Future Bahamian Astronaut – Not so improbable

Posted on June 11, 2014 in Implementation, Industries, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The first response in looking at this photo is usually: ”Oh, so cute!”

Astro 1

But a more careful analysis of the future forecast from the book Go Lean…Caribbean, helps us to appreciate that having a true Bahamian astronaut is highly probable, in the not so distant future. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a 5-year roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). In Year 5, the roadmap calls for expansion/annexation; this will allow for the invitation/inclusion of French Guiana (neighbor of Suriname). This country is home to the European Space Agency (ESA). Under the Go Lean roadmap, this technology base would fit/continue under the plan for a Self-Governing Entity (SGE), ideal for this type of installation to thrive and foster regional impact. In truth, the roadmap features 3 prime directives, including:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that occupations and education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are vital for the Caribbean to have economic empowerment – the US model was one of vigorous job creation during the Mercury/Apollo space programs of the 1960’s/70’s. With due progress in these STEM fields, no imagination is needed to envision a Bahamian/Caribbean astronaut jetting off into space. It would just be a matter of time, as the ESA already has an Astronaut corps, and have put men in space (see photo) – the assumption is that the CU would join the ESA, much like the EU has done.

Astro 2

The young astronaut photo, though, was an advertisement for a financial services company. Their contention is that financial/ economic fundamentals are essential for individual and societal progress. From the perspective of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap for the entire region, the publishers of this book/blog concurs with this exclamation: Ditto!

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to elevate the Caribbean economy and STEM education eco-systems. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the need for regional integration (Page 13 & 14) to foster the foundation to forge a better future. The declarative statements are as follows:

xxi.      Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvi.      Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … – impacting the region with more jobs.

xxvii.      Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

Change has now come to the Caribbean. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. The Caribbean region cannot just watch a man walk on the moon; we must put our men on the moon. This effort should not be pursued for some nationalistic pride, but rather the bottom-line motive should be the Greater Good.

The Go Lean book envisions the CU as a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy.

The book details the community ethos to adopt so that all the people would lean-in to this dream of our young men (and women) exploring space. The roadmap also details the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge this progress in the region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 48
Tactical – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries Page 68
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities – i.e. ESA Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department Page 85
Implementation – Annexation of French Guiana Page 98
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Planning – 10 Big Ideas Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. To the young model in the foregoing photo, posing as a Bahamian Astronaut, and to all young Caribbean dreamers, the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean entreat you: study hard, pursue your dreams. We will have the infrastructure in place for you in the not so distant future.

The Go Lean roadmap is a complete solution for Caribbean elevation – elevating right into space – thus helping the region to be better place to live, work, learn and play.

Blast-off! Let’s soar…

Astro 3

 
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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The need for highway safety innovations – here comes Google

Posted on June 10, 2014 in Implementation, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Don’t text and drive!

TM BlogNo serious, don’t text and drive.

In addition, don’t drink and drive. In fact, don’t subject yourself to any influences while driving: drugs (legal/illegal), distractions and even sleep deprivation. The public service announcements can go on and on. Perhaps what is needed is some tool, some technology that can assist weary drivers. Here comes Google…

… and Mercedes Benz, Nissan, GM, Ford, etc..

Bet your bottom dollar that other automakers will step up and forge a “space race” for progress in this industry sector. NBC’s Craig Melvin contributed this story – see VIDEO – on the Today Show on Tuesday June 10; (http://www.today.com/video/today/55372906), as a supplement to the foregoing news article fron the CNET trade journal.

To the victor goes the spoil.

By: Steven Musil
Title: Google unveils self-driving car

Google has built a self-driving car from scratch — a vehicle that has no steering wheel or accelerator or brake pedals.

A two-seater prototype of the vehicle was unveiled Tuesday by Google CEO Sergey Brin during an onstage interview at the Recode Code Conference in Palos Verdes, Calif. Instead of the car controls indispensable to today’s drivers, Google’s prototype relies on built-in sensors and a software system to safely maneuver the vehicle.

“We took a look from the ground up of what a self-driving car would look like,” Brin said.

The goal of the project is for self-driving cars to be “significantly” safer than human-driven cars in a few years, Brin said. He said that that the project has experienced no crashes during testing, but the cars only operate at speeds of around 25 miles per hour, which gives them more time to react to obstacles.

Google’s self-driving car is an ambitious project that hopes to end human error behind the wheel with a very Google-y solution: software. The tech titan’s robo-cars have logged more than 700,000 miles since it began working on the vehicles in 2009. Google expects to have them ready for public use between 2017 and 2020.

A demonstration earlier this month by Google’s Self-Driving Car Project team shows how the vehicle depends on a Google-made topographical map to get a sense of what it should expect. The map includes the height of the traffic signals above the street, the placement of stop signs and crosswalks, the depth of the sidewalk curb, the width of the lanes, and can differentiate lane markings from white and dashed to double-yellow.

The company announced major progress last month in improving how the system responds to objects not on a map. In a YouTube video, the Web giant demonstrated some of the circumstances its self-driving cars now handle, such as bicyclists signaling to move across a lane of traffic, railroad crossings, and parked cars protruding into the lane of traffic.

While Google has been at the forefront of developing and testing self-driving technologies, it’s not alone in its driverless vision for the future. Nissan, General Motors, and automotive supplier Continental expect self-driving cars on the road by 2020. Ford Motor Co. has unveiled a self-driving prototype car. Telsa Motors wants its system to handle 90 percent of driving duties by 2016 — a more aggressive schedule and one that’s more like what Google has said is attainable.

CNET – Tech Industry trade Magazine (Posted 05-27-2014; retrieved 06-10-2014) –
http://www.cnet.com/news/google-unveils-self-driving-car-sans-steering-wheel/

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

TM Blog 2Highway safety in the US is in crisis. Every state has banned texting-&-driving. Additionally, some states (i.e. California) even banned talking … on a mobile phone without a hands-free device. Just this past week, famed comedian Tracy Morgan was seriously injured in a car accident with a semi-trailer (18-wheeler) truck. The initial reports indicate that the truck driver may have worked/driven a 24-hour shift … with unavoidable fatigue factors. See related article at: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/06/10/tracy-morgan-crash-walmart-truck-driver-center-accident-investigation/

This constitutes a crisis in highway safety; and a crisis, any crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

This is the premise of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that a crisis can always be exploited to sieze opportunities. This race to create technological solutions is in response to dealing with the highway safety crisis – the resultant innovations will spurn new economic activity. This book purports that a new industrial revolution is emerging and the Caribbean people and society must engage. This is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with this opening statement:

xxvii.  Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort will marshal the region to avail the opportunities associated with technology and automobiles – there is a plan to foster a local automotive industry. In fact The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

There is a lot at stake for the Caribbean in considering this subject area. According to the foregoing article and VIDEO, research-and-development (identified as a community ethos) has begun to deploy workable solutions. There is the need for a Caribbean solution. Engaging this process early can result in many new jobs, and most importantly, many new opportunities to save lives and impact the Greater Good.

The book details other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge research-and-development and industrial growth in Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 48
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries Page 68
Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure Page 82
Separation of Powers – Department of Transportation Page 84
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas Page 127
Planning – Lessons from Detroit Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry Page 206

Historically, forging change in the automotive sphere of the Caribbean has been a “tall order”. The region was very slow to adopt common sense provisions like mandatory seatbelts and unleaded gasoline. So managing change for the region must be viewed as both an art and a science. For change is something the region must adapt to; and managing this change is something the CU will spearhead.

The insights from the foregoing article and embedded VIDEO help us to appreciate that the future is now! (Though, there is no talk of flying cars). We must engage, empower and equip the people of the Caribbean if we want to make our home a better place to live, work and play. And we must do it now. Everyone in the Caribbean is urged to lean-in to this roadmap.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Is a Traditional 4-year Degree a Terrible Investment?

Posted on June 6, 2014 in Economics, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

This respected resource, Howard Tullman[a], asserts that 4-year Liberal Arts college degrees are bad investments for students. (Play VIDEO here).

