Tag: ICT

Future Focused – e-Government Portal 101

Posted on November 15, 2017 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

It is really important to transform the Caribbean for the future. It will require rebooting all societal engines: economics, security and governance.

In the course of this series of blog-commentaries on the Caribbean Future, we have addressed the economic issues, particularly related to education; we have addressed homeland security and we have addressed media (radio). This final submission is Part 5 of 5 in this series and it contemplates a preview of the future of government engagement. The full series is catalogued as follows:

  1. Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet
  2. Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
  3. Future Focused – Radio is Dead
  4. Future Focused – Policing the Police
  5. Future Focused – e-Government Portal 101

The Caribbean status quo is dire. But our future can be so much better. This is the power of hope!

The subject of hope has been a consistent subject for this movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. In a previous commentary, it was related that “Hope and Change” is vital to engage the young people in society. Without change, young people will demand it! This is because a vital ingredient of youth is hope, if they see no hope, then they will just disengage and abandon their community. That blog included  this excerpt:

There are some protest movements – around the world  – in recent times where young people have engaged to get attention, to foment their prospects for Hope and Change:

  • Arab Spring – Young people in one Arab & North African country after another stood-up in protest of their status quo.
  • Occupy Wall Street – Young people in the US complained in enduring street protests outside Wall Street.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean … chronicled the rise of these protest movements. It showed how people at the grass-roots level are able to effect change on the policies and priorities of their country. This is the bottoms-up strategy for forging change; there is also the top-down strategy: getting the political leaders to propose new legislation. Both approaches could be effective in the quest to elevate the 30 member-states in the Caribbean region. The State of our Caribbean Union is that we are in need; we must reform and transform our region; it is not optional; it must be done in order to offer “Hope and Change” to the young people of the Caribbean. [Otherwise,] the book states in the opening (Page 3):

    Our youth, the next generation, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of their country; they may measure success only by their exodus from their Caribbean homeland.

So without hope, we have no children – they will leave; without children, we have no future!

This is an important discussion. We must forge change in Caribbean society to dissuade our young people from leaving. This is what the Go Lean book presents, a workable roadmap to effect change in all societal engines. In fact, the roadmap features these 3 Future Focused 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 resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

In each Caribbean member-state, the government is the largest employer! So we must engage governing processes in order to foster change. How can we improve Caribbean governance so as to bring change to our society?

Among the strategies, tactics and implementations in the Go Lean roadmap, is the deployment of e-Government services, systems and solutions. The Go Lean book explains how this implementation can streamline operations – lean, no heavy bureaucracy – for every level of government: municipal, state and the CU federal level. A type of computing implementation can leverage productivity against a very small level of staffing. See how a lean structure is portrayed in the book (Page 51):

A lot of office automation and data processing can be provided in-house by [for] member-state governments by [the CU] simply installing / supporting computer mainframe/midrange systems, servers, and client workstations; plus supplementing infrastructural needs like power and mobile communications. The CU’s delivery of ICT [(Internet & Communications Technologies)] systems, e-Government, contact center and in-source services (i.e. property tax systems [and www.myCaribbean.gov]) can put the burden on systems continuity at the federal level and not the member-states. (This is the model of Canada with the federal delivery of provincial systems and services – some Provincial / Territorial presence / governance is completely “virtual”).

The Go Lean book presents the plan to deploy many e-Government provisions so as to deliver on the ICT promise. This is what it means to be Lean – maximize value while minimizing waste. The book references the roles and responsibilities of these e-Government models in many iterations; this shows the Future Focus of the Go Lean roadmap; see a sample here:

  • 10 Ways to Close the Digital Divide (Page 31)
    #9 – Smart Phones & Mobile Apps
    There are business drivers for the further development of mobile applications. With the proliferation of smart-phones, consumers have a computer in their pocket that is more powerful than mainframe computers from the 1970’s. Mobile applications allow for the coordination of “time and place” to convert internet browsing to real-time purchasing. The CU will capitalize on this growth and even deploy mobile apps of our own (i.e. appointments processing, bar codes) for myCaribbean.gov portal and e-government deliveries.
  • 10 Ways to Improve Sharing (Page 35)
    #2 – Data / Social Network
    The CU will deploy a MyCaribbean.gov web portal (including mobile) to allow every citizen access to e-Delivery of government services. The CU … will thereafter spearhead the effort to capture as much raw data as possible from the portal and other e-Government data repositories throughout the region. This will allow the sharing of economic, census, trade, consumption, macro performance and sociological data.
  • Separation of Powers (Page 74)
    A3 – Treasury Department: Union Revenue Administration
    The CU deployment of e-Government services for federal and member-state government functionality will allow economies of scale for all stakeholders. This is envisioned for property records-tax assessment-collections, income taxes, auto registrations, vital records, human resources-payroll, back-office (accounting), and regulatory-compliance-audit functionality. In addition, a lot of government services will be delivered electronically: email, cash disbursements on a card-based benefits card, ACH and electronic funds transfer measure for expenditures and revenue collections.
  • 10 Ways to Improve Mail Service (Page 108)
    #10 – Post Office Buildings with e-Government Kiosks
    Post Office (PO) facilities will have kiosks and access booths so that citizens can interact with different CU and State governmental agencies. (Similar to processing passports at US Post Offices). Time slots will have to be reserved or rationed. All CU e-Government interactions can be delivered via the web (e-Delivery) or at PO …
  • 10 Ways to Deliver (Page 109)
    #9 – Big Data Analysis
    The CU’s embrace of e-Government and e-Delivery models allows for a lot of data to be collected and analyzed so as to measure many aspects of Caribbean life, including: trade, economic, consumption, societal values and macro-performance, and media consumption. This way, “course adjustments” can be made to strategic and tactical pursuits.
  • 10 Ways to Impact Social Media (Page 111)
    #6 – Contact Center for e-Government Services
    The CU will deliver government services with the embrace of Internet & Communication Technologies (ICT). Caribbean stakeholders can interact with CU government (plus CU-enabled member-states) via web, social media and phone portals. When in-personal attention is needed, video conferencing options (Skype, Google+) will be a supplemental tool.
  • 10 Ways to Impact Elections (Page 116)
    #6 – e-Government – Registration
    The CU will allow for economies-of-scale with local government by deploying e-Government services. This is envisioned for voter registration and vital records system processing. While the CU does not have responsibility for local elections, the member-states can in-source the processing to the CU to enjoy the cost savings, & service optimizations.
  • 10 Big Ideas (Page 127)
    #8 – Cyber Caribbean
    Forge electronic commerce industries so that the internet communications technology (ICT) can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade. This includes e-Government (outsourcing and in-sourcing for member-states systems) and e-Delivery, Postal Electronic Last Leg mail, e-Learning and wireline/wireless/satellite initiatives.
  • 10 Ways to Measure Progress (Page 146)
    #7 – myCaribbean.gov Portal
    The www.myCaribbean.gov web/mobile portal will allow every citizen access to e-Delivery of government services. The Commerce Department will thereafter spearhead the effort to capture as much raw data as possible from the portal and other e-Government data repositories throughout the region. This allows for more consumption and sociological data.

