000 friends, who can you trust? At Amazon.com when you look at any product it gives you a column on the left hand side of peer generated lists of what they would recommend for those who like the product that you are looking at, but these are all really random and many times not very concise. These techniques are close but no cigar. How do I know how deep I am? Have I found everything within my niche that would be of worth to me? There has to be still more out there and I’m thirsty for it. And trying to find the good stuff goes beyond music; I also need help finding the coolest new independent digital movies, insightful blogs that talk about what I’m interested in, books worth reading, ect.
The solution would be to be part of a community of people with the same interests as you who can recommend to you what they like. Maybe a personal Facebook-like page where I blog and where members of my community blog as well. Together we sift through the vastness of cyberspace and recommend to each other where the good stuff is that we find. There would have to be someway to make it so that not just anybody could make recommendations in the community; they would have to pass a test or be referred by someone else or something. We could have our own “cool kids only” community where only the people with the best tastes-our tastes-are invited to contribute. Maybe something like this already exists?
This is what companies are being encouraged to do through radical transparency as explained in the April issue of Wired Magazine. On the topic of radical transparency, Jeff Jarvis once again says, “The point is that what you really want to do is open the windows on either side of your house and let the people standing around talk directly to each other, with or without you. You do your job, still, creating some stuff that people want to gather around. But then you enable them to share more. And now you have a new role — helping them.” So help me already.
miércoles, 28 de marzo de 2007
What is culture?
When the Berlin wall fell down America was the first one out the gate to jump on the globalization train. Some countries are right behind America and others still haven’t left the starting line. Why was America first? Because right off the bat America was the most prepared, with a democratic government and free market capitalistic system already in place, which is essential to be successful in the new fast paced global world. So when it came time for America to do business with other countries they were never on even playing fields. America is much more advanced and experienced with capitalism and business than other countries. So when America puts a Wal-Mart in Mexico all the other similar Mexican businesses go belly up because they can’t compete with the advanced American businesses model. It’s survival of the fittest and only the strong survive in this new world. This may look like America is taking over and ruining cultures, but really it is the more advanced American businesses that are out performing the weaker foreign businesses.
What is culture anyway? Wikipedia defines it as the patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Most general, the term culture denotes whole product of an individual, group or society of intelligent beings. It includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems and characteristic behaviors and habits of the selected intelligent entities. In particular, it has specific more detailed meanings in different domains of human activities.
Understanding and recognizing your own culture is difficult because you live in it everyday. Its like how the last discovery fish ever made was water. It’s only after you go to a different country that you recognize how your country does things differently.
I think too often what people call culture may just be traditions caused by a lower standard of living or their type of government. Maybe this explains why it is so hard for me to define American culture. When I’m asked what a common dish in America is I have a hard time finding an answer. It has to do in part with the fact that America is made up of a country of immigrants, so it’s a big mix of everything, but maybe it’s because we don’t have as many eccentric habits caused by poverty or deep rooted attitudes that are caused from oppressive governments.
Globalization threatens the distinctiveness and cultures that locate and anchor people in the world. But what is the different between culture and living standards? In Mexico you can buy drinks in a plastic bag instead of a cup; is that culture, or is it their lack of money? Surely they would serve drinks in cups if everyone could afford it. Are the public busses that are falling apart part of the culture, or is it because they can’t afford new ones? If the standard of living rose 100% in Mexico, what so called cultural things would disappear? People would still eat tacos but instead they would eat them in nicer restaurants instead of in the street. You wouldn’t be able to buy pirated stuff all over the place because with more money Mexico would have stricter piracy laws. What really defines culture? Where is the line between culture and the amount of money you make?
What is the difference between government and culture? Many cultures are based off of communism or socialism and they say they are losing their culture but maybe what they are really losing is they perceived right to have generous welfare from the government. Are they losing their culture or do they not want to adapt to a world where they have to go to work 40 hours a week like those capitalistic Americans? If the socialist governments switched to democracies, what so called cultural traditions would be lost?
