Economics – Page 20 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Category: Economics

Art Walk – Its a ‘Real Thing’ in Wynwood

Posted on December 4, 2016 in Economics, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Forget the theory, this is real …

… the arts are empowering the economy in the Miami District of Wynwood. This can be measured … by “boots on the ground” and in dollars and cents.

Though we have been reporting that “the community rallies around the arts creating a unique energy; and art ‘dynamises’ the community, in a very unique way”, this was hard to visualize in practice. And then … we made a visit to Wynwood during Art Basel Art Week 2016 and wow! We felt the energy; see here in the following VIDEO:

VIDEO – CU Blog – Art Walk – It’s a Real Thing in Wynwood – https://youtu.be/iwuMUUFuXvs

Published on Dec 4, 2016 – Art Week 2016: “The community rallies around the arts creating a unique energy; and art ‘dynamises’ the community, in a very unique way”.

This commentary completes the 3-part series on the power of the visual arts. The series depicts how the arts can forge change in a community, where it can be an effective messaging tool to convey many important points. In the Caribbean, we need the type of transformation that can come from this power. The full entries in the series are as follows:

Forging Change: Arts & Artists
ENCORE: Art Basel 2016 – A Testament to the Business of the Arts
Art Walk – Its a Real Thing in Wynwood

This commentary goes further, conveying that there is also a good business model in the arts. This blog considers the model of a Miami-based company, branded WynwoodArtWalk.com. They promote the arts in this one district, and transact in the aligning tourism trade:

Website Title: Wynwood Art Walk
About WynwoodArtWalk.com

“Wynwood Art Walk” is a tour company providing art tours in the Wynwood Art District. We advertise tours for groups but also provide customized private tours per request. Furthermore, we seek to support the Wynwood art community through our art directory and through banner advertisement space, our blog, and our community page.

WynwoodArtWalk.com has also an online directory showcasing art institutions operating within Wynwood. Wynwood is a section of Miami just north of Downtown, south of the Design District, east of I-95, and west of Biscayne Boulevard. There are currently over 60 art galleries, art complexes and art collection in Wynwood. Wynwood Art Guide provides advertising to institutions that exhibit/promote contemporary visual art (paintings, sculptures, installations, photography, multimedia, ceramics, etc.) in Wynwood. Advertising is available through the use of banners. Companies servicing the arts (eg. art dealers, framing companies, art supply sellers, etc.) are welcome to advertise through the use of banners exclusively.
———-
General Area

The main area of the Wynwood Art Walk is between 20 St & 36 St and from NW 2nd Ave to NE 2nd Ave. Prime hours are between 7pm and 11pm. Parking is best before 7pm.

The food trucks are located in a field on the corner of NW 23 St & NW 2nd Ave. Great food and drinks!
———-
History
Wynwood – originally spelled Wyndwood – is an old inner city neighborhood of Miami surrounded by Edgewater, Overtown, Liberty City… Wynwood was built as a working class residential neighborhood, connected to the Garment District just south of it. It attracted manufacturers from New York and elsewhere and retained some jobs, fueled by immigrant labor, but struggled against competition from cheap labor overseas. According to a different source, in the fifties, it was a white neighborhood of professionals, but a remembrance on History Miami’s website indicates that Cuban immigrants were moving into the neighborhood in the early sixties.
Source: Tour Company Website – Retrieved 12-03-2016 from: http://wynwoodartwalk.com/wynwood-art/

This commentary – from the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean – is trying to forge change in the Caribbean region and advocate that the arts can be a great tool-tactic for societal elevation. As previously related “…there’s a transformative power to the arts”.

This commentary is urging Caribbean stakeholders to explore the production of artists and the effect their art can have on society. Considering that tourism is the primary industry in the entire Caribbean, there are a lot of benefits to examining the business model of the Wynwood Art District. Imagine an array of murals in Caribbean port cities – for our Cruise tourism. Imagine too, the “Walking Tours”, Art Galleries and Art Sales. Notice the manifestation of this plan in the photos here from the Art Walk (Tour) in Wynwood:

Feel the energy! Excitement enough?

Local media has often reported on the huge economic impact of Art Basel and Wynwood; see the links here to full stories:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/biz-monday/article45702225.html – Art Basel has been great for Miami, CEOs agree (Miami Herald Newspaper; November 20, 2015).

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2015/06/22/tristar-capital-turns-huge-profit-on-13m-sale.html – TriStar Capital turns huge profit on $13M sale in Miami’s Wynwood (South Florida Business Journal; Jun 22, 2015).

https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/florida/articles/miami-culture-guide-wynwood-s-10-must-visit-art-galleries/ – Culture Trip Web Portal (Retrieved Dec 4, 2016).

Count the profits! Commerce enough?

This commentary confirms that there is energy and money in the visual arts, whether it is murals or graffiti, (commissioned street art). While the messaging of the visual arts can be impactful, visual expressions can depict imagery and tales – fact or fiction; artists often “use fiction to tell the truth” – the business elements of the arts can be even more impactful. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to elevate Caribbean society through empowerments for the economic, security and governing engines in society. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has these 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 ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book posits that the genius qualifier to excel in the arts should be identified early in Caribbean youth and then their development should be fostered up to adulthood. The book thereafter details the mechanics of incubating a business climate for this and all areas of culture. This quest is detailed as an advocacy in the book (Page 230) as:

10 Ways to Improve the Arts

1. Emergence of the Caribbean Union	Embrace the advent of the CariCom Single Market Initiative and the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This will allow for the unification of the region into a single market of 42 million people. This size supports the proliferation of ‘art’ (visual/fine, music, performance & film) as an industry. The CU will promote the art exhibition eco-system – allowing marketplaces for artists to congregate and monetize their talents. Structures will also be deployed for media companies to monetize film & performance art. The CU will facilitate the marketing of travelling exhibitions, and touring companies of stage productions. For the region, art can be a business enabler, and expressions for civic pride and national identity.
2. CU Administered Museums	Modeled after the Smithsonian, the CU “mother” (first-tier) museums will be placed in the Capital District. There will also be “child” museums scattered through out the regions with touring exhibitions.
3. Art, Music & Film Festival Tourism	CU promoted events, utilizing the CU-owned fairgrounds, to encourage the development and advancement in artistic expressions. These events will be aimed at the foreign markets (US, Canada, Europe, Central and South America) so as to generate tourism traffic. The artists may be domestic but also foreign and world class performers. (Event examples include New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Art Deco in Miami, Cannes Film Festival, and Taos, New Mexico).
4. Fairgrounds as Arena and Theater Districts	The CU Fairgrounds will fund, build and maintain civic arenas and theaters in local market Enterprise Zones. The designated areas fomented under the CU will qualify for tax (sales, property and income tax rebates) and economic incentives (low interest loans and grants) and stimuli (advertising and event promotions), empowering event tourism.
5. Electronic Payment Models	The CU Central Bank will arrange for settlement of electronic payments transactions allowing electronic commerce to flourish in the region. Then music, film and other media can be paid for and downloaded legally from the internet.
6. Respect for Intellectual Property	Any institutional disregard for the intellectual property of books, music, films and media will be severely prosecuted. The CU will also recognized and enforce the copyrights of other countries and work to have international markets respects the intellectual property rights of Caribbean artists. (This is a feature the of the Trade SHIELD principles defined in Appendix D (Page 264)). This effort requires close collaboration with criminal (Interpol) and civic enforcement agencies (ASCAP/BMI, MPAA). The end result would be that local/regional artists can make a “living” from their recorded works.
7. Art in Public Places	The CU will spur initiatives to incentivize and directly commission artist to exhibit their creations (paintings, murals, sculptures, etc.) in public edifices. This will encourage national-state public-private deployments of themed sculptures like Bahamian Conch Shells, Barbados Flying Fish and Puerto Rico Tree Frogs. These can be modeled after US city examples, like “Painted” Bulls in Chicago, Mustangs in Denver, and Guitars in Nashville.
8. Performing & Fine Arts Schools	A hybrid “Charter” school concept promotes the development and advancement in specific performing and fine arts while not forsaking the basic educational requirements. Similar to the secondary school (NYC Performing Arts) featured in the movie “Fame”. On the tertiary level, the CU will provide scholarships and endowments for programs in the Arts.
9. Agency for Public Broadcasting and National Touring Companies	These public-private agencies will be chartered to produce and promote world class artistic companies (adult and youth) for Opera, Ballet, Modern Dance, Symphonic and Philharmonic Orchestras, despite whether they are popular or highly rated. The Arts must always be promoted as a necessary expression of a civilized society, despite profit or public acceptance. Likewise, a CU agency for Public Broadcasting will manage the region’s media efforts to bring world class art to the people, (with SAP-style options for all four languages) without considering popularity.
10. Professional Agents and Artists Management Oversight	The CU will regulate, at the Cabinet level, and license the industry of Artists Agents/Managers, even though the artists can elect their own Agents & Managers. This management oversight is to be modeled after State Bars for lawyers. (This model is used for Sports Agents also).

While the Go Lean book relates (Page 291) the historicity of the pro-artist community in Taos, New Mexico, we now see a similar local model in Miami’s Wynwood District – a location with more Caribbean infusion. This Wynwood experience in particular and Art Basel Art Week in general is reinforcing that “art can drive” the economics, security and governance of a community.

While not everyone will be gifted artists, everyone can benefit from the accentuation of the arts and artists. So we should all work to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play by fostering the genius ability in Caribbean citizens. This is presented in the book as a “community ethos”:

“the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a society; dominant assumptions of a people”. – (Page 20)

The Go Lean book presented the roadmap to imbrue the Caribbean region with new community ethos, plus new strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to foster the business climate for the arts. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	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 – Minority Equalization	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds – Covering Urban Decay with Art	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Agencies versus Member-State Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – National/Federal Museum in the Capital District	Page 110
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
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 Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism	Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage – The business of fostering local culture	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Appendix D – Trade SHIELD Principles	Page 264
Appendix M – Taos Art Colony – New Mexico‘s Landmark	Page 291
Appendix W – Mediating as French Culture and Economics Collide	Page 311

The empowerments in the Go Lean book calls for the elevation of the arts as a permanent change. We want our youth to put their hopes and dreams in a Caribbean future, especially our youth who prove to be gifted in the arts. From the outset, the book recognized the significance of successfully fostering the arts with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 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.

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 seeks to foster the eco-system for the business of the arts. This quest has been addressed in many previous Go Lean commentaries; see sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9151	The New Smithsonian African-American Museum
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4145	The African Renaissance Monument in Dakar, Senegal, Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Art Basel Miami – a Testament to the Spread of Art & Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2415	How ‘The Lion King’ roared into Show-Business history

We can do our own “Wynwood” in the Caribbean. We have the artists and the talent waiting to be fostered. Let’s develop the business environment locally to fully explore the opportunities from the arts – the region should commission artists to paint murals.

We can do this; we can forge change here at home. This Go Lean roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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ENCORE: Art Basel 2016 – A Testament to the Business of the Arts

Posted on December 2, 2016 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Dateline: Miami Beach – Its Art Basel time again. The events for 2016 are being conducted during the dates of December 1 – 4. This is the biggest event on the calendar for Miami’s art scene and it demonstrates the power of the arts and its ability to transform societies. So this commentary from December 9, 2014 is being encored here, but with these new photos:

This Encore is Part 2 of 3 in a series on the ‘power of the visual arts’. The series depicts how the arts can forge change in a community, where it can be an effective messaging tool to convey many important points. The full entries in the series are as follows:

Forging Change: Arts & Artists
ENCORE: Art Basel 2016 – A Testament to the Business of the Arts
Art Walk – Its a Real Thing in Wynwood

This original commentary is as follows:

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Art Basel Miami – A Testament to the Spread of Culture

There’s no business like ‘show business’. – Age Old Adage.

There is money in the ‘Arts’. – Go Lean…Caribbean precept.

And now, the subsequent news article posits: “the community rallies around art creating a unique energy. And art ‘dynamises’ the community, in a very unique way”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean has a simple purpose: enable the Caribbean to be a better place to live, work and play. The book recognizes that the ‘genius qualifier’ is shown in different fields of endeavor, including the arts (fine, visual, performing, music, etc.). While the Go Lean roadmap has a focus on STEM^[1] fields, it is accepted that not everyone possesses STEM skills, and yet many others can still contribute to society. Then when these other skills/talents are “gifted” beyond the extraordinary, they can truly impact their community, and maybe even the world.

The book relates that the arts can have a positive influence on the Caribbean. And that one man, or woman, can make a difference in this quest. We want to foster the next generation of “stars” in the arts and other fields of endeavor.

According to the following news article, the arts can truly ‘dynamise’ the community. The article relates to Art Basel, the movement to stage art shows for Modern and Contemporary works, sited annually in Basel (Switzerland), Hong Kong and Miami Beach. The focus of this article is Miami Beach:

Title: 13th Art Basel Miami Beach (December 4 – 7, 2014), a testament to the spread of culture
By: Jane Wooldridge, and contributed Ricardo Mor

If “more” equals better, the 13th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach and the surrounding art week events may go down as the best ever. More new art fairs and just-to-see shows. More record-breaking sales at Art Basel Miami Beach. More CEOs — from watchmakers Hublot and Omega, luggage brand Rimowa, hotel companies Starwood and Marriott — opening luxury properties. And if not more — who can keep track? — then certainly plenty of celebrities, including actors Leonardo DiCaprio, James Marden and Owen Wilson; musicians Usher, Miley Cyrus, Russell Simmons and Joe Jonas; supermodel Heidi Klum and the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt.

There was another kind of “more” as well — more spillovers, touch points and art for all manner of South Floridians, from entrepreneurs to pre-teen fashion designers, stretching from Pinecrest to Coconut Grove, Overtown to Fort Lauderdale.

If the aim is “to make art general,” as Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen told attendees Monday at the foundation’s annual announcement of Knight Art Challenge awards, this year’s art week put South Florida well on its way. Proclaimed National Endowment for the Arts chairman Jane Chu on a whiplash art tour to downtown, Miami Beach and Opa-locka, “Art is entwined in Miami’s DNA.”

Even as the Pérez Art Museum Miami celebrated its first year anniversary, a new permanent museum building for the Institute for Contemporary Art Miami was announced for the Design District.

Overtown [historical Black neighborhood] hosted its first Art Africa fair of works created by artists from the African Diaspora. Joining it on the list of first-year events are an impressive exhibition of monumental works in the vast Mana-Miami Wynwood space on NW 23rd Street and Pinta, a fair focusing on Latin American art that moved from New York to Midtown.

The festivities reach far, far beyond the traditional art crowd. On the Mana campus, the Savannah College of Art and Design is presenting “i feel ya,” an exhibition that includes jumpsuits designed by André 3000 for Outkast’s reunion tour. The nearby ArtHaus tent is surrounded by food trucks and a sound program where Beethoven is definitely not on the playlist.