The future – with the deployments of electronic government systems – is now! See the sample example of the US State of Florida here; most interactions with that government can be consumed via their http://www.myflorida.com/ portal:

< Click to Enlarge >

The technology is ready and the need is acute, so Caribbean people must get ready and deploy e-Government now.

It is easier than one may think – see a sample VIDEO demonstration here; instead of software, imagine this Perceptive Customer Portal for Government Services:

VIDEO – A Guide to Using the New Perceptive Software Customer Portal – https://youtu.be/40WDRhoQ6fY

Lexmark Enterprise Software

Published on Feb 16, 2015 – The new Perceptive Software Customer Portal is a single sign-on, one-stop shop for the Community, Cases, Knowledgebase, Product Documentation, Technical Overviews and more. This handy demo demonstrates how to navigate the new portal and its features to maximize your Perceptive experience and investment.

There would be no need to engage advanced computer programmers to launch the www.myCaribbean.gov portal. Complete software packages can be bought “off the shelf”; see an article on software package options in the Appendix below.

e-Government had been discussed in previous blog-commentaries, depicting the Future Focus of the CU/Go Lean roadmap:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321 ICT Model: Making a Pluralistic Democracy and Multilingual Society
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7991 Transformations: Caribbean Postal Union – Delivering the Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=888 How to Re-invent Government in a Digital Image – Book Review

Let’s do this; this e-Governmental transformation! Let’s do all of these Future Focused activities detailed in this 5-part series:

  1. Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet
  2. Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
  3. Future Focused – Radio is Dead
  4. Future Focused – Policing the Police
  5. Future Focused – e-Government Portal 101

This is the kind of Future Focused efforts that are needed to reform and transform Caribbean governments and society in general. We must transform our governments, and create the new CU Trade Federation – a federal government – now. We urge all stakeholders to lean-in to this CU/Go Lean roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————-

Appendix – What is Portal Software?
By: Cathy Reisenwitz in IT Management

Y’all know what a portal looks like.

A portal provides selective access to information and people. It features, at a minimum, built-in content management functionality including document management and search.

Here are some things you might want to put behind your portal:

  • E-mail
  • Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
  • Company/organization information/news
  • Workgroups
  • Electronic bulletin boards
  • Group chat
  • Calendars

Here is an overview of what portal software is, what it does, where it’s going, and what to ask your vendors.

Portal software vs alternative kinds of software
Some people use intranet software for portal functionality. But portal software often offers more options, automation functionality, organization help, and interactivity, according to SearchCIO.

Many IT departments are looking accomplish their portal goals without using traditional portal software.  Similarly, vendors are abandoning the “portal” terminology. “The term ‘portal’ is outdated and holds negative associations for the many organizations where the portal initiatives have failed, or grown old or stale,” according to Gartner researchers Jim Murphy and Gene Phifer, writing in Elevate Your Horizontal Portal to a Digital Experience Platform.

“In addition, ‘portal’ lacks any appeal to an increasingly business- (versus IT-)savvy audience.” In Build an Enduring Portal Strategy for a Wave of Change on the Web Murphy points out that a “portal” doesn’t offer any inherent business value itself. Plus, many vendors don’t want to compete with established portal players.

More and more portal software vendors are using qualitative terms such as “experience” and “engagement” to describe their products, according to Murphy and Phifer.

Some organizations use web content management systems (WCMs), social platforms, and e-commerce platforms to create portals. “A WCM product is often a better choice as the anchor technology for an enterprise portal,” Murphy and Phifer write. Others use and extend other software, including ERP or CRM. The rest build their portal platforms using a multiple open-source tools and components. Murphy and Phifer recommend a digital experience platform.

Gartner no longer includes portal software in its Hype Cycles. The Hype Cycle for Human-Machine Interface, 2016 includes digital experience platform (DXP) frameworks, which evolved from portals and WCM. The change from portal to DXP began in 2009, when software vendors began to offer platforms for creating the digital experience because “traditional approaches for creating web, portal and mobile assets were not meeting end-user or IT needs.”

Whatever you want to call it, there’s still demand for an easy, reliable, authoritative, and accessible way to store and access relevant information to support decisions and activities.

Who’s buying portal software?
Many “digital experience” and “engagement” vendors are reaching out to chief marketing officers, heavily promoting the marketing use case because digital marketing is making the investments in digital experience.

The two types of portal software
Gartner categorizes portal software into “lean” and “robust.”

Murphy and Phifer contrast lean portals with comprehensive, robust suites. Lean portals can often pay for themselves with increased efficiencies faster than portal products from larger, more-established vendors. “While organizations adopting traditional, heavyweight portals or emerging UXPs may take years to avail themselves of even 20% of the full range of capabilities, organizations adopting lean portals employ 80% of the functionality they need within months,” Murphy and Phifer write.

However, if you’ve got complex, legacy systems in place that must integrate with your portal, you may not be able to go lean.

…

Popular portal software vendors

According to SearchCIO, Corechange, Epicentric, Hummingbird, and Plumtree are leading portal softwares.

The Hype Cycle for Human-Machine Interface, 2016 lists Adobe, Backbase, IBM, Liferay, Microsoft, Oracle, Oxcyon, Salesforce, SAP, and Sitecore as sample vendors in the DXP space.

…

Source: Posted December 14, 2016; retrieved November 14, 2017 from: https://blog.capterra.com/what-is-portal-software/

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Future Focused – Radio is Dead … Almost

Posted on November 12, 2017 in Industries, Strategy, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

‘Focusing on the Future’ means letting go of the past!

This is easier said than done, but when it comes to investing time, talents and treasuries we should always focus our energies on going forward and not going backwards, on where the market is going and not where the market has been.

Alert: Radio, as a communications medium, is dead and dying. This applies in the advanced democracy of the US and in the Caribbean.

Doubtful about this actuality in the Caribbean? See the article in Appendix A below describing the closure of the state-run national radio station in St. Lucia.

Other media for communications – think newspapers, magazines and books – are also dead or dying. These are also identified as Old Media. In a previous blog-commentary, the following observance was made:

Print is not dead… yet? I almost didn’t notice!

If print is not dead yet, does that mean it is going to put up a fight? Will it make a comeback? I say “No”. It is just a matter of time. Print might experience only a slow death, but die … it will.

This has been the conclusion of the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The point is that societies have been transformed; old strategies, old tactics. old implementations simply do not work anymore. Ignore this reality at your own peril.

Doubtful about this actuality in the US? See the article in Appendix B below describing the regulatory transformation to allow Old Media companies to consolidate to survive in the US. (Some media firms have a winning model; see Appendix VIDEO).