VIDEO – Why a Traditional 4-Year Degree is a Terrible Investment | Inc. Magazine – https://youtu.be/ch4D5-9jdbk


Published on Jun 6, 2014 – Howard Tullman, CEO of 1871, explains exactly how over valued, and ripe for disruption, traditional higher education has become.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean stakes the claim even deeper, that traditional college education abroad have been an even more disastrous policy for the Caribbean in whole, and each specific country in particular.

This assertion requires a differentiation of the macro, versus the micro.

From a strictly micro perspective, college education is great for the individual; research by Economists have established the dogma that each additional year of schooling increase an individual’s earnings by about 10%. (Go Lean quotes these economic studies at Page 270). This should be viewed as a very impressive rate of return on an education investment (ROI). But from the macro perspective, (for the community), the ROI is different for the Caribbean; its not a gain, but rather a loss due to the incontrovertible brain drain.

Previous blog-commentaries on this same subject matter have quoted the Jamaican proverb of “fattening frogs for snake” – (see https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=459). This is because more and more of the Caribbean college educated citizens abandon their tropical homes for foreign shores in the US, Canada and Europe. What’s worst, they take their Caribbean-funded education and skill-sets with them – sometimes taking any hope for collectability for student loans as well, thereby imperiling future generation of scholars from the benefits of a college education.

This broken system has many challenges and must be addressed.

Change has now come. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. Under the tenants of globalization, the Caribbean labor pool is a commodity; their talents are subject to the economic realities of supply-and-demand. So if there is greater reward for these Caribbean citizens to “take their talents to South Beach … or South Toronto, or South London”, it is hard to argue a contrarian stance. The Go Lean book posits therefore that the governmental administrations of the region should invest in higher education options with as much technological advances (e-Learning) as possible, for its citizens. The bottom-line motive should be the Greater Good.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the Caribbean tertiary education systems, economy, governance and Caribbean society as a whole. This roadmap asserts that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that this “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 12 & 14) as a viable solution to elevate the region’s educational opportunities.

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This represents change for the region. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book posits that education is a vital consideration for Caribbean economic empowerment, but there have been a lot of flawed decision-making in the past, both individually and community-wise. The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of championing better educational policies. The book details those policies; and other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the tertiary education in the region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department Page 85
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department Page 89
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries Page 187
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth Page 258
Appendix – Measuring Education Page 266

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We welcome the efforts of entrepreneur Howard Tullman, and his desire to empower other entrepreneurs. This is due to another fact certified by Economists, that the majority of new jobs come from small-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). So when there is the need for specific job training or business development skills, prudence dictates some facilitation for these skills. Education reform for the Caribbean should therefore be in vogue. This need for reform synchronizes with the CU/Go Lean effort.

The Go Lean roadmap is a complete solution for Caribbean elevation, thus helping the region to be a better place to live, work, learn and play.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

***************
a.   Appendix – Howard A. Tullman:

Howard A. TullmanAn American serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, educator, writer, lecturer, and art collector. He currently serves as Chairman of Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy and of HYDR>BOX, LLC., CEO of 1871[e] (Chicago’s entrepreneurial hub for digital startups), and the Managing Partner of Chicago High Tech Investment Partners, LLC.

Entrepreneurial career
Tullman’s entrepreneurial career spans four decades and a broad swath of industries. As of May 2011, Tullman has started 12 companies, including Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, CCC Information Services, Tunes.com, the Rolling Stone Network, Imagination Pilots, Experiencia, and others.[b] Tullman has also been tapped for senior executive positions at established companies such as Kendall College, where his expertise in turn-arounds saved the school from going into bankruptcy in 2003.[b]

Disruptive Innovation in education
Throughout his career in higher education, Tullman has been a proponent of revolutionizing the industry through disruptive innovation which is Clayton M. Christensen’s term to describe new, rapidly-iterated innovations that start from the bottom of traditional industries by providing small-scale and relatively inexpensive solutions (which quickly expand and improve) and which disrupt those existing marketplaces by displacing earlier, out-of-date programs with less expensive, faster and more effective solutions typically based on emerging new technologies.

As an early adopter of this philosophy, Tullman was among the first to bring disruptive innovation to for-profit education as evidenced in his work at Kendall College, Experiencia, and Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy.[c] In each of these education ventures, Tullman sought to create educational environments that fed creativity while providing skill sets for future successful employment in the new digital world:

At Kendall College, Tullman transformed a 75 year old failing college into a new entity and moved the campus from its home in Evanston to Chicago in a brand-new, purpose-built facility in order to put students closer to the real-world opportunities available in their fields (especially culinary and hospitality) and to provide them with the newest tools, technologies and equipment available.

At Experiencia (the parent of ExchangeCity and Earth Works), Tullman developed hands-on, learning experiences for children that reinforced the lessons learned in the classroom in a simulated city environment. Innovative partnerships with dozens of major businesses provided resources and access for the students to experience the real world of work.

At Tribeca Flashpoint Academy, Tullman and his partners designed and developed a hands-on, team-based, cross-disciplinary, fast-track approach to digital media arts training, allowing students to learn digital technologies faster and more economically than at traditional four-year competitors.

Tullman is also an outspoken opponent of tenure in education and the turf wars and lack of interdepartmental collaboration among faculty.[d]

Tullman’s innovations in education have been consistent with the high-end vocational education visions shared by Sir Ken Robinson, David Brooks, and Thomas Friedman, but have the additional benefit of being actually implemented and in use today.

Citations:
b.   Black, Johnathan (May 2011). “Howard Tullman’s Flashpoint Academy: A Digital-Arts Alternative to the Four-Year College Degree”. Chicago Magazine. Retrieved November 27, 2012
c.    Meyer, Ann (January 14, 2008). “Howard Tullman provides business lesson in running for-profit schools”. Chicago Tribune
d.   Tullman, Howard. “Why the Chicago Teachers’ Strike Will Help Education Entrepreneurs”. Inc.com. Inc. Retrieved April 22, 2013.
e.    1871 = Year of the Great Chicago Fire

 

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The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants

Posted on June 5, 2014 in Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Learn from Greece – Why build expensive permanent stadiums for temporary (sports/cultural) events, when there is such an effective art and science with temporary stadiums?! This important lesson was ignored in Brazil for the FIFA World Cup 2014.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), advocates this lesson and declares that “a mission of the CU is to forge industries and economic drivers around the individual and group activities of sports and culture”. There is the need for temporary stadiums for events and festivals; (see Temporary Structures Models & Systems Appendix below).

This temporary stadium was erected in Germany for the 2006 FIFA World Cup championship game.

This temporary stadium was erected in Germany for the 2006 FIFA World Cup championship game.

The need to optimize sports/cultural events & festivals have previously been addressed in the following Go Lean blogs entries:

a. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148 Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
b. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020 Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
c. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=676 PM Christie responds to critics of Bahamian ‘Carnival’
d. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498 Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
e. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334 Bahamians Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
f. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318 Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
g. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60 Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

All in all, the book and accompanying blogs declare that the region needs to learn lessons from other sporting venues like Athens-Greece, South Africa and Brazil. The people of the Caribbean cannot afford such monumental mis-steps – see VIDEO below. So this Go Lean… Caribbean roadmap applies the lessons learned and details the following 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap commences with the recognition that genius qualifiers can be found in many fields of endeavor, including music, sports and the performing arts. To exploit the economic benefits of these fields require some facilitation, like stadia, arenas and theaters. The roadmap pronounces the need for the region to confederate in order to invest in the facilitations for the Caribbean genius to soar. These pronouncements are made in the Declaration of Interdependence, (Pages 13 & 14) as follows:

xxi.      Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxii.      Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean vision is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean forming a proxy organization to do the heavy- lighting of building, funding and maintaining sports/event venues. The strategy is to deploy temporary structures where appropriate on CU fairgrounds, as some events may require specific configurations, but only for a few days every year. Tactically, the Go Lean roadmap calls for a separation-of-powers between the member-state governments and the new federal agencies; so the CU will serve as the landlord for local, national and regional events.

