Social – Page 11 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Social

An Ode to Miami – Not A Temporary Stop for ‘Us’

Posted on August 21, 2019 in Ethos, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Survivor: Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.

This expression is more than just the tagline advertising for the television show ‘Survivor’; it is also the historic summary of Caribbean people in the metropolitan areas of Miami, Florida.

Over the years, decades and centuries, this city has been the home to a lot of different groups of people – think Miccosukee & Seminole Indians, Spanish Explorers, Slave Traders, Blockade Evaders, Railroad Barons, Rum-runners, Treasure seekers, Snowbirds, Latin American political refugees, Colombian Drug Smugglers and those seeking refuge from them. All of these people have come and gone – Miami was a temporary stop-over for them! But another group to have come over the years have been Caribbean immigrants …

… they have never left. Consider:

Bahamian Immigrants to Coconut Grove in the “Turn of the Century”
Cuban refugees from the Castro revolution
Haitian refugees from the Duvalier regime
Jamaican refugees from the post-independence flirtations with leftist-socialism
Dominicans seeking refuge from political-military coups on their island

After 4 years of observing-and-reporting, by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, it is time now for us to move on from our temporary stop-over in Miami, while we return to our Caribbean homeland. So we say:

Ode or “goodbye” to the City of Miami and the surrounding metropolitan areas.

While “we” leave to return to the Caribbean, we recognize that all the other Caribbean exiles living there are NOT leaving; it is not temporary for them; it is now Home. These ones are entrenched and embedded in Miami society. In fact, Miami society is now based on this demographic and Miami’s success is due to their success. See the Census figures here:

Miami-Dade Country Demographics – 2010 U.S. Census Ethnic/Race Demographics:^[34][35]

Hispanic or Latino of any race: 65.0% ^[35][36]

White (non-Hispanic): 15.4% (White total 73.8% when including White Hispanics)^[34]

Black (non-Hispanic): 17.1% (6.9% (Black total 18.9% when including Black Hispanics)^[37]

Asian: 1.5% ^[34][35]

Two or more races: 2.4%

American Indian and Alaska Native: 0.2%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.03%^[34][35]

Other Races: 3.2% (0.6% Arab)^[34]

In 2010, the largest ancestry groups were:^[34]

34.3% Cuban

4.6% Colombian

4.5% Haitian

4.2% Nicaraguan

3.7% Puerto Rican

3.4% American

2.3% Dominican

2.3% German

2.2% Italian

2.2% Honduran

2.1% Mexican

1.9% Venezuelan

1.8% Irish

1.6% Peruvian

1.5% English

1.4% Jamaican

1.1% Argentine

1.0% Russian

Source: Retrieved August 21, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami-Dade_County,_Florida#Demographics

This is sad but true! The Caribbean Diaspora in Miami is NOT going anywhere. Despite the many others that have come and gone, these ones have outwitted, outplayed and outlasted everyone else. They are the winning Survivors! (See Appendix VIDEO sample below of the highlights from one Season of the TV Show Survivor).

This reality is in contrast to the goals and ideals of the Go Lean movement. Our quest is to:

Dissuade the abandonment of Caribbean residents from the Caribbean homeland
Encourage the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora back to their ancestral homelands

We accept now: Miami is NOT just a temporary stop for many Caribbean people. So we have to make the best of this reality. This is what we have done. The publishers of the Go Lean book have “observed and reported” on Miami’s eco-system and published many lessons-learned from previous blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17848	Forging Change from Miami – ‘That’s What Friends Are For’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14732	‘Red Letter Day’ for Cubans in Miami – Raul Castro Retires
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14556	Observing Change in Miami … with Guns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13720	Miami’s Caribbean Marketplace Revisited
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13677	Economics of ‘South Beach’ (Miami Beach)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13105	Fixing Haiti – Can the Diaspora be the Answer?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13040	Jamaican Diaspora – Not the ‘Panacea’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12834	Hurricane Andrew – 25 Years of History from Miami’s Worst Hurricane
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11006	Funding and Learning from the Russell Family Memorial – RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10910	Jazz in Miami Gardens – Lessons Learned
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9897	Art Walk Miami – Its a ‘Real Thing’ in Wynwood
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6760	Miami’s Lesson in ‘Garbage’ for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5921	Learning from Miami’s ‘Bad’ Impact Analysis of a Community Investment
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3662	Caribbean Migrant flow into US spikes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Art Basel Miami – A Testament to the Spread of Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Success versus Caribbean Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=798	Lessons Learned from Miami and the American Airlines merger

So if the Caribbean Diaspora cannot be expected to leave Miami, what is our hope for this population in their future interactions with the Caribbean:

Trade – Exchange of goods (think: comfort foods and indigenous produce) and services (think: media, music, travel, events etc.).
Retirement – The slow-down pace of senior citizens are ideal for the Caribbean homeland
Cautionary Warning – We must protect the prospects so that future generations do not emigrate.

While this is not the ideal, it is what it is, but we must still make the most of this situation. This assessment was begrudgingly accepted in the Go Lean book. An advocacy is presented there with the title 10 Ways to Impact the Diaspora (Page 217). These “10 Ways” include the following highlights, headlines and excerpts:

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market & Economy initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (according to 2010 figures). In addition to expanding the economic activity within the region, the CU mission is also to empower the Caribbean Diaspora, believed to amount to be an additional 6 million people in 1996 (and 8 – 10 million today); residing in North America and Europe (Appendix EA on Page 267), to facilitate their development and investment back to their “home” territory. The CU’s mission is to incentivize repatriation of the Diaspora, their time (impacting family reunification), talents (reversing brain drain) and treasuries (optimizing remittances by facilitating cheaper transfers – see Appendix ED on Page 270).
2	Remittances Remittances, in this case, refer to transfers of money by foreign workers to their home Caribbean country. Money sent home by migrants, using Western Union and competitors, constitutes the second largest financial inflow, (after the country’s primary exports) for many developing countries. CU remittances, $9 Billion in 2010, contribute to economic growth and in several Caribbean countries, they account for near or more than 10% of GDP. (See Appendix EB on Page 268).
3	Brain Drain
4	Education With the incontrovertible evidence, no doubt, the study abroad model has failed the Caribbean, as many students never returned to the region. The CU therefore advocates e-Learning solutions for in-country tertiary education. The CU will impact this industry by facilitating libraries throughout the region with internet (desktop, tablet/e-Reader) access, and the proliferation of Wi-Fi in urban and suburban areas.
5	Diasporic Exports
6	Media Consumption
7	Health Risk – See Mitigation Model in Appendix R on Page 300
8	Security Risks
9	Retirement/Entitlement The CU will administer foreign policies of negotiating with host countries of the Diaspora to allow them [(Diaspora members)] to repatriate and still receive their Entitlement benefits (Pension, Health, Veterans). The key is to elevate the facilities to a first rate level.
10	Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) Inviting the Diaspora back to the Caribbean region does not mean returning to their original houses. The CU will foster advanced products for evolving housing development and funding needs with REITs, Co-ops and Mixed-use structures. REITs, trade-able on stock exchanges are excellent investment vehicles as the underlying asset is sound, real estate.

The Go Lean book doubles-down on the concept that Diaspora members are stakeholders for the Caribbean future. We may have missed out on their full contribution to our society, but we can still “exploit” them with supply-and-demands dynamics.

(Yet, there is caution not to build too much expectation that the Diaspora would be some savior for Caribbean society – they did leave after all; many not considering their former homelands at all. See this warning to Barbados, Jamaica, Dominica, Bahamas, St. Lucia and Grenada)

So, farewell Miami! You have been the epitome of an immigrant community – everyone from somewhere else, especially from the Caribbean. You have proven that while pluralistic democracies are heavy-lifting, they can have success … after some endurance, patience and adoption of universal respect.

Miami learned this lesson the hard way! (Their immigrant communities all separately went through long trains of abuse: rejection, anger, protest, bargaining, toleration and eventual acceptance; only after the appeal to their better nature, did the experience turn to one of celebration).

In our 4 years here, we’ve seen our people outwit, outplay and outlast. We’ve learned the lessons easily, by observing and reporting on the full Miami eco-system. We have looked, listened, learned, lend-a-hand here; now we are ready to go back to the Caribbean … and lead. We can now lead the efforts to make our own homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

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

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

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. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————–

Appendix VIDEO – SURVIVOR Borneo – Moments In History – https://youtu.be/55qPFFvN2dY

Outwit Outplay Outlast
Published on Jan 11, 2016

SURVIVOR Borneo, Season 1

0:03 Rudy and Rich Bond
1:10 Rat Feast
2:26 Nature Phone
3:17 Family Video
5:07 Snakes and Rats

PLAYLIST: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/c/OutwitOutpl…

Used for entertainment [and educational] purposes only. The property and rights for this video/audio go to ©CBS.

Category: Entertainment

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Diaspora, Miami, Model

Born After Woodstock – Lessons for the Caribbean

Posted on August 15, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

50 years ago today, in 1969, the legendary Woodstock Music Festival took place in White Lake, New York, USA.

Wow! This event was so impactful that we were all Born After Woodstock. This was bigger than just music!

Woodstock was one of the enduring events of the 20^th century.^[37] For those born before the year 1969, theirs was a “Rebirth”.

Woodstock 1969 was also the end of “Reign of American Orthodoxy”; the counter-culture emerged there upon.

Strong opinion?!

Well, this is not just our viewpoint alone. Many others express similar views; see here the Wikipedia summary here:

… Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain.^[6] It has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation.^[7][8]

The event’s significance was reinforced by a 1970 Academy Award–winning documentary film, an accompanying soundtrack album, and a Joni Mitchell–written song that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort.

Starting in 1979, music events bearing the Woodstock name have been planned for major anniversaries including the tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth. In 2004, Rolling Stone listed it as number 19 of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.^[9] In 2017, the festival site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[10]

Having 32 acts and artists at a “concert” is a major undertaking; plus half-a-million attendees exacerbated the event. The fame and infamy of many of those artists – cause and effect of Woodstock – still lingers today. See the historic line-up here:

Friday – August 15	Saturday – August 16	Sunday – August 17
Richie Havens	Quill	Joe Cocker
Sweetwater	Country Joe McDonald	Country Joe and the Fish
Bert Sommer	Santana	Ten Years After
Tim Hardin	John Sebastian	The Band
Ravi Shankar	Keef Hartley Band	Johnny Winter
Melanie	The Incredible String Band	Blood, Sweat & Tears
Arlo Guthrie	Canned Heat	Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Joan Baez	Mountain	Paul Butterfield Blues Band
	Grateful Dead	Sha Na Na
	Creedence Clearwater Revival	Jimi Hendrix
	Janis Joplin
	Sly and the Family Stone
	The Who
	Jefferson Airplane

That’s a lot of artists, and a lot of music:

36 hours
432 songs

Undeniably, the Music World was re-born after Woodstock; and the Counter-Culture was cemented too. Different attitudes and values were definitely forged during this period – some changes for good; some for bad – that resulted in the abandonment of the “bad orthodoxy” that had impeded American progress. In a previous blog-commentary, the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean summarized how racial segregation, questioning the rationale for war, gender rights, sexual toleration, and recreational drug use evolved from the “fringe” to the mainstream during this time. This quotation reflects that summary:

… we are now able to better embrace the historicity of the “counter-culture” of the 1960’s. This is our most recent example of a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differed substantially from those of mainstream society. …

[This] relates “how” the stewards for a new Caribbean can shepherd societal change in this region. We accept that with the Counter-Culture, young people can reject conventional social norms. This can be good when the “mainstream” culture reflects cultural standards that are defective. The counter-culturists of the 1960’s – think Hippies – rejected the norms of their parents – from the 1950’s and before.

Yes, looking back on the 50 years since Woodstock is looking at more than just music – this festival can be labeled the soundtrack of the “Hippies” and Counter-Culture – it looks at the mechanics of how change is forged in society.