This year, more than a half-dozen student exhibits are on the art agenda. At FusionMIA, student photographs hang near works by masters Rashid Johnson and Al Loving; all were curated by Miami’s N’Namdi Contemporary gallery. A few blocks north, at Wynwood’s House of Art, a dozen students ages 5 to 15 from the DesignLab program showed off their creations at a Friday night “vernissage.”

Among them was 13-year-old Yael Bloom, wearing a flounced party dress she made from shrink wrap. No matter that the first-time event was a little-known spinoff. “Art Basel is pretty hard for adults to get into,” Bloom said. “For kids to get into it is very cool.”

As in years past, free events abound, from performances by Chinese artist Shen Wei at Miami-Dade College and artist Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest demonstrations on the sand to official Art Basel events, including films on the New World Center Wallcast and the Art Public sculptures in Collins Park. New is free Art Week shuttle service between Midtown and Miami Beach — a government cooperative effort — that dovetails with trolley service to art venues on both sides of Biscayne Bay.

In institutional quarters, Art Basel Miami Beach global sponsor UBS announced the creation of a $5 million loan fund for existing Florida small business owners. Sponsor BMW USA announced it would fund an “art journey” open to emerging artists exhibiting at Art Basel Miami Beach. And the City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County put out a call to artists, encouraging them to propose projects for the $4.33 million public art program associated with the Miami Beach Convention Center renovation. South Floridians are eligible to apply for all three initiatives.

Clearly, art week isn’t just about aesthetics, personal enrichment and community building. It is also about enterprise — which explains all those luxury CEOs, the ground-breaking of the Zaha Hadid-designed One Thousand Museum, and the announcement at Miami Ironside that designer Ron Arad will create the interiors for the revamped Watergate Hotel in Washington. (And no, there’s no real connection to Miami.)

Said Michael Spring, Miami-Dade’s cultural affairs director, “There’s a certain deepening, a realization not just that the Art Basel event but arts in general have a phenomenal effect on the image and economy of our entire region. We’ve talked about it before, but there seems to be more focus this year. It’s not an interesting footnote anymore; it’s the theme.”

That, says Miami Commissioner Keon Hardemon, was the thinking behind the city’s $50,000 grant supporting the Art Africa fair. “We need to encourage people to come now to Overtown. The cultural aspect helps them realize they can safely come here now. And then maybe they’ll come back later and spend money in the community, in our restaurants and stores,” he said.

In Miami, with commerce inevitably comes glamor, which is proving as glossy as ever. Hennessey V.S.O.P., Dom Perignon, Paper Magazine, Interview and B.E.T. have staged events all around town, at private “locations,” hotels, restaurants, the 1111 Lincoln Road garage and the ICA temporary space in the Moore Building. Developer Alan Faena threw a breezy beachside asado. Jeffrey Deitch, Tommy Hilfiger and V Magazine hosted a glitzy bash at the Raleigh featuring a performance by Miley Cyrus.

In the Design District, developer Craig Robins hosted a dinner honoring architect Peter Marino at a single, 142-yard candlelit table for 380 guests on a closed-off street amid the district’s luxury brand storefronts. Sculptor Jaume Plensa was the guest of honor at another long candlelit table — this one for 60 — in the Coconut Grove sales offices of Park Grove, which recently installed a series of his works along South Bayshore Drive.

Alas, once again, manners were not de rigueur among the glossy set. At some parties, guests of guests turned up with entirely uninvited guests. For other tony soirees, publicists emailed out “disinvitations” to previously invited guests, obliquely sending the message that someone more glamorous would be taking those seats.

Decorous or not, during art week, the energy all emanates from the week’s namesake fair, said Dennis Scholl, VP/Arts at the Knight Foundation. “The most important thing to remember is why this week exists, and that’s Art Basel in the Convention Center. If that wasn’t the core of what’s going on — if it weren’t a world-class event — nobody else would be interested in being involved. It continues to be the raison d’être of this week.”

In the Convention Center, at what Scholl called “the core of the nuclear reactor,” many gallerists were quite happy, thank you very much.

Veteran Art Basel Miami Beach gallerist Sean Kelly said Wednesday was his best first day ever at the fair. Newcomer Michael Jon Gallery also sold almost all of its available work — by rising stars like Sayre Gomez and JPW3 — on the first day.

For most dealers, sales remained lively, day after day. At Galerie Gmurzynska, co-CEO Mathias Rastorfer proclaimed it “successful indeed … . In terms of reception, it was an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response from collectors and colleagues alike. In terms of sales, we did several over $1 million sales and many within the $100,000 to $500,000 range, with a Picasso’s Venus and Love selling at near the asking price of $1.2 million.

Said Art Basel Director Marc Spiegler on Saturday, “I’ve gotten nothing but positive response from galleries,” not only because of strong sales, but also because new hours for VIPs gave gallerists more time to meet new collectors. “A lot of people were here and buying for the first time. Many galleries said they had their best fair ever.”

But like this week’s weather, the upbeat atmosphere suffered from uncharacteristic clouds. In Wynwood, a police car hit and critically injured a street artist. An $87,000 silver plate crafted by Pablo Picasso was reported stolen from the Art Miami satellite fair in Midtown. A partygoer at PAMM’s first anniversary fête on Thursday accidentally damaged an artwork installed on the floor. And Friday night, would-be art goers were stymied by traffic shutdowns into art-centric areas of Wynwood, Midtown and Miami Beach by protests against nationwide police-involved killings.

Though unfortunate and sometimes tragic, Spring said, the unrelated events were “a product of the incredible level of activity.” At Saturday’s annual brunch at the art-rich Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach, the theft and damaged artwork uniformly were brushed off as inconsequential. Said one art insider, “s–t happens.”

Miami Art Week’s merry-go-round nature is surely born from Miami’s appreciation of a good time. And increasingly, perhaps from something deeper.

Said Miami gallerist Jumaane N’Namdi, “Art Basel has put art on everyone’s mind. Everyone wants to be involved somehow.”

And that’s not just about the parties, said N’Namdi, who had galleries in Chicago, New York and Detroit before opening in Miami. “I don’t think you could find a city that enjoys really looking at the art the way this city does. I came through the airport, and even the TSA guys were talking about it, asking each other if they got their Art Basel posters. Every level of art you want is here.”

Outsiders agree. “Miami is very special for its link between art and the community,” said Axelle de Buffévent, style director at champagne house Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët. “It goes both ways. The community rallies around art creating a unique energy. And art dynamises the community, in a very unique way.”
Miami Herald – Daily Newspaper – (Posted December 6, 2014) –
http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/visual-arts/art-basel/article4313255.html

VIDEO: Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 – http://youtu.be/StkzLiBtDis

Published on Dec 4, 2014
The international art fair Art Basel returns to Miami Beach for its 13th edition, taking place at the Miami Beach Convention Center from December 4 to December 7, 2014. Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 features 267 leading international galleries from 31 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa, which present artworks ranging from Modern masters to the latest contemporary art pieces. With this edition, the fair debuts Survey, a new sector dedicated to art-historical projects. In this video, we attend the Private View of Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 at the Miami Beach Convention Center on December 3.

This story aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean in stressing the economic impact of artistic endeavors. The book pledges that Caribbean society will be elevated by improving the eco-system to live, work and play; and that “play” covers vast areas of culture.

“Culture” has emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term “culture” in North American anthropology has two meanings:

the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and
the distinct ways that people, who live differently, classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively.^[2]

Anthropologist Adamson Hoebel best describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.^[3]

The Go Lean book stresses economic benefits from classic cultural expressions and popular cultural productions, including Caribbean music, paintings/art, sketches, sculptures, books, fashion and food. All the “skilled phenomena” that makes Caribbean life unique and appealing.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). There is a lot involved in this vision; the prime directives are stated as follows:

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.

The foregoing article relates the economic impact that the Greater Miami area is enjoying for hosting the Art Basel event, for the 13^th year now. At this point the benefits have spread throughout the community, (Art Fairs, museums, scholarships, foundations, etc.) not just one venue on Miami Beach. The spin-off benefit of art is a strong point of the Go Lean book, highlighting benefits as long as we keep the talent at home working in/for the community. This point is pronounced early in the following statements in the book’s opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 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.

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 economic, cultural and image considerations for “show business” on a society have been well-detailed in these previous Go Lean blogs:

Caribbean Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP

How ‘The Lion King’ roared into history

Forging Change – The Fun Theory

Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown

Book Review: ‘Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right’

The Music, Art, Culture and Legend of Bob Marley lives on!

The Go Lean roadmap posits that change will come to the Caribbean “show business” (Visual and Performing Arts, Music, Film). This is due mostly to the convergence of a Single Market for the Caribbean region. If “size matters”, then the integration of 42 million people (plus the 10 million Diaspora and 80 million visitors) for the 30 member-states will create the consumer markets to promote and foster Caribbean artistic creations for their full appreciation. The first requirement in this goal is the community ethos of valuing intellectual property; to recognize that other people’s creations are valuable. (Then we can enforce on others to value and appreciate our creations).

This would truly be new for the Caribbean.

The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing Caribbean society for the new world of art appreciation and “consumerization”. The following list details the ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster regional artists and showcase their wares to the world stage:

Community Ethos – Forging Change	Page 20
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Strategy – Caribbean Vision: Single Market	Page 45
Separation of Powers – Central Bank – Electronic Payment Deployments	Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patents – Copyrights	Page 78
Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from New York City	Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Education – Performing Arts Schools	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Impact Urban Living – Art & Theaters	Page 234
Appendix – New York / Arts / Theater Jobs	Page 277
Appendix – Taos New Mexico Art Colony	Page 291
Appendix – Caribbean Music Genres	Page 347
Appendix – Protecting Music Copyrights	Page 351

There is BIG money in show business and in the world of the Arts. For the 10^th edition of Art Basel in Miami in 2011, there was a record number of fifty thousand collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art enthusiasts – including 150 museum and institutions from across the globe – participating in the show.^[4]

This event requires a lot of community investments. Every year, Miami’s leading private collections – among them the Rubell Family Collection, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, the De la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space, World Class Boxing, the Margulies Collection and the Dacra Collection – open their homes and warehouses to guests of Art Basel. Additionally, the museums of South Florida organize exhibitions including shows at the Miami Art Museum, Bass Museum of Art, Norton Museum, Wolfsonian-FIU and MOCA North Miami.

The community investment has been there for Miami, and so has the returns ^[5].For 2014, the attendance figures were 75,000, with an increase in hotel occupancy of 30,000 rooms on the days the Art Fair is in progress. The conservative estimates are that the Art Fair brings close to $13 million a year in economic impact to the region. (This figure does not include the purchases of artworks, some of which fetch millions of dollars).

The subject of the Miami Metropolitan area is very relevant for a Caribbean empowerment discussion. A previous blog asserted that Miami’s success, in many regards, is attributable to Caribbean’s failures. Many of our populations (including artists) have fled their homelands and have taken refuge in the Miami area. Where at first this disposition was begrudged, eventually it transformed to tolerance, but now it is even celebrated.

Miami has been greatly impacted by both the Caribbean Diaspora and its assimilation of the “Arts”. Whole neighborhoods have been elevated due to this strategy of catering to the arts; (see photo here). This is a great role model for the Caribbean to emulate; our whole society can be elevated.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap represents the empowerment for the Caribbean communities to elevate – we now want to keep our artists at home. The people, institutions and governance of the region are therefore urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for change. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——-

Appendix – Source References:

1. STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

2. “What is culture?”. Bodylanguagecards.com. Retreived 2013-03-29.

3. Hoebel, Adamson (1966). Anthropology: Study of Man. McGraw-Hill.

4. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/arts/design/art-basel-miami-beach-review.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

5. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/arts/international/art-fair-energizes-economy-of-region.html?_r=0

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Arts, Events, Miami, Play, Tourism, Transform

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Alibaba Cloud stretches global reach with four new facilities

Posted on November 30, 2016 in Economics, Implementation, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

For hundreds of years, empires expanded their reach by establishing colonies on foreign shores. The book Go Lean … Caribbean chronicles (Page 307) the pushing-and-shoving between European powers in the development of the Caribbean. But in 1960, after the atrocities of World War II were inventoried – credited to the complexities of colonialism in World War I and the period between the wars, the United Nations made a declaration that colonialism needed to be disbanded:

The “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” was adopted by the UN General Assembly by resolution on 14 December 1960. Though some countries had already started their independence process (i.e. Ireland, Australia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc.), this resolution established the standard for all dependent countries – even small ones – to become autonomous. – Source: UN-Wikisource

This is now the 21st Century. While colonialism is not dead … entirely, there is a new brand of colonies for trade. Colonies have gone from the physical world to the virtual world, referring to cyber-space or online communities. Chinese trading market-place Alibaba is providing us a model of colonizing their digital footprint in foreign countries. See the story here of Alibaba’s deployment of 4 new data centers in a potpourri of countries:

BEIJING (Reuters) – Alibaba Cloud plans to open four new data facilities outside China, the cloud unit of Alibaba Holdings Ltd said on Monday, as it seeks to grab global market share from leading players Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft.

The data facilities in Dubai, Germany, Japan and Australia will extend the reach of China’s leading cloud computing service provider to every major continent, and marks the latest step in the unit’s $1 billion infrastructure investment drive.

Also known as Aliyun, the unit has flourished domestically thanks to Beijing’s strategic emphasis on building homegrown cloud technology, while foreign firms have grappled with stringent licensing restrictions in the country.

However, it accounts for a much smaller slice of the global market for cloud computing, defined as the storage of data on remote networks rather than local servers, which is expected to reach $135 billion by 2020, according to research firm Canalys.

Alibaba Cloud is forecast to take 7.8 percent of that market, while leading players Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft, International Business Machines Corp and Alphabet Inc are expected to account for 69.1 percent.

Yu Sicheng, general manager of Alibaba Cloud’s international business, said the unit’s strength in China was a significant advantage and a lynchpin in the company’s globalization plans.

“We have the U.S., Europe plus China, which is quite difficult,” he told Reuters in an interview.

The new additions bring Alibaba Cloud’s total number of foreign cloud facilities to eight, surpassing the six within China, though the majority of the company’s data volume remains squarely within China.

It will launch the data facilities through partnerships with Vodafone in Europe, Softbank Group Corp in Japan and YVOLV in Dubai, a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Meraas Holdings LLC.

Yu, however, declined to comment on when the unit will likely post a profit, even as it has seen six quarters of consecutive triple-digit growth, to become Alibaba’s fastest growing business sector.

“Our focus is to keep expanding our market leadership and presence and this is our priority for now,” he said.