The subsequent article and VIDEO (from the cable channel HBO’s documentary Real Sports) describes the folly for expensive permanent stadiums for short-term events; especially while the art and science of temporary stadiums is so effective.

Title: HBO’s Real Sports tackles the white elephants of the World Cup and Olympics
Posted by Joe Lucia on May 20, 2014 10:31
(http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/hbos-real-sports-tackles-the-white-elephants-of-the-world-cup-and-olympics.html)

The lead story of May’s episode of Real Sports on HBO tackles the World Cup, but in a different way …

Next month’s World Cup in Brazil (starting June 12, 2014) has resulted in numerous brand new soccer stadiums being built all across the country. Once the World Cup ends, the stadiums will more than likely remain dormant – which is where the “white elephants” title of the segment comes into play. In South Africa four years ago, ten stadiums were built at the cost of billions of dollars. Nine of those stadiums stand relatively unused today.

The same thing happens when countries host the Olympics – it doesn’t take too much effort to find evidence of stadiums or arenas being built solely to hold events and then be used for nothing or razed years later. The 2004 Olympics in Athens are a stark example of the waste that goes into holding events like the Olympics and the World Cup, as many of the arenas and stadiums built for the events stand empty.

Perhaps even more shocking – the organizers of these events in those host countries openly admit to having no plan for the future of the venues. The Greek economy collapsed in large part to the massive amount of waste that went into the Olympics a decade ago, with the crumbling stadiums as reminders of that waste.

Today, Brazil is preparing by the World Cup by spending more money than any country in history. A brand new, $270 million stadium was built in the remote town of Manaus for just four games this World Cup. Manaus is so remote that many Brazilians can’t even drive there. Materials to build the stadium were shipped from Portugal, across the Atlantic Ocean and transported down the Amazon River. All that for four games in a town that HBO described as “a weigh station.”

The organizers are oblivious to this. The designer of the stadium in Manaus claims that when people watch the games on television, they will become aware of the city, and tourism and investment opportunities will increase. Apparently, eight hours of soccer over the month of June will create all of that goodwill.

For a country like Brazil, bathed in poverty, to burn away billions of dollars on stadiums and arenas for the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics is shameful. Once the World Cup ends and Olympics preparation begins, homes in Rio de Janeiro will be razed to make room for the venues, sending many Brazilian citizens into homelessness for the sake of a two week sporting event.

… in a country like Brazil that is teetering on the edge of financial chaos, dumping billions of dollars into sports while a bulk of your citizens are poor, starving, and lacking healthcare seems like a recipe for a disaster, with nothing but empty stadiums and a page on Wikipedia to show for it when all is said and done.

VIDEO: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: Episode #206 Web Clip – White Elephants (HBO Sports) – http://youtu.be/lHUiyxKgg1s

Jon Frankel travels to Athens, Greece plus Manaus and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and looks for answers to the question of: Are billions being wasted on World Cup and Olympic venues?

The Go Lean book details these series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies designed to re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions, so badly needed and hoped for:

Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Strategic – Visitors – Snow Birds at RV Campgrounds Page 55
Strategic – Staffing – Events at Fairgrounds Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions Page 197
Anecdote – Model of Miami-DadeCounty Youth Fair Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues Page 234
Temporary Stadiums - Golf

This stadium is the Pakar Seating Grandstand system. It is so versatile that it’s suitable for any type of Golf Competition event.

The foregoing article discourages investment in permanent venues unless there is a solid long-term business plan. The Go Lean roadmap concurs – Greece did not recover from the flawed Olympic build-out for facilities that were never used again after the 2004 Games. On the other hand, here is the encouragement and recommendation to develop fairgrounds and deploy temporary stadia, arenas and theaters. Imagine a golf tournament; no one would expect bleachers and grandstands at the putting greens to be permanent structures. No, there is a place for temporary structures in the world of sports.

Temporary Stadiums - Beach Volleyball

The Bondi Beach Volleyball Stadium was constructed for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and stood for just six weeks. The temporary stadium was constructed on the world-famous Bondi Beach and had over 10,000 seats.

There is one sport, Beach Volleyball, which only uses temporary bleachers/grandstands – 100 percent.
So there is a place for the arts & sciences of temporary structures. There is the need for their economic impact.

The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sports enterprises throughout the region.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Now is the time to make this region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

========================

*** APPENDICES ***

Appendix A – Sample New Stadiums for Brazil
The permanent structures call for more elaborate construction schedules and risks. Some delays have been unavoidable – see this article (photos) on the Sao Paulo stadium slated for the opening game on June 12, 2014; posted and retrieved 06/04/2014:

http://www.businessinsider.com/bleachers-at-sao-paulo-world-cup-stadiums-2014-6#ixzz33iMAwtEf

Brazil prepares…
When Brazil drafted plans to host the upcoming World Cup, Natal, the Atlantic beach destination was exactly the type of city it wanted to show off. Five years later, and four weeks before kickoff, little besides the arena and a remote, untested airport are complete.

Almost half the more than $1.3 billion in promised developments [in Natal] never began. What did [begin] has languished, including ongoing road work that has rendered the stadium’s outskirts a raw sprawl of rebar, dust and concrete. (Reuters)

An aerial view of the Arena Pantanal soccer stadium in Cuiaba, April 25, 2014. Cuiaba is one of the host cities for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. See photos here (REUTERS/Joel Marcos):

Temporary Stadiums - Natal

An Aerial view of the Arena das Dumas from January 22, 2014; this stadium will host matches for the 2014 soccer World Cup.

Temporary Stadiums - Cuiaba

This is the incomplete stadium in Natal; with 4 weeks before the first event, the infrastructural improvements for the surrounding areas have still not been completed.

Temporary Stadiums - Sao Paulo

People stand in the bleachers during an infrastructure test at Arena de Sao Paulo Stadium, one of the venues for the 2014 World Cup, in the Sao Paulo district of Itaquera April 26, 2014.

Appendix B – Temporary Structures Models & Systems
Many examples of successful temporary stadia, arenas and theaters abound – see photos here.

Here are 2 reputable vendors for providing these products and services.

1. PAKAR Grandstand is extremely versatile, therefore, it can be installed either as a PERMANENT or REMOVABLE Grandstand. It can be displaced and re-installed at any location quickly and easily. The system of frames is pre-assembled with an interlocking system, ties, braces, beams and deck units that locks together for fast assembly. Our Grandstand can be installed on any type of surface i.e. concrete, grass and sand (Desert). It can be installed on a slope depending on soil condition. Our system can be used both Outdoor and Indoor. For Outdoor use, it can be equipped with a roof system (Complete roofing or Semi-roofing). Source: http://www.pakar-seating.com/

Temporary Stadiums - Padel

Padel is a relatively new racquet sport that is extremely popular in Spain. The logistics of this platform accommodates each individual sports event and is 600 square meters in size and has 3,000 seats around it.

Temporary Stadiums - Soccer

This stadium is a modular stadium built by NUSSLI who has developed flexible and sustainable concepts for popular global sports and cultural events

Temporary Stadiums - Theater

This stadium is not only for sporting events, but it is ideal for cultural activities as well.

Grandstand bleachers for a drag racing configuration

2. Temporary Stadium, Modular Stadium Construction, Stadia Expansion.

NUSSLI provides complete modular stadiums and arenas or additional grandstands – with or without roofing. We offer our stadium construction solutions for rental (temporary) or sale (permanent).

The experience gained from multifaceted stadium projects around the world makes NUSSLI a reliable partner in modular stadia construction and in stadium expansion. NUSSLI‘s mobile stadia fulfill the highest demands in regard to safety, functionality, and architecture.

The modular stadium® can be adapted to meet changing requirements and individual customer needs over and over again. The stadium can be installed in virtually no time and removed just as quickly after use.