Music is a great impetus …

… this was related in a different previous blog-commentary from December 30, 2014:

… “music” can be used to forge change. The Go Lean book declares that before any real change takes root in the Caribbean that we must reach the heart, that there must be an adoption of new community ethos – the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. We must therefore use effective and efficient drivers to touch the heart and forge this change. How? Here’s one suggestion:

Music fills your heart, well that’s a real fine place to start

Oh, my music makes you dance and gives you spirit to take a chance

And I wrote some rock ‘n roll so you can move

The Need for Change is the driving motivation of the movement and book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is the biggest lesson for the Caribbean to learn from the historicity of Woodstock. The Caribbean status quo is unsustainable; it is broken. We must reform and transform our society if we are to have any hope of a future.

In that previous blog-commentary about the Counter-Culture, it was concluded that:

The ‘Hippies’ stood in the track of an oncoming locomotive … and stopped the train!

The counter-culture brought change, some good (ie: desegregation & anti-war protest) and some bad (ie: un-kept grooming & liberal drug use)! So the ‘Hippies’ are only to be emulated as a model for forging change, not necessarily what they change. …

We are not asking the Caribbean to be “Hippies”, just learn from the “Hippies” and reject the status quo and orthodoxy of the broken Caribbean eco-system.

While we need to look forward towards the future, we also need to look backwards and learn from the lessons of the past – Woodstock 1969 is one such lesson. Like the “Hippies”, we must also reject the “bad orthodoxies” in our communities; see how this theme has been conveyed in this sample of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17919	Bad Rules of Hospitality – Strangers Over Neighbors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17464	Bad Ethos Retarding ‘New Commerce’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10532	Learning from Stereotypes – Good and Bad
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10216	Waging a Successful War on Orthodoxy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5542	Economic Principle: Bad Ethos of Rent-Seeking

We can also use music in the future out-workings for changes in our society. Plus, we can use festivals and mega-events. These too are lessons learned for us in the Caribbean. These themes have also been conveyed in these previous blog-commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12304	Caribbean Festival of the Arts – Past, Present and Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11905	Want Better Event Security? ’Must Love Dogs’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11574	Bad Week for Bahamas Events – Missing out of Opportunities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10910	Lessons Learned from “Jazz in the Gardens” (Miami)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9712	Forging Change: Panem et Circenses (Food & Festivals)
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3568	Forging Change: Music Moves People

So were you born after Woodstock?

Most assuredly! We have all had new beginnings since the monumental tremors (shakings) of this event 50 years ago. Now let’s keep on shaking up the status quo in the Caribbean and challenging the orthodoxy; we must reform and transform.

And let’s have fun too! The Woodstock 1969 event was fun … for the nearly half-a-million people who attended; and despite the obvious potential for disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe, the attendees spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. (See the related VIDEO in the Appendix below). The usual profit motive was thrown out and only the music was left.

Organizers felt they had [only two options] … to complete the fencing and ticket booths, without which the promoters would lose any profit or go into debt, or [complete the] building of the stage, without which the promoters feared they would have a disappointed and disgruntled audience. When the audience began arriving by the tens of thousands … the Wednesday before the weekend, the decision was made for them. Those without tickets simply walked through gaps in the fences, and the organizers were forced to make the event free of charge. Though the festival left its promoters nearly bankrupt, their ownership of the film and recording rights more than compensated for the losses after the release of the hit documentary film Woodstock in March 1970.^[11]

Woodstock 1969 was not a Caribbean event; but it does pose lessons for us in the Caribbean. Let’s pay attention. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix VIDEO – By The Numbers: Woodstock 1969 – https://www.cbsnews.com/video/by-the-numbers-woodstock-1969/

Posted August 4, 2019 – “Sunday Morning” takes account of one of the most heralded events of the 1960s: the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, where 400,000 showed up for “three days of peace and music.” Jane Pauley reports.

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Events, History, Model, Music

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What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

Posted on July 29, 2019 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

“The one walking with the wise will become wise, but the one who has dealings with the stupid will fare badly”. – The Bible – Proverbs 13:20 NWT

There is no doubt that our Caribbean communities are suffering from a bad case of societal abandonment. Everyone in the Caribbean knows someone that has left. In fact, whenever there is a colleague we know from the hometown that is skilled and competent, we would expect them to leave and be disappointed if they have not; see this dramatized in the Appendix VIDEO; caution for Strong Language.

Search your heart, you know it to be true. That Valedictorian from High School, if he/she is still in the Caribbean, you are puzzled right?

This is our dilemma!

If/when all the best students leave, the remnant only reflect the rest – Less Than best students.

One Caribbean country – The Bahamas – has been faced with this reality. As their Brain Drain rate gets worse and worse, they are now measuring the academic performance of the remaining students, and the grade is bad:

‘D’ Average.

See the full news article here:

Title: Results Expose Failing Schools
By: Khrisna Russell, Deputy Chief Reporter
A DAY after Education Minister Jeff Lloyd said “something is wrong” with the country’s educational system, officials withheld an official subject letter grade breakdown for the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education examination results, which also show that of 6,692 students who sat the national tests this year, only 521 or 7.8 per cent, scored a C or above in mathematics, English and a science subject.

This is about a nine per cent decrease compared to last year.

This lack of detailed BGCSE statistics raises questions over how students fared in individual test subjects and highlights challenges this country faces regarding the readiness of youth to adjust to life after high school where they are expected to transition into the work force or college.

However, sources within the Ministry of Education told The Tribune this year’s test scores did not depart greatly from the dismal grade trends seen in both 2015 and 2016.

On Wednesday Mr Lloyd told educators during an event in Grand Bahama that they could not continue to rest on their laurels while the national exam results remain at a D average.

“For the last 10 years or more, the BGCSE results have shown not (any) improvement; we started out with a D, we are still at a D – something is wrong,” the minister said during the Ministry of Education’s annual Teachers’ Enrichment Day. The event was held at the Jack Hayward High School gymnasium on Wednesday.

He continued: “There is no way to camouflage it; there is no way to excuse it; something is wrong and we must fix it.”

He went on to stress the only way the issue could be corrected was to go back to the beginning and start with preschoolers.

In 2015, core subjects of mathematics and English averaged an E and D+ respectively. In 2016, the ministry did not release letter grades per subject, but then Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald confirmed at the time that the grades were not much different from those of 2015.

Prior to 2015, subject letter grades were released with the official BGCSE and Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC) exam tests scores. The following year, the ministry broke away from its traditional analysis, only giving a general overview and percentage calculations per letter grade. This year, the Ministry of Education also did not hold its usual press conference to officially release the results, this time opting to disseminate the details of the tests by email.

Results
“In 2017, a total of 521 candidates received at least a grade C or better in mathematics, English language and a science,” the press release accompanying the 2017 results noted. “This represents a decrease of 9.23 per cent when compared to 2016 which had a total of 574 candidates. There were 570 candidates in 2015; 588 in 2014 and 561 candidates in 2013.”

According to the new results, there were 2,141 As; 3,000 Bs; 7,065 Cs; 5,569 Ds; 3,496 Es; 1,936 Fs; 1,184 Gs and 710 Us for the BGCSE exams.

Regarding the number of students who sat these tests, there were 6,692, or a 3.95 per cent increase compared to the 6,438 test takers in 2016.

A further breakdown of the results showed in 2017, a total of 1,493 candidates obtained a minimum grade of D in at least five subjects. This represents an increase of 2.33 per cent from 2016, which had a total of 1,459 candidates.

There were also 1,534 candidates achieving this mark in 2015; 1,545 in 2014 and 1,626 in 2013.

In addition, a total of 880 candidates received at least grade C in five or more subjects in 2017 compared with 903 candidates in 2016.

This represents a decrease of 2.55 per cent. There were 961 candidates in 2015; 922 candidates in 2014 and 996 in 2013 in this category.

The Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC) examination results were not much different when compared with the BGCSE test scores.

Of the 12,120 students who took the tests in 2017, only 1,326 or 10.94 per cent of candidates achieved at least a C in mathematics, English and a science.

“This represents a 14.67 per cent decrease when compared with 2016, which had a total of 1,554 candidates. There were 1,479 candidates in 2015; 1,651 candidates in 2014 and 1,302 candidates in 2013,” the Ministry of Education said in its press release.

The BJC results also show there were 3,831 As; 7,033 Bs; 9,395 Cs; 8,036 Ds; 6,036 Es; 4,508 Fs; 2,954 Gs and 2,565 Us.

“When compared with 2016, there is a percentage decrease noted at grades A, C, E and U and increases at B, D, F and G. It is interesting to note that this is the second consecutive year the percentage at U has decreased.

“Overall, the percentage of candidates achieving grades A – D decreased this year when compared with last year,” the Ministry of Education said.

Source: Posted August 31, 2017; retrieved July 29, 2019 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/sep/01/results-expose-failing-schools/

While this article is from 2017; an except of the full Ministry of Education Report (MOE) for the 2017-2018 Academic Year is also hereby attached in Appendix below. This commentary is hereby published during mid-summer 2019; so we only have analysis based on that 2018 report. See a related news article on the latest MOE Report from September 3, 2018:

Title: Exam Passes Down Again
By: Khrisna Russell, Deputy Chief Reporter
STUDENTS who took the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) examinations performed marginally worse this year [2018] in comparison with those who took the national tests in 2017.

See the full article here: Retrieved July 29, 2019 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2018/sep/04/exam-passes-down-again/

This has not always been the case. What Went Wrong?

Simple: This grade is an average!

In the past, there were better students in the Bahamian educational eco-system. If you total all of those test scores and divide by the count, you get the average. If you then take away all the higher earners and calculate the average again, the result is an even lower average score. Repeat this process again and again and the overall average lowers.

Welcome to the ‘D’ Grade Reality. This is indicative that the best-of-the-best have left, are leaving and unless something is done, will continue to leave.

(“An apple doesn’t fall far from a tree”; so most good students have children that are good students; most bad students rarely have children that are good students. This is Nature and Nurture).

This commentary completes the July series from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This submission follow through on the theme “What Went Wrong?“, focuses on Caribbean defects and dysfunctions in every aspect of Caribbean life; many which have been addressed and remediated by other societies – think North America and Europe yes, but even Asian communities. So this creates the pressure of Push and Pull, in which our people leave to seek refuge in those places.

While this is entry 6-of-6, the full catalog were published as follows:

What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important
What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!
What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Caribbean ‘Less Than’
What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality
What Went Wrong? Failing the Lessons from Infrastructure 101
What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

Though the foregoing news article cites the Bahamas, the experience of falling test scores have befallen all Caribbean communities. In this What Went Wrong series, we did not only detail the timelines of the faults and breaks, but also drew reference to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for reforming and transforming the Caribbean region – all member states, individually and collectively. So the solutions here-in are for the Bahamas and the rest of the region.

The problems of failing Caribbean education scores are too big for any one member-state alone, we would need the leverage of the whole Caribbean neighborhood – despite the language, race, colonial heritage or political structure – to forge the change and solutions.

Forge the change and solutions?
The Go Lean movement (book and previous blog-commentaries) asserts that technology, Internet Communications Technology (ICT) in fact – can be the great equalizer in education solutions so that smaller countries can compete with larger ones worldwide. Imagine, right on our islands, coastal shores, rural settlements, barrios and ghettos, our students can have the best-of-the best for instruction, knowledge base, tutorials and reference sources.

Yes, we can … correct What Went Wrong in our Caribbean education evolution with these different strategies, tactics and implementations. See how this theme was developed and presented in these previous blog-commentaries:

Title: Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet – November 8, 2017

“I believe that children are the future; teach them well and let them lead the way”.

That is just a song; but this is life.

What is the hope for the Caribbean youth to be transformed in their development compared to past generations?

What transformations are transpiring in the region that shows willingness for the people and institutions to embrace the needed change?

In 2017, a focus on the future for young people must also consider “cyber reality” and/or the Internet. This consideration is embedded in the Go Lean roadmap. In fact, the book presents the good stewardship so that Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) can be a great equalizing element for leveling the playing field in competition with the rest of the world. …

The Go Lean book presents the plan to deploy many e-Learning provisions so as to deliver on the ICT promise in educating our Caribbean youth. The book references the roles and responsibilities of e-Learning in many iterations; this shows the Future Focus of the Go Lean roadmap; …

The future – of electronic learning systems – is now! The technology is ready and the Caribbean youth is ready. We only need to deploy the delivery models to allow our students to matriculate online. See the profile of this American company that is currently available:

http://www.k12.com/

———–

Title: Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style – November 10, 2017

A huge step in making [distance learning] happen occurred with the development of the personal computer and the Internet. It took a while for modem technology to gain use in distance learning, but once it did, online educational platforms started popping up all over the place, first by connecting private computers directly, but later on the Internet. Add in the benefits of updated teleconferencing technologies, and it’s no wonder that six million postsecondary students take at least one fully online class every year.