In the Mexican culture they are very close to their families. They also believe that in the American culture families are not as close as theirs. They think this because in America when you turn 18 it isn’t unusual for the 18 year old to move away from home to go to college or go to work. If someone is 25 years old and still lives at home with Mom and Dad that person is considered to be a loser or a nerd. But it is not uncommon for Mexicans to live at home well into their twenties, usually not moving out until they are married, and even then they may still live with their parents after marriage. When you tell a Mexican that in America you move out at age 18 they think Americans aren’t very close to their families and that Americans are just workaholic capitalists that can’t wait to forget about family to start making money. But do Mexicans live at home for so long because they are close to their family’s, or is it because it makes more sense economically? As more young Mexicans start to adapt to the capitalistic economy I bet that they will move out of home at an earlier age.
When you take away the traditions that are caused from a lowered living standard and a socialistic government what’s left? Losing differences in cultures if sad but it almost seems inevitable. Its bad not just because foreign vacationers will feel like they can never get away from home, but because those things that we associate with home that anchor us in the world will be lost and therefore we will feel lost as well.
What is culture anyway? Wikipedia defines it as the patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Most general, the term culture denotes whole product of an individual, group or society of intelligent beings. It includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems and characteristic behaviors and habits of the selected intelligent entities. In particular, it has specific more detailed meanings in different domains of human activities.
Understanding and recognizing your own culture is difficult because you live in it everyday. Its like how the last discovery fish ever made was water. It’s only after you go to a different country that you recognize how your country does things differently.
I think too often what people call culture may just be traditions caused by a lower standard of living or their type of government. Maybe this explains why it is so hard for me to define American culture. When I’m asked what a common dish in America is I have a hard time finding an answer. It has to do in part with the fact that America is made up of a country of immigrants, so it’s a big mix of everything, but maybe it’s because we don’t have as many eccentric habits caused by poverty or deep rooted attitudes that are caused from oppressive governments.
Globalization threatens the distinctiveness and cultures that locate and anchor people in the world. But what is the different between culture and living standards? In Mexico you can buy drinks in a plastic bag instead of a cup; is that culture, or is it their lack of money? Surely they would serve drinks in cups if everyone could afford it. Are the public busses that are falling apart part of the culture, or is it because they can’t afford new ones? If the standard of living rose 100% in Mexico, what so called cultural things would disappear? People would still eat tacos but instead they would eat them in nicer restaurants instead of in the street. You wouldn’t be able to buy pirated stuff all over the place because with more money Mexico would have stricter piracy laws. What really defines culture? Where is the line between culture and the amount of money you make?
What is the difference between government and culture? Many cultures are based off of communism or socialism and they say they are losing their culture but maybe what they are really losing is they perceived right to have generous welfare from the government. Are they losing their culture or do they not want to adapt to a world where they have to go to work 40 hours a week like those capitalistic Americans? If the socialist governments switched to democracies, what so called cultural traditions would be lost?
In the Mexican culture they are very close to their families. They also believe that in the American culture families are not as close as theirs. They think this because in America when you turn 18 it isn’t unusual for the 18 year old to move away from home to go to college or go to work. If someone is 25 years old and still lives at home with Mom and Dad that person is considered to be a loser or a nerd. But it is not uncommon for Mexicans to live at home well into their twenties, usually not moving out until they are married, and even then they may still live with their parents after marriage. When you tell a Mexican that in America you move out at age 18 they think Americans aren’t very close to their families and that Americans are just workaholic capitalists that can’t wait to forget about family to start making money. But do Mexicans live at home for so long because they are close to their family’s, or is it because it makes more sense economically? As more young Mexicans start to adapt to the capitalistic economy I bet that they will move out of home at an earlier age.
When you take away the traditions that are caused from a lowered living standard and a socialistic government what’s left? Losing differences in cultures if sad but it almost seems inevitable. Its bad not just because foreign vacationers will feel like they can never get away from home, but because those things that we associate with home that anchor us in the world will be lost and therefore we will feel lost as well.
martes, 20 de marzo de 2007
Job Security Weakens the Soul
There are a lot of people complaining about globalization these days. They are complaining about globalization but really they are mad because they can no longer be lazy and rely on others for support. Today, everyone thinks that somebody owes them something. They want to blame America for their problems but they really have no one to blame but themselves and their lack of work ethic. They think working in a company for a certain amount of years means you deserve job security. Being born into a certain country means you deserve special benefits. But now globalization threatens these ideas. Many people have tried to counteract through implementing unions and building higher walls around their country but they are just falling behind faster and faster. Job security is not something that someone gives you. Job security is defined by your ability to continually add value to your work. Unions are a disease and job security weakens the soul.