This fact – transformations in society – was an early motivation for the Go Lean book. It identified that the Caribbean region had been beset by these macro transformations, identified as Agents of Change in society:

  • Technology
  • Globalization
  • Aging Diaspora
  • Climate Change

The Caribbean region had not keep pace and suffered the peril … alluded to above. Our region is now in crisis.

Alas, the book asserts (Page 8) that this “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” and has provided new strategies, new tactics and new implementations so as to elevate Caribbean society. According to the book (Page 186), stewards of the Caribbean must embrace New Media – Internet and Communications Technologies – in order to communicate and engage Caribbean people in society. The book presents this Case Study:

The Bottom Line on Old Media versus New Media

The internet and mobile communications has changed the modern world; many industries that once flourished (music retailers, travel agencies, book sales, line telephone companies), now flounder. Media distribution via the internet or mobile devices are referred to as “new media”, while old distribution channels like newspapers, magazines, TV and radio are referred to as “old media”. The mainstream (“old”) media is pivotal for “freedom of the press” as they are effective at standing up to big institutions like governments and corporations. The art of “good” journalism requires the deeper pockets that mainstream media bring to the market, but old media is dying financially.

New media, on the other hand, is an aggregation of mainstream media. With the ubiquity of new media devices, people have freer, easier access and more options to news and information. On the plus side, there is now a greater diversity of ideas and viewpoints, on the minus side, with too many options, people tend to isolate their news consumption to only the views they want to hear. As new media matures, it is expected that it will take over the social responsibilities of old media, adopt the best practices of journalism, like fact checking (with the ease of information retrieval online), and finally return the industry to financial viability.

Old Media – radio, print (newspapers & magazines), etc. – is the past; New Media is the future.

This commentary continues this series on the Caribbean Future; this is Part 3 of 5 on this subject. The full series flows as:

  1. Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet
  2. Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style
  3. Future Focused – Radio is Dead
  4. Future Focused – Policing the Police
  5. Future Focused – e-Government Portal 101 – Available November 15

As initiated in the first blog-commentary in this series, a focus on the future mandates that we focus on reaching young people. Hint: they are not consuming Old Media.

So the stewards of a new Caribbean must engage New Media.

The Go Lean book provides a 370-page turn-by-turn guide for forging a new future; it details “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to engage Internet and Communications Technologies (ICT) and forge change in the region to foster a new future. This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This is a Future Focused roadmap.

The Go Lean book also details that there must be a super-national management of the region’s airwave spectrum. Remember, some Caribbean member-states are only a few miles apart; two islands are actually shared by 2 different countries with a border within – Hispaniola with Haiti and the Dominican Republic; plus the Dutch and French sharing of Sint Maarten / Saint Martin. The book therefore states (Page 79) this excerpt:

D6 – Communications and Media Authority
The radio spectrum must be regulated on a regional level, beyond that of just one member-state. So as not to forge conflict with one radio/TV station from one member-state overriding the signal of another station in another state, the CU will be the overseer of all radio spectrum. This oversight will also extend to satellite regulations and broadband governance.

Though the current coordination among member-states is facilitated by national treaties, the accedence of the CU treaty will supersede all previous legal maneuvers. The scope and jurisdiction of this Agency will be exclusive to the region.

Auctions of radio spectrum can be a big source for garnering initial capital to launch the Trade Federation – this is how the CU can pay for change. But to monetize the management of radio spectrum will require one prerequisite step: convert all TV broadcasts to digital (from analog signals). This exercise is complex as it requires re-tooling all TV receptors for digital conversion – newer sets are already digital compliant. Countries like the US and the EU facilitated this conversion by granting decoding devices for the general public. This effort is too big for any one Caribbean member-state; it will require the coordination of a super-national agency, this Communications Authority.

This agency will also regulate other aspects of the media industry, promoting broadband acceptance and proliferations; plus serve as industry regulator for content issues. This agency will also liaison with an independent CU Agency for Public Broadcasting to facilitate/coordinate endeavors in the arena of public television and public radio. This includes providing funding.

Other than this Public Broadcasting functionality, this agency is modeled after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US.

Way Forward
Is there a Way Forward? Can the medium of radio be saved or maintained as a communication source to influence Caribbean minds?

Yes, but only for a little while; and perhaps only with the older generations. The Caribbean youth will require New Media.

There is a Way Forward; consider mobile (smart phones) and internet (browsers social media, search engines, etc.). But there is still some effective conscientizing taking place … on the radio. (See a previous conscientizing event here).

Consider this interview here with a “Radio Personality” in the Bahamas:

Title: Interview with a Radio Personality – Louby Georges
Radio is dying, yet many still depend on this medium for their livelihood, and as a means to engage the public. The promoters of the Go Lean movement conducted a structured interview with a “Radio Personality” in the Bahamas, Louby Georges, the Host of the show The Flipside on ZSR Sports Radio 103.5 in Nassau. He is on the frontlines of the battle of conscientizing the Caribbean market on the need to reform and transform our societal engines – he advocates for the Bahamas to better manage civil rights and human rights with the Haitian-Bahamian community; his quest is for the Bahamas to be a pluralistic democracy. (Louby is identified in this interview as LG; while the Author‘s questions are formatted in Bold). Consider his responses here as related to this endeavor to engage Caribbean people through the medium of “Radio”:

Tell me your story:

LG: I am a minority in a homogeneous society. I was born in the Bahamas after 1973, to parents that were not Bahamian citizens, (they were Haitian heritage). Therefore, I was Stateless for the first 19 years of my life. It was only at that age, that I was able to apply for my Bahamian citizenship. The award was not automatic, I had to jump through a lot of hoops, but in the end, my Bahamian citizenship was recognized. I am recognized as a “up and coming” young leader by International monitors.(I just attended  the World Festival of Youth and Students 2017 in Sochi, Russia this past October). Yet, in my own country, people would rather I “sit down and shut up”.

Tell me about your journey in radio:

LG: I started in television, as part of a entrepreneurial endeavor with some partners. It was a weekly 30 minute show on the local Cable TV channel; I provided insights of the Haitian-Bahamian community. I was subsequently offered to do “The Flipside” on the radio for every weekday. I have been doing this for 4 years now.

Though your advocacy is for the Bahamas to accept their eventuality of a pluralistic democracy, why  do you remain when it is so obvious that your presence as a pro-Haiti advocate is not welcomed?

LG: The Bahamas is the only home I know – though I speak Creole and have visited Haiti, the Bahamas is still my homeland – and I love this homeland and these people. If something is wrong in my home, then it is up to me – and other citizens –  to do the housekeeping. I have a passion for this home and a disdain for being a stranger in a foreign land.

Considering all your travels, where in the world would you consider the best place to live?

LG: I have truly travelled – though I have not lived anywhere else – before the World Youth Festival this year, I was also invited to Youth Leadership conferences in Latin America and in the US. I have seen the good, bad and ugly of the world, but for me the best place to live is here at home in the Bahamas. Is it perfect? No, but it could be “better in the Bahamas”; despite the cliché, I truly believe that.