(Corrects title of Alibaba Cloud executive Yu Sicheng)
(Reporting by Catherine Cadell; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Source: Yahoo News Source. Posted 11-21-2016; retrieved 11-28-2016 from: https://www.yahoo.com/news/alibaba-cloud-stretches-global-reach-four-facilities-061614009–finance.html?ref=gs

This commentary takes another look at colonialism; there is the need for a cyber footprint in countries where “you” may want to conduct online business – this is a feature of globalization. In the effort to deploy the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) as a logistics solution for delivering modern commerce, this commentary takes another look at the Alibaba Group; a company that had previously been identified as an excellent role model for the CPU. (American company Amazon was also identified as a fitting role model).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the CPU. The book describes a business model for the CPU in facilitating electronic commerce in the region. But it presents this business model as heavy-lifting; there is the need for data centers to power the cyber-functions and applications for online & mobile commerce. The Go Lean roadmap describes the need for 6 data centers strategically placed across the Caribbean region; we want to colonize our own region, following a similar business model to Alibaba’s plans to deploy its colonies throughout the world – in these 4 foreign countries.

More dynamic data centers deployed in a foreign country would mean more business-to-business commerce, including features like web portals, online retail, mobile functionality, payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services.

As detailed in the previous blog-commentary, Alibaba is not just a China focused company. They also have a Caribbean footprint. In September 2014, the company held an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the United States on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) – Ticker symbol “BABA.N” – looking to raise US$25 billion. The NYSE corporate entity is actually a shell corporation based in the Cayman Islands. So Alibaba extending their global business operations is actually benefiting a Caribbean corporate citizen.

The Go Lean roadmap (Page 106) presented an advocacy that described the trends in data center design and functionality; they are needed for the Cyber-Caribbean strategy. A trend depicted in the book is the Case Study of Hydrogen Fuel Cells as a reliable back-up power-battery source. This Case Study sets the stage for understanding Data Center trends:

Case Study – Bottom Line on Hydrogen Fuel Cells: A fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity thru a chemical reaction with oxygen or another oxidizing agent. Hydrogen is the most common fuel. Hydrogen is not in and of itself an energy source, because it is not naturally occurring as a fuel. It is, however widely regarded as an ideal energy storage medium, due to the ease with which electric power can convert water into its hydrogen and oxygen components through electrolysis. Hydrogen technologies relate to the production and use of hydrogen. Hydrogen technologies are applicable for many uses. Some hydrogen technologies are carbon neutral and could have a role in preventing climate change and a possible future hydrogen economy. Fuel cells are different from batteries in that they require a constant source of fuel and oxygen/air to sustain the chemical reaction, they can however produce electricity continually for as long as these inputs are supplied.

There are a handful of US data center facilities that are powered either partially or fully by hydrogen fuel cells; see Appendix IG on Page 285.

The advocacy, branded 10 Trends in Implementing Data Centers, is detailed here:

1. Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market & Economy (CSME) initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation.	The CU treaty unifies the Caribbean region into one single market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, thereby empowering the economic engines in and on behalf of the region. The CU embraces the cutting, “bleeding” edge concepts, systems and methodologies for data centers and computer server farms, as in high density computing, facilitating the maximum computing power with the least about of space and power. The prerequisite for any serious data center deployment is power…stable, reliable electricity, with primary, secondary and tertiary solutions. The CU roadmap calls for deployment of a regional power grid, with above ground, underground & underwater cabling. Though data centers must launch now, power costs will be expected to decline with the grid; hydrogen fuel cells will fill the void..
2. Fiber-Optics / Pipeline	Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communications, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates) than other forms of communication. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are also immune to electromagnetic interference. The transparent fiber are made of high quality extruded glass, silica or plastic. The CU as a new Federation can apply a leap-frog approach to implement communication networks without having to contend with older methods or investments. Further the CU will embrace the strategy of installing elaborate pipelines thru out the region, enabling fiber-optics to traverse the network.
3. IP Convergence	Internet Protocol (IP) is now ubiquitous for data, voice, and video communications – they all operate on the same type of fiber. This indicates that data centers also function as telecom hubs – central switching offices are now bygones.
4. Cloud Computing	The CU will embrace cloud computing for many operational systems, thereby requiring optimal continuous processing. The roadmap calls for citizens to interact with their federal government via web portals, kiosks or phone contact centers.
5. High Availability (HA)	HA is a system design approach (hardware, software and networking) that ensures operational performance will be met, like parallel processing or mirroring. There are systems (i.e. hospitals, banking, electrical grid) that must maximize availability and minimize downtime. Recovery time or estimated time of repair is closely related to availability, optimizing the time to recover from planned or unplanned outages. A CU mission is to facilitate quick recoveries after hurricanes.
6. Colocation Data Centers	A colocation center (colo, or coloc) is a type of data center where equipment space and bandwidth are available for rental to retail customers. Colocation facilities provide space, power, cooling, and physical security for the server, storage, and networking equipment of other firms—and connect them to a variety of telecommunications and network service providers—with a minimum of cost and complexity. Colocation has become a popular option for companies as it allows the company to focus its IT staff on the actual work being done, instead of the logistical. Significant benefits of scale (large power and mechanical systems) result in large colocation facilities, typically 50,000 to 100,000 square feet.
7. Caves as Data Centers	There is a growing trend of building underground data bunkers. A market leader placed a coloc data center in a huge facility 220 feet underground in a limestone cave outside Pittsburgh-Pennsylvania. There are other limestone cave installations in places like Mammoth, Kentucky and Lenexa, Kansas. The advantage is cost savings, driven by cooling dynamics of an underground facility, where cooler temperature allows for saving money on air conditioning. The CU will identify limestone caverns, plentiful in the region, appropriate to construct data centers – the region needs 6 centers.
8. Storage Solutions – No need for humans	Old data center models needed people to load/unload data storage devices (tapes, disk drives). Now with the low costs of storage, the CU can implement storage libraries for primary and back-up purposes. Plus with tools/techniques like Deep Store archive systems [51], it allows for cost-efficient solutions for data/records that are rarely retrieved.
9. Security Issues	Modern data centers require minimal human interaction, therefore physical security tend to be very restrictive. In some firms, even the CEO is not allowed access. The CU will implement biometric systems like fingerprints and iris scanning.
10. Unified Command & Control	The data center may be void of humans, but there is still the need for many professional analysis, programmers and engineers. These are normally stationed in command centers to facilitate monitoring and cyber-security functions.

Is a discussion of data center trends appropriate for a societal elevation plan for the Caribbean? Absolutely! How the world has changed! The Go Lean book posits that this technology-tinged eco-system is a winning strategy for creating jobs here in the 21st Century. The book explains that Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) can serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The roadmap projects that 64,000 new jobs – 20,000 Direct & 44,000 Indirect – can be created with this strategy. This strategy is among the keys for elevating Caribbean society. In fact the prime directives of the roadmap is identified with the following 3 statements:

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.

The foregoing article and the quotation from the Go Lean book depicts a vision of a new Caribbean industrial landscape. This vision was defined early in the book (Page 14) in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

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, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. 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.

Beyond data centers, “where are the new jobs for the 21st Century”? This is a familiar question for the Go Lean movement (book and blogs). This question was examined in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9751	Where the Jobs Are – Animation and Game Design
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9203	Where the Jobs Are – Employer Models in the United States
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089	Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857	Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

ICT is a prominent feature of the Caribbean empowerment plan; creating a Caribbean Cloud is “Step One, Day One” in the Go Lean roadmap. This will facilitate electronic commerce and allow modern day colonies – data centers – in foreign countries.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the best practices for Data Centers in the Caribbean region:

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 – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Incubators	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide – e-Government Services	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing – e-Government Scheme	Page 35
Strategy – Mission – Embrace the Advances of Technology	Page 46
Strategy – Competitors – Governments – Shared Systems –vs- Premise-based	Page 51
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy to $800 Billion – Trade and Globalization	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Union Revenue Administration – e-Government for Revenue Systems	Page 74
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Deploy Data Centers	Page 96
Implementation – 10 Trends in Implementing Data Centers	Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade – Electronic Commerce	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Ways to Foster Cooperatives – Co-located Data Centers for e-Government	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology – Incubators Strategy	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street – e-Commerce as competition for Big-Box	Page 201

This VIDEO here – Google’s Data Center – demonstrates a theme from the Go Lean book, that data center trends will influence the ICT eco-system; also see the VIDEO tour for Facebook and Microsoft in the Appendix below:

VIDEO – Inside a Google data center – https://youtu.be/XZmGGAbHqa0

Published on Dec 16, 2014 – Joe Kava, VP of Google’s Data Center Operations, gives a tour inside a Google data center, and shares details about the security, sustainability and the core architecture of Google’s infrastructure.

According to the foregoing article and VIDEOs, data centers are important business infrastructure for the new economy. As demonstrated by Alibaba’s example, these data centers are colonies in the virtual world. The CU/Go Lean plan is to foster and incubate such key industrial installations for the goal of elevating the region economic engines.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the changes in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region, that of a Cyber Caribbean effort (Page 127), in which data centers play a major role. Welcome to 21st Century colonies. This is how we build a better future: a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————-

Appendix VIDEOs:

Facebook Data Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Rgje94iI0
Microsoft Data Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uRR72b_qvc

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Amazon, CPU, e-Commerce, ICT, Jobs, Model

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Model of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – By The Numbers

Posted on November 25, 2016 in Economics, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“We are giving this for free as a gift to America” – CNBC Newscast: Amy Kule, Executive Producer, 2014 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade^*.

Free?

Hardly! There is nothing free about American Thanksgiving. This is just another example of American Crony-Capitalism. Consider the facts in this VIDEO here of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, by the numbers:

VIDEO – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by the Numbers – http://www.aol.com/video/channel/news/582e4599134aa15f420ded1a/

Click on the Photo to Play VIDEO

This discussion is promoting the idea of the Caribbean modeling the best-practices of American commerce – there are a lot of economic returns from events. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, in the foregoing, is an event – one of the biggest on the calendar for New York City. So the focus of this commentary is the impact that one event can have on the societal engines of a community: economics, security and governance.

One person – or company – can make a difference.

Notice how this parade is mostly administered by one private company: Macy’s Department Stores.

Reference Title: Macy’s Department Store
Macy’s, originally R. H. Macy & Co., is a department store owned by Macy’s, Inc. It is one of two divisions owned by the company, with the other being Bloomingdale’s. As of January 2014, the Macy’s division operates 789 department store locations in the continental United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, including the prominent Herald Square flagship location in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.^[2]:35

Macy’s has conducted the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City since 1924 and has sponsored the city’s annual Fourth of July fireworks display since 1976. Macy’s Herald Square is the largest department store in the world. The flagship store covers almost an entire New York City block, features about 1.1 million square feet of retail space, includes additional space for offices and storage, and serves as the endpoint for Macy’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade. It is estimated that the value of Herald Square is under $3 billion to more than $4 billion.^[3]

As of 2015, Macy’s is the largest U.S. department store company by retail sales and is the 15th-largest retailer in the United States for 2014 in terms of revenue.^[4][5]Source: Retrieved November 25, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macy%27s

The focus of the book Go Lean…Caribbean is to elevate the Caribbean economic disposition, based on the existing infrastructure and new implementations. So we would want to look-listen-learn from this American model and then apply the lessons here in the Caribbean. Events are integral to the touristic experience; this is why the Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), details so many dimensions of eco-system for events. The book prominently highlights that even small towns can get in on the economic buoyancy of events by detailing the role model of the City of Sturgis (population 6,600) in the US State of South Dakota – Page 191. Their annual event – Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August – generates about $800 million in community revenues.

Successful management of events is a mission of Go Lean roadmap. The region needs the jobs. These events – think Carnival or Junkanoo in the Bahamas – create permanent and temporary jobs. This is part-and-parcel of the Go Lean/CU prime directives, as identified with the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million overall new jobs; 9,000 jobs are attributed to Events.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book presented the roadmap to imbrue the Caribbean region with new community ethos, plus new strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to improve event-job creation in the region. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	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 – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Consider Artists, Musicians and Performers	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – CU Federal Agencies versus Member-State Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons from New York City	Page 137
Planning – Lessons from Omaha – College World Series Model	Page 138
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports – Fairgrounds as Sport Venues	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

The empowerments in the Go Lean book calls for permanent change to ensure that Caribbean people have opportunities; they only want to be able to provide for their families and preserve their unique Caribbean culture.

The Go Lean roadmap offers the technocratic execution of these deliverables. Imagine the expansion of the existing events in the region. Plus, imagine the artistic expressions and entertainment (singers, dancers, musicians, performers, etc.). Just like for the Macy’s Parade in the foregoing, economic gains await. This is the business model of “events”. From the outset, the Go Lean book recognized the significance of events and festivities in the roadmap with these statements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14):

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, 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.

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.

There are many other communities that have flourished in this strategy – business model of fun and festivities – as depicted with the example of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Success is possible; we need only to look, listen and learn.

Many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries have focused on the business of events. See samples-examples detailed in these previous blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9712	Forging Change: Panem et Circenses
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5251	Post-Mortem of Inaugural Junkanoo Carnival
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4879	Model of a Sports Event: Martinique Surfing
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Model of an Artistic Event: Art Basel Miami
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2152	Model of a Sports Event: Little League World Series
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	College World Series Time – Lessons from Omaha
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Landlord of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=535	Event Security: Remembering and learning from Boston
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region; that of expanding Caribbean events for greater economic throughput. We have the foundations in place already, the many artistic, cultural and sporting events for locals and visitors.

We can employ the strategies, tactics and implementations from models like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade to make our Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

Appendix * – Source References:

https://youtu.be/61kyIsEBuUA posted Published on Nov 26, 2014; (retrieved November 25, 2016).

Executive producer of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Amy Kule, provides insight to the numbers behind tomorrow’s big parade and reveals some new characters.

———

Appendix VIDEO – 7 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Facts You Never Knew! – https://youtu.be/zOtWeyh1aRs

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Events, Jobs, Model, New York

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Where the Jobs Are – Animation and Game Design

Posted on November 21, 2016 in Economics, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Live, work and play…

These are three activities that we heavily focus on in the Caribbean. But with modernity, we have to now adjust to the new reality that some of these expressions may be digital as opposed to physical.

The below embedded article asserts that a round of new jobs are to be found in the executions for this digital world; this is becoming a new playground. This is a glimpse of industrial growth for the 21st Century; this is the sphere of Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT).

The book Go Lean…Caribbean recognizes the emergence of this new playground; it seeks to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. It makes the claim that innovation and economic growth can result from a progressive community ethos. The book defines this “community ethos” as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society; dominant assumptions of a people or period. The book thereafter recommends the ethos of Fostering Genius (Page 27), so as to not only consume this industry’s product offering, but facilitating development and production. The skills to participate in the art and science of this development may not apply to just everyone; it may be limited to a “gifted few”, a “talented tenth”. This is why all the other attendant functions must also be facilitated to engage this activity, such as Helping Entrepreneurship (Page 28), Promoting Intellectual Property (Page 29), Impacting Research and Development or R&D (Page 30) and Bridging the Digital Divide (Page 31).