The world is changing so fast that you can’t rely on your company or country to support you. You have to learn how to depend on yourself which means having the integrity to square your shoulders and go to work. Thomas L. Friedman in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree says, “Every worker needs to understand that economic security in this world without walls cannot come any longer from largesse of welfare state or from holding fast to a union card. It can only come from holding a report card. In an age when technological change is so rapid, and the walls around companies and countries so small, only new skills and life long learning can ensure job security.”
It is true that free market capitalism destroys old orders and hierarchies, produces income gaps, and puts everyone under pressure and stress from not knowing weather or not they will have a job tomorrow. But this is the system that has raised living standards higher, faster and for more people than at any time in history. The cruel aspects of free market capitalism are why many people throughout history have tried to find ways to cushion workers from their affects. They have tried implementing a government that would centrally plan and fund everything, and distribute to each worker according to his needs and expect from each worker a contribution according to his abilities. This was socialism, communism, and fascism. These plans don’t work. And the people who say they don’t work are the very people that lived under them. The only alternative today is free market capitalism.
The ones fighting against capitalism and globalization aren’t the poor; but the people living in the lower and middle classes that found a great deal of job security in the protected communist, socialist, and welfare systems. The unemployment benefits in many countries are changing so much so that people actually have to go to work. Now the fast paced world is taking away the confidence they once had that their job will always be there for them. They feel like they are not just losing benefits, but are losing their rights to receive generous unemployment services. Now in the gloabalized world it is time to realize that jobs come and go, and those that survive are those that are constantly improving to add value to their job. Again in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Alan Greenspan says, “Sure, 300,000 jobs are getting destroyed by new technologies in America every week, but 3000,001 new jobs are also being created by these technologies each week, which is why Americas aggregate unemployment rate was holding at a steady low level.” It takes constant learning on the employee’s part and a flexible labor market that will find them work somewhere else for everything to work out; that’s the way America is designed. It is also the way the rest of the world needs to be designed if it wants to keep up.
This resistance to free market capitalism and globalization is futile. Free-market capitalism is the only alternative and is the best system for generating rising standards of living. As the use-to-bes dig in their heels to try and save what they used to enjoy and resist the inevitable, the poorer population is realizing the benefits of globalization and the freedoms it provides. Creating a stable political, legal and economic environment friendly to entrepreneurship, in which people can start businesses and raise their productivity, is the precursor for effectively fighting poverty anywhere. It can push down to the local level and to the weakest individuals more power, opportunities and resources to become shapers than ever before. These people may not like a lot of things about globalization, but they know that the alternatives are a lot, lot worse. If you give them a system that makes it possible for them, with hard work to reach the level of success that the see on American TV, they will stick to the game.
So its time to stop complaining about Americans taking over your country and time to start realizing that you can’t depend on anyone but yourself anymore.
The world is changing so fast that you can’t rely on your company or country to support you. You have to learn how to depend on yourself which means having the integrity to square your shoulders and go to work. Thomas L. Friedman in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree says, “Every worker needs to understand that economic security in this world without walls cannot come any longer from largesse of welfare state or from holding fast to a union card. It can only come from holding a report card. In an age when technological change is so rapid, and the walls around companies and countries so small, only new skills and life long learning can ensure job security.”
It is true that free market capitalism destroys old orders and hierarchies, produces income gaps, and puts everyone under pressure and stress from not knowing weather or not they will have a job tomorrow. But this is the system that has raised living standards higher, faster and for more people than at any time in history. The cruel aspects of free market capitalism are why many people throughout history have tried to find ways to cushion workers from their affects. They have tried implementing a government that would centrally plan and fund everything, and distribute to each worker according to his needs and expect from each worker a contribution according to his abilities. This was socialism, communism, and fascism. These plans don’t work. And the people who say they don’t work are the very people that lived under them. The only alternative today is free market capitalism.