As a businessman, how do you feel about the Bahamas economy?

LG: It is not good, some may even say the economy is dying. Many of the problems stem from the single source of economic activity, tourism. If only we can diversify then there would be so much more potential.

How do you feel about Caribbean security?

LG: This is sad. On a scale of 1 to 10, our homeland security can be rated as a 3. We must do better, be safer.

Accepting that the Caribbean in general and the Bahamas in particular is your homeland, what would you want to see there in … 5 years?

LG: More opportunities and more capital for local business minded people. Which comes first, the capital or the opportunities? Let’s work hard to solving that in the next 5 years.

What would you want to see in the Bahamas in … 10 years?

LG: We need population growth. We need a bigger market so that our economy and society can grow. It is that simple, if we want to make progress, we must grow.

But so many Caribbean people have fled their homelands; this problem persists. Your parents emigrated from Haiti; large number of Caribbean people emigrate everyday. How would you feel if your lovely daughter here, decides that she wants to live in the US, Canada or some European country?

LG: I wouldn’t feel bad, but I would hope that she would have the same love for our homeland as I do. But I would understand. My country seems to “push” people away more than they are being “pulled” by other countries. This is why some of us must fight to reform and transform our country. Count me in for the fight.

What would you want to see in the Bahamas in … … 20 years?

LG: Our country is more than just Nassau. I would like to see more Family Island development. Those islands would be perfect to try different economic diversification models.
——-
Thank you for your responses Louby and your commitment to the Bahamas, Haiti and the Caribbean. We see you; we hear you and we feel your passion. We entreat you to look here, going forward, for more solutions on making our homeland better places to live, work and play.

As related in the foregoing article, Louby Georges believes that radio can still be used to conscientize with the Bahamian population. But he cautious that this business model is failing more and more each day. See this article here depicting dissension within the media company / radio station (ZSR 103.5 FM) where he works:

Takeover of ZSR 103.5 ‘defective’, but URCA approves Sebas’s radio deal

In 2017, a focus on the future for interstate communications must also consider broadband, streaming and/or the Internet. This consideration is embedded in the Go Lean roadmap. In fact, the book presents the good stewardship – a new regime – so that ICT can be a great equalizing element for leveling the playing field in competition with the rest of the world.

This CU/Go Lean roadmap details many aspects of the societal reboot for the Caribbean, not just ICT alone. In fact, the roadmap features these 3 prime directives to reform and transform society – all Future Focused:

  • 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 resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book stresses that transforming Caribbean communications-media “engines” must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. …

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.

The Go Lean book presents a detail plan for elevating existing tertiary education options and adding new ones. This federal government – CU Trade Federation – will NOT be academicians, but it will facilitate new and better education options. The motivation of this charter is the recognition that college education has failed the Caribbean region. We need to double-down on the intra-Caribbean strategy – promoting the many universities among the 30 member-states – and e-Learning options.

This Caribbean-style is Future Focused.

See the many considerations of this strategy in these previous blog-commentaries from the Go Lean movement:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13321 Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10750 Less and Less People Reading Newspapers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10052 Fake News? Welcome to America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8328 New Media Example: YouTube Millionaire – ‘Tipsy Bartender’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6464 Sports Role Model – ‘WWE Network’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5353 POTUS and the Internet
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3974 Google and Mobile Phones – Here comes Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1634 Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right – A Book Review
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=248 Print is dead … soon

The Go Lean movement has collected the insights of Caribbean media entrepreneurs … like Louby Georges in the foregoing interview. This book was the result. This movement declares that while “Radio is Dead or Dying”, there is the appealing opportunity for a new media landscape. Imagine a www.myCaribbean.gov network for 42 million people, 10 million Diaspora, and 80 million visitors. Imagine too, a Caribbean Union channel on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This prospect, and the benefits are before us if we prepare and forge a new unified, integrated Single Market for all of the Caribbean.

Yes, this vision is within reach.

Welcome to the future, to New Media. Say “Goodbye” to yesterday, to Old Media. Can we transform our Caribbean society?

Yes, we can! While this is not easy – it is heavy-lifting – it is conceivable, believable and achievable.

This is the kind of Future Focused efforts that are needed to reform and transform the Bahamas and all of Caribbean society; to make our homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

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

———

Appendix A – ECCO Boss believes more local radio stations could close

The General Manager of the  Eastern Caribbean Collective Organisation for Music Rights (ECCO), Steve Etienne,  has expressed the view that Saint Lucia could see the closure of more radio stations, following the recent announcement of the planned closure of state-owned Radio Saint Lucia.

He said the planned closure has come as no surprise to him.

“It should not be a surprise to anyone because RSL has operated in challenging situations that have been known to the public for some time,” Etienne observed.

However the ECCO official noted that the closure of the station will leave a void in the field of broadcasting because RSL played a unique role, despite its association with the government.

“They provided a lot of information and educational focus in lots of the areas that are not normally seen as attractive to radio,” Etienne stated.

He observed that ECCO has had a long relationship with RSL.

“We will miss that relationship,” Etienne said.

He noted that the station owed ECCO a substantial sum of money which the organisation will be seeking to recover.

Etienne explained that the closure of the station would be a loss to ECCO’s members because RSL provided a lot of air time for local music producers.

He stated that the station had a day set aside for playing local music.

“We will miss that, but I think that the slack will be picked up by other media houses – some have already started to focus on having specific segments for local music,” he remarked.

Etienne expressed the view that what is happening to RSL could befall  other broadcasting entities.

“We have far too many radio stations and we haven’t got the finance – our economy cannot sustain or support twenty  or so radio stations that we have and if business is done as business ought to be done, then  several other radio stations will go the same way as RSL,” the ECCO General Manager said.

He explained that because ECCO is funded by a percentage of advertising revenue, the organisation is aware that lots of radio stations are struggling.

“Or  at least they are telling us they are struggling and if that is the truth, then many would follow RSL,” he pointed out.

According to Etienne, Saint Lucia needs a thriving economy.

He declared that having radio stations that are unsustainable will not help the economy.

Source: Posted May 13, 2017; retrieved November 12, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/05/13/ecco-boss-believes-more-local-radio-stations-could-close

———

Appendix B – FCC Moves to End TV-Newspaper Ownership Ban

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said he’ll move to weaken or kill local media ownership restrictions next month, potentially clearing the way for more consolidation among companies that own TV and radio stations.

Chairman Ajit Pai told Congress he’ll ask the FCC, where he leads a Republican majority, to eliminate the rule barring common ownership of a newspaper and nearby broadcast station, and to revise restrictions on owning multiple broadcast outlets in a single market.

“If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business,” Pai said in a hearing of the House communications subcommittee. He said that’s why he offered his rules revision to “help pull the government once and for all out of the newsroom.”

Republicans have been calling, without success, to weaken or kill those rules for more than a decade, and Pai’s ascension to FCC chair as President Donald Trump’s choice gives the party a chance to accomplish that goal. He set a vote for Nov. 16.