Related:

100 Best Online Colleges

50 Best Online MBA Programs

25 Best Online Degrees

————

Title: Managing the ‘Strong versus the Weak’ – Lower Ed. – April 27, 2017
(Avoiding the bad American example)

We need more e-Learning options in our Caribbean homeland, for all education levels: K-12 and college. There are many successful models and best practices to adopt. We are in position to pick, choose and refuse products and services from all our foreign trading partners, including from the US. (We must assuredly avoid their societal defects).

One successful model is “iReady” [used by Miami-Dade Country School District].

The purpose of the Go Lean movement is not education, rather it is presenting a roadmap to reform and transform the societal engines (economics, security and governance) of the Caribbean. We must reboot to stop the Brain Drain. But education is important! Education is directly related to economics. See how this theme was developed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882	Exploring Medical School Opportunities … as Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15543	Ross University Relocation Saga: There Goes Economy and Jobs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13952	Welcoming the Caribbean Intelligentsia: Educated Economists Role
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4487	Role Model FAMU – No. 3 for Facilitating Economic Opportunity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses over 70 percent of tertiary educated to Brain Drain

All of the Caribbean feature societal defects and dysfunctions. A lot went wrong! Now that we have diagnosed that, we can better prescribe remedies.

We cannot go back in time and correct the Caribbean Bad Start – associated with slavery and colonialism – we can only go forward from here and weed out the bad community ethos; then adopt the good ones, plus strategies, tactics and implementations that we need to reboot society.

Yes, we can.

This is the assertion of the movement behind the Go Lean…Caribbean book and the resultant roadmap. So we urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to make our homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————-

Reference: The Ministry of Education submits the results of the 2018 Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC) and the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) examinations.

Excerpts:

… The national examinations are all graded on a seven (7) point scale, i.e., High-Up: A – Lowest of the low: G – all grades indicate a measure of positive achievement. Grade ‘A’ denotes the highest level of performance while grade ‘G’ denotes the lowest level. …

BGCSE Grade Outcome Statistics

Females continue to outperform males receiving higher percentages at A – C and lower percentages at E – U. Males outperformed females at D. It is interesting to note that females increased in percentage at grades A and B this year while males decreased in performance at A – C. It is unfortunate that males also increased in percentage at grades E – G. Positively, both males and females decreased in percentage at U.

See full report at this: https://www.bahamaslocal.com/files/BJC%20&%20BGCSE%202018%20Results.pdf posted August 2018; retrieved Bahamas Ministry of Education; July 29, 2019.

————-

Appendix VIDEO – Good Will Hunting | ‘The Best Part of My … (HD) – Ben Affleck, Matt Damon | MIRAMAX – https://youtu.be/Xv7eeMikM_w

Miramax

Published on Dec 15, 2015 – Chuckie (Ben Affleck) gives Will (Matt Damon) a friendly dose of reality.

In this scene: Will (Matt Damon), Chuckie (Ben Affleck)

About Good Will Hunting:

The most brilliant mind at America’s top university isn’t a student; he’s the kid who cleans the floors. Will Hunting is a headstrong, working-class genius who is failing the lessons of life. After one too many run-ins with the law, Will’s last chance is a psychology professor, who might be the only man who can reach him. Finally forced to deal with his past, Will discovers that the only one holding him back is himself.

Starring, in alphabetical order: Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Minnie Driver, Cole Hauser, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Williams

About Miramax:

Miramax is a global film and television studio best known for its highly acclaimed, original content.

Visit Miramax on our WEBSITE: https://www.miramax.com/ Good Will Hunting | ‘The Best Part of My Day’ (HD) – Ben Affleck, Matt Damon | MIRAMAX

http://www.youtube.com/Miramax

Category: Entertainment

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What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality

Posted on July 23, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Be our guest
Put our services to the test …
– Song: Be Our Guest from the Movie: Beauty and the Beast – See Appendices below.

The economic principle – slavery – at the origins of Caribbean society had both winners and losers: for the slaves, it was a Bad Start; but for the slave masters it was a Life of Leisure, they had servants to do all the heavy-lifting to sustain their life.

Change came … slavery ended …

… most of the slave masters left the region. A transformation had to take place: socially, politically and economically. So yes, the Caribbean transformed economically from that Bad Start.

Or did we?

Now the primary economic driver in the region – every member-state – is tourism. We are still in the Life of Leisure business. Except now, instead of a Life of Leisure it is now only a week of leisure, or a forth-night, or a month, or a season (i.e. Winter Snowbirds). We have replaced one master for multiple masters at the resort properties; “one master at a time” still enjoys the leisure.

The more things change, the more they remain the same!

For the former slaves, the Black-and-Brown of Caribbean society, the community ethos – (the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society) – for them changed from a spirit of servitude to a spirit of Hospitality. Consider the historicity of Hospitality from a Judeo-Christian perspective:

Hospitality – refers to the relationship between a guest and a host, wherein the host receives the guest with goodwill, including the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Louis, Chevalier de Jaucourt describes hospitality in the Encyclopédie as the virtue of a great soul that cares for the whole universe through the ties of humanity.^[4] …

Historical practices – In ancient cultures hospitality involved welcoming the stranger and offering him food, shelter, and safety.^[7] …

Judaism … praises hospitality to strangers and guests based largely on the examples of Abraham and Lot in the Book of Genesis(Genesis 18:1–8 and 19:1–8). In Hebrew, the practice is called hachnasat orchim, or “welcoming guests”. Besides other expectations, hosts are expected to provide nourishment, comfort, and entertainment for their guests,^[10] and at the end of the visit, hosts customarily escort their guests out of their home, wishing them a safe journey.^[11] …

Christianity … hospitality is a virtue which is a reminder of sympathy for strangers and a rule to welcome visitors.^[12] This is a virtue found in the Old Testament, with, for example, the custom of the foot washing of visitors or the kiss of peace.^[13][14] It was taught by Jesus in the New Testament [as well]. Indeed, Jesus said that those who had welcomed a stranger had welcomed him.^[15] Some Western countries have developed a host culture for immigrants, based on the Bible.^[16] – Source: Wikipedia

Now consider the fantasy associated with Hospitality in our pop culture. See this song-and-dance – Be Our Guest – from the animated movie “Beauty and the Beast” in the Appendix VIDEO below.

In general, the better we are at Hospitality, the better the financial rewards – think gratuity.

This has resulted in distortions in our society. The rules of Hospitality means that we place the needs of the “Stranger” ahead of the needs of the neighbor. Consider the above scriptural reference in Genesis 19:1 – 8, where Lot extended hospitality to two strangers while in the City of Sodom. He “urged them not to spend the night in the public square”. The strangers accepted his hospitality, but before they could retire, a mob surrounded Lot’s house, “from boy to old man.” They cried out to Lot that he turn over his guests for immoral purposes, but he [Lot] firmly refused; he protected them, even offering to pacify the mob with the offer of his own family members.

In these modern days, albeit public safety protections for all in society including strangers, along come Direct Foreign Investors. We perceive that their needs supersede the needs of the “townspeople”. Everyone, everywhere senses this. At times, the Direct Foreign Investor is even pejoratively referred to as “Dragons”. This theme was elaborated upon in a previous blog-commentary; see quotation here:

… assigning the term “Dragon” to a “Dependence on Foreign Investors” or DFI. …
Normally DFI refer to Direct Foreign Investment, but in this case the “Dependence on Foreign Investors” is portrayed as a negative factor or pest – a dragon – unless “trained”, caroled and controlled to harness the energy in a positive way. …

The [Go Lean] book, and accompanying blogs posit that “dragons can be trained”. The sad state of affairs in Freeport (Bahamas 2nd City] can be turned around by the embrace of a “double down” strategy on the island’s nascent ship-building industry [in place on the sole reliance of tourism].

This – shift to depending on hospitality of strangers – is What Went Wrong in the Caribbean development. Time for a change!

The 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean opened with this warning:

The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy away from the mono-industrial trappings of tourism, and yet tourism is still the primary driver of the economy. Prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, but also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

To recap, it is not Tourism that is wrong is the Caribbean, rather it is the spirit of ” only accommodation to strangers” that is wrong. It subverts the community ethos and causes the stakeholders to become complacent, and settled that the “Foreign Man” – the Tourist or the Investor – will take care of us, rather than taking the necessary steps to take care of ourselves, like leveraging and confederating with our neighbors, our neighboring communities and neighboring islands.

This is What Went Wrong in Caribbean history, society and culture.

Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come”. – Ancient Chinese Proverb

This commentary continues the July series from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This submission, 4-of-6 on the theme “What Went Wrong?” focuses on Caribbean history and why we still have many of the same defects that other societies – think North America and Europe yes, but even Asia – have already remediated. The full catalog:

What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important
What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!
What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Caribbean ‘Less Than’
What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality
What Went Wrong? Failing the Lessons from Infrastructure 101
What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

In this series, reference is made to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for elevating the regional engines of Caribbean society, for the full 30 member-states. The challenges are too big for any one member-state alone. We need the whole neighborhood, despite the language, race, colonial heritage or political structure – we need All Hands on Deck. The movement behind the Go Lean book asserts that this change is possible; we do not want to abandon Tourism; no, we want to optimize it and make it even better as an economic engine for our region. See how this theme was developed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17337	Industrial Reboot – Amusement Parks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17072	Cruise Ports ‘Held Hostage’ – Need to Reboot Cruise Eco-System
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15907	Industrial Reboot – Navy Pier 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15844	Doubling Down on “Snowbird” Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15521	The Need for Caribbean Unity to Mitigate Tourism Missteps
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15380	Industrial Reboot – Cruise Tourism 2.0
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15378	Industrial Reboot – Tourism 2.0
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13856	Bad Case Study: Baha Mar – Doubling-down on Failure

All of the Caribbean had the historic background in slavery. Most of the Caribbean profess the Judeo-Christian religious affiliation. Most of the Caribbean have Tourism as the primary industry. The propensity for the Judeo-Christian form of hospitality and the mono-industrial expressions of Tourism is more than coincidental:

It is What Went Wrong with the Caribbean.

Now the focus must be on the changes that we need to move forward – the Way Forward.

Finally, we need to reboot our societal engines. While still extending our arms of hospitality in touristic expressions, we need to double-down in working with our neighbors – all neighbors in the region. We must convene, collude, cooperate, collaborate and confederate to address all our collective problems with collective solutions.

And we must carol and control our invitation of hospitality to Direct Foreign Investors – better train our dragons.

Yes, we can.

This is the urging of the book Go Lean…Caribbean and the resultant roadmap. We hereby urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap. This roadmap is conceivable, believe and achievable. We can make our homeland a better place for all stakeholders to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

iv. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass is in a tropical region, the flora and fauna allows for an inherent beauty that is enviable to peoples near and far. The structures must be strenuously guarded to protect and promote sustainable systems of commerce paramount to this reality.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————–

Appendix VIDEO – Be Our Guest | Beauty and the Beast | Lyrics – https://youtu.be/GXlgmqHpBkU

Disney DeKa
Published on Jul 8, 2011 – I do not own anything! Thanks for watching 🙂

Category: Film & Animation
Suggested by Disney Enterprises Inc: Beauty and the Beast

————–

Appendix – Lyrics: Be Our Guest | Beauty and the Beast

“Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride
And greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight
And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair
As the dining room proudly presents
Your dinner!”