The NUSSLI service range in stadium construction:
•Stadia and arenas (modular, temporary, permanent, mobile)
•Stadium expansion (modular, temporary, permanent)
•Additional grandstand, roofing
•Steel tube grandstand
•Service buildings

Modular Stadium® – a Convincing System.
Those who modularly build or expand stadiums and arenas enjoy considerable advantages over those using the traditional building method. The key factors of modular stadium construction are savings in cost and time.

Cost advantage: The use of modules can be temporally limited, therefore avoiding costs for possible surplus capacities. The standardization shortens planning and construction processes.

Fast and flexible: modular stadium constructions or expansions by NUSSLI beat any other system in regard to installation speed.
Source: http://www.nussli.us/services/stadium-construction.html

 Temporary Stadiums - Photo 1Temporary Stadiums - Grandstands Temporary Stadiums - Slopings 1 Temporary Stadiums - Slopings 2 Temporary Stadiums - Slopings 3

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EU willing to fund study on cost of not having CARICOM

Posted on June 4, 2014 in Implementation, Planning, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

What would be the opportunity cost of not having CariCom? EU fund CARICOM Study 2

Opportunity cost is defined as …

“the value of the best alternative forgone, in a situation in which a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources. Assuming the best choice is made, it is the ‘cost’ incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would be had by taking the second best choice available”.[a]

See linked VIDEO below for sample/example.

VIDEO – Opportunity Cost explained [b]:

Real Estate InvestmentClick Photo to Play

The CariCom is viewed as a failure in many circles in the Caribbean and internationally!

  • Just what is the opportunity cost for all the time, talent and treasuries exerted into CariCom thus far?
  • Could those investments have generated a better return in other endeavors?
  • Has CariCom even measured … the opportunity cost?

This CariCom “wasted opportunity” stance is also declared in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, and all of its aligned blog submissions. This issue – CariCom mis-firings – had previously been addressed in many Go Lean blog-commentaries (to date):

a. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=816 – The Future of CariCom
b. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=476 – Grenada PM Urges CARICOM on ICT
c.  https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=451 – CARICOM Chairman to deliver address on reparations
d. https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=346 – Caribbean leaders convene for CARICOM summit in St Vincent

All in all, the book and accompanying blogs assert that the Caribbean Community construct is a failed manifestation of regional integration. CariCom has failed because it has only achieved so little of what it attempted, and only attempted so little of what’s possible – they have just stood by as “Rome burned”. Even CariCom themselves have acknowledged that their branded endeavor, CSME or Caribbean Single Market & Economy has sputtered, despite investing millions of Euros, according to this article:

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada — The European Union (EU) is willing to fund a study that would explore the opportunity costs of not having a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in place.
Ewout Sandker, head of Cooperation, Delegation of the EU to Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago and the Dutch Overseas Countries and Territories, made the announcement on Monday during the high level advocacy forum on statistics in Grenada.

As he underlined the importance of a solid data foundation for development in general, and regional integration in particular, Sandker posed some questions to the forum and made reference to the path the European Union took towards integration.

He told the gathering of senior government officials, statisticians, and representatives of international organisations that, in the 1980s, the EU conducted a study that calculated the opportunity cost of not having a fully integrated market in Europe. The results, he related, were “quite amazing”. They were an “enormous push” to regional integration and provided a good opportunity for mobilizing the private sector in Europe, which saw the benefits they were not getting by not having a fully integrated market, he said.

“Something like that could be done in the Caribbean as well, and we would be happy to provide funding for such a study (of) the cost of not having CARICOM,” Sandker said.
Over the past decade, the European Union has been providing support to the Community to strengthen regional statistics and to improve its use in policy-making. About €4M of the €57M Ninth European Development Fund (EDF) cycle to the Community was allotted to produce and disseminate economic statistics, to harmonise statistical structures across the region and to train staff to use the economic statistics to monitor the regional integration process.

The EU and the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) deepened support to the field of statistics under the 10th EDF to build on earlier achievements and to fill the gaps that remained.

From the €18M allocated to the CSME under the 10th EDF, about €2M was allocated to strengthen the intra-regional systems to produce and disseminate timely, high quality, harmonized statistics to monitor the CSME. The funding, Sandker said, was used to monitor regional integration, further develop merchandise trade statistics and to boost social and environmental statistics, among other areas.

Statistical monitoring of the integration movement, he said, was particularly close to his heart. “I’ve been working on it the first time I was in Guyana with the CARICOM Secretariat and I believe that monitoring of both compliance of regional integration commitments at the national level, and secondly, the impact of regional integration activities and processes are absolutely key to the success of the regional integration enterprise.

“If you can’t measure it; if you don’t know the compliance at national levels with different areas of integration, how can you allocate resources in a sensible way? If you don’t know, you cannot prioritise. If you don’t know what is the impact of the regional integration process, how can you argue that it is a good thing? How can you argue that you should go further and deeper,” he queried.

Source: Caribbean News Now – Regional News Source (Retrieved 05/31/2014) –
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-EU-willing-to-fund-study-on-cost-of-not-having-CARICOM-21361.html

The people of the region deserve better!

This book Go Lean… Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a graduated iteration of regional integration for the democracies and territories in and around the Caribbean Sea. The following 3 prime directives are explored in full details in the roadmap:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

EU fund CARICOM Study 1This re-boot roadmap commences with the recognition that all the Caribbean is in crisis, and in the “same boat” despite their colonial heritage or language. All the geographical member-states, 30 in all, therefore need to confederate, collaborate, and convene for solutions. This pronouncement is made in the Declaration of Interdependence, (Page 10). This Preamble statement includes this verbiage:

While our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters. …

The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean into an integrated Single Market with a different brand name other than CSME, rather the Caribbean Union Trade Federation – and this time … we vest the entity with real roles/responsibilities and also include the Spanish, French and Dutch homelands from the outset. Tactically, the CU allows for a separation-of-powers between the member-state governments and the new federal agencies. The Go Lean book details these series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies designed to re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions, so badly needed and hoped for:

Anecdote –   Caribbean Single Market & Economy Page 15
Community   Ethos – Money Multiplier Page 22
Community   Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community   Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community   Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community   Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community   Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community   Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategic   – Vision – Integrated Region in   a Single Market Page 45
Strategic   – Vision – Agents of Change Page 57
Tactical –   Confederating a Non-sovereign Union Page 63
Tactical –   Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical –   Growing to $800 Billion Regional Economy Page 67
Tactical –   Separation of Powers Page 71
Tactical –   Interstate Commerce Admin – Econometrics Data Analysis Page 79
Anecdote – Turning Around CariCom Page 92
Anecdote –   “Lean” in Government Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up Page 102
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – Big Ideas for the Caribbean   Region Page 127
Planning – Ways to Model the EU Page 130
Planning – Ways to Measure Progress Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Anecdote – Governmental Integration: CariCom Parliament Page 167
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Appendix – Trade SHIELD – “Harvest“ Comprehensive Data Analysis Page 264
Econometrics ... measuring progress

Econometrics … measuring progress

The Go Lean roadmap for the CU stresses the importance of a solid data foundation to analyze and measure progress. This models the effort of the European Economic Community (EEC – predecessor to the EU) in the 1980s; they commissioned a study to calculate the opportunity cost of not having a fully integrated European market. The results of that study were compelling and propelled the completion of the regional integration effort. The foregoing article recommends a similar exercise for the Caribbean, so as to provide a good opportunity to mobilize the private and public sectors in the region to dive deeper in the integrated Single Market. The Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap (370 pages) is a Caribbean study in compliance with this recommendation.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to reject the CariCom status quo … then lean-in for this new integration re-boot … for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Now is the time to make this region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
———–

Referenced Citations:

a. Investopedia online resource. Retrieved 2010-09-18 from: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp.
b. Video link: http://www.investopedia.com/video/play/opportunity-cost/

 

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Bahamas Planning to Introduce 7.5 Percent VAT in 2015

Posted on June 3, 2014 in Economics, Government, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

BahamasGovernments need revenue in order to fulfill their role in the Social Contract.