Relaxed rules could help Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which earlier told the FCC that its proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media Inc. would violate local-market ownership strictures in 10 cities.

Pai cast his ownership proposals as part of his commitment to the First Amendmentthat guarantees free speech — a live topic since Trump threatened broadcast licenses over news reports.

Democrats announced opposition even before Pai spoke.

“The already consolidated broadcast media market will become even more so, offering little to no discernible benefit for consumers,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in testimony prepared for the hearing where Pai and the other commissioners appeared.

Broadcasters eager to consider merger deals have chafed under the ownership restrictions. The rules were written to guarantee a diversity of voices for local communities, and broadcasters say they’re outdated in an era of media abundance featuring cable and internet programming.

The local rules are separate from the national audience cap that limits companies to owning stations that reach 39 percent of the U.S. audience, which Pai didn’t address. That rule could force Sinclair to sell some stations in return for approval of its proposed purchase of Tribune. The deal is before the FCC and antitrust officials for approval.

Pai’s proposed deregulation could set off local transactions, involving station swaps and other small-scale deals, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said in a note.

“We do NOT expect transformative M&A,” Ryvicker wrote, using a shorthand term for merger and acquisition activity. She said the broadcast industry would be strengthened because two-station sets are more profitable than stand-alone outlets.

Pai’s proposal needs to win a majority at the FCC, and will be subject to intense lobbying in the three weeks leading to the next monthly meeting when the vote is to take place.

Regulations to be revised include the local-TV rule. It allows a company to own two stations in a market if at least one of the stations is not ranked among the top four stations locally, and if the market still will have at least eight independently owned TV stations.

Pai told lawmakers he will propose to the commission that it eliminate the latter provision, known as the eight-voices test, and put in place a case-by-case review for allowing exceptions to the top-four prohibition.

Pai also said he’d seek to eliminate a rule restricting common ownership of a TV station and nearby radio station. The agency is to publish the proposed rules on Thursday, he said.

The National Association of Broadcasters said it “strongly supports” the proposal.

FCC restrictions have “punished free and local broadcasters at the expense of our pay TV and radio competitors,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the trade group. “We look forward to rational media ownership rules that foster a bright future for broadcasters and our tens of millions of listeners and viewers.”

The News Media Alliance, formerly called the Newspaper Association of America, focused on the newspaper-broadcast rule, put in place in the 1970s.

“Outdated regulations preventing investment in one sector of the media market do not make sense, particularly when newspapers compete with countless sources of news and information every day,” said the trade group’s president, David Chavern.

The Free Press policy group objected.

“We need to strengthen local voices and increase viewpoint diversity, not surrender our airwaves to an ever-smaller group of giant conglomerates,” said Craig Aaron, president of the group. “Pai is clearly committed to doing the bidding of companies like Sinclair and clearing any obstacles to their voracious expansion.”

Representatives of cable and satellite-TV companies wary of the negotiating clout of combined stations have said they will be concerned if the top-four restriction is relaxed or eliminated. Broadcasters are raising fees they charge to cable and satellite companies in return for permission to carry their signals.

“Pai’s statement to end media rules is most retrograde in FCC history,” Michael Copps, a former Democratic FCC commissioner, said in a tweet. “Halloween sweets for Big Media, paves way for huge Yule for Sinclair.”

Source: Bloomberg posted October 25, 2017 retrieved November 12, 2017 from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-25/fcc-s-pai-sets-nov-16-vote-on-lifting-media-ownership-limits

———

Appendix VIDEO – Hearst CEO Says the Death of Old Media Is Not True – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-10-24/hearst-ceo-says-the-death-of-old-media-is-not-true-video

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Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet

Posted on November 8, 2017 in Economics, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

A true fact of the past is that “we cannot change it”.

All we can do is learn from the past and change the future.

This quest has propelled the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free. The book provides a 370-page turn-by-turn guide on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies so as to learn from Lessons in History then reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society for the future. In addition, there have been 31 previous blog-commentaries with the specific theme: Lessons in History; see the full list – to date – in the Appendix below.

The Go Lean book opened with this charter, to focus on the future (Page 3):

Our youth, the next generation, may not be inspired to participate in the future workings of their country; they may measure success only by their exodus from their Caribbean homeland.

…

We cannot ignore the past, as it defines who we are, but we do not wish to be shackled to the past either, for then, we miss the future. So we must learn from the past, our experiences and that of other states in similar situations, mount our feet solidly to the ground and then lean-in in, to reach for new heights; forward, upward and onward. This is what is advocated in this book: to Go Lean … Caribbean!

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

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

This commentary introduces a series on the Caribbean Future; this is Part 1 of 5 on this subject. The full series is as follows:

  1. Future Focused – Personal Development and the Internet
  2. Future Focused – College, Caribbean Style 
  3. Future Focused – Radio is Dead
  4. Future Focused – Policing the Police
  5. Future Focused – e-Government Portal 101 – Available 11/15/2017

‘Focusing on the future’ mandates that the stewards of the Caribbean focus on our young people:

“I believe that children are the future; teach them well and let them lead the way” – See VIDEO in the Appendix below.

That is just a song; but this is life.

  • What is the hope for the Caribbean youth to be transformed in their development compared to past generations?
  • What transformations are transpiring in the region that shows willingness for the people and institutions to embrace the needed change?

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

See how these news articles (2) here have described certain ICT trends in the region, related to education and personal development:

Title #1: Flow and Ave Maria Mark World Internet Day
PRESS RELEASE: Castries, Saint Lucia, November 3rd, 2017 – On Wednesday November 1st 2017, the leading girls primary school in Saint Lucia celebrated International Internet Day with the nation’s and the Caribbean’s number one telecommunications service provider, Flow. Ave Maria Primary School hosted a number of activities for students, including encouraging them to come to school with internet-capable devices, which were powered with a free 100mMBps wireless internet connection.

The young ladies, guided by their teachers, were delighted to be able to do research online, including learning more about internet etiquette, online safety, the history, positives and negatives of the internet. Adriana Mitchel-Gideon, Flow’s product manager for broadband and TV, also met with Grade Six students to have an open and frank discussion about the internet, and to field their many questions.

The day has been celebrated worldwide on October 29th since 2005, to commemorate the first electronic message ever transferred from one computer to another, way back in 1969, in California, in the USA. International Internet Day is a reminder to all of us that this amazing invention started out with just two machines, long before we ever were able to login to trillions of websites put up by billions of users.

As part of its 2017 Christmas promotion, Flow is offering excellent kid-friendly deals on smartphones, TV and internet packages to delight any family.

Source: Posted November 3, 2017; retrieved November 8, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/11/03/flow-ave-maria-mark-world-internet-day 

———–

Title #2: Internet Week Guyana Advances Caribbean Technology Development Agenda
PRESS RELEASE: Around the world, the operations of cyber criminals far outstrip the sophistication of national legislative frameworks. Governments are facing constant pressure to assess global cyber threats and formulate appropriate local cyber security strategies.