The landscape for Animation and Game Design is not an easy one; there is heavy-lifting for all stakeholders (government, educators, entrepreneurs, and students). For the “champions” that endure and traverse the obstacles and deliver, they will reap what they sow: a slice of a US$332 Billion pie. Consider the story here, from an engaged Jamaica-focused blogger:

Title: Jamaica’s US$332 billion dollar Industry heralded in CXC’s Animation and Game Design
By: Blogger Lindsworth Deer; posted October 3, 2016; retrieved November 18, 2016 from: https://lindsworthdeer.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/cxcs-animation-and-game-design/

“Part of the thrust for CXC is that students should be able to leave school with some employable skills, so instead of leaving school and applying for a job, you can leave school and create jobs for yourselves and other people. This is where the world is going and part of CXC’s mandate is to assure the global human competitiveness of the Caribbean region” – Quotation from the Assistant Registrar, Public Information and Customer Service at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Cleveland Sam as he commented on the introduction of Animation and Video Game Design to CAPE.

2016 is going to be an amazing year for the Animation and Video Game Design Community in Jamaica.

This as the CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) is now introducing the Animation and Game Design as a subject (Gunn, 2016, September 8) for the CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination) Exams.

Launched on Saturday 12 March 2016 at the KingstOOn Festival in Jamaica (CXC, 2016, March 8), this course is set to be a blast. You can download the Animation and Game Design syllabus free from the CXC Website once you follow the procedure (Deer, 2015, November 18) to get a free syllabus.

The new subject will be made up of two (2) units:

The Fundamentals of Animation and Game Design

Interactive Design and Game Development

Modules that are a part of these Units are as follows:

Understanding Animation

Game Design

Drawing and Layouts

Story and Character Development

It’s also a part of the move towards e-Testing (Murdoch, 2016, August 13) by the CXC in January 2017 beginning with CSEC multiple choice (Paper 01) exams only. By 2018, all subjects (Spence, 2016, May 19) will be taken via e-Testing in all territories offering the exams.

The Exams for the subject will be administered online and has no written component, making them geared more towards Kinesthetic (Bucknell University, 2014) and Visual (Carleton University, 2012, May 15) learners and to a lesser extend Auditory and Tactile or Read/Write learners (Saint Leo University, 2015, August 4).

So far, CXC’s e-Testing bandwidth requirements seem a bit much for the small island of Antigua and Barbuda (Murdoch, 2016, September 20), prompting a delay in testing until the bandwidth available at High School is improved following the passing of their Telecommunication Bill 2016.

Jamaica will soon follow suit with e-Testing for CXC Exams.

Animation and Game Design – Making Jamaica a producer of original Animation and Video Game Content
Animation and Game Design is the second subject to go paperless and online since Digital Media, which was launched in 2013. Interestingly, the course will not require the training of new teachers, as Teachers of Visual Arts or IT (Information Technology) can basically use the syllabus and do workshops (The Jamaica Observer, 2016, September 11) to make the transition to teach the subject.

Animation and Game Design is part of a raft of new subjects that have been launched as far back as 2014.

Agricultural Science

Tourism

Entrepreneurship

Performing Arts

Physical Education and Sport

Effectively students will be learning a practical skill by the time they leave High School, which will make it easier for them to become entrepreneurs (Deer, 2016, May 6) in the budding Animation and Video Game Design Industry in Jamaica.

In the long run, it’ll also make Jamaica a producer of animated content instead of a consumer as pointed out by Assistant Registrar, Public Information and Customer Service at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Cleveland Sam, quote: “This is where the world is going and part of CXC’s mandate is to assure the global human competitiveness of the Caribbean region”.

Student Entrepreneurs – Animation and Video Game Design a US$332 billion dollars per annum Industry
These students, who can become animators and Game Designers straight out of high school, may even become producers of content for the Education Sector (Deer, 2014, October 20), tapping into the US$112 Billion Video Global Gaming Industry as Dr. Joseph Saulter had envisioned.

Potentially Jamaicans can also tap into the US$69 million of the US$220 billion annual Global Animation Industry over a five (5) year period (Deer, 2014, August 2) according to the World Bank.

That’s a total of US$332 billion dollars annually from both the Animation and Video Gaming industries combined up for grabs by student Animators and Video Game Designers. This potential means that a rethink of education may be necessary, especially as Animation and Video Games can be used effectively to teach Primary School Children (Deer, 2016, June 23) under the Tablets in School Program.

There is even evidence that Tablet usage, with the right type of content might be effective in jumpstarting the fine motor skills (Deer, 2016, October 2) of toddlers. Having fine motor skills is key towards developing Kinesthetic (Bucknell University, 2014) and Visual (Carleton University, 2012, May 15)learning in children.

This could make Animation and Video Games for Education is itself a rapidly growing area, especially if you can code apps in multiple languages (Deer, 2016, July 19), tapping into a global marketplace seeking Jamaican Animation and Video Game design content.

So the Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid is seeking to re-align the entire Education sector towards the idea of Animation and Video Game design playing a part in the Education Sector, quote: “The entire education training system has to be re-aligned to labour market demands, due to these emerging trends in terms of occupations. We have to reorganise our school training programme and curriculum in that regard”.

So re-align the Ministry of Education must, as Animation and Video Game Design is a US$332 billion dollars per annum low hanging fruit. That is, once you have the right equipment and software (Deer, 2013, September 3) to get your content produced, marketed and sold into the Global marketplace online!

Here’s the link:

Animation and Game Design syllabus

References:

BucknellUniversity. (2014). Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jvt002/Docs/ASEE-2008b.pdf

CarletonUniversity. (2012, May 15). Why Use Media to Enhance Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/media/why.html

Deer, L. (2013, September 3). Animation after Kingstoon – How to make a Video Game for PC, Smartphone and Tablet. Retrieved from http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2013/09/animation-after-kingstoon-how-to-make.html

Deer, L. (2014, August 2). Animation after KingstOON – World Bank Invests US$20 million in Jamaican Animation BPO Brother from another Mother with Great Expectations. Retrieved from http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2014/08/animation-after-kingstoon-world-bank.html

Deer, L. (2014, October 20). Prof. Joseph Saulter’s Digital Game Design and Development Conference – US$112 Billion Video Gaming Industry may be Jamaicans Next BPO. Retrieved from http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2014/10/prof-joseph-saulters-digital-game.html

SaintLeoUniversity. (2015, August 4). The 3 Types of Learning Styles & How to Use Them for College Success. Retrieved from http://blog.centers.saintleo.edu/blog/the-3-types-of-learning-styles-how-to-use-them-for-college-success

Deer, L. (2015, November 18). How to download CSEC, CCSLC and CAPESyllabuses for Free from CXC. Retrieved from https://lindsworthdeer.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/how-to-download-csec-ccslc-and-cape-syllabuses-for-free-from-cxc/

CXC. (2016, March 8). CXC Launching CAPEAnimation and Game Design Syllabus. Retrieved from http://www.cxc.org/cxc-launching-cape-animation-and-game-design-syllabus/

Deer, L. (2016, May 6). How 9-y-o and Millennials in Jamaica are becoming CEO Entrepreneurs to avoid the Cubicle Rat Race. Retrieved from http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2016/05/millennials-CEO-Entrepreneurs.html

Spence, M. (2016, May 19). CXC to complete e-test phase in by 2018. Retrieved from http://www.caymanreporter.com/2016/05/19/cxc-to-complete-e-test-phase-in-by-2018/

Deer, L. (2016, June 23). Why Tablet in School Rollout in September 2016 means Contractors and Kinesthetic Content coming. Retrieved from http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2016/06/Tablet-in-School-Rollout-September-2016-Kinesthetic-Content.html

Deer, L. (2016, July 19). Why Coding in HTML and CSS3 and speaking Spanish needed in Jamaica. Retrieved from https://lindsworthdeer.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/coding-html-css3-spanish/

Murdoch, K. (2016, August 13).CXC to move to full e-marking and introduces e-testing. http://antiguaobserver.com/cxc-to-move-to-full-e-marking-and-introduces-e-testing/

Gunn, T. (2016, September 8). CAPEStudents to do Animation and Game Design. Retrieved from http://jis.gov.jm/cape-students-animation-game-design/

The Jamaica Observer. (2016, September 11). CAPE offers animation, game design. Retrieved from http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/career/CAPE-offers-animation–game-design_73483

Murdoch, K. (2016, September 20). Minister promises increased bandwidth as CXC e-testing delayed. Retrieved from http://antiguaobserver.com/minister-promises-increased-bandwidth-as-cxc-e-testing-delayed/

Deer, L. (2016, October 2). University of London and King’s College London Research indicates toddlers love touchscreens. Retrieved from https://lindsworthdeer.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/toddlers-love-touchscreens/

The theme of this article aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics. The book asserts that the Caribbean region has been losing the battle of globalization and technology. The consequences of our defeat is the sacrifice of our most precious treasures, our people. The assessment of all 30 Caribbean member-states is that every community has lost human capital to the brain drain. Some communities, like Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have suffered with an abandonment rate of more than 50% and others have had no choice but to stand on the sideline and watch as more than 70% of college-educated citizens flee their homelands for foreign shores.

If there is a Caribbean champion in the field of Animation and Game Design, the expectation would be that he/she would take “his” talents to South Beach … or Southern California or Southern New York or Southern Canada or Southern England, etc. (This relates to the drama of basketball superstar LeBron James relocating from his beloved hometown of Cleveland, Ohio to the Caribbean Diasporic city of Miami, Florida in the Summer of 2010; see the anecdote and application in the Go Lean book Page 42).

Yes, there are both “push and pull” factors as to why these ones leave, but the destination countries, North America and Western Europe, may not be such ideal alternatives. Their middle-class is shrinking; everything has changed…everywhere! These communities are all struggling to sow-reap economic opportunities from ICT, in which size does not matter. Innovation does. Innovation, inspiration, creativity and software development. This can emerge from any corner of the globe: Silicon Valley or a Silicon Beach in the Caribbean. (As of late, China has become a center of activity for this Animation and Game Design industry). All that is needed is the community will; (community ethos). We can compete with them (China, North America, Europe, anyone) by reforming and transforming our Caribbean homeland to employ the community will.

Consideration for the Animation and Game Design industry is not just all about fantasy, there is a sober sense of reality as well; a US$332 Billion industry is sober enough. Video and electronic games – including for smart phones – are very popular among children and adults alike. See Appendix A below for a trailer for the movie “Angry Birds“, which is based on the video game popular among children. Also see Appendix B for a glimpse of a popular game among adults, “Grand Theft Auto“.

The Go Lean book posits that there is a need to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. Considering the foregoing article, there is the opportunity to create jobs in the industry space for Animation and Game Design. We welcome the initiatives of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC).

CXC is familiar to the Go Lean movement. In a previous blog-commentary, the Council’s role in fostering Math and Science competence (STEM) in the English-speaking Caribbean was examined. Now the focus is on fostering education for Animation and Game Design; this is one step further up the STEM/ICT food chain. This is where education and economics (jobs and entrepreneurship) converge.

The book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region. The book posits that ICT can be a great equalizer for the Caribbean to better compete with the rest of the world, relating the experiences of Japan – the #3 global economy – who have competed successfully with great strategies and technocratic execution despite being a small country of only 120+ million people. This modeling of Japan, and other successful communities, aligns with this CU charter; as defined by these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of 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 protect the resultant economic.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Early in the Go Lean book, the responsibility to create jobs was identified as an important function for the CU with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

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, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries 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.

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.

According to the foregoing article, Animation and Game Design is emerging in the Caribbean. The regional educational institutions (schools and testing agencies) have recognized the need to foster development in this industry space.

The Go Lean roadmap goes further. We assert that the 42 million people of the Caribbean region can become better consumers of this industry and promoters too. We need some attendant functions, like banking support (with an electronic payment scheme) and infrastructure governance. In addition to the book, previously Go Lean blog-commentaries detailed benefits, issues and challenges of a comprehensive ICT strategy. See this sample here of previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8823	Lessons from China – WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8817	Lessons from China – Mobile Game Apps: The New Playground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8704	MetroCard – Model for the Caribbean Dollar
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8262	Uber App: UberEverything in Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7806	Skipping School to become Tech Giants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5668	Move over Mastercard/Visa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5435	China Internet Policing – Model for the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4793	Truth in Commerce – Learning from Yelp and India’s Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4381	Net Neutrality: It Matters Here …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416	Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone and Apps
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=486	Temasek firm backs Southeast Asia cab booking app

This CU/Go Lean roadmap posits that the Caribbean must incubate a software development industry – for games and other functionality – thereby forging entrepreneurial incentives and facilitating the infrastructure upgrades so that software innovations – including Animation and Game Design – can thrive.

This means a lot for the community, not just the direct designer-programmer jobs, but the indirect ones as well. The Go Lean book detailed the principle of job multipliers, how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. Industries relating to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics/Medicine) and ICT fields have demonstrated high job-multiplier rates of 3.0 to 4.1 factors (Page 260).

The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the creation of 2.2 million new jobs for the Caribbean region, many embracing ICT skill-sets. How? By adoption of certain community ethos, plus the executions of key strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. The following is a sample from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation – Geniuses tend to be bullied early	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Strategy – Mission – Education Without Further Brain Drain	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – Japanese Model	Page 69
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department – On-the-job Training	Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Trends in Implementing Data Centers	Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact ICT and Social Media	Page 111
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Markets and Unions	Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – STEM Resources	Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Appendix – Growing 2.2 Million Jobs in 5 Years	Page 257
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

So the CU/Go Lean roadmap calls for fostering job-creating developments, incentivizing many high-tech start-ups and incubating viable companies. This plan is to create 2.2 million new jobs; but from where? Previous blog-commentaries detailed options … as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9203	Where the Jobs Are – Employer Models in the United States
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089	Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857	Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Where the Jobs Are – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Ship-breaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

The primary ingredient for this roadmap’s success recipe must be Caribbean people. This means we need to foster and incite participation for our young people into STEM fields “early and often”. A second ingredient will be the support of the community – the “community will” – while not everyone will be a direct participant, everyone will be impacted. We must encourage and spur any future “achiever”. This is a consistent theme in the Go Lean book, that one person can make a difference.

The Caribbean can be the best address on the planet, with solutions for our deficiencies – like jobs. Let’s get started, by leaning-in to the turn-by-turn directions of the Go Lean roadmap.

Yes, we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————–

Appendix A VIDEO – The Angry Birds Movie – Official Theatrical Trailer – https://youtu.be/QRmKa7vvct4

Published on Jan 26, 2016 –

In the 3D animated comedy, The Angry Birds Movie, we’ll finally find out why the birds are so angry.