The ones fighting against capitalism and globalization aren’t the poor; but the people living in the lower and middle classes that found a great deal of job security in the protected communist, socialist, and welfare systems. The unemployment benefits in many countries are changing so much so that people actually have to go to work. Now the fast paced world is taking away the confidence they once had that their job will always be there for them. They feel like they are not just losing benefits, but are losing their rights to receive generous unemployment services. Now in the gloabalized world it is time to realize that jobs come and go, and those that survive are those that are constantly improving to add value to their job. Again in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Alan Greenspan says, “Sure, 300,000 jobs are getting destroyed by new technologies in America every week, but 3000,001 new jobs are also being created by these technologies each week, which is why Americas aggregate unemployment rate was holding at a steady low level.” It takes constant learning on the employee’s part and a flexible labor market that will find them work somewhere else for everything to work out; that’s the way America is designed. It is also the way the rest of the world needs to be designed if it wants to keep up.
This resistance to free market capitalism and globalization is futile. Free-market capitalism is the only alternative and is the best system for generating rising standards of living. As the use-to-bes dig in their heels to try and save what they used to enjoy and resist the inevitable, the poorer population is realizing the benefits of globalization and the freedoms it provides. Creating a stable political, legal and economic environment friendly to entrepreneurship, in which people can start businesses and raise their productivity, is the precursor for effectively fighting poverty anywhere. It can push down to the local level and to the weakest individuals more power, opportunities and resources to become shapers than ever before. These people may not like a lot of things about globalization, but they know that the alternatives are a lot, lot worse. If you give them a system that makes it possible for them, with hard work to reach the level of success that the see on American TV, they will stick to the game.
So its time to stop complaining about Americans taking over your country and time to start realizing that you can’t depend on anyone but yourself anymore.
miércoles, 14 de marzo de 2007
The Difference between Globalization and Americanization
Too many people in the world see globalization and Americanization as the same thing. Their idea is that America wants everyone to be just like them and adopt their way of doing business, but it is not America that is trying to get everyone to change, it is the new globalizied world. Before the Berlin wall fell there were two superpowers: the Soviet Union and America. Countries could get by on the resources provided by either one of these superpowers without having to be democratic or capitalist, but instead by just choosing a side and receive funding from them. When the wall came down only one superpower was left: the power to tap into the global stock and bond markets, by seeking out multinationals to invest in your country and by selling into the global trading system that your factories could provide for. And this global marketplace is made up of anonymous stock, bond, and currency traders and multinational investors connected by screens and networks. Not America. Nobody is in control of it and it doesn’t play favorites like the old superpowers used to. It only follows the rules. America doesn’t force anyone to be capitalistic, democratic and global; globalization does. America can’t stop it either-except at a huge cost to their society. And America didn’t set the rules; they are just the best at following them.
These rules that globalization asks for are those that will attract this group of anonymous stock, bond, and currency traders to invest. And to make them want to invest, your country needs to show stability, predictability, transparency, and the ability to transfer and protect its private property from arbitrary or criminal confiscation. And they don’t cut anyone any slack. America is at the mercy of this new superpower just as much as everyone else. Countries cannon thrive today without plugging into the global system and leaning how to make the most out of this new superpower.
America doesn’t choose who is rich and who isn’t; every country chooses its level of prosperity. It really is a choice that can be consciously made by putting the right policies in place. And more and more people want to do it because they more fully understand how other people, particularly successful nations, live by watching them on satellite TV and surfing the internet. Too many people see globalization as a threat to their way of life when in reality that isn’t the threat at all; the threat is their own lack of not applying themselves to the new rules of the system to increase their freedoms. Countries that have fallen behind say that it is America’s fault. But really it is because they failed to put in place even the minimum political, economic, and legal infrastructure to take advantage of globalization. Prosperity didn’t run away from them, they failed to make choices that would encourage it to say.