Change has come to the Caribbean! The driver for this change is globalization. One agent of change is the World Trade Organization (WTO); their quest to liberalize international trade calls for the elimination of tariffs (Customs duties). Since this is the primary revenue source for most Caribbean governments, there is the need for new revenue options.

The below article highlights the “Value Added Tax” option, and its introduction in the Bahamas. This government is struggling with the implementation – change is hard! This issue had previously been addressed in Go Lean blogs:

The issues of government revenue reform, operational processing, and best practices for delivery are stressed in the book Go Lean… Caribbean. These issues are among the primary focus of the book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The following 3 prime directives are explored in full details:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

See the underlying news story here:

By: The Caribbean Journal staff

The Bahamas is planning to introduce a new 7.5 percent value added tax, the government announced this week.

The tax will be a single VAT rate across the board, although that is lower than an initially proposed 15 percent tax.

The country’s Ministry of Finance said the lower rate would also mean fewer exemptions.

The ultimate plan is for the tax to come into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, after what the government said would be an “in-depth public education campaign and private sector preparation.”

The Ministry of Finance also said it was proposing “VAT-inclusive” pricing rather than VAT exclusive, with the aim to “simplify price comparisons by consumers, especially when navigating between VAT registrants and non-registrants.”

“The price consumers see will always be the price they pay,”

The move will also mean that the hotel occupancy tax will be eliminated.

Bahamas 2Government estimates predicted that the new VAT along with a basket of other fiscal provisions would increase the revenue yield of the Bahamas’ revenue system to 19.8 percent of GDP, up from 17.1 percent in the current fiscal year.

Christie said the goal with the mix of fiscal measures was to eliminate the “untenable structural imbalance between recurrent expenditure and revenue” by the 2015/2016 fiscal year, sharply reduce the GFS deficit by 2016/2017 and “arrest the growth in the government debt burden and move it onto a steady downward path to more sustainable levels.”

“I want to emphasize, at this point, that we are in no way engaged in unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking on the score of fiscal redress,” Christie said. “With a keen eye on the state of our economy and mindful of the need to maintain and support its upward, forward momentum, we are embarked on a mutually-reinforcing plan of national development and fiscal consolidation that is balanced and measured. As such, our aim is set on gradual, though assured, progress on the fiscal front.”

The Bahamas would be the latest in a line of Caribbean countries to introduce a VAT; St Lucia was the most recent country to do so.

A value-added tax proposal by the United Kingdom government in Turks and Caicos was shelved last year after opposition from businesses.

Caribbean Journal Online News Source (Retrieved 05/30/2014) – http://www.caribjournal.com/2014/05/30/bahamas-planning-to-introduce-7-5-percent-value-added-tax-in-2015/

This roadmap commences with the assessment that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that this “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”. Coupled with the external pressures for revenue reform, is the internal realities of societal abandonment – more and more of the labor pool has migrated to foreign lands in search of better economic opportunities – lowering the tax-paying base in the country. The book describes the sad state of affairs in Caribbean locales like Puerto Rico (Page 303) and the Bahamas 2nd city of Freeport (Page 112). As a planning tool, the roadmap accepts the challenge to adapt for the changes with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the need for regional solutions (Page 12). The statement is included as follows:

Whereas government services cannot be delivered without the appropriate funding mechanisms, “new guards” must be incorporated to assess, accrue, calculate and collect revenues, fees and other income sources for the Federation and member-states. The Federation can spur government revenues directly through cross-border services and indirectly by fostering industries and economic activities not possible without this Union.

The strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”. Tactically, this will allow a separation-of-powers between the member-states governments and federal agencies, allowing for efficient economies-of-scale for revenue collection systems, processes and people. Yes, astute application of technology is cited as a key solution. In total, the Go Lean book details series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to deliver new solutions:

Anecdote Puerto Rico – The Greece of the Caribbean Page 18
Community Ethos – Money Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Strategic – Vision – Integrated region in a Single Market Page 45
Strategic – Vision – Agents of Change – Technology Page 57
Strategic – Vision – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Non-sovereign Union Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing to $800 Billion – Trade & Globalization Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Union Revenue Admin. Page 74
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Deploying Data Centers Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt Page 114
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Governments Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Revenue Sources for Administration Page 172
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176

All in all, the CU/Go Lean supports all governments’ efforts to collect legitimately authorized taxes.

Pay Caesar’s things to Caesar” – so declares the Go Lean book (Page 144), quoting Jesus Christ from the Bible at Mark 12:17. While Jesus Christ teachings are not portended to be economic lessons, this rendering in the roadmap posits that this and other bible teachings are economically sound. The Bahamas, the Caribbean country in the foregoing news article, lays claim to a Christian heritage. It is time for this country, and all the Caribbean, to “put their money where their mouth is”.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The local governments need their revenues. They are part of the eco-system to elevate Caribbean life, culture and systems of commerce.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball

Posted on June 2, 2014 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary

BBall2The foregoing news article highlights a topical issue in the world of sports, basketball in particular: the blatant racism of basketball team owner by octogenarian Donald Sterling. The sports league, the NBA, expelled him from the league and has announced that it is moving forward with the forced sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 Billion.

There are many lessons to learn/apply from this Donald Sterling / LA Clippers drama. Lessons such as:

  • There are more important things than money – the sports world rallied in support of the campaign to divorce the antagonist, Donald Sterling, from his team ownership.
  • Money covers a multitude of sins – the indication is that Mr. Sterling’s conduct was unbecoming for a long time before this episode.
  • Sports are immune to economic cycles – team values continue to rise despite depressed asset values during the Great Recession.
  • Sports are not immune to economic realities – there is a real possibility of a bubble due to the absence of economic fundamentals of some teams; there is still the need for technocratic efficiency.
  • Technology in broadcasting is transforming the sports industry – since DVR programming neutralizes the exposure to advertising, live sports broadcasts stand out as an exception: reliable audience. This thereby increases league/team values.
  • Institutional racism is real – the generation that practiced segregation is still alive and wields power, like 80-year-old Donald Sterling.
  • Attitudes in sports can mold society – the public sympathized with Black personnel having to work for an owner with racist views towards Black people; the NBA was forced to act quickly to expel Sterling from the league, with national concurrence.
  • The business of sports can shape a community’s economic landscape – the new value assessment of the Clippers has now elevated all the sport franchises in Los Angeles and related cities; now all connected properties and neighborhoods have appreciated in value as well.

The book, Go Lean … Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This subject of blatant racism in sports ownership is in scope for the CU as this technocratic agency will assume responsibility for regional sports administration. The roadmap has the prime directives to elevate the Caribbean’s:

(1) economy,

(2) security apparatus, and

(3) governing engines.

The Economist Magazine (Posted & Retrieved 05/31/2014) –
FOR all Donald Sterling’s well-known faults—the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team seems to have comfortably secured a role as the face of racism in America—no one has ever accused him of being a bad businessman. Although most of his fortune came from real estate, he is now on the brink of closing out what is probably the most profitable investment in the history of professional sports. The other 29 team owners of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are set to hold a vote on June 3rd to terminate his control of the Clippers, in response to a tape of his offensive remarks about blacks that was leaked to the media. But the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, had let it be known that he would prefer a voluntary sale to happen first—managed by Mr. Sterling’s estranged wife Rochelle, since Mr. Silver had already banned Mr. Sterling for life and thus prevented him from exercising control over the team.

On May 29th the commissioner’s wish was granted, when Ms. Sterling announced that Steve Ballmer the former head of Microsoft, had agreed to buy the Clippers for the eye-popping sum of $2 billion. Although the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team went for a slightly higher $2.15 billion in 2012, that deal included valuable real-estate assets as well, whereas the Clippers are essentially being sold on their own. The previous record price for an NBA club was just $550m, set by the Milwaukee Bucks earlier this year, and Forbes magazine valued the Clippers at a mere $575m in January. Mr. Ballmer’s bid comfortably exceeded the reported $1.6 billion offered by a group led by David Geffen, a media executive.