Be our guest, be our guest
Put our service to the test
Tie your napkin ’round your neck, cherie
And we’ll provide the rest
Soup du jour, hot hors d’oeuvres
Why, we only live to serve
Try the grey stuff, it’s delicious
Don’t believe me, ask the dishes

They can sing, they can dance
After all, miss, this is France
And a dinner here is never second best
Go on, unfold your menu
Take a glance and then you’ll
Be our guest oui, our guest
Be our guest

Beef ragout, cheese soufflé
Pie and pudding, on flambé
We’ll prepare and serve with flair
A culinary cabaret
You’re alone and you’re scared
But the banquet’s all prepared
No one’s gloomy or complaining
While the flatware’s entertaining
We tell jokes, I do tricks
With my fellow candlesticks

And it’s all in perfect taste that you can bet
Come on and lift your glass
You’ve won your own free pass
To be our guest if you’re stressed
It’s fine dining we suggest
Be our guest, be our guest, be our guest

Life is so unnerving
For a servant who’s not serving
He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon
Ah, those good old days when we were useful (hey Cogsworth)
Suddenly those good old days are gone
Too long we’ve been rusting
Needing so much more than dusting
Needing exercise, a chance to use our skills!
Most days we just lay around the castle
Flabby, fat and lazy
You walked in and oops-a-daisy!

It’s a guest, it’s a guest
Sake’s alive, well I’ll be blessed!
Wine’s been poured and thank the Lord
I’ve had the napkins freshly pressed
With dessert, she’ll want tea
And my dear that’s fine with me
While the cups do their soft-shoein’
I’ll be bubbling, I’ll be brewing

I’ll get warm, piping hot
Heaven’s sakes! Is that a spot?
Clean it up, we want the company impressed
We’ve got a lot to do!
Is it one lump or two?
For you, our guest (she’s our guest)
She’s our guest (she’s our guest)

Be our guest, be our guest!
Our command is your request
It’s been years since we’ve had anybody here
And we’re obsessed
With your meal, with your ease
Yes, indeed, we aim to please
While the candlelight’s still glowing
Let us help you, we’ll keep going

Course by course, one by one
‘Til you shout, “enough I’m done!”
Then we’ll sing you off to sleep as you digest
Tonight you’ll prop your feet up
But for now, let’s eat up
Be our guest
Be our guest
Be our guest
Please, be our guest

Source: Retrieved July 25, 2019 from: https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/33715733/Alan+Menken/Be+Our+Guest

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What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Quantifying Caribbean ‘Less Than’

Posted on July 22, 2019 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

When building a house, one starts with the foundation. It is important to have a good solid foundation.

²⁴“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. ²⁵Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. ²⁶But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. ²⁷When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” – The Bible – Matthew 7:24-27 – New Living Translation

Don’t get it twisted! Caribbean society did not have a good solid foundation at the start; it was built on the premise of Slavery! That’s a flawed moral foundation. That was then … as the years, decades and centuries past, the societal defects only exacerbated. See this quotation:

One by one, at least six European powers [(British, Danish, Dutch, French, Portuguese and Spanish)] entered the fray and wrestled with each over the riches to be obtained from the region under colonization. Caribbean islands were exchanged as part of peace negotiations after European wars, and sometimes captured outright by those countries that could muster the naval power so far from their shores. The source of this wealth was the fruits of the labor of enslaved Africans. Commercial and military intervention on the African coast ensured a supply of captive laborers for the plantations. The slave trade represented the largest capital investment in the world, meaning that the slaves themselves were valuable commodities, and was promoted and patronized by the royal families and leading merchants and politicians of Europe.

Africans were enslaved and taken to the Americas, agricultural commodities were transported, often in the same slaving vessels, from the Americas to Europe, and trade goods were shipped from Europe to Africa for more slaves—the so-called “Triangular Trade.” More than nine million enslaved Africans reached the New World, … about 40 percent going to the Caribbean. Jamaica received nearly twice as many slaves as were imported into the United States; Barbados and Martinique, tiny islands where plantation slavery was established very early, each received roughly the amount received by the whole United States. While these figures cannot take into account the many millions who died en route, they do provide an idea of the intensity of Caribbean slavery. Caribbean slaves were notoriously malnourished, overworked, and susceptible to disease. They died in droves. It was cheaper for planters to simply import new slaves than to maintain their existing labor forces, and women were not encouraged to bear children until it appeared the slave trade would end. …
Source: Yelvington, Kevin A. (2000). ” Caribbean Crucible: History, Culture, and Globalization”. Retrieved July 22, 2019 from: http://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/6402/640201.html

The islands and coastal lands that constitute today’s Caribbean were not intended to be paradisiacal destinations for Black-and-Brown people. No, in the original intent, these people had only one purpose: provide [cheap] labor … and that’s it.

So ‘What Went Wrong‘ in the historic development of the Caribbean? Answer: There is a lot of “red on our ledger”.

It was generally accepted that the ratio of African slaves to Europeans were ‘7-to-1’. That was the balance in Caribbean society. All those 7 Africans – freed men and slaves – were balanced or counter-weighed with 1 European. See these historic details:

During the 17th and 18th centuries, European colonialism in the Caribbean became increasingly reliant on plantation slavery, so that, by the end of the 18th century, on many islands, enslaved (and free) Afro-Caribbeans far outnumbered their European rulers.^[3] – Source: Wikipedia

Saint Domingue (Haiti’s/Dominican Republic) example – In 1789, the population was composed as follows:^[14][15][16]

· 40,000 Grand-blancs (literally “Great whites” in French) and Petit-blancs (“Little whites”)

· 28,000 Sang-melés (French for: “Mixed blood”) or free people of color.

· 452,000 slaves

Jamaica‘s example – In 1787, there were only 12,737 whites out of a total population of 209,617.^[6]

Suriname – Long inhabited by various indigenous people before being invaded and contested by European powers from the 16th century, eventually coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century. As the chief sugar colony during the Dutch colonial period, it was primarily a plantation economy dependent on African slaves and, following the abolition of slavery in 1863, indentured servants from Asia. Suriname was ruled by the Dutch-chartered company Society of Suriname between 1683 and 1795. … As a legacy of colonization, the people of Suriname are among the most diverse in the world, spanning a multitude of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, [with only 1% featuring an European heritage]. – Source: Wikipedia

(In addition, see the Appendix VIDEO depicting “how the Caribbean became the most Racially Diverse Region in the World”).

Another way of looking at the ‘7-to-1’ ratio is with this narrative from an European perspective: “it takes 7 of you people to equal to one of us”. While this was never the official codification in any Caribbean country, this was the anecdotal experience. (‘Less Than‘ was the official codification in the US for the African population: Three-Fifths – slaves would be counted when determining a state’s total population for legislative representation and taxing purposes). This was especially evident after abolition & emancipation of slavery, when the journey began: the slow march toward de-colonization, majority rule and independence.

This is What Went Wrong with Caribbean society; the people that would form the vast majority of the population – the former slaves and indentured-servants – was considered ‘Less Than‘, yet suddenly thrust into national leadership.

This commentary, 3-of-6 in the July series from the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean continues the theme “What Went Wrong?” in the history of nation-building for Caribbean society. Like other New World territories, every Caribbean member-state was structured for plantation economies. That means the ethos of Caribbean communities was embedded with a lot of societal defects – Crony-capitalism, White supremacy, propensity for flight (slaves and masters). In fact, in all Caribbean communities, the European population declined after emancipation, and even more left when the Caribbean states obtained independence from their colonial status to European empires. The “writing was on the wall”. The full catalog of all the entries in this blog-series is listed as follows:

What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important
What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!
What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Caribbean ‘Less Than’
What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality
What Went Wrong? Failing the Lessons from Infrastructure 101
What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

The proliferation of bad community ethos in Caribbean member-states have been detailed in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17464	Bad Ethos Retarding ‘New Commerce’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16645	Bad Partners – Cruise Lines Interactions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16534	European Reckoning – Christianity’s Indictment and Bad Ethos
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16408	Bad Ethos on Home Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10532	The Propensity of Bad Stereotypes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5542	Economic Principle: Bad Ethos of Rent-Seeking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3582	For Canadian Banks: Caribbean is a ‘Bad Bet’

Caribbean ‘Less Than‘ is an important consideration for the Go Lean movement. This is why it is important to examine the full length-and-breath of the societal defects in our communities.

All Caribbean people are created equal … despite the flawed moral foundation of our history!

We are not ‘Less Than‘; yet when our people leave, abandon their homeland, they are treated ‘Less Than‘ in the foreign abodes – noticeably true in the US and Canada – they re-settle as their new homes. What’s more, for the English-speaking Caribbean citizens that emigrated to the United Kingdom, their experiences have also been documented as Less Than in that country. Lastly, similar anecdotes have emerged from France (Paris) and the Netherlands.

Now that we know “What Went Wrong“, we can now remediate and mitigate the shortcomings. Yes, we can! This is not easy – heavy-lifting actually – but it is conceivable, believable and achievable to reform and transform our societies.

The movement behind the Go Lean…Caribbean book, hereby urges all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap. Embedded here-in are the strategies, tactics and implementations to make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————-

Appendix VIDEO – Here’s how the Caribbean became the most Racially Diverse Region in the World – https://youtu.be/fAZBLzWCUbU

Masaman
Published on May 1, 2017 – This is how the Caribbean became the most racially diverse region on the planet, after having it’s ancestry and genetics permanently altered through European colonialism and migration.

In this video, I’m going to give the rundown for several Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, along with many others. We will look at the demographic history, and just what spawned the drastic fluctuations in the racial makeup of the region.

We’re also going to touch on many of the surrounding areas such as Central America, the Gullah coast, as well as the Guianas of South America.

Please let me know your thoughts on my analysis, especially if you live in, or have ancestry from the region. Videos over the latter regions will be released soon. Thanks for watching!

Category: Comedy

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What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important – Encore

Posted on July 18, 2019 in Ethos, Government, Implementation, Social, Strategy

“There is something wrong in the Caribbean.”

These are the opening words of the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean. So what is wrong? What went wrong? When did it go wrong? And just for “kibbles-and-bits”: What can we do about it?

These are very important questions that the stewards of the Caribbean must consider and be honest with the answers. The truth as to “what went wrong” is as important as a Physician’s (Doctor’s) diagnosis and treatment plan. If its the right assessment then the right therapy can be put in place.

This is the purpose of this July series from the movement behind the Go Lean book. (Every month – continuous since June 2015 – there is a comprehensive series on the width-and-breath of Caribbean life: past, present and future). This month, the focus is on the “History of the Caribbean Societal Dysfunctions – What Went Wrong”. Other societies – think Japanese aggression or Nazi Supremacy dreams – have had defects and have addressed their shortcomings and have resulted in turn-around. This has not been true of most of the Caribbean; we have not remediated many of the problems that dated back to the origins of our society. Thus this series requires our consideration; notice the full catalog here:

What Went Wrong? Asking ‘Why’ is Important
What Went Wrong? ‘We’ never had our war!
What Went Wrong? ‘7 to 1’ – Caribbean ‘Less Than’
What Went Wrong? ‘Be our Guest’ – The Rules of Hospitality
What Went Wrong? Failing the Lessons from Infrastructure 101
What Went Wrong? Losing the Best; Nation-building with the Rest

In this series, reference is made to the need for a comprehensive roadmap for elevating the societal engines of the Caribbean member-states. We must get past the societal defects if we want to have a future. In fact, there is no guarantee that there will be a future, unless we do the heavy-lifting to reform and transform our society. The book Go Lean…Caribbean provides a roadmap for the implementation for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to finally address the societal defects.

What went wrong? We need to know. The opening sentence in the book made the declarative statement that “something is wrong” and then goes on to explain that the problem is societal abandonment:

… instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out.

Why do Caribbean citizens abandon their homelands?

This question was asked before …

… in a previous Go Lean blog-commentary; it found that the answer to the question raises another question; then answering that new question raised another one. This process repeated … in 7 iterations. These iterations are documented in that previous blog-commentary from April 7, 2016 entitled “Being Lean: Asking the Question ‘Why’ x Times“. It is only apropos to Encore that blog-commentary here-now:

—————

Go Lean Commentary – Being Lean: Asking the Question ‘Why’ 5 Times

“The Caribbean is arguably the greatest address on the planet”, as declared in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. (This “greatest” attribute is defined for terrain, culture and hospitality). Yet the region has an unconscious-able brain drain rate, where 70 percent of the tertiary-educated population has fled.