The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds – or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis, We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad in his first animated role since Frozen), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride, This is the End, Eastbound and Down) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it’s up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

Featuring a hilarious, all-star voice cast that includes Bill Hader (Trainwreck, Inside Out), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Sisters), and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), as well as Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters), Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development), Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Ike Barinholtz (Neighbors, Sisters), Hannibal Buress (Daddy’s Home, Broad City), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), Latin music sensation Romeo Santos, YouTube stars Smosh (Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla), and country music superstar Blake Shelton, who writes and performs the original song “Friends,” the Columbia Pictures/Rovio Entertainment film is directed by Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis and produced by John Cohen and Catherine Winder. The screenplay is by Jon Vitti, and the film is executive produced by Mikael Hed and David Maisel.

——————-

Appendix B VIDEO – Grand Theft Auto V: The Official Launch Trailer – https://youtu.be/hBvMSP7cI-Q

Published on Nov 10, 2014 – Grand Theft Auto V was launched on November 18, 2014 for on PlayStation®4.
A player can transfer from previous Grand Theft Auto Online characters and progression from PlayStation®3 or Xbox 360 to PlayStation®4. See more here: http://www.rockstargames.com/v
Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Nudity, Mature Humor, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol.
©2008-2014 Rockstar Games, Inc. Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto, the GTA Five, and the Rockstar Games R* marks and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. in the U.S.A. and/or foreign countries.

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Bahamas Welcomes the New University

Posted on November 17, 2016 in Economics, Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Dateline Thursday, November 10, 2016 – It’s a BIG moment for the Bahamas; its Charter Day; their College of the Bahamas (COB) has now graduated to the University of the Bahamas (UB). This is a B.H.A.G. (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)! Congratulations! We welcome this new University.

VIDEO – Bahamas Welcomes First University – https://youtu.be/g7sxdmrj1bM

Published on Nov 10, 2016 – Evening Newscast from ZNS Television – Bahamas State-own TV and Radio Network – on Charter Day.

This B.H.A.G. was the plan “all the while”. In 2014 when COB published their 2025 Master Plan, this commentary chimed in. Our conclusion:

The institution was only reaching for the lamp-post. (The commentary preferred that COB “reached for the stars”).

We received feedback-criticism for that assessment. We heard specific responses like:

“Not Accurate! The Go Lean commentary ignored the real world constraints that COB must manage”.

This commentary is a response to that response.

After 2 years of reflection, it is our conclusion that the COB Master Plan 2025 was indeed a “good start”. The previous assessment was that the College-University Master Plan was deficient, that it did not “stretch” far enough to address the Agents of Change (globalization and technology) affecting the Caribbean and the educational needs of this island-nation. But now, after 2 years of “observing and reporting” on the effort to reform and transform failing communities, we have come to appreciate that some changes must be evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary. That 2014 blog was extremely insightful; it accurately described “what” was needed in the arena of tertiary education in the Bahamas (and other Caribbean member-states), but it too was deficient …

… it did not stress the “why”, “how” and “when”. Let’s do that now; this is an update to that previous submission:

Why?

Answering all the questions of “why”, “how” and “when” is reflective of the comprehensiveness of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap assesses that the Caribbean – Bahamas included – is in crisis.

Why a crisis?

There is a dire problem with societal abandonment. Even students are guilty of blame. Many times they leave their Caribbean homeland to matriculate abroad and never return. In general, the region’s abandonment rate among tertiary educated citizens is reported at 70%.

So there needs to be a viable alternative to studying abroad. There needs to be a good local educational institution. This is what was expected in the COB-UB Master Plan in 2014 and what is expected today. As the sole tertiary education institution in the Bahamas, it would be expected that a Master Plan would have better addressed this crisis. As this is bigger than just academics; this addresses all societal engines. The CU/Go Lean roadmap embeds concern for all these engines in its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

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 prime directive relates to universities as well. They can effect change in their community; see Appendix-VIDEO below. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean’s crisis is a “terrible thing to waste”. Therefore the roadmap seeks to change the entire eco-system of Caribbean education. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 13 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

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

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

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

Universities play an important role in cementing the societal fabric of their communities. In a previous blog-commentary, the American experience was detailed; the number one employers in each state were listed. In 16 of the 50 states, the largest employer was an entity within that State’s University System. The following intelligence was gleaned:

The education eco-system is important for more than just enrolled student bodies; whole communities are affected. Just consider the California example … indicative of all the other states where a University System is the largest employer: The University … system, which has campuses in Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, Merced, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and San Francisco, is the largest employer in the state. The university network also includes the UCLA Health System, which consists of 5 medical centers, and three national laboratories.
Jobs come from disruptive systems of commerce – Big-Box retailer Walmart has undermined the business models of the previous delivery solutions for food, clothing and shelter (home goods). They are now the largest employer in 19 states.

So … how and when?

How? – 10 Ways to Improve the University

What should have been featured in a Master Plan/roadmap for effectuating change in the tertiary education landscape for the Bahamas? The following community ethos, strategies, tactics and implementations from the Go Lean book (in the order of appearance in the book) depict how to improve a Caribbean university eco-system for the educational charter:

Ways to Impact the Future – Forward focus, not legacy; Future success is not guaranteed; must be fostered	Page 26
Ways to Foster Genius – Identify them early and foster/protect them through out their development	Page 27
Ways to Impact Research & Development – Size does not matter; commitment does	Page 30
Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities – Invite other universities for Healthcare and specialty Campuses	Page 105
Ways to Improve Education – Manage Brain Drain as an enemy; with a comprehensive Battle Plan	Page 159
Ways to Impact Student Loans – People cannot repay if they are not around; conditionalize all grants	Page 160
Ways to Empower Immigration – Import the skills (teachers and students) we do not have	Page 174
Ways to Impact Public Works – Need cutting edge campuses to attract and retain stakeholders	Page 175
Ways to Improve Libraries – Outreach into neighborhoods; bring the learning to the people	Page 187
Ways to Foster Technology – e-Learning makes for virtual campuses; keep rural people at home	Page 197

How? – 10 Ways the University Can Impact the Community

As conveyed in the Appendix VIDEO below, universities usually have an effect on their communities above-and-beyond academics. There is the concept of the Company town, or in this case University town, in which one or more universities may be the primary economic driver. The US has many such towns, think Gainesville-Florida, Tallahassee-Florida, Athens-Georgia, Lincoln-Nebraska, Ann Arbor-Michigan and others.

How can an education institution in the Caribbean region execute a plan to impact the economic, security and governing engine of its community?

The Go Lean book details these community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster peripheral benefits for all who live, work and play in the Caribbean region. See sample here of peripheral-auxiliary benefits from the Go Lean book (in the order of appearance in the book):

Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Models abound where Incubators started on University Campuses	Page 28
Ways to Promote Intellectual Property – Respect for Other People’s IP must start with the Intellectuals	Page 29
Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide – Campuses should lead this revolution	Page 31
Ways to Impact Social Media – .EDU (Education) websites should dominate traffic	Page 111
Ways to Foster International Aid – Need Visiting Faculty and Exchange Students	Page 115
Ways to Benefit from Globalization – Need foreign students here, not just local students going abroad	Page 187
Ways to Impact Housing – Model of Ann Arbor shows Mixed-Use Developments embedded in “Cityscape”	Page 160
Ways to Improve Communications – Common strategy for Campus “Public” Radio and TV	Page 185
Ways to Promote Fairgrounds – CU built Stadia/arenas; Intercollegiate Sports only missing landlords	Page 194
Ways to Improve Sports – Foster an Intercollegiate Sports eco-system in the region with other colleges	Page 229

How? – Models

Education initiatives are a familiar feature of the Go Lean movement. Consider the many previous blog-commentaries relating lessons-learned (good and bad) and models on education reform from other communities. See the sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8669	Detroit makes Community College free
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7806	Skipping School to become Tech Giants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269	Education & Economics: Welcome Mr. President
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5482	For-Profit Education: Plenty of Profit; Little Education
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4487	FAMU – Finally, A Model for Facilitating Economic Opportunity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2183	Lessons Learned from Textbook Price-gouging
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171	Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers

When?

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This Big Deal for the region leads first with economic empowerments, including education solutions.

Wake up all you teachers
Time to teach a new way
Maybe then they’ll listen
To what you have to say.
Song: Wake Up Everybody; performed by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (1975)
Source: Retrieved November 2, 2016 from: http://www.metrolyrics.com/wake-up-everybody-lyrics-harold-melvin-the-blue-notes.html

This Go Lean book is not the COB/UB Master Plan; the institution must address their own planning, but ultimately the requirements detailed in the book are what the Caribbean are relevant for the region: better education options, better jobs, better entrepreneurial opportunities, better economic growth and better prospects to live, work and play in the Caribbean. The Bahamas in particular, and the Caribbean region as a whole, needs the deliveries of this roadmap from Go Lean … Caribbean.

This roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable. Let’s all lean-in.

Let’s all lean-in now!

Congratulations … and welcome to the new University of the Bahamas. Welcome to the fight!

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———-

Appendix VIDEO – Rodney Smith – Address at the Bahamas Business Outlook – https://vimeo.com/118522660

Rodney Smith – Address at The Bahamas Business Outlook Jan. 29th, 2015 from University of The Bahamas on Vimeo.

Jan. 29th, 2015 – University President Rodney Smith addresses the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce in preview of the new University of the Bahamas.

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[Top]

Where the Jobs Are – Employers in the United States

Posted on September 24, 2016 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are a lot of lessons for the Caribbean to learn from the US regarding jobs. They do better at job creation than we do in our region. They have met their goal!

The goal of creating jobs in the US after the Great Recession led to the genesis of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. See the quotation here at Page 151:

How many jobs does the US economy have to generate to return to the unemployment rate of December 2007 (5.0) when the Great Financial Crisis started, by the end of President Obama’s second term in November 2016. This analysis for the number of jobs is assessed at 261,200 every month between October 2011 and 2016 to get to 16.2 million jobs.

This is the figure for the US. How about the Caribbean? How many jobs do we need to create to competitively present the Caribbean as a viable alternative to the US for our young people? To extrapolate based on the population, yields:

Population

Jobs/month

Jobs/year

Jobs in 5 years

US
310,000,000

261,200

3,134,400

16,194,400

Caribbean
42,000,000

35,388

424,661

2,194,080

They did it; the unemployment rate in the US today is 4.9% – US Department of Labor; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now the Caribbean needs to follow this model to create our needed jobs in our 30 member-states.

So where are the jobs in the US?

As the largest Single Market economy in the world, the US maintains a large number of jobs among the member-states. Who exactly – companies, institutions, etc. – contribute these jobs?

In almost every case in the US, a state’s government is its largest employer. However, government employment is spread across various organizations. In each state, there is one company or public institution that employs the most people. “24/7 Wall Street” reviewed data from a range of sources in order to identify the largest employers in each state. …

As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart has an outsized impact on state labor markets.

Walmart is the only company to claim the top employer spot in more than one state. In fact, the nation’s largest retailer employs the most people in 19 states.

Educational and medical institutions also frequently top a state’s list of employers. The most common largest employer across the 50 states, after Walmart, is the state’s university system. Educational services dominate statewide employment in 16 states. Organizations operating in the healthcare sector are often major employers as well. Several of these are also part of a university system.
Source: http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/03/11/the-largest-employer-in-every-state/

The formula for creating jobs is a diverse array of companies, so as to maintain a stable and healthy labor market. Some companies, however, impact a state’s economy and labor market far more than others, as in Walmart in the foregoing. See the actual list here:

State Company Number of Employees

Alabama Walmart 37,537

Alaska Providence Health & Services 4,000

Arizona Walmart 33,838

Arkansas Walmart 51,680

California University of California 205,177

Colorado University of Colorado 30,000

Connecticut Yale New Haven Health System 20,396

Delaware Christiana Care Health System 11,100

Florida Walmart 104,228

Georgia Walmart 57,276

Hawaii University of Hawaii 10,167

Idaho St. Luke’s Health System 13,557

Illinois Walmart 51,900

Indiana IndianaUniversity Health 29,395

Iowa University of Iowa 22,827

Kansas University of Kansas 13,862

Kentucky Walmart 29,005

Louisiana Walmart 36,763

Maine Hannaford Supermarkets 10,000

Maryland University System of Maryland 38,595

Massachusetts Partners Healthcare 65,000

Michigan University of Michigan 45,397

Minnesota Mayo Clinic 64,033

Mississippi Walmart 24,741

Missouri Walmart 42,312

Montana Walmart 4,508

Nebraska University of Nebraska 13,000

Nevada MGM Grand Las Vegas 55,000

New Hampshire Dartmouth-HitchcockMedicalCenter 9,300

New Jersey Wakefern Food Corporation 36,000

New Mexico University of New Mexico 24,061

New York StateUniversity of New York 89,871

North Carolina University of North Carolina System 74,079

North Dakota Sanford Health 12,292

Ohio Walmart 46,611

Oklahoma Walmart 33,268

Oregon Intel 18,600

Pennsylvania University of PittsburghMedicalCenter 60,000

Rhode Island Lifespan system of hospitals 13,710

South Carolina Walmart 30,828

South Dakota Avera Health 13,000

Tennessee Walmart 40,398

Texas Walmart 166,131

Utah Intermountain Healthcare 20,000+

Vermont The University of VermontMedicalCenter 7,400

Virginia Walmart 42,915

Washington Boeing 77,947

West Virginia Walmart 12,454

Wisconsin University of Wisconsin 40,000+

Wyoming Walmart 4,647

Source: Retrieved 09-23-2016 from: http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/03/11/the-largest-employer-in-every-state/2/

Examining this foregoing chart, allows us to glean certain intelligence:

Jobs come from disruptive systems of commerce – Big-Box retailer Walmart has undermined the business models of the previous delivery solutions for food, clothing and shelter (home goods). They are now the largest employer in 19 states.
The education eco-system is important for more than just enrolled student bodies; whole communities are affected. Just consider the California example here, which is indicative of all the other states where a University System is the largest employer: The University of California system, which has campuses in Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, Merced, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and San Francisco, is the largest employer in the state. The university network also includes the UCLA Health System, which consists of five medical centers, and three national laboratories.

See the detailed depictions of these two business models in the related VIDEO here:

VIDEO – The Largest Employers In Top 10 Most Populous States – https://youtu.be/fcVHwjnmqCc

Published on Jan 11, 2016 – http://247wallst.com/

The foregoing analysis on this chart is very revealing for the Caribbean. We need to move to where the world is moving, not where the world is coming from. This analysis synchronizes with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which asserts that there are 4 ‘Agents of Change’ (Technology, Globalization, Aging Diaspora, Climate Change) that is forging great change in society.