Across the Caribbean, governments are building strategic partnerships with regional actors like the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU). CaribNOG is the region’s largest volunteer-based community of network engineers, computer security experts and tech aficionados.

Recently, CaribNOG and the CTU were among the organisers of Internet Week Guyana, a five-day tech conference hosted by Guyana’s Ministry of Public Telecommunications, in collaboration with international bodies such as the Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), and the Latin America and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC).

Catherine Hughes, Guyana’s first Minister of Public Telecommunications, said that the five-day event was part of the national agenda to build the country’s technology capacity in cybersecurity and other key areas.

“We encourage Caribbean governments to develop legislative agendas and increase intra-regional cooperation, in order to strengthen the region’s overall cyber security capability,” said Kevon Swift, Head of Strategic Relations and Integration at LACNIC.

“As law makers, governments play an important role in the regional response to cyber security challenges. But they cannot do their work alone,” said Bevil Wooding, Caribbean Outreach Manager at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), and one of the founders of CaribNOG.

“The private sector, law enforcement, judiciary and civil society also have a responsibility to ensure that the region’s citizens and businesses are safer and more secure.”

Throughout the week, representatives from participating organisations also demonstrated practical ways in which stakeholders could work together to strengthen and secure Caribbean networks.

Stephen Lee, another CaribNOG founder, translated global cybersecurity issues into Caribbean priorities, outlining some of the challenges and opportunities of special relevance to the region.

Albert Daniels, Senior Manager for Stakeholder Engagement in the Caribbean at ICANN, outlined that organisation’s work in supporting secure network deployments around the world.

Shernon Osepa, Manager, Regional Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Internet Society, was on hand to formally launch the Internet Society Guyana Chapter, with Nancy Quiros, Manager of Chapter Development in Latin America and the Caribbean at the Internet Society, and Lance Hinds, Special Advisor to the Minister, who served as the chapter’s Interim President.

But it was a gathering of young people, hosted by the CTU on the conference’s closing day, that put the virtual exclamation mark on a highly impactful week. About 400 students from several secondary schools took part in the all-day agenda, which was packed with videos, interactive presentations and Q&A sessions, all designed to highlight the tangible dangers of unsafe online behaviour.

“The CTU continues to support the development of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the region including an emphasis on harnessing the potential of the youth. There’s a concerted effort to get the youth more involved in and make them aware of ICT issues which affect them, to cultivate a mindset of innovation and entrepreneurship, and to educate them on how to effectively use the power of technology that lies in their hands,” said Michelle Garcia, Communications Specialist at the CTU.

The day’s success was most evident in its aftermath. Even after the formal close, a tangible buzz lingered in the meeting room, with dozens of students staying back to introduce themselves to the expert panelists, many taking the opportunity to accost them with follow-up inquiries on the sidelines.

By all reports, this Internet Week will boost Guyana’s efforts to deliver on the promise locked up in that generation of future regional leaders. Now the real work must continue, in order to convert Caribbean potential into Caribbean reality.

Source: Posted October 17, 2017; retrieved November 8, 2017 from: https://stluciatimes.com/2017/10/17/internet-week-guyana-advances-caribbean-technology-development-agenda

The Go Lean book stresses that transforming Caribbean educational “engines” must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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.

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.

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 … [and] invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … impacting the region with more jobs.

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

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

  • 10 Ways to Foster Genius (Page 27)
    #2 – Starting Early – “HeadStart”
    One researcher that tried to provide a more complete view of intelligence is Psychologist Howard Gardner; his theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI), identified eight types of intelligence or abilities: musical – rhythmic, visual – spatial, verbal – linguistic, logical – mathematical, bodily – kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. … Many parents and educators feel that these categories more accurately express the strengths of different children, for which the CU will implement HeadStart-like programs (academies, camps, e-Learning schemes and mentorships) to foster the early development of participants.
  • 10 Ways to Help Entrepreneurship (Page 28)
    #10 – e-Learning & Coaching – S.C.O.R.E.
    The CU advocates e-Learning schemes for tertiary (college), professional development and continuing education solutions. The CU will license/regulate these online programs at the regional level so as to certify and audit the practice. …
  • 10 Ways to Impact Research and Development (Page 30)
    #4 – STEM Education Facilitation
    The quest to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics will start at K-12 Magnate & charter schools. At the tertiary level, the CU will give grants, scholarships & loans (forgive-able), especially focusing on e-learning schemes.
  • 10 Ways to Close the Digital Divide (Page 31)
    #2 –     Libraries & e-Learning
    The CU will facilitate the construction and refurbishing of community libraries, with the emphasis on delivering computer access. The CU’s Millennium Library (see Appendix OA on Page 293) design features a good quantity of computer workstations, conference rooms, video conferencing, and e-Whiteboards. These tools are required for e-Learning facilitations. So citizens can enroll in online classes even if they do not have computer access, as the libraries will fill the void.
  • 10 Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy (Page 70)
    #10 – Education
    Basic economic principles, identified as early as with Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation landmark literary publication [in 1776], dictate that every year of education raises a country’s GDP by a measurable amount. For the Caribbean, the benefits have been elusive in the past because of the unfortunate pattern of a brain drain, with students matriculating abroad and never returning – all of the investment but none of the return. – See Appendix C2 on Page 258.
    The CU’s new leanings of e-Learning will fulfill the education investment objectives without the risk of a brain drain. The end result: the educated work place will impact near-mid-long term benefits for the CU region, estimated in the 3% range for annual growth.
  • 10 Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean (Page 118)
    #9 – Educational Inducements in the Region
    The CU will facilitate e-Learning schemes for institutions in the US, Canada and the EU. The repatriates will have an array of educational choices for themselves and their offspring (legacies). This will counter the previous bad experience of students emigrating for advanced educational opportunities and then never returning, resulting in a brain drain.
  • 10 Ways to Create Jobs (Page 152)
    #6 – Steer More People to S.T.E.M. Education and Careers
    Education does not have to be matriculated abroad, as e-learning industries abound, lessening brain drain, online classes emerge for even the highest degrees. Standards, certifications & accreditations would dictate public-private investment in start-up ventures for educating science (including health & medical), technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
  • 10 Ways to Improve Education (Page 159)
    #2 – Promote Industries for e-Learning
    For 50 years the Caribbean has tolerated studying abroad; unfortunately many students never returned home. The CU’s focus will now be on facilitating learning without leaving. There have emerged many successful models for remote learning use electronic delivery or ICT. The CU will foster online/home school programs, for secondary education, to be licensed at the CU level so as to sanction, certify, and oversee the practice, especially for rural areas/islands. At the tertiary level, the CU will sponsor College Fairs for domestic and foreign colleges that deliver online education options.