Why!?

This question has been asked repeatedly! Many times the published answers are really describing the symptoms and not the root-causes. In the end, the answer is not so easy! The Go Lean book defines it as heavy-lifting. The Go Lean approach is an examination of the word “Lean”. In the book the word is presented as a noun, a verb and an adjective; all inclusive of the agile concept. The lean/agile concept is an understanding that value is a derived-result from a continuously optimizing key process, that repeats as a cycle .. again and again.

The Go Lean book (Page 4) relates that …

… lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

One expression of the lean methodology that can be used to dissect/”add value” to the key question (” Why such a high brain drain rate”) in this commentary is the iterative interrogative technique: 5 Why’s. See details of this agile-lean technique below. Using this technique, the 5 Why’s needs to be extended to 7 actual Why questions, as follows:

Problem: Why do Caribbean citizens abandon their homelands?

“Push and Pull” reasons. “Push”, as in people fleeing to find refuge and “pull” in the perception (though false) that life is better on foreign shores. Why?
Societal defects – in the region – are so acute. Why?
Societal engines (responsible for economics, security & governance) not optimized. Why?
Colonial Masters did not engage best-practices. Why?
Foreign Policy in the colonies was to just keep them dependent. Why?
Colonizers promoted home country commerce – Mercantilism; slavery in the colonies, but not at home (i.e. Serfism, French Revolution). Why?
European Community Ethos: OK to exploit African Race as declared by Pope Innocent VIII.

See the encyclopedic details and a related VIDEO here:

Reference Title: 5 Whys
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved 04/07/2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys

5 Whys is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem.^[1] The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question “Why?” Each question forms the basis of the next question. The “5” in the name derives from an empirical observation on the number of iterations typically required to resolve the problem.

The technique was formally developed by Sakichi Toyoda and was used within the Toyota Motor Corporation during the evolution of its manufacturing methodologies. In other companies, it appears in other forms. Under Ricardo Semler, Semco practices “three whys” and broadens the practice to cover goal setting and decision making.^[2]

Not all problems have a single root cause. If one wishes to uncover multiple root causes, the method must be repeated asking a different sequence of questions each time.

The method provides no hard and fast rules about what lines of questions to explore, or how long to continue the search for additional root causes. Thus, even when the method is closely followed, the outcome still depends upon the knowledge and persistence of the people involved.

—–

The questioning for this example could be taken further to a sixth, seventh, or higher level, but five iterations of asking why is generally sufficient to get to a root cause. The key is to encourage the trouble-shooter to avoid assumptions and logic traps and instead trace the chain of causality in direct increments from the effect through any layers of abstraction to a root cause that still has some connection to the original problem. Note that, in this example, the fifth why suggests a broken process or an alterable behaviour, which is indicative of reaching the root-cause level.

It is interesting to note that the last answer points to a process. This is one of the most important aspects in the 5 Why approach – the real root cause should point toward a process that is not working well or does not exist.^[3] Untrained facilitators will often observe that answers seem to point towards classical answers such as not enough time, not enough investments, or not enough manpower. These answers may be true, but they are out of our control. Therefore, instead of asking the question why?, ask why did the process fail?

A key phrase to keep in mind in any 5 Why exercise is “people do not fail, processes do”.

Rules of performing “5 Whys”

In order to carry out the 5-Why analysis properly, following advices should be kept:

It is necessary to engage the management in 5 Whys standard in the company. For the analysis itself, remember about right working group. Also consider facilitator presence for more difficult topics.

Use paper or whiteboard instead of computers.

Write down the problem and make sure that all people understand it.

Distinguish causes from symptoms.

Take care of the logic of cause-and-effect relationship.

Make sure that root causes certainly lead to the mistake by reversing the sentences created as a result of the analysis with the use of expression “and therefore”.

Try to make our answers more precise.

Look for the cause step by step. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Base on facts and knowledge.

Assess the process, not people.

Never leave “human error”, “worker’s inattention”, etc. as the root cause.

Take care of the atmosphere of trust and sincerity.

Ask the question “why” until the root cause is determined, i.e. such cause the elimination of which will cause that the error will not occur again.^[7]

Criticism

While the 5 Whys is a powerful tool for engineers or technically savvy individuals to help get to the true causes of problems, it has been criticized … as being too basic a tool to analyze root causes to the depth that is needed to ensure that they are fixed.^[8] Reasons for this criticism include:

Tendency for investigators to stop at symptoms rather than going on to lower-level root causes.

Inability to go beyond the investigator’s current knowledge – cannot find causes that they do not already know.

Lack of support to help the investigator ask the right “why” questions.

Results are not repeatable – different people using 5 Whys come up with different causes for the same problem.

Tendency to isolate a single root cause, whereas each question could elicit many different root causes.

These can be significant problems when the method is applied through deduction only. On-the-spot verification of the answer to the current “why” question before proceeding to the next is recommended to avoid these issues. In addition, performing logical tests for necessity and sufficiency at each level can help avoid the selection of spurious causes and promote the consideration of multiple root causes.^[9]

————————

VIDEO – 5 Whys Root Cause Analysis Problem Solving Tool–Video Training – https://youtu.be/zvkYFZUsBnw

Uploaded on Jul 23, 2009 – The 5 Whys (Free 6-Page PDF at http://www.velaction.com/5-whys/ ) is one of the simplest problem solving tools used in Lean manufacturing and Lean offices. This presentation shows how to use the 5 Whys, and what to watch out for. Created and presented by Jeff Hajek of Velaction Continuous Improvement.
Category: How to & Style
License: Standard YouTube License

Wow, the root cause “Why Caribbean citizens abandon their homelands” is tied to the community ethos and embedded racial inequalities in the ancient European world. Now that we know – thanks to the iterative interrogative technique – we can deploy new community ethos plus new strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to turn-around Caribbean failings into opportunities for success.

The Go Lean book identifies Toyota Motor Company as a role model for deploying agile/lean methodologies in delivering quality. Quality delivery is a mission of the Go Lean movement. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation for the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). As a federal government, there will be the need to employ agile/lean methodologies to ensure that a small organizational footprint can provide the facilitations to enhance the region’s economic, security and governing engines. For a regional population of 42 million, the plan is to only engage 30,000 federal civil servants, but with a lot of systems and agile methodologies. That is lean!

By being lean, the stewards of this new Caribbean can fulfill the Go Lean vision: a better region to live, work and play. In the end, we would dissuade the brain drain, and then eventually invite the Diaspora to return, to repatriate to their ancestral homelands.

The Go Lean book was constructed with community ethos – national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people – in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to keep the regional government lean. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Preface – Use of “Lean” in the Public Sphere	Page 4
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Incubators	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service	Page 173
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218

The Go Lean roadmap presents the CU as a real organizational structure. So all the references in the foregoing encyclopedic reference regarding agile-lean organizations, enterprises, companies and/or firms could apply directly and indirectly to the CU Trade Federation. Yet, the federal agencies and civil servants are not the only focus of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The prime directives of this roadmap is to reach out into the community and impact the societal engines in these ways:

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.

Previously, Go Lean blogs detailed other opportunities to deploy agile methodologies. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7646	Methodology for going from ‘Good to Great’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6921	“Live. Work. Play. Repeat” – Need for Agile Rewards program
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6016	Case Study of a Lean Utility to Assuage Excessively Hot Weather
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3956	Art and Science of Collaboration
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3152	The formal process of Making a Great Place to Work®
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915	Go Green Caribbean – Pursuits for Lean energy in the region

The message to the people of the Caribbean region is that the Caribbean’s past is not to be the Caribbean’s future. The catalyst for change in the Caribbean is the CU. This “heavy-lifting” task to implement agile/lean methodologies in the Caribbean is the charter of the CU technocracy.

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders – residents, Diaspora, businesses and institutions – to lean-in for the optimizations and empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Yes, we can make the region a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Moonshots! Here We Go Again

Posted on July 17, 2019 in Ethos, Industries, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Yes, this is a thing; “Moonshots” that is. This is defined as follows:

A moonshot, in a technology context, is an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of potential risks and benefits.

Google has adopted the term moonshot for its most innovative projects, many of which come out of the Google X, the company’s semi-secret lab. Google moonshots include Google Glass, Project Loon (a balloon-based Internet service project), the driverless car, augmented reality glasses, a neural network, robots for the manufacturing industry and Project Calico, a life extension project.

Here’s Google’s definition of a moonshot:

A project or proposal that:

Addresses a huge problem

Proposes a radical solution

Uses breakthrough technology

The term “moonshot” derives from the Apollo 11 spaceflight project, which landed the first human on the moon in [July] 1969. “Moonshot” may also reference the earlier phrase “shoot for the moon” meaning aim for a lofty target.
Source: Retrieved July 17, 2019 from: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/moonshot

See this related VIDEO’s about “Moonshot thinking” in the Appendices below.

It is appropriate to discuss Moonshots this week; this is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 blast-off and journey to the moon – July 16 to 20 – when the first man – Neil Armstrong – walked on the surface of that extra-terrestrial body. See VIDEO of a newscast from Miami, Florida here:

50th Anniversary Of Apollo 11’s Blast Off From Florida On Mission To The Moon

VIDEO – CBS4 July 16, 2019 5:15 Newscast – https://cbsloc.al/2lHIAwK

CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4/CNN/AP) – On July 16th, fifty years ago, the Apollo 11 astronauts launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a historic mission to become the first people in history to walk on the moon.

The effort to pursue this Moonshot did not start that week (50 years ago); no, this was only when the quest was finally fulfilled. That quest began 8 years earlier, as envisioned by then-President John F. Kennedy at a speech in 1961. This historical event – and a lesson learned – is provided in the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean on Page 127 where this excerpt is detailed:

The Bottom Line on Kennedy’s Quest for the Moon
On 25 May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy announced his support for the American Space program’s “Apollo” missions and redefined the ultimate goal of the Space Race in an address to a special joint session of Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth”. His justification for the Moon Race was both that it was vital to national security and that it would focus the nation’s energies in other scientific and social fields. This quest was succeeded. At 10:56 pm EDT, on 20 July 1969, the first human (American Astronaut Neil Armstrong) ventured out of the Apollo 11 landing craft and set foot on the Moon declaring: “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind“.

The Caribbean – regionally and the 30 member-states individually – need its own Moonshot collectively. The Go Lean book asserts that these highlights and headlines, entitled “10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region” (Page 127), must be pursued as a regional “Moonshot”:

1	*Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market* & Economy Initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).**
2	Currency Union / Single Currency – Introducing the Caribbean Dollar (C$)
3	Defense / Homeland Security Pact – To provide anti-crime, anti-terrorism, emergency & disaster management
4	Confederation Without Sovereignty – No need for full independence of member-states
5	Four Languages in Unison – Dutch, English, French & Spanish
6	Self-Governing Entities (SGE) – These centers of Economic Activities will be primary job creators
7	Virtual “Turnpike” Operations – Transit options to interconnect all lands like blood vessels in an organ
8	Cyber Caribbean – Internet Communications Technology can be a great equalizer
9	e-Learning – Versus – Studying Abroad – The status quo have resulted in a “brain drain” – time for a change
10	Cuba & Haiti – There are Marshall Plans that consider the reality of these states and the strategies to reform them

This theme – modeling the nationwide commitment to pursue a grandiose accomplishment – aligns with many previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10513	Transforming ‘Money’ Countrywide India launched a massive project to provide a digital identity to 1.1 billion people. Then they provided a pseudo-bank account for everyone and disbursed governments benefits there, followed by an e-Money product for each citizen to facilitate transfers & payments.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563	Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery While at the precipice of economic disaster, this country deviated from the easy path and did the heavy lifting to reform and transform their economy. While not popular by foreign watchers, it worked; they now enjoy far greater success than their peer countries. Good job!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History – Community Ethos of WW II The real history of the US during World War II was that the entire country postponed immediate gratification, endured hard sacrifices, and became convinced that their future (after the war) would be better than their past (before the war). Yes, we can as well.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490	How One Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community One person, a role model, can make a difference in transforming a whole community, so a “Moonshot” is viable anywhere with the proper leadership and messaging.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	One currency, divergent economies The “Euro” Single Currency took heavy-lifting to launch – everything monetary-wise had to change for every member-states, but now they have the strongest, soundest currency in the world.