Walmart is a product of a successful optimization of globalization – manufacturing many products aboard but featuring just-in-time delivery to the retail shelves.
The Universities and their medical school/service deliveries prove the merits of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math/Medicine) focus and the reality of a aging-always-in-need-of medical-services marketplace.

The Go Lean book calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics, asserting that the Caribbean region has been losing the battle of globalization and technology. The consequence of our defeat is the sacrifice of our most precious treasures, our people, especially our youth. The assessment of all 30 Caribbean member-states is that every community has lost human capital to emigration. Some communities, suffering an abandonment rate of more than 50% of the general population, while others watched as more than 70% of college-educated citizens flee their homelands for foreign shores, including these US jobs – many Caribbean Diaspora work for Walmart.

The Go Lean book doesn’t just report the problem; it also proposes solutions. The book stresses that the world now boast a New Economy, and that we must re-focus, re-boot, and optimize the engines of commerce – fix the broken eco-systems – so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. We need the jobs of this New Economy; the book presents a plan to create the 2.2 million stated above. How?

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region. The book posits that ICT (Internet & Communications Technology) can be a great catalyst for job-creation. This would refer to the education of ICT and the delivery of ICT. This job-creation focus is among these 3 prime directives of CU/Go Lean:

Optimization of 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 protect the resultant economic.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Early in the Go Lean book, the responsibility to create jobs was identified as an important function for the CU with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

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, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries 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.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean details the creation of 2.2 million new jobs for the Caribbean region, many embracing the ICT/STEM skill-sets. The book also describes what the Caribbean region have to do in order to have a change for these jobs. It details the new community ethos that need to be adopted, plus the executions of key strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. The following list is depicted in the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Strategy – Mission – Education Without Further Brain Drain	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Patents & Copyrights	Page 78
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact ICT and Social Media	Page 111
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing	Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Food Consumption	Page 162
Advocacy – Ways to Better Provide Clothing	Page 163
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Markets and Unions	Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Battle Poverty – Third World Realities	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Help the Middle Class	Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Usual Candidates for Fast-Food Jobs	Page 227
Appendix – Growing 2.2 Million Jobs in 5 Years	Page 257
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259
Appendix – Nuyorican Movement	Page 303

Previous blog/commentaries detailed exactly where the jobs are for this New Economy. Consider these submissions here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8929	Where the Jobs Are – A reflection on Labor on Labor Day
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8328	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: YouTube Millionaires
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8262	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Uber Model from Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089	Where the Jobs Are – The futility of Minimum Wage
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857	Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Where the Jobs Are – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Shipbreaking
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly

The Caribbean can be the best address on the planet, if only we had jobs …

… yet, we can create more.

We have successful models of other societies – like the US in the foregoing. But there are other examples too, think South Korea, Iceland, India, and China. All of these countries business models have also been detailed by the Go Lean movement.

Now is the time … everyone is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, so that we can start to create the new jobs our region badly needs. This is not easy; in fact the Go Lean book describes it as heavy-lifting. But it also describes that it is conceivable, believable and achievable.

Yes, we can … also … make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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GraceKennedy: Profile of a Caribbean Transnational Corporation

Posted on September 7, 2016 in Economics, Industries, Locations

Go Lean Commentary

The accusation is that the Caribbean – as a region, a people, and a culture – features a parasite status rather than the preferred protégé status. This would mean we only glean the economic activity left over from the other “host” countries; we would also consume the offerings and trends of these more advanced economy countries, rather than dictate our own trends.

This accusation … is mostly true!

But alas, there is a spark of hope in our Caribbean region. There are a number of corporate entities that do dictate trends in the region and throughout the world. The book Go Lean…Caribbean addressed this trend and identified one such company, Jamaica-based ATL Group, the owners of Sandals/Beaches Resorts, an Office Equipment business, Honda automobile dealerships and the media company behind The Jamaica Observer newspaper. But now, we consider another one, this time we focus on the transnational corporation, GraceKennedy Group of Companies who operate in the food and financial sectors.

But first, we must consider the definition of transnationalism:

Transnationalism as an economic process involves the global reorganization of the production process, in which various stages of the production of any product can occur in various countries, typically with the aim of minimizing costs. Economic transnationalism, commonly known as Globalization, was spurred in the latter half of the 20th century by the development of the internet and wireless communication, as well as the reduction in global transportation costs caused by containerization. Multinational corporations could be seen as a form of transnationalism, in that they seek to minimize costs, and hence maximize profits, by organizing their operations in the most efficient means possible irrespective of political boundaries.

A multinational corporation is an organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in one or more countries other than their home country.^[2]

What Drives Transnationalism?
Some argue that the main driver of transnationalism has been the development of technologies that have made transportation and communication more accessible and affordable, thus dramatically changing the relationship between people and places. It is now possible for immigrants to maintain closer and more frequent contact with their home societies than ever before. However, the integration of international migrations to the demographic future of many developed countries is another important driver for transnationalism. Beyond simply filling a demand for low-wage workers, migration also fills the demographic gaps created by declining natural populations in most industrialized countries. Today, migration accounts for 3/5 of population growth on western countries as a whole. And this trend shows no sign of slowing down. Moreover, global political transformations and new international legal regimes have weakened the state as the only legitimate source of rights. Decolonization, coupled with the fall of communism and the ascendance of human rights, have forced states to take account of persons qua persons, rather than persons qua citizens.

Immigrant Transnational Activities – When immigrants engage in transnational activities, they create “social fields” that link their original country with their new country or countries of residence. These social fields are the product of a series of interconnected and overlapping economic, political, and socio-cultural activities. As for economic transnational activities, these include business investments in home countries and monetary remittances from source countries. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) estimates that in 2006 immigrants living in developed countries sent home the equivalent of $300 billion in remittances, an amount more than double the level of international aid. This intense influx of resources may mean that for some nations development prospects become inextricably linked- if not dependent upon – the economic activities of their respective Diasporas.
Source: Retrieved September 5, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism

The GraceKennedy Group of Companies, started in 1922, is based in Kingston, Jamaica, but they are one of the Caribbean “largest and most dynamic corporate entities” in the region. Though they are based in Jamaica, they generate a lot of their global revenue – from food services and financial services – from the rest of the globe. They depend on globalization – economic transnationalism – in order to be an ongoing concern. Their marketing slogan is “Jamaican born; global bound”. They own 60 subsidiaries – see partial list in the Appendix below – and affiliated companies across the Caribbean, Africa, UK, North and Central America; they are a model of a transnational corporation. See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – GraceKennedy at 90 – https://youtu.be/okDBEAdC6LY

Jamaica Gleaner

Published on Feb 10, 2012 – Jamaican conglomerate Grace Kennedy is celebrating 90 years of existence. The Gleaner recently toured its Harbour Street corporate office and learnt what drives the company’s success.

The history of this company traces a parallel arch of change in the Caribbean region for the 20th Century:

Regional Change Dynamics	Year	Company Dynamic Changes
European Colonialism	1922	Company formed to facilitate importation / local distribution
Decolonization	1952	Nation-building rather than mother-country dependence
Emigration from Homeland / Diaspora	1959	Export Caribbean home products to the world
Embrace of regionalism	1962	Incorporating in other Caribbean member-states
Shift to Service Economy	1990	Financial Services focus on Remittance

GraceKennedy has expanded and diversified over the years,^[2] changing from a privately owned enterprise to a public company listed on the stock exchanges of Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

The company does not only appeal to the Jamaican community (domestic or Diaspora) or not only to the Anglo-speaking Caribbean; they also strategize for the Hispanic communities. In that vein, as reported in the foregoing VIDEO, in 2014 GraceKennedy acquired La Fe Foods Inc., a top Hispanic consumer foods company – especially dominant in the frozen food category – in the US.

This transnational corporation aligns with the vision for societal elevation in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. These two visions actually parallel:

GraceKennedy – To be a Global Consumer Group delivering long term consumer and shareholder value, through brand building and innovative solutions in food and financial services, provided by highly skilled and motivated people.
Go Lean – To integrate and unify the Caribbean region into a Single Market Economy, enabling the homeland to be the best address on the planet, inviting our young people to participate in the effort to make our home the best place to live, work and play in the future. – Page 45.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is a call for confederating, collaborating and convening the 30 member-states of the region – despite the language or colonial legacy – into a Single Market; and for one federal governmental entity to optimize the economic, security and governing endeavors. This would also mean optimization of the food supply and financial services landscape. The Go Lean/CU roadmap creates the atmosphere for many more transnational corporations – homegrown and foreign – to emerge and thrive. This is part-and-parcel of the prime directives (3) of the CU/Go Lean roadmap:

Optimization of the economic engines – facilitating the growth in corporate citizens – 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.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic engines, reflecting a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and member-state governments.

The CU seeks to facilitate better mastery of the advanced fields of economics by incentivizing, incubating and fostering entrepreneurial efforts, small-to-medium-businesses (SMB) and large multi-national corporations. This is how to create new jobs; jobs are not created by governments, but yet, the governmental administrations can implement the right climate to spur industrial and corporate growth. The job-creation solutions for the Caribbean, are not so much dependent on a specific government, but rather good corporate guidance.

A goal of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to attract more transnational corporations, to establish a footprint in the Caribbean. How? Why? Why will they come to the Caribbean under the Go Lean/CU regime when they will not come now under the status quo? One answer is the structure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). SGE refers to dedicated, bordered grounds that are ideal for corporate campuses, research laboratories, industrial bases (like shipyards, factory plants). The SGE structure will require a hybrid governance involving the CU federal agencies and local administrators influence– at the start-up.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that SGE’s and the EEZ can be strategic, tactical and operationally efficient for elevating Caribbean society – creating jobs. These points are pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 thru 14), with these statements:

v. Whereas the natural formation of our landmass and coastlines entail a large portion of waterscapes, the reality of management of our interior calls for extended oversight of the waterways between the islands. The internationally accepted 12-mile limits for national borders must be extended by International Tribunals to encompass the areas in between islands. The individual states must maintain their 12-mile borders while the sovereignty of this expanded area, the Exclusive Economic Zone, must be vested in the accedence of this Federation.

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.

xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

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, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

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.

Though there is a need for more jobs, there is a legitimate fear to inviting more corporations. There are real-life experiences and stories of abuse in mono-industrial communities – Company Towns. Abuse by the “super-rich” is implied in the old adage: “golden rule is he who has the gold makes the rule”. But the Go Lean roadmap is designed to mitigate abuses of plutocracies. This is the advantage of the SGE structure; it allows for better promotion, oversight, and governance for transnational corporate expressions. These SGE’s would be regulated solely by the technocratic CU; there would be features like advanced monitoring (intelligence gathering) and embedded protections for whistleblowers.

The Go Lean roadmap identifies 40,000 new direct jobs tied to SGE’s; plus more tied to industrial activities directly related to the business activities that aligns with GraceKennedy business model, such as 30,000 new direct jobs in the food supply industries and 2,000 direct jobs in the frozen foods industry. These job-creation empowerments will impact every aspect of Caribbean life throughout the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster industrial developments and SGE’s. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 32
Strategy – Vision – Confederate to form a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Exploit the benefits and opportunities of globalization	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Agriculture	Page 88
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government	Page 93
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Benefits from the EEZ	Page 104
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Advocacy – 10 Big Ideas – Single Market Leverage	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Food Consumption – Export: Help Find Foreign Markets	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives – Common for Agricultural Structures	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – Optimization of Pastoral Lands	Page 183
Anecdote # 18 – Caribbean Industrialist: Sandals’ Butch Stewart	Page 189
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations	Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Expansion of local Securities markets	Page 200
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Frozen Foods Industry	Page 208
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Fisheries – Canaries & Refrigerated Warehouse Cooperatives	Page 210
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – SGE Strategic Locations	Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Jamaica	Page 239

This commentary asserts that industrial development is hard-work. It is difficult now to get Direct Foreign Investors to consider individual Caribbean member-states, but with this new approach of a regional Single Market, a leveraged Caribbean – 42 million people – can be more attractive, appealing and inviting. Despite the appeal, executing this Go Lean/CU roadmap will still be hard; the book describes the effort as heavy-lifting.

Many of these heavy-lifting issues have been previously identified and detailed in prior Go Lean blog-commentaries. See this sample list:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8379	The Need for Technocratic Regulation of the SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5921	Socio-Economic Change: Impact Analysis of SGE’s
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4037	How to Train Your ‘Dragon’ – Direct Foreign Investors
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3473	Haiti’s Example of Success with an SGE: CaracolIndustrial Park
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World – Role Model for Self-Governing Entities

This Go Lean movement, fostering a new Caribbean business climate, hereby applauds the corporate stakeholders at the GraceKennedy Group of Companies. We invite them to partner with us to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. But there is the need for a cautionary warning to them: the change that is coming has “plus & minus” ramifications for their business model.

There are aspects of the Go Lean roadmap that will not be good for some of GraceKennedy’s business model, remittances in particular. (While a GraceKennedy subsidiary is the regional partner representing Western Union in the Caribbean, the Go Lean book – Page 270 – introduces new electronic payment schemes that will lessen the need to pay for money transfers). It is clearly apparent in the Go Lean book, that change is not always good; sometimes it brings unintentional consequences. So if we know change is happening, it is best to get ahead of it. This point was stated poignantly at Page 252:

Opportunities abound; even if there is only little commerce to exploit now, there is opportunity enough in the preparation for the coming change. So act now! Get moving to that place, the “corner” of preparation and opportunity.

With the execution of this Go Lean roadmap, the Caribbean region sends a message to the business world: Change is afoot. There will be new partnerships and collaborations for corporate stakeholders. A message is sent to the Caribbean people as well: there are solutions to these complex problems befalling our society. Whereas the Caribbean may have been a parasite before, now we can function in the role of a protégé.

Like all parasites, their healthy disposition depends on a healthy disposition of the hosts. The Caribbean has been in crisis; therefore the parasitic people have fled – the Caribbean’s “brain drain” and Diaspora has grown as a result – not good. The successful execution of this roadmap will affect this disposition as well. We will and must do better! Optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region will lower the abandonment rate. This will also constitute change – good change – for the region.

The Caribbean homeland will then be a better place to compete globally and present more favorable options for our youth to stay home in the region.