BBall1Mr. Sterling has not yet announced whether he will try to block the sale. Since he bought the team for a piddling $12.5m in 1981 and lives in the high-tax state of California, the deal would cost him an estimated $662m in capital-gains taxes. Moreover, his lawyer has demanded that the league retract its accusations against Mr. Sterling, though an after-tax profit of $1.326 billion might help him to swallow his pride. It is not yet clear whether Mr. Sterling could hold up the deal if he wants to. His representatives insist that no sale can proceed without his signature. But the family trust that formally owns the club has declared the 80-year-old Mr Sterling mentally incapacitated—an opinion shared by many viewers of his ill-advised interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN—in order to give his wife sole authority over the franchise. Mr Sterling has a well-earned reputation for litigiousness, and would surely challenge any sale by Ms Sterling against his will in court. However, that would cause the league to re-initiate termination proceedings against him.

The NBA will also still have to approve Mr. Ballmer, but that is expected to be a mere formality. Paul Allen, another Microsoft billionaire, already owns the Portland Trail Blazers, and the league vetted Mr. Ballmer when he made a failed bid for the Sacramento Kings. Mr. Silver will be eager to remove a pariah from the league as quickly and quietly as possible, and to avoid the prospect of a long court battle with Mr. Sterling. And the commissioner surely wants to lock in the lofty sale price, which sets a new valuation bar for every other franchise.

Mr Ballmer is yet to speak publicly about his financial calculus, except to assure the NBA that he would not seek to move the Clippers to Seattle, as he hoped to do with the Kings. (He told the Wall Street Journal that relocating the club out of America’s second-biggest market would be “value destructive”.) Microsoft shareholders who despaired at his string of high-priced acquisitions for the company can at least take solace that he is no thriftier with his own money: the Clippers will cost an estimated 10% of his net worth.

To be sure, there are strong arguments for a ten-figure price for the team. Sports franchise values have been soaring in recent years, thanks to record-setting rights deals from television networks desperate for DVR-proof programming. Both the NBA’s national contract and the Clippers’ local one are set to expire in the coming years, leaving the team doubly well-positioned to cash in. And following an acrimonious lockout in 2011, the league’s current collective-bargaining agreement sharply cut the share of its revenues that gets paid out in salaries, which made clubs far more profitable. Low interest rates are driving up prices for all assets, and the combination of rising inequality and greater international interest in basketball has increased the number of billionaires willing to splurge on an NBA team.

Moreover, the Clippers currently find themselves in an unfamiliar spot as the best basketball team in Los Angeles, and indeed all of California. The Lakers, their far better-loved crosstown rivals, are suffering through a difficult rebuilding phase, whereas the Clippers finished with the league’s third-best record this year. No one would blink an eye if the Lakers sold for $2 billion, and in theory there’s no reason why the team’s electrifying “Lob City” offence featuring Chris Paul and Blake Griffin could not supplant the slumping Lakers for Angelenos’ affections.

On the other hand, brand loyalty matters as much or more in sports as the on-field product. In 2009 the Chicago Cubs, baseball’s iconic lovable losers, sold for $845m despite putrid overall economic conditions, because they were the more popular club in a big two-team market. As measured by Facebook likes, there is not a single postal code in which the Clippers are even one-fifth as popular as the Lakers, and the Lakers are the preferred club in pretty much every part of the United States that lacks a nearby team save the Southeast. The Lakers’ local television deal pays them $180m a year; the Clippers are expected to fetch 60% less for their next contract. Mr. Sterling’s 33 years of penny-pinching mismanagement have left a stain on the franchise that no number of Paul-to-Griffin windmill alley-oops can erase. When Jack Nicholson attends a Clippers game, it’s news; when he goes to see the Lakers, it’s just normal.

The great unknown is whether the going rate for televised sports rates is sustainable. Cable carriers like Time Warner have already begun offering cheaper packages that exclude expensive sports channels, and John McCain, a senator from Arizona and former presidential candidate, has introduced a bill that would “unbundle” cable television and let viewers choose the channels they want a la carte. Both approaches would reduce the “sports tax” that non-fans currently pay to subsidise fans via their cable bills. Technological advances or piracy could also disrupt the current lucrative delivery model, as they have with so many other types of media.

Buying a team for a billion or two is essentially a bet on the sports-media status quo continuing for at least another decade. It may well be a bubble. But it has already lasted for far longer than the naysayers ever thought possible.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603026-how-hand-over-272-billion-year-criminals-thats-where-money?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C30-05-2014%7C53552127899249e1cc9ea210%7CNA

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence. In Verse XXXI (Page 14) it pronounces specific dynamics of sports:

Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism.

The foregoing news article is sourced from the Economist Magazine. Therefore this perspective is from a macro-economic vantage point, which is apropos for this roadmap, as this book posits that the right economic, financial and investment landscape can impact Caribbean society, forging sport franchises and facilitating growth in value and appreciation. The CU envisions being the landlord of sports leagues at CU fairgrounds – operating as Self-Governing Entities. Today in the Caribbean however, there is not much of a sports eco-system beyond the High School level. This roadmap envisions collegiate and professional sports manifestations, as a tool/technique to empower society.

The roadmap specifically elevates the region through a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the business of sports in the Caribbean region:

Economic Systems Influence Choices and Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation Page 23
Anecdote – Hail, Hail, the Champs: Miami Heat! Page 42
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union Page 63
Tactical – Separation of Powers–Sports Administration Page 81
Implementation – Assemble Existing Regional Entities Page 96
Implementation – Consolidating Regional Spectrum Page 101
Implementation – Steps for Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean   Better to Play Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications Page 156
Advocacy –   Ways to Promote Fairgrounds Page 193
Advocacy –   Impact Media/Broadcast/Hollywood Roles Page 201
Advocacy –   Ways to Improve Sports Page 218

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, athletes and non-athletes alike to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits are too alluring, an improved, economically viable sports world; and a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean roadmap is not about basketball. But basketball is among the games people play; and play can be a great source of leisure and economics. The world is now watching the tropical region for basketball dominance. This is because the Miami Heat will now play for the NBA championship, starting this week Thursday (June 5, 2014) in their 4th straight NBA Finals. The roadmap posits that the Miami Heat relates to the Caribbean since its base is in Miami, Florida; a metropolitan area that possesses the largest pocket of Caribbean Diaspora. So in many ways, the Miami Heat is the “home team” of the Caribbean. Go Heat!

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

 

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Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year

Posted on June 2, 2014 in Economics, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Healthcare2Wherever there is vibrant economic activity, bad actors will emerge.

This is the claim of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that the result of successful regional integration would be an elevated Caribbean economy, which consequently could result in increased felonious activities.

There is a lot of economic activity around health-care. According to a US News and World Report story, the US lacks health efficiencies, spending 20, 30, even 100 times as much on medical products and devices as what it would cost, at a typical big-box retailer like Wal-Mart. In a sample year (2012), the country spent over $2.8 trillion on health care, more than twice as much on a per-capita basis as other high-income countries such as England and France. [a]

The Caribbean wants to be a high-income country/region, but not in the model of the United States. We must be better; we must be lean!

The book, Go Lean … Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), the next generation of integration for the region. This roadmap posits the eventual economic success will be quickly followed with the emergence of bad actors seeking to exploit the successes. So security/crime deterrents will not be an after-thought; no, rather the full crime-and-punishment eco-system (investigation, persecution, penology) is in scope for the CU as this technocratic agency will assume responsibility for economic crimes in the region. In effect, this roadmap has the prime directives to elevate the Caribbean’s:

(1) economy,

(2) security apparatus, and

(3) governing engines.

The Economist Magazine (Posted & Retrieved 05/31/2014) –
MEDICAL science is hazy about many things, but doctors agree that if a patient is losing pints of blood all over the carpet, it is a good idea to stanch his wounds. The same is true of a health-care system. If crooks are bleeding it of vast quantities of cash, it is time to tighten the safeguards.