The US did it – they fulfilled the vision of their slain President. This is proof-positive that with the proper motivation and messaging, the whole community can engage a national goal and work to get it done, despite obstacles, challenges and doubts. Societies can be reformed and transformed.

Yes, we can … in the Caribbean conceive, believe and achieve our own “Moonshots”. What is it that we want? Not much … just everything that should be accomplished and pursued by a matured democratic society; think:

Economic progress – jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, increased capital availability
Security assurances – safer homeland and more optimized justice institutions
Governing improvements – better delivery – including e-Government – of the implied Social Contract (where citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights) for basic services from the cradle to the grave.

We must compete better to keep our citizens here at home, rather than watch them flee the homeland for foreign shores. This has been our reality, but now we have a new vision.

Let’s lean-in to this vision, and our own “Moonshot”, this Go Lean roadmap. This is how-why-what-and-when we can make progress. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————–

Appendix VIDEO A – What is Moonshot Thinking? By X, the Moonshot Factory – https://youtu.be/DeKZxd6_Hsk

dvlpr
Published on Feb 12, 2017

Category: Entertainment
License: Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

————–

Appendix VIDEO B – What goes on inside Google’s so-called Moonshot Factory? – https://youtu.be/uCCVaEMN8To

CBS This Morning
Published on Oct 14, 2017 – Self-driving cars, delivery drones and internet service delivered through floating balloons are just some of the projects that have come out of X, the secretive Google lab tasked with imagining and developing futuristic technologies. Atlantic magazine senior editor Derek Thompson went inside the lab and joins “CBS This Morning: Saturday” to discuss what else the company’s exceptional minds are envisioning.

Category: News & Politics

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‘Ross Perot’, RIP, was right! – Encore

Posted on July 11, 2019 in Economics, Social, Strategy

In the US, it’s Presidential campaign time … again. This time for the November 2020 balloting.

Candidates are jockeying for attention, contributions and eyeballs. Debates abound: winners and losers are emerging.

There is a lot of drama … again.

But now reference is being made to a previous campaign in 1992 when there was a viable 3rd Party Candidate: H. Ross Perot. He garnered 18.9 percent of all votes for the presidency that year; (but he captured no electoral votes).

Ross Perot died this week. 🙁

The theme of his campaign was that the US signed very Bad Trade Deals and that “sound you hear is all the jobs being sucked dry and sent to Mexico”.

He was right!

America did make Bad Trade Deals, NAFTA in particular. Jobs did leave … for Mexico. The angst over this historicity allowed for the emergence of another bad American phenomena: Donald Trump.

These are not our words … alone. See this news-editorial here:

Title: Ross Perot — the father of Trump

By John F. Harris

Dateline: July 9, 2019 – Ross Perot died early Tuesday morning at 89, an event that surely left many Americans with an embarrassed thought: Wait, what? … I am pretty sure I thought he was already dead.

The contrast between the quietude of Perot’s last aging years and the blaring trumpets of his 20th-century business and political career is so stark it takes some effort now to recall how large this cocksure Texas bantam once loomed.

A touch of exaggeration is standard in obituaries, but it doesn’t take much in Perot’s case. He was a secular prophet who in his time anticipated and personified the disruptive currents of the present.

Whether that’s a compliment, of course, depends on what you think of the present. But for people who on occasion (perhaps several times a week) respond to the news in the Trump era by thinking to themselves, I can’t believe this is happening, Perot’s story is a useful reminder that norm-shattering, cult-of-personality politics is not an exclusively recent phenomenon.

A quarter-century before Donald Trump, Perot was a brash, can-do showman who expressed contempt for politics as usual and promised voters who shared his disdain that the path to national greatness was to send an autocratic businessman with a touch of jingo to the White House to kick ass in Washington.

Perot said cozy, insider self-dealing had corrupted Washington and was screwing over average Americans, and he complained that free-trade agreements such as NAFTA were raw deals for workers and the economy. This message from 1992 is a linear ancestor of the one that echoes to some degree in both parties and vaulted Trump to the presidency in 2016.

He also said budget deficits of some $250 billion annually would bankrupt the country, a message that sounds quaint at a time of trillion-dollar deficits that even onetime fiscal hawks no longer are especially agitated about.

Read the full article at: https://news.yahoo.com/ross-perot-father-trump-004715960.html

In another campaign for another year – 2016 – similar declarations were made by candidate Bernie Sanders. (He is running for President again in 2020). This commentary published a blog then relating this Bad Trade Deal advocacy. It is only apropos to Encore that blog from April 9, 2016 again here-now:

————-

Go Lean Commentary – An Ode to Detroit – Good Luck on Trade!

It’s now time to say “goodbye and good luck” to the City of Detroit with these passing words, lessons and advice …

A commonly accepted economic principle declares that “Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth”.

Really? The City of Detroit, Michigan seems to have not “gotten the memo”.

The actual principle is summarized in the book Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 21) as follows:

Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth – People specialize in the production of certain goods and services because they expect to gain from it. People trade what they produce with other people when they think they can gain something from the exchange. Some benefits of voluntary trade include higher standards of living and broader choices of goods and services.

Detroit is branded the Motor City or Motown for being the capital of the American Automotive industry, (all the Big 3 car-makers – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – are based in this metropolitan area). From a trade perspective, automobiles are among the most successful American exports. According to this simple logic – trade creates wealth and Detroit is home to one of America’s best trade products – there should be win-win for all stakeholders in the vertical automotive industry, including the local communities. Right?

Not quite! This is NOT the reality.

This article below, just in time for the US presidential elections – posted on March 8, 2016 – and the arrival of the main candidates for the Democratic and Republican nominations, reveal the truth of life in today’s Detroit … and the dire consequence of free trade:

The City of Detroit has gone from one of the country’s richest in the 1960s to one of the poorest [today].

The once-thriving automotive hub is pocked by blighted homes and crime and has more children living in extreme poverty than any of the nation’s 50 largest cities. Manufacturing job losses devastated neighboring communities, sowing more than 20 years of resentment among white, working-class Democrats over the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Source: MSN Social Media Site; (posted 03-08-2016; retrieved April 9, 2016) .

The publishers of the Go Lean book have been in Detroit to “observe and report” on the turn-around and rebirth of the once-great-but-now-distressed city and its nearby communities; (we have also considered the dysfunction of Flint and the promise of Ann Arbor). There have been so many lessons to learn from Michigan: good, bad and ugly. Consider this sample here conveyed in previous blogs/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601	Beware of Vulture Capitalists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7268	Detroit giving schools their ‘Worst Shot’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235	Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6965	Secrecy, corruption and ‘conflicts of interest’ pervade state governments
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6609	Before and After Photos Showing Detroit’s Riverfront Transformation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome to Detroit, Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6022	Caribbean Diaspora in Detroit … Celebrating Heritage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597	The Dire Strait of Unions and Collective Bargaining
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5055	A Lesson from an Empowering Family in Detroit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4913	Ann Arbor: Model for ‘Start-up’ Cities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4476	De-icing Detroit’s Winter Roads: Impetuous & Short Term
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3713	NEXUS: Facilitating Detroit-Windsor Cross-Border Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3326	M-1 Rail: Alternative Motion in the Motor City
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3311	Detroit to exit historic bankruptcy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3164	Michigan Unemployment – Then and Now
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480	A Lesson in History: Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1656	Blue is the New Green – Managing Michigan’s Water Resources
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=970	JP Morgan Chase’s $100 million Detroit investment – Not just for the Press

The full news article from the MSN Social Media Site is embedded here, retrieved from – http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michigan-a-critical-showdown-for-sanders-to-mount-comeback/ar-BBqsehO?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ieslice:

Title: Michigan ‘a critical showdown’ for Sanders to mount comeback
By: Heidi M. Przybyla

The State of Michigan could be Bernie Sanders’ last, best chance to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hold on the Democratic presidential race.

The Midwestern industrial state, which holds its primary Tuesday [(March 8, 2016)], is the ideal audience for Sanders’ campaign message about “unfair” trade agreements, income inequality and a “rigged economy.”

“This is ground zero for trade,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. “People are frustrated. It’s been almost 15 years, and they’re not better off than they were,” said the first-term Democrat, who is backing Clinton.

Yet Clinton has consistently led in polls — a Monmouth University Poll out Monday showed her up 13 points. “If he can’t win in Michigan, where can he win besides these small caucus states?” said Susan Demas, publisher of Inside Michigan Politics, a political analysis newsletter. Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver is calling Michigan “a critical showdown.”

Mississippi also holds a primary on Tuesday, and Clinton is favored there.

The city of Detroit has gone from one of the country’s richest in the 1960s to one of the poorest. The once-thriving automotive hub is pocked by blighted homes and crime and has more children living in extreme poverty than any of the nation’s 50 largest cities. Manufacturing job losses devastated neighboring communities, sowing more than 20 years of resentment among white, working-class Democrats over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sanders is hitting Clinton hard on the trade issue, including a recent ad picturing abandoned homes and factories. NAFTA was championed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, though the former first lady is trying to distance herself from a number of those policies.

…

Michigan could expose some of Clinton’s longer-term vulnerabilities. Some of the state’s most powerful unions, including the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, traditional Democratic allies, haven’t endorsed a candidate. Many union rank-and-file backed her husband in 1992 and 1996 but are now supporting Sanders or Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

“She’s also competing with Donald Trump, who’s made this a strong issue and not backed down on the currency trade issue,” said Dingell. “There’s a lot of pent-up anger, and Donald Trump let’s them release it,” she said.

Sanders may be indirectly helping Trump. At campaign rallies, he has repeatedly slammed Clinton on trade, listing it as a key area where they disagree. Sanders says he led opposition to NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China, which he says resulted in the loss of millions of middle-class jobs and “a race to the bottom.” His campaign, in a March 3 news release, dubbed Clinton the “outsourcer-in-chief.”

Clinton has been trying to distance herself from the 1990s-era policy. In the Flint debate, she tried to distinguish her record from that of her husband’s. As a senator, she voted against a Central American trade agreement, the only multinational pact that came before her, she said. More recently, she’s come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Nearing closer to the nomination, Clinton has begun to discuss the role Sanders would need to play in unifying the party. During a town hall forum Monday in Grand Rapids, she talked extensively about how she encouraged her voters to back Barack Obama in 2008.

“I had a lot of passionate supporters who did not feel like they wanted to support then-Sen. Obama. I worked as hard as I could. I nominated him at the convention. I made the case, because he and I shared a lot of the same views,” she said.

“We have differences, but those differences pale in comparison to what we see going on with the Republicans right now,” said Clinton.

Clinton’s supporters acknowledge a Michigan loss is unlikely to deter Sanders. Several testy exchanges in the Flint debate highlighted festering tensions between the two, and Sanders is flush with campaign donations to keep him going.

“I think Hillary Clinton will win Michigan,” said Dingell. “But I think Sen. Sanders plans on staying in this race for a while.”

Contributing writer: Nicole Gaudiano

News Update: Senator Bernie Sanders won the Michigan Democratic primary.

There is a strong current against free trade deals in big industrial cities in the American north. At this juncture (April 9, 2016), Bernie Sanders has won the last 7 state primaries with his “unfair trade” message:

Idaho
Utah
Alaska
Hawaii
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

But chances are, these trade agreements will not disappear, even under a new president – to be elected later this year. (Listen to the related AUDIO podcast in the Appendix below).

These free trade agreements are ratified treaties with other countries that are not so easily dismantled. Plus, the US business interest has proven to be formidable in their obstructionism to radical changes to their status quo.

The Go Lean movement asserts that there is a Crony-Capitalistic influence in the US that creates a societal defect for forging change. In this case, trade deals like NAFTA allow big corporations to shift labor costs to alternate locales with lower payroll costs. This commentary has related that the money motivation with this strategy may be too much to overcome in the America of 2016.

Good luck to Detroit.

Hope and Change? Not here, not now.

The book Go Lean… Caribbean urges Caribbean citizens not to be swayed by the false perception of refuge in America. The grass is NOT greener on this side.