Now is the time for all Caribbean stakeholders – corporate citizens included – to lean-in for the optimizations and empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

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

—————–

Appendix – List of Subsidiaries: GraceKennedy Group of Companies

Banking and Financial services
- First Global Bank Limited
- First Global Financial Services Limited
- FG Funds Management (Cayman) Limited
- First Global Trinidad & Tobago Limited (formerly One1 Financial Limited)
- Signia Financial Group Incorporated

Remittances
- GraceKennedy Remittance Services Limited
- GraceKennedy Remittance Services (United States) Incorporated
- GraceKennedy Remittance Services (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited
- GraceKennedy Remittance Services (Guyana) Limited

Insurance Life and General
- Allied Insurance Brokers Limited
- EC Global Insurance Company Limited
- First Global Insurance Brokers Limited
- Jamaica International Insurance Company Limited
- Trident Insurance Company Limited

Manufacturing, retail and distribution
- Dairy Industries (Jamaica) Limited
- Grace Foods and Services Company
- GraceKennedy (Belize) Limited
- Grace Food Processors Limited
- Grace Food Processors (Canning) Limited
- GraceKennedy (United States) Incorporated
- Grace Foods International Limited
- National Processors Division
- World Brands Services Limited
- Hi-Lo Food Stores (Jamaica) Limited
- GK Foods (United Kingdom) Limited
- GraceKennedy (Ontario) Incorporated
- Hardware & Lumber Limited

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Jamaica, Jobs, Model, SGE

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ENCORE: For-Profit Education – ‘Another one bites the dust’

Posted on September 6, 2016 in Economics, Industries

The ‘Evil Empire‘ – For-Profit Educational firms and institutions – is finally facing resistance from governmental authorities. Companies in this industry have come under fire for their bad practices and abuse of their customers: young students.

… and now, today, ITT Educational Services, one of the largest operators of for-profit technical schools, ended operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes. See a summary of the story here:

Title: ITT Technical Institutes shuts down after 50 years in operation
ITT Educational Services … ended operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes on Tuesday, citing government action to curtail the company’s access to millions of dollars in federal loans and grants, a critical source of revenue.

The move to shut down the chain of career schools after 50 years arrives two weeks after the Education Department said ITT would no longer be allowed to enroll new students who rely on federal loans and grants, award raises, pay bonuses or make severance payments to its executives without government approval. The department’s unprecedented move sent shares of the publicly traded company tumbling to an all-time low and raised questions about the future of the company.
…
See the full article here at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/09/06/itt-technical-institutes-shut-down-after-50-years-in-operations/ posted & retrieved September 6, 2016.

Previously, on June 8, 2015, this commentary detailed the similar case against Corinthian Colleges; see an ENCORE of that commentary here:

——————————-

Go Lean Commentary

Follow the money…

This is a familiar plot-line in Hollywood Police dramas. Its “life imitating art” because this is the same eventuality for the American For-Profit education industry. There is a lot of money available in the US for post-secondary education of American students. Federal Student Loans are available to any American citizen regardless of credit or income. This constitutes a fertile ground for abuse.

According to the following news article, this one education company Corinthian College – see Appendix A below – is a bad example of For-Profit schools making a lot of profit but providing very little education to its customers: students.

“Scratch a liar, catch a thief”.

The article is presented here:

1. Title: My college degree is worthless

Sub-title: Students across the country are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for degrees that end up being completely worthless.

Rosalyn Harris, an unemployed single mother who had never gone to college, thought getting a degree would be the ticket to a new life. So at age 23, she enrolled in a two-year criminal justice program at for-profit Everest College in Chesapeake, Va.

But the wealth of job opportunities the school had touted never transpired, and all she ended up with was more than $22,000 in student loan debt. She said classes were terrible, she didn’t receive any of the training she needed, and as a result, she spent months after graduation searching for criminal justice jobs without ever getting a call back.

Desperate to start paying some of her bills, Harris eventually applied for any entry-level job she could find. A full year after she graduated, she finally found a minimum wage job stocking shelves at Victoria’s Secret.

“My sole purpose of going to school was bettering my life for me and my son,” she said. “But now I wish I had never gone.”

Everest is a member of for-profit behemoth Corinthian Colleges, which has been accused by federal agencies of operating a predatory lending scheme, preying on low-income students and falsely inflating job placement numbers. Corinthian is currently closing and selling its schools, leaving thousands of graduates on the hook for loans they took out.

A Corinthian spokesman confirmed that Harris graduated in good standing, but it was unable to place her in a job. He said the school did provide her with career assistance and claims the criminal justice program has a 75% job placement rate, which he said is “a strong outcome for any educational program.”

He also disputed the allegations against the school, noting that Corinthian’s student loan default rate (of up to 27% for its EverestCollege campuses) is lower than other community colleges and its graduation and job placement rates are higher.

And while Corinthian has a particularly bad reputation, the for-profit college industry as a whole is often criticized for luring low-income students with false promises and failing to provide educations that qualify students for jobs.

Not only that but for-profit schools are generally double or triple the cost of public institutions like community colleges, and the default rate (19% last year) was the highest of all sectors.

Vantrell Echols, a 36-year-old from Georgia, wishes he never received a phone call from for-profit Lincoln College of Technology back in 2008. He said the school spent six months convincing him to enroll — promising to provide all the training and help he needed to find a high-paying computer science job. He had been unemployed for more than a year and he was desperate, so he gave it a shot.

But upon enrolling in the computer science program, he said the quality of education “was a complete joke” and job assistance was nonexistent.

“They sold many of us dreams about helping us, getting us qualified to work, to help us with jobs, [but] I had to ask fellow students to help me because the teachers wouldn’t. Many of us graduated with honors but didn’t learn anything in our fields,” he said.

Lincoln Educational Services president Scott Shaw defended the school’s reputation to CNNMoney, touting its 75% job placement rate and pointing to examples of successful graduates like the CEO of VMWare (who graduated in 1979).

But Echols said that after accumulating more than $20,000 in debt to attend the one-year program, he wasn’t able to find a single job in computer science. He’s still unemployed, is now homeless — and he is convinced he’d be better off without the degree even listed on his resume.

He says multiple employers have told him that they don’t view his degree as credible because of the for-profit industry’s reputation and because other people they’ve hired from the school haven’t had the necessary skills for the job.

“They’ve ruined my life and the lives of many of my classmates,” he said.

Shaw said extensive career assistance was provided to Echols and that he isn’t sure why Echols couldn’t find a job. “There’s only so much we can do — at some point the student has to partake,” he said.

But these kinds of stories are popping up so often that even the Obama Administration took action this week. Going forward, for-profit colleges will risk losing federal student aid if average loan payments of graduates exceed 20% of discretionary income or 8% of total earnings.

“Too many hard-working students find themselves buried in debt with little to show for it,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement.

Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Harkin of Iowa are pushing for legislation that goes a step further. They argue that a loophole in federal laws allow some institutions to offer programs that aren’t licensed or accredited at the state or federal level. That means graduates end up with degrees that may sound legitimate but are meaningless to many employers.

The two senators introduced legislation last month aimed at cracking down on these “worthless degrees.” The legislation would require courses to be licensed before allowing schools to accept federal money like student loan dollars or financial aid.

“Passing this bill will ensure that a college can no longer charge thousands of dollars for a degree that does not prepare them to work in the field they were promised‎,” according to a statement about the bill.

Related: U.S. sues Corinthian Colleges
2. Title: Embattled for-profit education behemoth Corinthian Colleges is facing yet another legal fight: This time, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The consumer agency announced Tuesday it is suing Corinthian for “illegal predatory lending” and is demanding that the school forgive more than $500 million in private loans it has given to students since July of 2011.

According to the CFPB’s complaint, Corinthian convinced students to enroll in the school by inflating its job placement rates. It even paid employers to hire graduates for at least one day in order to boost its numbers.

Meanwhile, Corinthian’s tuition and fees — which can climb to as high as $75,000 for a bachelor’s degree — are higher than what federal loans generally cover, forcing many students to take out private loans from the school. These loans, called “Genesis loans,” came with origination fees of 6% and interest rates of around 15% as of 2011 — much higher than the 3% and 7% charged on federal loans.
…
CNNMoney (New York); posted September 16, 2014 from: http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/16/pf/college/cfpb-corinthian-lawsuit/index.html?iid=EL

The references to “low-income students” in the foregoing article are most commonly the “Black and Brown” of the American population. This is a frequent demographic for victimization in American life.

This issue in the article is just another example of Crony-Capitalism and institutional racism. The book Go Lean…Caribbean and subsequent blogs posit that the Caribbean must not be vulnerable to these negative American forces.

The dread of Crony-Capitalism and institutional racism have been highlighted and detailed in many previous blog commentaries; see the many Crony-Capitalism models in Appendix B below. Now we have to add the reality of Big Education to the discussion. The issue underpinning this dilemma is the easy availability of guaranteed student loans from the US federal government. Unfortunately this is not just an issue for For-Profit institutions, many not-for-profit colleges and university also exploit the federal student loan funds to garner revenues at the expense of innocent students. The Crony in this case is a direct consequence of a rich pool of federal monies.

Rich pool? This brings to mind the visual of an isolated pool/pond on the African Plain, a watering hole on the Serengeti where many animals seek hydration and refuge, but the terrain is endangered with predators: lions, crocodiles, hyenas, cheetahs, etc.. Yes, in the American commercial eco-system, “follow the money”, and you will find many “bad actors” looking to exploit the situation for unfair gain and quick profits.

VIDEO – Is the cost of college crippling? – http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/09/03/n-cost-of-college-rising-education-middle-class-jobs.cnnmoney/

The Caribbean must do better! We must also dissuade our citizens from emigrating to this American eco-system.

The consideration of Crony-Capitalism in the For-Profit Education industry aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, a roadmap to elevate the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean. The Caribbean wants to model many of the good examples of the United States, and learn from the many bad models. Education is one such model. While optimization of education can systemically raise a country’s economy, the Caribbean experience has been more negative than positive. Too many of our students have left … to study abroad; then refused to return home, taking with them the return on community investments and repayment of their student loans. The Go Lean book has reported in detail on how traditional college career paths have been disastrous policies for the Caribbean in whole, and each specific country in particular.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU has a complete education agenda, applying lessons learned from the consideration of the American models. This roadmap represents a big change for the region. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs..
Establishment of a security apparatus to police “bad actors” and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance, including a separation-of-powers, to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the Caribbean tertiary education systems, economy, governance and Caribbean society as a whole. There is a plan for a regional student loan pool, where we mitigate the dangers that are so evident in the American eco-system. Our primary threat now is the constant abandonment rate among the college-educated populations. So as a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the dread of societal threats and the Caribbean brain drain (Page 12):

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 …

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… This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

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

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Apply Lessons of American Lax Oversight	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Training & Mentoring	Page 28
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department	Page 85
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department – On-the-Job-Training Regulator	Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Better Manage Debt – Lessons of American Student Loan Crisis	Page 114
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Essential Role of Tertiary Education	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs – Vital Need for Better STEM* Education Empowerments*	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Mitigating the Brain Drain	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Student Loans – Regional Pools for Cross-Border Enforcements	Page 160
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 169
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth	Page 258
Appendix – Measuring Education Progress and Success Criteria	Page 266
Appendix – New American Student Loan Debt Crisis – Now Over $1 Trillion in Debt	Page 286

The American Tertiary Education Student Loan eco-system is badly broken; (tuition has increased 500% since 1985). The large pools of money has attracted “bad actors” or predators. The party in the foregoing news article – Corinthian Colleges – has been charged and adjudicated with predatory lending violations. Their victims: poor students who would have to repay these non-dischargeable federally-insured student loans. How sad? All of that time, talent and treasury and nothing to show for it. No wonder the economic effects of this affected population are now showing in other aspects of the economy, such as retarded home-buying output among the younger generations.

The Caribbean is urged to do better.

The people, educational and governing institutions in the region are urged to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. Education reform can suceed in elevating Caribbean society; we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

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

———-

Appendix A – Corinthian Colleges, Inc.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_Colleges)

Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (CCi) was a large for-profit post-secondary education company in North America. Its subsidiaries offered career-oriented diploma and degree programs in health care, business, criminal justice, transportation technology and maintenance, construction trades, and information technology.^[1]

At its largest, CCi had over 100 Everest, Heald and WyoTech campuses throughout the United States and Canada.^[2]

Corinthian’s campuses in Canada closed on February 19, 2015 after the Ontario government suspended their operation license. After a series of legal challenges by state and federal agencies, on April 26, 2015 Corinthian Colleges announced that they would cease operations at all remaining US locations effective April 27, 2015. The closure affected more than 16,000 students and employees.

Corinthian Colleges was founded in February 1995.^[3] The five founders — David Moore, Paul St. Pierre, Frank McCord, Dennis Devereux, and Lloyd Holland — were executives at National Education Centers, Inc. (NECI), a for-profit operator of vocational schools based in Irvine, California. The founders planned to acquire schools that were fundamentally sound, but which for one reason or another were performing below their potential.^[4]

Historically, CCi grew rapidly through acquisitions and through organic growth, including opening new branch campuses, remodeling, expanding or relocating existing campuses, and adopting curricula into existing colleges.^[3]

Acquired Schools
The following institutes and colleges were acquired [through the years]:^[5]

American Motorcycle Institute
AshmeadCollege
Blair College
Bryman College
Bryman Institute
Duff’s Business Institute
Florida Metropolitan University
Georgia Medical Institute
Kee Business College
Las Vegas College
National Institute of Technology
National School of Technology
Olympia Career Training Institute
Olympia College
Parks College
Rochester Business Institute
Tampa College
Western Business College

Corinthian Colleges faced numerous investigations and lawsuits, including a federal criminal investigation.^[6]

Financial Aid Financing
The Higher Education Act provides that a private, for-profit institution, such as CCi’s institutions, may derive no more than 90% of its revenue from the Title IV federal student aid programs.^[39] In 2010, CCi reported that it received 81.9% of revenue from Title IV federal student aid programs. ^[40] Corinthian Colleges (CCI) acquired QuickStart Intelligence in summer 2012, an Irvine, California-based, privately held technology training company. As a B2B revenue stream; CCI acquired QuickStart Intelligence to leverage the 10%, non-government funding essential to back the additional student loans for CCi’s core adult learning programs.