People have a hard time making the distinction between Americanization and Globalization because America is the country that best fits the new globalization role and is having the most success with it. The American model is the one that the rest of the world is being pressured by globalization to emulate. For many people this Americanization globalization is an attractive way to raise their living standards. But to others it feels like America is whipping everyone else to speed up, web up, downsize, standardize and march to America’s cultural tunes in the fast world. And they will have to if they want to compete in a globalized world. America insists that the rest of the world be like them for their own good.
America is a democratic country which is the kind of government that best applies to globalization. The new superpower of global investors is driven to get inside certain countries not because it values democracy per se. It doesn’t. It values stability, predictability, transparency, and the ability to transfer and protect its private property from arbitrary or criminal confiscation. But to secure these things, the global investors need developing countries to put in place better software, operating systems and governance-which are the building blocks to democracy. Globalization creates a much higher cost for any country that tolerates corruption.
Many people fear that they will be left behind trying to chase after Globalization or they will lose their identity trying to catch it. People detest the way globalization homogenizes people, brings strangers into their homes with strange ways, and erases distinctiveness of cultures that locate and anchor you in the world. These are legitimate concerns but instead of throwing all the blame on George Bush and those blood sucking Americans, its time to start pointing the blame at globalization itself, where it rightly belongs.
(Source: The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman)
martes, 13 de marzo de 2007
Critics Don´t Count
Since I have been living in Mexico for the last two months, I have been hearing all kinds if anti-America and anti- Bush sentiment. First of all, everyone has jumped on the hate-George-Bush-bandwagon, and I don’t get it. I’ve been trying to educate myself about the war on terror and what the President is doing but all I can seem to find is bias opinions and unsubstantiated rumors which leads me to believe that everyone else is going off of the same allegations as well. Today I read at cnn.com about how the Mayans in Guatemala are going to “cleanse” their Mayan sites after President Bush visited them on his Latin America tour. One disgruntled Guatemalan said, “That a person like (Bush) with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked is going to walk in our sacred lands is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, director of a Mayan non-governmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, (http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/12/bush.guatemala/index.html)
What is wrong with these people? How do they come to the conclusion that by being pissed off and hating others it will help them get their way any faster? Instead of educating themselves about the topic, and discussing ways to solve it, they decide to fall for all of the hate Bush propaganda that surrounds them and arrogantly decide that the best course of action is to cleanse the site that Bush, the great Satan, supposedly defiled. I’m sure there are problems, but hating, complaining, and criticizing isn’t going to get anyone anywhere fast. So this is me complaining about the complainers.
What is wrong with these people? How do they come to the conclusion that by being pissed off and hating others it will help them get their way any faster? Instead of educating themselves about the topic, and discussing ways to solve it, they decide to fall for all of the hate Bush propaganda that surrounds them and arrogantly decide that the best course of action is to cleanse the site that Bush, the great Satan, supposedly defiled. I’m sure there are problems, but hating, complaining, and criticizing isn’t going to get anyone anywhere fast. So this is me complaining about the complainers.
As Dale Carnegie said, “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance and arouses resentment. … Instead of condemning people let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all. Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.”
There are a lot of critics of the war, everyone seems to have chosen someone to blame for their problems instead of working at figuring out the solution for themselves. Theodore Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” So all you critics don’t count at all in my book. Keep your mouths shut until you have something to say that is less about complaining and more about solving.
I love America and all this anti-America stuff is starting to get to me. That’s my country and president that you’re criticizing. And next time your in the streets shouting “Death to America!” remember not to wear your blue jeans and don’t forget to leave your iPod at home. Like Gordon B Hinckley said, “Cynics don’t contribute, skeptics don’t create, doubters don’t achieve.”
There are a lot of critics of the war, everyone seems to have chosen someone to blame for their problems instead of working at figuring out the solution for themselves. Theodore Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” So all you critics don’t count at all in my book. Keep your mouths shut until you have something to say that is less about complaining and more about solving.
I love America and all this anti-America stuff is starting to get to me. That’s my country and president that you’re criticizing. And next time your in the streets shouting “Death to America!” remember not to wear your blue jeans and don’t forget to leave your iPod at home. Like Gordon B Hinckley said, “Cynics don’t contribute, skeptics don’t create, doubters don’t achieve.”
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