Yes, the status quo in the overall US is better than the status quo in the Caribbean, but change is afoot. This movement – book and blogs – posits that it is easier to reform and transform the Caribbean member-states than to attempt to change America. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This represents a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean region, including the US Territories (2): Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands); the French Territories (5); 6 Dutch Territories constituted as 1 member; British Overseas Territories (5) and independent states and Republics (17).

This CU/Go Lean roadmap extols a priority of trade in the execution of its prime directives. Economic stability and progress is fundamental to forging an elevated society. As observed in Detroit, dysfunction in a community’s economic engine, brings about dysfunction in other facets of societal life. This explains why Detroit is also plagued with rampant crime. (During the course of the Go Lean movement’s observing-and-reporting on Detroit, there were some acute criminal activities, like the one case where a mother was adjudicated for killing and storing 2 dead children in her kitchen freezer). Likewise, the City has been plagued with one instance after another of ineffectual governance or municipal corruption. (A recent ex-Mayor – Kwame Kilpatrick – lingers in federal prison on federal corruption convictions). This is why the CU prime directives feature economics, security and governance, as defined by these 3 statements here:

Optimize the Caribbean economic engines of the region to grow the GDP of the economy to $800 billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establish a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines in the Caribbean.
Improve Caribbean governance – including municipal, state and federal administrations – to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to reform the Caribbean, not the City of Detroit nor America. The roadmap opens with the call for the consolidation of trade negotiation for the region – treating everyone as equals. This point is echoed early, and often, in the book, commencing with these opening pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 14), as follows:

viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxx. Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.

The Go Lean roadmap therefore constitutes a change for the Caribbean. This provides the tools/techniques to bring immediate elevation to the region to benefit one and all member-states. The book details the community ethos to forge such change; plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to make the changes permanent:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Unified Region in a Single Market Economy	Page 45
Strategy – Customers – The Business Community	Page 47
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Growth Approach – Trade and Globalization	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Admin	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Office of Trade Negotiations	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Office Objectives	Page 116
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Planning – Lessons Learned from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Job	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Lesson from Detroit to raze Dilapidated housing	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201

The issues in this commentary are important for the development of Caribbean region. There is the need to fully participate in trade agreements; it is the only way to fully compete in a globalized marketplace. But there is the need for a new regulatory regime for the Caribbean market, as free market dynamics are normally based on supply-and-demand. The Caribbean member-states, with their small population and market-sizes have not been able to compete with the voluminous demand nor voluminous supply of some of the bigger countries (i.e. China, India, EU, the US, etc). The consolidated CU market would be different … and better!

The Go Lean book is a detailed turn-by-turn, step-by-step roadmap for how to lean-in to a new trade regime. We now urge everyone in the region – all stakeholders: citizens, visitors, direct foreign investors, trading-partners, business establishments – to lean-in to this roadmap. With this plan, we would have reason to believe in “Hope and Change” for the Caribbean region, for it to be a better place to live, work and play.

So as we move onto another American locale (Miami) for final preparation for an eventual repatriation, here’s our advice to the Caribbean Diaspora living in Detroit: Go home and help with this Go Lean roadmap to elevate the Caribbean …

… and to the people of Detroit, we say: Good luck. We invite you too, to come and visit us in the Caribbean … often. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

————-

APPENDIX – AUDIO Podcast: Free Trade On The Campaign Trail – http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point-with-tom-ashbrook#

Posted March 8, 2016 – From Trump to Sanders, free trade is getting a thumping on the campaign trail. Could, would the United States really turn it around? Plus: inspecting stalled millennial wage growth.

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Forging Change – ‘That’s What Friends Are For’

Posted on July 9, 2019 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

It seems simple enough:

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That’s what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for – Song, sung by Dionne Warwick & Friends; (see Appendix below).

This is a song; but not just “pie in the sky” sentiment.

VIDEO – Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Gladys Knight – That’s what friends are for – https://youtu.be/66Qkf2Jm6pc

Published on Feb 27, 2013 – For educational purposes only and no copyright infringement intended. All materials used belong to their respective rightful and lawful owners.

About the artist: Dionne Warwick (born Marie Dionne Warrick; December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health.

Having been in a partnership with songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest hit makers of the entire rock era (1955–2012), based on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts. As of January 2013, Warwick ranks second behind only Aretha Franklin (who has a total of 88 charted Billboard singles) as the most-charted female vocalist of all time with 56 of Dionne’s singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998.

Category: Education

Music in this video
Song: That’s What Friends Are For

Artist: Dionne Warwick with Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder

Writers: Carole Bayer Sager, Burt Bacharach

Licensed to YouTube by: SME (on behalf of Legacy Recordings); UBEM, ASCAP, CMRRA, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., BMG Rights Management, LatinAutor – Warner Chappell, AMRA, UMPI, PEDL, Warner Chappell, LatinAutor, ARESA, and 10 Music Rights Societies

In the Caribbean, we want and need a cohesive neighborhood of friendly member-states; we want a brotherhood, a Union, a Caribbean Union. This regional quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can!

Ms. Dionne Warwick was just here, in concert in Miami, Florida on July 6, 2019. This writer got to consume her fabulous show. I was not the only one to acknowledge her and celebrate her; no, the State of Florida, Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami all made special tributes to her; she was presented with accolades, awards, presentations and the “Key to the City” – https://patch.com/florida/miami/dionne-warwick-gets-love-sweet-love-miami.

She closed her show with that iconic song … and she reminded us that “collaboration & friendship” is also key for forging change in society. This is the quest for the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). That song is best known as a collaboration effort – Dionne Warwick with Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder – to advocate for change, support and social justice during the 1980’s AIDS Crisis.

The 4 “friends” assembled in 1985 and recorded the song for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) charity; this was during the early days of the disease affliction. It raised over $3 million for the cause.

Today, there is also a crisis for Caribbean unity; we need our friends. The Go Lean book opens (Page 3) with a declaration:

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address in the world for its 4 language groups, but instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out. For some Caribbean countries, their population has declined or been flat for the last 3 decades. This is only possible if despite new births and the absence of war, people are fleeing. This scenario, human flight, is a constant threat to prosperity for all the Caribbean despite their colonial legacies. Our youth, the next generation, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of their country; they may measure success only by their exodus from their Caribbean homeland.

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean [must] … look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This book advocates that all Caribbean member-states (independent & dependent) lean-… to this plan for confederacy, collaboration and convention.

This Go Lean roadmap is calling for confederacy and camaraderie among the Caribbean Community; as if we are all brothers and friends. In fact, this has been a prominent advocacy as of late; see this theme highlighted in these previous blog-commentaries from this Go Lean movement:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17693	‘Free Market’ Versus … Cooperatives – Simple Solution One of the original motivations for communism was a supposed camaraderie and fraternity among its adherents. In fact, the expression “Comrade” is usually interchangeable for “fellow communist”, “Brother” or “friend”. With “cooperatives”, we can still have camaraderie and friendship without any communism.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15580	Caribbean Unity? Religion’s Role: False Friend It has long been established that just because these lands are “Christian”, that fact itself does not make them “Brothers”. More is needed than just a nominal “Christian” label; there must be the concerted effort for fellowship, camaraderie and friendship.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14101	Wait, ‘We Are The World’ After Hurricane Maria devastated several Caribbean member-states in 2017; Puerto Rico was gravely impacted. In the mode of ‘We Are The World‘, many “friends” – led by Lin-Manuel Miranda – assembled and recorded a song to aid Puerto Rico.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11544	Forging Change: Collective Bargaining This is part of the technocratic process that we must employ in the neighborhood to get along and work together. We must come together as friends and then collectively bargain with other stakeholders so as to get the greatest benefits for our region. This is the scientific method to solving social & economic problems, in counter distinction to the traditional political or philosophic approaches.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7963	‘Like a Good Neighbor’ – Being there for Puerto Rico The US Territory of Puerto Rico needs a Good Neighbor right now. They do not need State Farm; they need the US Government to change the laws to allow them to re-structure their heavy debt “load”. In effect, this community is in crisis, facing financial disaster and needs a helping hand. Lin-Manuel Miranda was on a mission to help Puerto Rico by getting Congress to change Bankruptcy Laws to apply to PR again.

Music has a certain power … to reach people and motivate them to feel and move. A previous blog-commentary stated:

… “music” can be used to forge change. The Go Lean book declares that before any real change takes root in the Caribbean that we must reach the heart, that there must be an adoption of new community ethos – the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. We must therefore use effective and efficient drivers to touch the heart and forge this change. How? Here’s one suggestion:

Oh, my music makes you dance
And gives you spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock ‘n roll so you can move
Music fills your heart
Well that’s a real fine place to start

Dionne Warwick has the soundtrack to make people feel and move.

[She] ranks among the 41 biggest hit makers of the entire rock era, based on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts. She is one of the most-charted female vocalists of all time, with 56 of her singles making the Billboard Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998, and 80 singles making all Billboard charts combined.^[1]

This afore-mentioned song – “That’s What Friends Are For” – was a massive hit, becoming the number-one single of 1986 in the United States, and winning the Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Song of the Year. In total, Ms. Warwick has been nominated for 14 Grammys, while garnering 5 wins; see the full chart here:

Year	Nominee / work	Award	Result
1965	“Walk On By (song)“	Best Rhythm and Blues Recording	Nominated
1968	“Alfie“	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Nominated
1968	“I Say a Little Prayer“	Best Contemporary Female Solo Vocal Performance	Nominated
1969	“Do You Know the Way to San Jose“	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Won
1970	“This Girl’s in Love with You“	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Nominated
1971	“I’ll Never Fall in Love Again“	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Won
1975	“Then Came You” (with The Spinners)	Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group with Vocals	Nominated
1980	“I’ll Never Love This Way Again“	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Won
1980	“Déjà Vu“	Best Female R&B Vocal Performance	Won
1987	“That’s What Friends Are For” (with Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder)	Record of the Year	Nominated
		Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal	Won
	Friends	Best Female Pop Vocal Performance	Nominated
1992	“Superwoman” (with Gladys Knight & Patti LaBelle)	Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group	Nominated
2014	Now	Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album	Nominated

In the CU/Go Lean roadmap to change the Caribbean, music gets it’s due respect. This point is detailed in the Declaration of Interdependence at the outset of the book, pronouncing this need for regional solutions (Page 14):

xxxii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean roadmap does accept that the burden to change and elevate the societal engines of the Caribbean is too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone – we need our friends.

That’s what friends are for!

Thusly, the Go Lean book and roadmap advocates for a fellowship and collaboration among all Caribbean member-states, despite any differences in languages or colonial heritage. The strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states into an integrated Single Market.

Thank you Ms. Dionne Warwick for entertaining us and reminding us that we can forge great friendships with our neighbors and that great benefits await us:

For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more

Yes, forging a [regional] friendship is one way to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. We urge all Caribbean stakeholders to lean-in to this roadmap to elevate Caribbean society. Yes, we can! 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

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

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix – Song Lyrics: “That’s What Friends Are For” – (1985)

And I never thought I’d feel this way
And as far as I’m concerned
I’m glad I got the chance to say
That I do believe, I love you

And if I should ever go away
Well, then close your eyes and try
To feel the way we do today
And then if you can remember

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That’s what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

Well, you came and opened me
And now there’s so much more I see
And so by the way
I thank you

Oh and then for the times when we’re apart
Well, then close your eyes and know
The words are coming from my heart
And then if you can remember

Keep smiling and keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That’s what friends are for
In good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That’s what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
‘Cause I tell you, that’s what friends are for
Whoa, good times and the bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

Source: Retrieved July 9, 2019 from: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/dionnewarwick/thatswhatfriendsarefor.html

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‘Tipsy Bartender’ – Revisited: Still growing – Encore

Posted on June 30, 2019 in Economics, Implementation, Industries, Social

It’s been 3 years; we thought we’d check back in.

When we last visited the ‘Tipsy Bartender’ YouTube Star Skyy John, he had just surpassed the 1 Million Subscriber mark. As of June 27, 2019, his subscriber totals register at …

3,716,528

Wow! New Media charges forward!