Student Loan Default Rate
A significant requirement imposed by Congress is a limitation on participation in Title IV programs by institutions whose former students default on the repayment of federal student loans in excess of specified rates (“Cohort Default Rates”).^[41] On March 25, 2013, CCi received a draft three-year Cohort Default Rates from the U.S. Department of Education for students who entered repayment during the federal fiscal year ending September 30, 2010 (the “2010 Cohort”), measured over three federal fiscal years of borrower repayment. The weighted average of CCi’s institutions was 19.0%, a 9.0 percentage point decrease from the 28.0% weighted average for the three-year cohort default rate for students who entered repayment during the prior fiscal year.^[42] For the 2010 Cohort, none of CCi’s institutions exceeded the default threshold set by the U.S. Department of Education.^[42]

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Appendix B – Models of American Crony-Capitalism

Big Defense	Many theorists indicate that the “follow the money” approach reveals the Military Industrial Complex work to undermine peace, so as to increase defense spending for military equipment, systems and weapons.
Big Media	Cable companies conspire to keep rates high; kill net neutrality; textbook publishers practice price gouging; Hollywood insists on big tax breaks/ subsidies for on-location shooting.
Big Oil	While lobbying for continuous tax subsidies, the industry have colluded to artificially keep prices high and garner rocket profits ($38+ Billion every quarter).
Big Box	Retail chains impoverish small merchants on Main Street with Antitrust-like tactics, thusly impacting community jobs. e-Commerce, an area of many future prospects, is the best hope of countering these bad business tactics.
Big Pharma	Chemo-therapy cost $20,000+/month; and the War against Cancer is imperiled due to industry profit insistence.
Big Tobacco	Cigarettes are not natural tobacco but rather latent with chemicals to spruce addiction.
Big Agra	Agribusiness concerns bully family farmers and crowd out the market; plus fight common sense food labeling efforts.
Big Data	Brokers for internet and demographic data clearly have no regards to privacy concerns.
Big Banks	Wall Street’s damage to housing and student loans are incontrovertible.
Big Weather	Overblown hype of “Weather Forecasts” to dictate commercial transactions.
Big Real Estate	Preserving MLS for Real Estate brokers only, forcing 6% commission rates, when the buyers and sellers can meet without them.
Big Salt	Despite the corrosiveness of salt on roads and the environment, it is the only tactic used to de-ice roads. Immediately after the weather warms, the roads must be re-constructed, thus ensuring a continuous economic cycle.
Big Energy	The For-Profit utility companies always lobby against regulations to “clean-up” fossil-fuel (coal) power plants or block small “Green” start-ups from sending excess power to the National Grid. Their motive is to preserve their century-long monopoly and their profits.
Big Legal	Even though it is evident that the promotion of Intellectual Property can help grow economies, the emergence of Patent Trolling parties (mostly lawyers) is squashing innovation. These ones are not focused on future innovations, rather just litigation. They go out and buy patents, then look for anyone that may consume any concepts close to those patents, then sue for settlements, quick gains.
Big Cruise	Cruise ships are the last bastion of segregation with descriptors like “modern-day-slavery” and “sweat-ships”. Working conditions are poor and wages are far below anyone’s standards of minimum. Many ship-domestic staff are “tip earners”, paid only about US$50 a month and expected to survive on the generosity of the passengers’ gratuity. The industry staff with personnel from Third World countries, exploiting those with desperate demands. Nowhere else in the modern world is this kind of job discrimination encouraged, accepted or tolerated.
Big Jails	The private prison industry seem motivated more by profit than by public safety. They attempt to sue state governments when their occupancy levels go too low; a reduction in crime is bad for business.
Big Housing	The American legacy is one of the institutional segregation in American cities. The practice was administered by real estate agents and housing officials executing policies to elevate property values and generational wealth for White families at the expense of a life of squalor for Non-Whites.
Big Charities	Big Not-For-Profit organizations that fleece the public under the guise of charities but retain vast majorities of the funding as administrative costs, thusly benefiting mostly the charities’ executives and staff rather than the intended benefactors.

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College, Crony-Capitalism, Debt, Power, Transform

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Zika’s Drug Breakthrough

Posted on September 5, 2016 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

As related previously, the Zika virus is proving to be a real “4-Letter” word. Many repercussions have emerged in all aspects of societal life: economics, security and governance. The virus first activated in Brazil, then in the Caribbean. Now, there are reported incidences in Florida.

Bienvenido a Miami!

Now the best practice for Public Health officials is to dissuade pregnant women – and all hoping to someday get pregnant – from traveling to Latin America and the Caribbean…

… and now Miami and other Florida destinations.

Considering the economic consequences (tourism), is there any surprise that there is a breakthrough in drug treatment for Zika, and what’s more that this breakthrough is emerging from Florida. This aligns with a previous commentary, that only at the precipice …

Consider this article here of the medical breakthrough:

Title: FSU research team makes Zika drug breakthrough
By: Kathleen Haughney

A team of researchers from Florida State University, Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health has found existing drug compounds that can both stop Zika from replicating in the body and from damaging the crucial fetal brain cells that lead to birth defects in newborns.

One of the drugs is already on the market as a treatment for tapeworm.

“We focused on compounds that have the shortest path to clinical use,” said FSU Professor of Biological Science Hengli Tang. “This is a first step toward a therapeutic that can stop transmission of this disease.”

Tang, along with Johns Hopkins Professors Guo-Li Ming and Hongjun Song and National Institutes of Health scientist Wei Zheng identified two different groups of compounds that could potentially be used to treat Zika — one that stops the virus from replicating and the other that stops the virus from killing fetal brain cells, also called neuroprogenitor cells.

One of the identified compounds is the basis for a drug called Nicolsamide, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drug that showed no danger to pregnant women in animal studies. It is commonly used to treat tapeworm.

This could theoretically be prescribed by a doctor today, though tests are still needed to determine a specific treatment regimen for the infection.

Their work is outlined in an article published Monday by Nature Medicine.

Though the Zika virus was discovered in 1947, there was little known about how it worked and its potential health implications — especially among pregnant women — until an outbreak occurred in South America last year. In the United States, there have been 584 cases of pregnant women contracting Zika, though most of those are travel related. As of Friday, there have been 42 locally transmitted cases in Florida.

The virus, among other diseases, can cause microcephaly in fetuses leading them to be born with severe birth defects.

“It’s so dramatic and irreversible,” Tang said. “The probability of Zika-induced microcephaly occurring doesn’t appear to be that high, but when it does, the damage is horrible.”

Researchers around the world have been feverishly working to better understand the disease — which can be transmitted both by mosquito bite and through a sexual partner — and also to develop medical treatments.

Tang, Ming and Song first met in graduate school 20 years ago and got in contact in January because Tang, a virologist, had access to the virus and Ming and Song, neurologists, had cortical stem cells that scientists needed for testing.

The group worked at a breakneck pace with researchers from Ming and Song’s lab, traveling back and forth between Baltimore and Tang’s lab in Tallahassee where they had infected the cells with the virus.

In early March, the group was the first team to show that Zika indeed caused cellular phenotypes consistent with microcephaly, a severe birth defect where babies are born with a much smaller head and brain than normal.

They immediately delved into follow-up work and teamed with NIH’s Zheng, an expert on drug compounds, to find potential treatments for the disease.

Researchers screened 6,000 compounds that were either already approved by the FDA or were in the process of a clinical trial because they could be made more quickly available to people infected by Zika.

“It takes years if not decades to develop a new drug,” Song said. “In this sort of global health emergency, we don’t have time. So instead of using new drugs, we chose to screen existing drugs. In this way, we hope to create a therapy much more quickly.”

All of the researchers are continuing the work on the compounds and hope to begin testing the drugs on animals infected with Zika in the near future.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, FloridaStateUniversity, EmoryUniversity and the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

Other institutions contributing to the research are the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China, Emory University and the Icahn School of Medicine. Emily Lee, a Florida State University graduate student working with Tang, shared the first authorship position with Assistant Professor of Biology at Emory Zhexing Wen and NIH scientist Miao Xu.
Source: Florida State University Press Release – Posted August 29, 2016; retrieved September 3, 2016 from: http://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2016/08/29/fsu-research-team-makes-zika-drug-breakthrough/

—————-

VIDEO – FSU research team makes Zika drug breakthrough – https://youtu.be/E8lfY07yWqY

Published on Aug 29, 2016 – A Florida State, Johns Hopkins and NIH team of researchers has identified existing drug compounds that can both stop Zika from replicating in the body and from damaging crucial fetal brain cells that lead to birth defects in newborns.

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AUDIO – Florida State University SoundCloud – https://soundcloud.com/floridastateuniversity/fsu-researchers-make-zika-drug-breakthrough

FSU researchers make Zika drug breakthrough

Somehow, when it comes to Zika and tourism, there seems to always be some inconvenient truths. This is not the first time, inconvenient truths have emerged with this pandemic; and it will not be surprising if this is not the last time.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean relates that there are economic and security consequences tied to public health crises. It relates the bitter experiences of cancer and the quest to optimize the treatment options for Caribbean citizens. As demonstrated by cancer, and now Zika, health crises bring a lot of governmental complications.

The book does not purport to be a roadmap for public health, but rather a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society by optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region. Yet, within this roadmap is the strategy to incentivize medical research and facilitate treatment options and workable solutions. In fact this roadmap invites the community spirit to encourage research and development (R&D), and to invite role models like Professor Hengli Tang and the medical research team at the university in the foregoing story.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

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 economic engines, including the monitoring and response of epidemiological threats.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and member-states.

One feature of the Go Lean roadmap is the emphasis on community ethos. The book explains, that the Caribbean communities must adopt a fundamental spirit, an underlying sentiment, that would inform the beliefs, customs, and practices to embrace research and development. A community ethos for R&D must be purposeful; we cannot accidentally fall into it..

Another feature of the Go Lean roadmap is the adoption of Self-Governing Entities (SGE). These are to be featured as dedicated, bordered grounds that are ideal for medical research and treatment campuses. SGE requires a hybrid governance involving the CU federal agencies and local administrators – at the start-up.

The Go Lean roadmap clearly relates that healthcare and pharmaceutical drug research are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced as essential for the Caribbean:

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.

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues related to medical research and drug research & practices, sampled here:

Doing More for Cancer – Philanthropist-Billionaire invest in R&D

Capitalism of Drug Patents – Pricing Dysfunctions

The Cost of Cancer Drugs

Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US

CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Welcoming Innovators and Entrepreneurs under an SGE Structure

Medical Research Associates Kidney Stones and Climate Change – Innovative!

N ew Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease

Research in Diabetes Detection – Novartis and Google develop ‘smart’ contact lens

New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground – Model of Medical SGE

Kudos to the research team at Florida State University; they have responded at a time of crisis for the State of Florida – the only American State with live Zika mosquitoes – and have forged a solution. This is a fine lesson for the Caribbean to learn …

… Zika is a crisis, and a “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”.

One local community, Wynwood, in Miami is ground-zero for the Zika battleground. Their current disposition is that business output in the affected areas has been retarded. As related in this article, this summer season has been slower than normal – the peak time is in the winter months:

Zika changes a way of life in Wynwood

After more than 15 local cases of the Zika virus in Wynwood — the first instance of the virus spreading within continental U.S. borders — the artsy district quickly became “ground zero” for the exotic illness.

“It’s definitely slowed down business considerably,” an employee at Fireman Derek’s Bake Shop said Sunday morning. “Usually we do really good on weekends, but today it’s been super slow.”

…

Source: Retrieved September 5, 2016 from: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article94223717.html

————–

VIDEO – Wynwood baker’s newest creation — shrine to Zika – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article93717707.html

After all of the news of Zika cases in the neighborhood near his Wynood business slowed down his walk-in business, Zak the Baker, decided to make a new creation — a shrine to Zika. The light-hearted shrine was made to make people smile and not take things – Emily Michot emichot@miamihereald.com

The foregoing news article and VIDEO-AUDIO productions provide an inside glimpse into the medical research discipline. Obviously, the motivation of the medical research is to protect the economic engines of the Florida economy. The State was at the “precipice and only then, has the needed empowerment” emerged.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that more R&D is needed in the Caribbean too. We need the community ethos to prioritize and encourage careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics/medicine (STEM). We have a Zika problem in the Caribbean region too. We need innovations too. We need R&D at our educational institutions and SGE campuses.

This is an issue of economics, security and governance…

… and this is a familiar drama:

Ebola – While not an American problem, when American citizens become afflicted in 2014, the US response was inspiringly genius, deploying a potential cure within a week.
SARS – During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.s

The CU has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean region. The foregoing article and VIDEO-AUDIO productions depict that research is very important to new medical innovations and break-throughs. This is the manifestation and benefits of Research & Development (R&D). The book describes this focus as a community ethos and promotes R&D as valuable for the region. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries and R&D investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration	Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism	Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers	Page 336

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical research best practices. This economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for epidemiology or pharmacological research and/or treatment. But this war against Zika has dire consequences for tourism-based economies – this descriptor fits most of the Caribbean. So we must pay more than the usual attention to the issue. And we must incentivize those with the passion … and genius to make an impact in this area.

The champions for this issue in the Caribbean might come down to the contributions of just a few people, or maybe just one. This is the reality of genius qualifiers. Not everyone can do it. So those who cannot, need to step aside and not abate those that can. Epidemiology or pharmacological research & development is no time for egalitarianism.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region, one where SGE’s, R&D and geniuses can soar. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

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

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	Population	Jobs/month	Jobs/year	Jobs in 5 years
US	310,000,000	261,200	3,134,400	16,194,400
Caribbean	42,000,000	35,388	424,661	*2,194,080*

*State*	*Company*	*Number of Employees*
Alabama	Walmart	37,537
Alaska	Providence Health & Services	4,000
Arizona	Walmart	33,838
Arkansas	Walmart	51,680
California	University of California	205,177
Colorado	University of Colorado	30,000
Connecticut	Yale New Haven Health System	20,396
Delaware	Christiana Care Health System	11,100
Florida	Walmart	104,228
Georgia	Walmart	57,276
Hawaii	University of Hawaii	10,167
Idaho	St. Luke’s Health System	13,557
Illinois	Walmart	51,900
Indiana	IndianaUniversity Health	29,395
Iowa	University of Iowa	22,827
Kansas	University of Kansas	13,862
Kentucky	Walmart	29,005
Louisiana	Walmart	36,763
Maine	Hannaford Supermarkets	10,000
Maryland	University System of Maryland	38,595
Massachusetts	Partners Healthcare	65,000
Michigan	University of Michigan	45,397
Minnesota	Mayo Clinic	64,033
Mississippi	Walmart	24,741
Missouri	Walmart	42,312
Montana	Walmart	4,508
Nebraska	University of Nebraska	13,000
Nevada	MGM Grand Las Vegas	55,000
New Hampshire	Dartmouth-HitchcockMedicalCenter	9,300
New Jersey	Wakefern Food Corporation	36,000
New Mexico	University of New Mexico	24,061
New York	StateUniversity of New York	89,871
North Carolina	University of North Carolina System	74,079
North Dakota	Sanford Health	12,292
Ohio	Walmart	46,611
Oklahoma	Walmart	33,268
Oregon	Intel	18,600
Pennsylvania	University of PittsburghMedicalCenter	60,000
Rhode Island	Lifespan system of hospitals	13,710
South Carolina	Walmart	30,828
South Dakota	Avera Health	13,000
Tennessee	Walmart	40,398
Texas	Walmart	166,131
Utah	Intermountain Healthcare	20,000+
Vermont	The University of VermontMedicalCenter	7,400
Virginia	Walmart	42,915
Washington	Boeing	77,947
West Virginia	Walmart	12,454
Wisconsin	University of Wisconsin	40,000+
Wyoming	Walmart	4,647