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

http://www.k12.com/

We can do this ourselves … here and now.  We can use the internet to foster personal development for students, young and old. The foregoing news article related this quotation from the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU):

“The CTU continues to support the development of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the region including an emphasis on harnessing the potential of the youth. There’s a concerted effort to get the youth more involved in and make them aware of ICT issues which affect them, to cultivate a mindset of innovation and entrepreneurship, and to educate them on how to effectively use the power of technology that lies in their hands,” said Michelle Garcia, Communications Specialist at the CTU.

This is the kind of Future Focused  effort that is needed to reform and transform Caribbean society. This is not easy – heavy-lifting – but it is necessary to make our homelands better places to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

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

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

———–

Appendix VIDEO – The Greatest Love Of All (lyrics) – Whitney Houston, A Tribute – https://youtu.be/hRX4ip6PVoo

TheMusic1022

Published on Feb 15, 2012

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 — February 11, 2012) was an American recording artist, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most-awarded female act of all time. Her awards include two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards in her lifetime. Houston was also one of the world’s best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. … RIP Whitney, you and your wonderful music will always be in our hearts.

———–

Appendix – Lessons from History / Previous Blog-Commentaries

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13420 A Lesson in History – Whaling Expeditions
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12726 A Lesson in History – Colorado Black Ghost Towns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12722 A Lesson in History – ‘How the West Was Won’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12380 A Lesson in History – ‘4th of July’ and Slavery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10494 A Lesson in History – Ending the Military Draft
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10336 A Lesson in History – Haiti’s Reasonable Doubt
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9974 A Lesson in History – Pearl Harbor Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8767 A Lesson in History – Haiti 1804
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7738 A Lesson in History – Buffalo Soldiers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7490 A Lesson in the History of Interpersonal Violence – Domestic
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7485 A Lesson in the History of Interpersonal Violence – Street Crimes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7462 A Lesson in the History of Interpersonal Violence – Duels
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6722 A Lesson in History – After the Civil War
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6720 A Lesson in History – During the Civil War
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6718 A Lesson in History – Before the Civil War
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6531 A Lesson in History – Book Review of the ‘Exigency of 2008’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189 A Lesson in History – ‘Katrina’ is Helping Today’s Crises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5183 A Lesson in History – Cinco De Mayo
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5123 A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Zimbabwe –vs- South Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5055 A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Empowering Families
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4971 A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Truth & Consequence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935 A Lesson in History – The ‘Grand Old Party’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720 A Lesson in History – SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4166 A Lesson in History – Panamanian Balboa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2809 A Lesson in History – Economics of East Berlin
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2670 A Lesson in History – Rockefeller’s Pipeline
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2585 A Lesson in History – Concorde SST
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2480 A Lesson in History – Community Ethos of WW II
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297 A Lesson in History – Booker T –vs- Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531 A Lesson in History – 100 Years Ago Today: World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789 A Lesson in History – America’s War on the Caribbean
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Making a ‘Pluralistic Democracy’ – Multilingual Realities

Posted on October 24, 2017 in Ethos, Government, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

So, what has happened in our Caribbean region of 42 million people and 5 colonial legacies (American, British, France, Netherlands, Spain) was inevitable:

Multilingual society!

There is no getting around it. If the planners for a new Caribbean want to form a unified, integrated community, they will have to select one of these language options:

  1. Dutch
  2. English
  3. French
  4. Spanish
  5. All of the Above

The answer must be #5. This is because the Caribbean is not a singularity; not in language, ethnicities nor culture.

In fact, the planners, the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has presented that quest: to first make the Caribbean’s member-states a “Pluralistic Democracy”; and form a Single Market economy.

This “Pluralistic Democracy” would mean a society where the many different ethnic groups (and languages) have consideration, equal rights, equal privileges and equal protections under the law; where there are no superior rights to any majority and no special deprivations to any minority. The expectation of this Pluralism is for any one person to be treated like everyone else. The legal definition of Pluralism as a political philosophy is as follows …

… the recognition and affirmation of diversity within a political body, which permits the peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions and lifestyles.[1] While not all political pluralists advocate for a pluralist democracy, this is most common as democracy is often viewed as the most fair and effective way to moderate between the discrete values.[2] – Wikipedia

This vision of a Caribbean “Pluralistic Democracy” should be more than words, but action too. The truth of the matter is that while this writer is English-speaking, the majority of the Caribbean’s population is not. Notice the correct Population and Language Distribution summary here and the full details in the Appendix below (based on 2010):

  Population: Dutch English French Spanish
Totals 42,198,874 809,834 6,747,229 9,887,899 24,753,912
Percentage 100.00% 1.92% 15.99% 23.43% 58.66%

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean has repeatedly related that there is a need for new stewardship of the Caribbean societal engines (economics, security and governance). Our region – collectively and individually – is in crisis due to our many societal defects and dysfunctions. The book opened with this declaration:

There is something wrong in the Caribbean. It is the greatest address in the world for its 4 language groups, but instead of the world “beating a path” to these doors, the people of the Caribbean have “beat down their doors” to get out.

The Go Lean book posits that the best-practice for reforming and transforming our society will come from confederating and collaborating a regional response to our local inadequacies; that the problems in Caribbean society are too dire for any one member-state to assuage on its own; there is the need for a regional technocracy. Further, the book explains that an integrated collective is the only way to contend with the Agents of Change (Page 57) that have dynamically affected the Caribbean eco-systems. These Agents of Change include:

  • Technology
  • Globalization
  • Aging Diaspora
  • Climate Change

The Agent of Change of Globalization implies trade of goods, services and capital with stakeholders in any location around the world. It goes without saying that the natural language of Globalization will be …

… it is what it is!

Here in the Caribbean, we must contend with the above 4 primary languages, plus a number of Creole spin-offs (think: Haitian Creole French and Papiamentu in the Dutch Caribbean). So we are not able to declare any one language standard. And this is OK, as we are ready for this Brave New World! We have spanned the globe and identified the best tools and techniques for managing a multilingual society.

In terms of tools, notice below this innovative technology being introduced in the North American marketplace, this year:

VIDEO 1 – Google Pixel Buds are wireless headphones that translate in real time – https://youtu.be/KE_DtGgovjc

Tech Insider

Published on Oct 4, 2017 – Google Pixel Buds are $160 wireless earbuds introduced during their October Pixel event. Designed to wrap around the back of a user’s neck, the headphones can use Google Assistant to answer questions and translate languages in real-time.

——–

VIDEO 2  – See how Pixel Buds translate languages on the fly – https://youtu.be/B_BQjRs94ec

CNET

Published on Oct 5, 2017 – Read the CNET review article here – http://cnet.co/2yJA95f
CNET’s Lexy Savvides and Sean Hollister try out the real-time translation feature for Google’s new Pixel Buds.

In terms of techniques, since our Caribbean territory is not the first region to contend with a multilingual population – and we will not be the last – we have great role models to consider.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean presents … Canada as such; a great role model that provides lessons-learned for a multilingual society. The Go Lean book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all 30 member-states – to foster a “Pluralistic Democracy”. The reference to Canada’s role-model continues further:

  • 10 Lessons from Canada’s History (Page 146)
    #3 – Multiple Cultural Legacies and Languages
    Canada is officially bilingual (English/French) & multicultural at the federal level. The need to structure legal frameworks for diversity was a compelling motivation for confederation, (and an example for the CU to model). The[ir] constitution allows for individual provinces to reflect realities of their populations & cultural differences.