In America the scale of medical embezzlement is extraordinary. According to Donald Berwick, the ex-boss of Medicare and Medicaid (the public health schemes for the old and poor), America lost between $82 billion and $272 billion in 2011 to medical fraud and abuse (see article). The higher figure is 10% of medical spending and a whopping 1.7% of GDP – as if robbers had made off with the entire output of Tennessee or nearly twice the budget of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).

Crooks love American health care for two reasons. First, as Willie Sutton said of banks, it’s where the money is – no other country spends nearly as much on pills and procedures. Second, unlike a bank, it is barely guarded.

Some scams are simple. Patients claim benefits to which they are not entitled; suppliers charge Medicaid for non-existent services. One doctor was recently accused of fraudulently billing for 1,000 powered wheelchairs, for example. Fancier schemes involve syndicates of health workers and patients. Scammers scour nursing homes for old people willing, for a few hundred dollars, to let pharmacists supply their pills but bill Medicare for much costlier ones. Criminal gangs are switching from cocaine to prescription drugs – the rewards are as juicy, but with less risk of being shot or arrested. One clinic in New York allegedly wrote bogus prescriptions for more than 5m painkillers, which were then sold on the street for $30-90 each. Identity thieves have realised that medical records are more valuable than credit-card numbers. Steal a credit card and the victim quickly notices; photocopy a Medicare card and you can bill Uncle Sam for ages, undetected.

Healthcare1It is hard to make such a vast system secure: Medicare’s contractors process 4.5 [million] claims a day. But pointless complexity makes it even harder. Does Medicare really need 140,000 billing codes, as it will have next year, including ten for injuries that take place in mobile homes and nine for attacks by turtles? A toxic mix of incompetence and political gridlock has made matters worse. Medicare does not check new suppliers for links to firms that have previously been caught embezzling (though a new bill aims to fix this). Fraud experts have long begged the government to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards to deter identity thieves – to no avail.

Start by closing the safe door
One piece of the solution is obvious: crack down on the criminals. Obamacare, for all its flaws, includes some useful measures. Suppliers are better screened. And when Medicaid blackballs a dodgy provider, it now shares that information with Medicare – which previously it did not. For every dollar spent on probing health-care fraud, taxpayers recover eight. So the sleuths’ budgets should be boosted, not squeezed, as now.

But the broader point is that American health care needs to be simplified. Whatever its defects, Britain’s single-payer National Health Service is much simpler, much cheaper and relatively difficult to defraud. Doctors are paid to keep people well, not for every extra thing they do, so they don’t make more money by recommending unnecessary tests and operations – let alone billing for non-existent ones.

Too socialist for America? Then simplify what is left, scale back the health tax-perks for the rich and give people health accounts so they watch the dollars that are spent on their treatment. After all, Dr. Berwick’s study found that administrative complexity and unnecessary treatment waste even more health dollars than fraud does. Perhaps that is the real crime.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603026-how-hand-over-272-billion-year-criminals-thats-where-money?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C30-05-2014%7C53552127899249e1cc9ea210%7CNA

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap commences with the statement that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that this “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Later generations of Caribbean parents have had fewer children than their predecessors, 2.1 children per household, as opposed to the previous average of 5 – 6 children. Now, that older generation is aging, and the numbers do not lie, there are fewer children to care for their aging parents. What’s worse, many of the Caribbean labor pool had fled the region and emigrated to the US, Canada and Europe. Actuarially, we have a financial tsunami building and targeting the region. This crisis is identified early in the book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12), with this pronouncement:

ix.  Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

Creating the solution to mitigate health-care fraud (and other economic crimes) is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap. Implementing the appropriate regulatory framework, to marshal against the scenarios depicted in the foregoing news article, will allow for a “value exchange” for the vital investments the CU must make in the delivery of health-care solutions.

Health-care solutions also entail the astute application of information technology (IT). Agile IT systems, mobile and web applications can foster good value to health-care institutions and government payers. The book considers the Healthways model.

The Go Lean roadmap maintains that efficiency in health services delivery is not automatic, but rather must be forged and bred from experience, expertise, attitudes, training, and the quality application of delivery arts and sciences. The book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the proper controls for health-care efficiency in the Caribbean region:

Community   Ethos – Economic Choices Involve Costs Page 21
Community   Ethos – Whistleblower Protection Page 23
Community   Ethos – Intelligence Gathering Page 23
Community   Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community   Ethos – Impacting   Research & Development Page 30
Community   Ethos – Pursue the Greater Good Page 37
Strategic   – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora Page 57
Tactical –   Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical –   Repatriation to Grow to a $800 Billion GDP Page 70
Tactical –   Separation of Powers – Medicare Admin. Page 86
Tactical –   Separation of Powers – Licensing/Standards Page 86
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Improve Process Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate Page 118
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare Page 156
Advocacy –   Ways to Impact Entitlements Page 158
Advocacy –   Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy –   Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime Page 178
Advocacy –   Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy –   Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Appendix –   Disease Management – Healthways   Model Page 300
Appendix –   Controlling Inflation – Healthcare Realities Page 320
Appendix –   TraumaCenter Realities Page 336

Change has come to the Caribbean. Costs dynamics are unavoidable with this impending change.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits are too alluring, a better place to live, work, heal and play.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Source Reference:

a. US News & World Report. “The High Cost of Staying Well – the U.S. gets poor bang for its medical buck”. Retrieved May 31, 2014 from: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2013/10/22/why-health-care-costs-so-much-and-how-to-fix-it

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Zuckerberg’s $100 Million for Newark’s Schools was a waste

Posted on May 31, 2014 in Economics, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Throwing money at a problem does not, in itself, solve it!

Mark Z 2The foregoing article helps us appreciate this point more succinctly. It was 2010. There was Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker (now New Jersey Senator), Facebook founder and philanthropist Mark Zuckerberg and the Governor of the State of New Jersey (and possible 2016 Presidential candidate) Chris Christie – all men of goodwill. Their goal: fix a failing school system in the City of Newark. On paper, the plan seemed credible, they had the power, they had the money – $100 million dollars. The result? After four years – “a waste”.

The issues of education reform, best practices, and funding options are stressed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean, even though these are not the primary focus of the book. Rather this book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), with the focus being on these following 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Yet, the book posits that education is a vital consideration for economic empowerment; so too are non-government organizations, like Zuckerberg’s foundation. The book specifically highlights an important role that foundations execute in the sphere of foreign aid, sometimes even better than national governments (Page 219):

One major argument against federally funded foreign aid is that the money is often lost to governmental corruption in the countries it was supposed to help. In 2003, a top university in Bangladesh claimed that at least 75% of all foreign aid given to that government was lost because of corruption. Since faith-based foreign aid focuses on churches or organizations operating independently of the government, funding has a better chance of being used effectively.

The below news article though, highlights an onshore example, in the US, with multi-level governmental support, plenty of money, and yet still: failure!

Title: Mark Zuckerberg Gave New Jersey $100 Million To Fix Newark’s Schools, And It Looks Like It Was A Waste
By: Caroline Moss
In the fall of 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Oprah that he’d be making a generous gift to Newark, New Jersey.

 As Oprah said in her Oprah way, “one … hundred … million … dollars” would be given to Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as the three began the Startup:Education foundation.

The plan was to turn Newark into what Zuckerberg called “a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation,” spent on retaining the best teachers, and creating environments that would produce successful students and, one day, graduates.

Newark is a city wrought with crime. Its graduation rate is about 67%. It needed the help, and Booker’s vision sounded promising.

Between 2010 and 2012, The New Yorker reports that “more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms with various specialties: public relations, human resources, communications, data analysis, [and] teacher evaluation.” Many of the consultants were being paid upwards of $1,000 a day.

“Everybody’s getting paid but Raheem still can’t read,” Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, was quoted saying.

Today, the money is pretty much gone, and Newark has hardly become that symbol of excellence.