… while in the meanwhile, Old Media retrenches:

Title: Traditional TV Still Sinking in Stream of Digital Video
Sub-Title: Nielsen Total Audience report shows 68% of homes have connected devices
By: Jon Lafayette
Traditional TV watching continues to wane, especially among younger consumers, as more homes get connected devices and streaming services. …

See full Article here: https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/traditional-tv-still-sinking-in-stream-of-digital-video – posted March 19, 2019; retrieved June 27, 2019

Since it is 3 years to the day, now is a good time to Encore that original blog-commentary on – ‘Tipsy Bartender’ from June 30, 2016. See it here-now:

—————-

Go Lean Commentary – YouTube Millionaire: ‘Tipsy Bartender’

“Out with the old; in with the new” …

… media that is.

The transformation to new media has taken hold. More and more people are consuming electronic media; so much so that it is becoming the mainstay for communications and entertainment.

This reference to electronic media conveys visual images; that means television, yes …

… but today, there is also the ubiquity of the internet, with its many video streaming services. The “new” in new media refers more to this medium than it does TV.

This is the change that has come to the world … and the Caribbean.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean advocates for the Caribbean region to better prepare to exploit the agents of change affecting the world. The book specifically identified technology and globalization among those agents (Page 57). It then declares that the region needs to move to the corner of preparation and opportunity.

Here – this commentary – is an example of the full manifestation of this “corner”. Identifying how – and why – networks can emerge without the need for investment into network infrastructure. The old adage is “where there’s a will, there’s a way”; but now there is only the need for the “will”, as the “way” is already in place, ubiquitous and fully accepted.

The Go Lean book relates how we are now able to have a network without the “network”. Many models abound on the world-wide-web. Previously, this commentary identified the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and ESPN-W; now the focus is the platform of YouTube, and the millionaires that have emerged. The YouTube network is delivered via the internet-streaming only.

This platform allows for nimble individuals and enterprises, the “fast and the furious”, to exploit the tenets of Internet Communications Technologies (ICT). So this platform – or even a homegrown duplicate as in the www.myCaribbean.gov portal defined in the Go Lean book – demonstrates how we in the Caribbean can elevate our eco-systems of ICT, entertainment, television, and economics.

This commentary presents the profile of one member of the Caribbean Diaspora – Bahamas – who serves as a role model for his exploitation of YouTube videos: Skyy John.

DATE OF BIRTH: January 2, 1978

BIRTHPLACE: Nassau, Bahamas

AGE: 38 years old

ABOUT
Host and creator of the YouTube channel Tipsy Bartender, the number one bartending show in the world. On the show, he makes crazy, colorful drinks.

BEFORE FAME
Before moving to America, he was a bank teller by day, a Dominos pizza delivery guy by night, and a fisherman on weekends. He is also a former member of the Bahamian military (Defence Force).

TRIVIA
He has acted in co-starring roles on television series, including The New Adventures of Old Christine, Cold Case, The Shield, The Young & Restless. He has also appeared in movies: Dorm Daze 2 (2006), Street Eyes (2015) and Whitey Goes to Compton (2011).
Source: Retrieved June 29, 2016 from http://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/skyy-john.html

See a full interview from Tubefilter in the following article. Tubefilter is a curator of online videos from industry news, web series reviews, events, and an Awards Show. They published a web series on YouTube Millionaires. See the full article here:

Title: YouTube Millionaires: TipsyBartender Is “Here To Have Fun And Make Cocktails”
By: Sam Gutelle

Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.

Skyy John has successfully brought the party to YouTube. The 37-year-old Bahamian has found online success thanks to TipsyBartender, a channel on which he teaches viewers how to craft a variety of mixed drinks. John’s videos tend to have several elements in common: They feature colorful beverages, feature attractive women as John’s assistants, and convey a fun-loving atmosphere. This formula has proven to be a hit with the online audience. TipsyBartender, which is partnered with the Tastemade network, now has more than 1.4 million subscribers. Here’s what John had to say about that:

Tubefilter: How does it feel to have one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?

Skyy John: It feels amazing, humbling and empowering when you think of that many people supporting what you do.

I would like to tell each one of them that I love you, and you’re all very special to me. To celebrate hitting one million subscribers, I set up a meet and greet at a local bar. I bought everyone drinks and shots all night because it’s the least I could do to show my appreciation.

TF: How did you get started on YouTube?

SJ: In the early days of YouTube I had an idea for a talk show – I shot a really low budget pilot of it and posted it online. The response was good, so I kept making videos where I’d go around and interview people. As a means of diversifying my content, since I was a bartender, I’d show people how to make one or two cocktails. A friend of mine, Monroe, said “Hey, why don’t you start a bartending channel?” I said, “That’s a good idea,” and TipsyBartender was born.

TF: What made you decide to include women in all your videos?

SJ: When you come to the TipsyBartender channel and you watch an episode, yes I always have an attractive female cohost, and to the new viewer who thinks they’re there for looks, it’s much deeper than that. Behind the scenes, the show has been primarily powered by women, in terms of working out the format, designing the style of thumbnails, choosing the drinks that we make – it’s all been women. Without that very important female touch, the TipsyBartender show that you see today would not exist. I’d like to give a special thanks to Marjane and Emma, the two that really helped me create what you see today. TipsyBartender will always be home to women from all over the world who don’t get a chance in any other medium.

TF: When you create your videos, how do you balance entertaining your audience with conveying your recipes?

SJ: We maintain a very delicate balance between entertainment and education. We keep our recipes simple, which allows us to focus on the entertainment more. Our goal is to learn and have fun while doing it. We are, after all, a party channel.

TF: What in your mind is the most important component of a good cocktail?

SJ: The most important component of a good cocktail is you – the person that I’m serving. You have to like what I’m giving you. The easiest way to accomplish that is to build a cocktail using some ingredients that you already enjoy. You like Kool Aid? I’ll build around that. If you like ice cream, I’ll build around ice cream. You like Gatorade? I’ll build around that. Whatever you like, I’ll use – and that mentality is what makes me a pariah in the world of mixology because most mixologists feel that they know better than you what you should be drinking. They’ll give you a cocktail with aged whiskey, organic basil, handcrafted bitters, ice from the Alps, and tell you that “Hey, this is the most perfect best greatest drink ever!” What if that person you’re serving it to doesn’t like any of that s**t? Only you know what you like. You’re drinking the drink, I’m just working with you – i’m not a mixologist. I’m here to have fun and make cocktails. Drinking is supposed to be enjoyable, not feel like a damn chemistry exam.

TF: There don’t seem to be a ton of drinks channels on YouTube. Why do you think it’s not a more common category?

SJ: Because it’s very difficult to do. Drink-making is not that exciting because it’s very difficult to present it in an interesting format. Luckily, we’ve been able to get it right and to keep people interested, and every day we strive to continue doing what we’re doing and make our audience grow.

TF: What is your favorite cocktail you’ve made on your channel?

SJ: There are too many to list. Some of the favorite drinks I made were the rainbow shots, because that was difficult to learn how to do. Definitely some of the jungle juices because they’re pretty crazy, and believe it or not it requires a lot of math and planning to make the appropriate amounts in large quantities. Some of the jello shots we’ve made for sure. My favorites would probably have to be ice cream drinks or drinks based around rum, especially coconut rum.

TF: When you’re out bartending, do you ever get recognized as “that guy from the Internet”?

SJ: All the time – but I don’t bartend in a bar anymore. I actually got fired because of TipsyBartender. I was spending so much time on the show, so much time editing that I needed to get my shifts covered. Working in L.A. you got people covering shifts all the time, so it wasn’t really a problem at first. I was called into work for a meeting and they said I hadn’t been there in a few months – I said “I’ll get back to work, don’t worry I got you,” – but I didn’t realize that they were monitoring me. They discovered that in four months following our meeting, I only worked once. So I got the call saying “Go mix drinks man, we’ll handle the bar.”

TF: What’s next for your channel? Any fun plans?

SJ: TipsyBartender morphed into a truly global brand where we have tons of fans all over the world, primarily because we focused on Facebook, where videos are very easily shared. We’re now approaching 7 million fans that are highly engaged in what we do. Our Facebook engagement is higher than that of all the biggest liquor brands around the world combined! Our next step for us is to take our cocktails and products around the world. We’re also in the developing stages of creating a Kickstarter to fund our first bar in L.A.
Source: Tube Filter Online Magazine – Posted February 5, 2015; retrieved June 28, 2016 from: http://www.tubefilter.com/2015/02/05/tipsy-bartender-skyy-john-drinks-youtube-millionaires/

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Alternative Interview: http://affairstoday.co.uk/interview-tipsy-bartender/

—————–

VIDEO – How to make Rainbow Shots! – Tipsy Bartender – http://youtu.be/MoVZoCmkdjY

Published on Nov 17, 2011 – Subscribe to Tipsy Bartender: http://bit.ly/1krKA4R
The prettiest shots ever…RAINBOW SHOTS! These are the best looking rainbow shots ever!
OUR VLOG CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/TipsyVlogs

Is YouTube a successful business model for Skyy John? Yes indeed. See here as to the estimate of how much money he was making in 2011, long before he crossed the million-subscriber threshold; (1.4 million as of February 2015):

“How much money does Tipsy Bartender make?”
Skyy John is the Bahamian guy who runs the YouTube channel called Tipsy Bartender. He has an estimated net worth of $500,000. …

See the full article here: https://naibuzz.com/much-money-tipsy-bartender-makes-youtube/

The actuality of YouTube and the role model of Skyy John is a lesson for the Caribbean; there is heavy-lifting required to transform society. The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. In addition, there is the vision for the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU), the focus of which is to coordinate regional mail plus the www.myCaribbean.gov portal to offer email and social media functionality for all Caribbean stakeholders: 42 million residents, 10 million in the Diaspora and even the 80 million tourists-visitors.

The Go Lean roadmap accepts the precept that one person can make a difference in society. What’s more, that one person does not have to be a genius – in the way society measures genius – they only need to be committed and disciplined. That is the example of Skyy John, committed and disciplined in the occupation of bartending, not exactly a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), but impactful nonetheless.

Bartending is more art than science.

This Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap strategizes to create a Single Media Market to leverage the population of the entire region, an audience of 42 million people across 30 member-states and 4 languages consuming cutting-edge ICT offerings. YouTube provides a great role model for the CU‘s executions; making the regional implementation of social media and internet streaming, www.myCaribbean.gov, economically viable. This means jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the need for ICT development and job creation with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

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 like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – 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.

In the Go Lean book and previous blogs, the Go Lean movement asserted that the market organizations and community investments to garner economic benefits of ICT are within reach, with the proper technocracy. The eco-system for streaming videos is inclusive of the roadmap’s quest to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean to deliver the solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through ICT:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequence of Choice Lie in 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 Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy to $800 Billion – Trade and Globalization	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Postal Services	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish CPU	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – Group Purchase Organizations (GPO)	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Optimize Mail Service & the myCaribbean.gov Marketplace	Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – # 8 Cyber-Caribbean	Page 127
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 Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218

The Go Lean book asserts that the region can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in ICT and video streaming. This point was further detailed in these previous blogs:

UberEverything in Africa – Model for ICT and Logistics

Zuckerberg’s Philanthropy Project Makes Investment for ICT Education

Transformations: Caribbean Postal Union – Delivering the Future

The Future of Money

How to address high consumer prices

Truth in Commerce – Learning from Yelp

Net Neutrality: It matters here … in the Caribbean

Role Model Jack Ma brings Alibaba Social Media Portal to America

Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market

Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone

Grenada PM Urges CARICOM on ICT

This Go Lean roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of ICT but the roadmap is bigger than just videos; its a concerted effort to elevate all of Caribbean society. The CU is the vehicle for this goal, this is detailed by 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 Go Lean roadmap looks for the opportunities to foster interest that may exists in specific endeavors, and then explore the business opportunities around servicing that demand. This is the example that the ‘Tipsy Bartender’ (Skyy John) provides for his Caribbean neighbors – though he now lives in Los Angeles, California. Oh, how much better to foster these passions right here at home in the Caribbean region.

This quest is conceivable, believable and achievable, but it is not easy; it is heavy-lifting. This is the quest of Go Lean/CU roadmap, to do the heavy-lifting to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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