The New Yorker has the full 12-page story today, and we’ve dug into it to find some of the main timeline points you need to know.

In 2010, Mayor Booker found a loophole in getting money to help fund Newark’s educational reform. It came in the form of philanthropic donations, which, unlike government funding, required no public review of priorities or spending. Gov. Christie approved the plan, and Booker’s job was to find the donors.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg (like many other tech billionaires) had pledged to donate half of his fortune, but as The New Yorker reports, he knew very little about urban education or philanthropy.

Booker and Zuckerberg met to discuss a vision for Newark’s future. Booker wanted to significantly reward Newark teachers who improved student performance rather than focus on seniority and tenure. Teachers would be challenged and rewarded to do their jobs well, and students would benefit.

 Zuckerberg was confident Newark and Booker were the right recipients for this huge gift (given over five years), and agreed to gift $100 million dollars with a few stipulations:

  • Booker would also have to raise $100 million dollars. Zuckerberg’s money would be released to Newark as matching dollars rolled in.
  • Booker would have to replace the current superintendent with a “transformational leader.

”The reform ended up looking like this: taking low-performing public schools and closing them, turning them into charter schools and “themed” high schools. But there was no easy way to expand charters without destabilizing traditional public schools.

In the months following the gift announcement, Booker and Christie still had no superstar superintendent and no reform plan.

 Zuckerberg was concerned and urged Booker to find the superintendent, even sending Booker a poster widely seen around the Facebook campus that read, “Done is better than perfect.”

Mark ZImmediately, Booker appointed Cami Anderson for the job. She implemented ways to help students and improve schools (all which The New Yorker detailed), but there were roadblocks along the way, like how the students brought the issues going on in their homes with them to the classroom.

 Anderson wanted to give schools more support to help students on emotional and social levels, but Newark had already been spending more money per student than most districts in the entire country, none of which was reaching the children it existed to help.

 New contracts were being created, money was being hemorrhaged, and the district was going broke. But interviews — like this one in Forbes — regarding the money and the future of Newark’s schools were always positive, highlighting, of course, only the good aspects of the huge monetary donation.

Then, in January of this year, The Washington Post reported on “dozens of emails between the Zuckerberg camp (including Zuckerberg himself) and the Booker camp (including Booker himself),” which ended up revealing that state education officials were going above and beyond to get money from big private donors to remake public schools in the way they want to.

Anderson came up with another plan called One Newark, which sounded like it could work. Families would choose which charter or public schools they would want to send their children to. Children from the lowest-income families would get first pick. So would kids with special needs.

It all sounded great until parents and teachers realized it was only on paper. Solutions hadn’t been figured out fully. Programs hadn’t been developed. Issues like transportation had not yet been tackled. Things that were promised didn’t come to fruition.

 According to The New Yorker, Anderson, Booker, Zuckerberg, and Christie, “despite millions of dollars spent on community engagement—have yet to hold tough, open conversations with the people of Newark about exactly how much money the district has, where it is going, and what students aren’t getting as a result.”
Business Insider Vertical e-Zine (Posted 05/13/2014; retrieved 05/30/2014) –
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-newark-grant-2014-5#ixzz33DsBvaIw

The people and institutions of the Caribbean understand this plight of Newark, New Jersey all too well. There is a long record of failure with the Caribbean education initiatives. Then where there is success, the quality students have a propensity to abandon the region and emigrate to the US, Canada or Europe. So with the best of the Caribbean’s talents gone, we find that we’ve “fatten frog for snake”; then with the rest, we muddle along as best we can; hoping to nation-build with the remnants of a broken educational system.

It’s time for a change!

The proposed change is detailed in the Go Lean roadmap. It provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the Caribbean education systems, governance and Caribbean society in general. This roadmap commences with the assessment that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that this “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 12) as a viable solution to elevate the region’s educational opportunities. The statement is included as follows:

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

The strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean, despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”. Tactically, this will allow a separation-of-powers between the member-states governments (including their education proxies) and federal agencies, allowing an open role for benevolent foundations to fulfill their charters on the region. The roadmap recognizes the need to lead, or to follow best-practices, as formulated by other entities. This then becomes a process of leading-by-following. The CU will facilitate the eco-systems, metering and measuring the effect of so many educational options. Think Champion-Challenger; allowing for alternate methodologies to be explored for effectiveness, and then measuring the success criteria.

The Go Lean book details series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster good educational progress, and the agile methodologies to adjust/adapt dynamically:

Anecdote – Lean On Me – New Jersey School Lesson Page 5
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Dept. Page 85
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent Page 224
Appendix – The Giving Pledge Signatories Page 292

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We welcome the “Mark Zuckerberg”’s of the world … and their money. We entreat them to help us to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Aereo’s Founder on the future of TV

Posted on May 30, 2014 in Implementation, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

“Aereo is…not infringing on their copyrights” – Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia.

This subject is pivotal in the roadmap for elevation of the Caribbean economy, which maintains that internet/electronic commerce business models are critical in creating jobs and growing the region’s GDP. The publisher of the book Go Lean… Caribbean projects that 2.2 million new jobs hang in the balance. These new jobs will result from entrepreneurial endeavors and opportunities from the many new industries spun from different expressions of internet & communications technologies (ICT).

Also important in the foregoing article is the respect for intellectual property. The Go Lean roadmap campaigns that the creators of intellectual property are entitled to due compensation; this ethos is at the bedrock of the economic empowerment quest for the region.

According to the foregoing article and VIDEO, there are major issues associated with this technology development, to the point that the US Supreme Court is called upon to set legal precedence.

CU Blog - Aereo Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia on the future of TV - Photo 1Change has come to the world of television. According to Futurists [a], the television industry is the next industry to become obsolete due to the ubiquity of the internet; (think travel agents, record & book stores, video rental, etc.).

This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and marshal against economic crimes.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Early in the book, the benefits of technology empowerment is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with these opening statements:

 xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … impacting the region with more jobs.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

xxviii. Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

The Caribbean has the eco-system of free broadcast television, and the infrastructure for internet streaming. So the issues raised in the US Supreme Court will have bearing in the execution of this roadmap.

By: Katie Couric

As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case that will determine the fate of his streaming video service, Aereo founder and CEO Chet Kanojia sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric.

The New York-based startup — backed by billionaire investor Barry Diller, among others — is at the center of a legal battle that has been raging since the company’s inception in 2012. Aereo currently operates in 13 cities.

The heart of the case involves Aereo’s practice of assigning subscribers mini remote antennas so that they can stream over-the-air broadcast signals directly to their tablets and other mobile devices. The antennas function in the same manner as old-fashioned “bunny ears.” Aereo also uses cloud technology, which lets subscribers watch the programming live or store it for a later time.
Yahoo’s Global News Anchor Katie Couric (Posted and retrieved 05-29-2014) –
https://news.yahoo.com/katie-couric-aereo-tv-supreme-court-212342689.html

 

Abbreviation of Interview – 3 minutes:

Full Interview – 20 minutes:

The book details the community ethos to adapt to the changed media landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Strategy – Integrate Region in a Single Market Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – New High Multiplier Industries Page 70
Tactical – Trade and Globalization Page 70
Separation of Powers – Film Promotion and Administration Page 78
Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, and Copyrights Office Page 78
Separation of Powers – Communications and Media Authority Page 79
Separation of Powers – Federal Supreme Court Page 90
Implementation – Assemble existing regional organizations Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization Page 119
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora Page 217

The CU will oversee the radio spectrum used for radio, television and satellite communications. The radio spectrum must be regulated on a regional level; the CU coordination will be as managing a common pool resource, as the spectrum is limited. This oversight will also extend to internet broadband (wireless & wire-line) governance.

This is a direct parallel to the US debate.

———

Citation source:
a-1. Retrieved 05-29-2013 from: http://corp.iprodoos.com/2014/01/18/television-2-0-the-2-2-trillion-war-for-your-living-room-begins-now/
a-2. Photo Credit: Motley Fool Investment Advisors
 

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