VIDEO 3 – O Canada in 11 different languages – https://youtu.be/1jROsqdrLdk

Published on Jul 1, 2017 – Canada’s national anthem sung in 11 different languages

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»

For more than 75 years, CBC News has been the source Canadians turn to, to keep them informed about their communities, their country and their world. Through regional and national programming on multiple platforms, including CBC Television, CBC News Network, CBC Radio, CBCNews.ca, mobile and on-demand, CBC News and its internationally recognized team of award-winning journalists deliver the breaking stories, the issues, the analyses and the personalities that matter to Canadians.

This vision is very though-provoking for the Caribbean. It asserts that if we want to elevate our societal engines then we must do the heavy-lifting of reforming our value systems or our community ethos – the spirit that informs our beliefs, customs and practices –  to embrace all people in the region – despite the language – into an integrated brotherhood. This is the charter of the CU/Go Lean roadmap; it has these 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. There is a lot of consideration in the book for optimizing communications to the masses. Consider the Chapter excerpts and headlines from this sample on Page 186 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Communications

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market & Economy (CSME) Initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
2 CU Defense Pact: State Militias & Naval Operations
The collective security agreement of the CU will allow the creation of a Homeland Security Department, to defend the member states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The size of the CU market will allow it to afford cutting edge equipment, systems and training …
3 Media Industrial Complex

The CU will oversee the radio spectrum used for radio, television and satellite communications. The radio spectrum must be regulated on a regional level, because the islands are so close to each other and foreign states, that there must be coordination of the common resource pool – the spectrum is limited. This FCC-style (USA) oversight will also extend to internet broadband (wireless & wire-line) governance. With the CU’s financial reforms, the emergence of card-based and e-payment systems will allow for the full exploitation of the media business models. Also, the CU, through licensing, can mandate a certain amount of programming of the educational, inspirational and public service variety.
4 4 Simultaneous Languages – SAP-type Channels

The technology used for SAP (Secondary Audio Programming) channels will be deployed extensively to cover all four languages (Dutch, English, French and Spanish) in broadcasts to multi-state markets. Official websites, by the CU administration will be published in the four languages and this practice encouraged for private websites.
5 Public Broadcasting
6 Press Secretary / Public Relations Officers
7 Journalism Industry Certifications
8 Libel and Slander Due Process
9 Internet & Social Media
10 Libraries and Archives

The CU will build and maintain libraries throughout the region, in a hub-and-spoke fashion. The central library, in the CU’s capital seat, will maintain the domain for all the official archives for the governmental administration, and then further provide intranet access to all the satellite library branches. The libraries are also pivotal for e-Learning in the CU.

In order to ensure success for the Caribbean’s future, the region must foster a better landscape for communicating to all people everywhere. (This includes sign-language for the hearing-impaired as well). Imagine hurricane and tsunami warnings, lives could be at stake!

Yes, this Go Lean roadmap considers the heavy-lifting of structuring Caribbean society to be a “Pluralistic Democracy”. This is far better than the unsustainable status quo. “Unsustainable” is an understatement; we have a crisis; we are bleeding our populations front-and-center. Communicating with our citizens in their Mother Tongue does feel more welcoming. There are direct references to jobs as well, with this multilingual advocacy.

The Go Lean book describes (Page 212) the Call/Contact Center industry that can be fostered in the Caribbean. Wherever there are people speaking the same language, local Caribbean Call Centers can be utilized to communicate with these people. The book specifically identifies 12,000 new …

Direct and indirect jobs at physical and virtual call centers

Imagine telemarketing, collections and customer service calls to Dutch-speaking people in Amsterdam … from Aruba. Or calls to French Canadians … from Martinique. This multilingual-based industry helps the people in the Caribbean to prosper where planted.

This – a “Pluralistic Democracy” – is indeed a Brave New World.

  • Welkom – Dutch
  • We welcome it – English
  • Bienvenue – French
  • Bienvenido – Spanish

Now is the time for all stakeholders in the Caribbean – in all language groups – to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. We can  just be ourselves, speaking our Mother Tongue. This is pivotal for our quest for a “Pluralistic Democracy”; this commentary is the final Part 3 of the 3-part series on this subject. The full collection is as follows:

  1. Making a “Pluralistic Democracy” – Respect for Diwali
  2. Making a “Pluralistic Democracy” – Freedom of Movement
  3. Making a “Pluralistic Democracy” – Multilingual Realities

Yes. this “Pluralistic Democracy” vision is a BIG deal, yet it is conceivable, believable and achievable for making the Caribbean homeland better to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———–

Appendix – Caribbean Population and Language Distribution

Member Language Population Dutch English French Spanish
Anguilla English 13,477 13,477
Antigua and Barbuda English 85,632 85,632
Aruba Dutch 106,000 106,000
Bahamas English 342,000 342,000
Barbados English 279,000 279,000
Belize English 320,000 320,000
Bermuda English 67,837 67,837
British Virgin Islands English 24,000 24,000
Cayman Islands English 56,000 56,000
Cuba Spanish 11,236,444 11,236,444
Dominica English 72,660 72,660
Dominican Republic Spanish 9,523,209 9,523,209
Grenada English 110,000 110,000
Guadeloupe French 405,500 405,500
Guyana English 772,298 772,298
Haiti French 9,035,536 9,035,536
Jamaica English 2,825,928 2,825,928
Martinique French 402,000 402,000
Montserrat English 4,488 4,488
Netherlands Antilles
(Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eust, St Maarten)		 Dutch 231,834 231,834
Puerto Rico Spanish 3,994,259 3,994,259
Saint Barthélemy French 8,938 8,938
Saint Kitts and Nevis English 42,696 42,696
Saint Lucia English 160,765 160,765
Saint Martin French 35,925 35,925
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines English 120,000 120,000
Suriname Dutch 472,000 472,000
Trinidad and Tobago English 1,305,000 1,305,000
Turks and Caicos Islands English 36,600 36,600
US Virgin Islands English 108,848 108,848
Totals 42,198,874 809,834 6,747,229 9,887,899 24,753,912
Percentage 100.00% 1.92% 15.99% 23.43% 58.66%

 Source: Page 66 of book Go Lean … Caribbean; Published November, 2013.

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Amazon Opens Search for HQ2

Posted on September 27, 2017 in Economics, Government, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

Amazon 2Amazon is not just a giant on the internet, in the areas of electronic commerce. No they are emerging as a giant in the real world as well. The company has over 380,000 employees worldwide and 40,000+ at their Seattle, Washington USA headquarters. That is a BIG corporate presence. In fact, economic analysts had tabulated Amazon’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contribution to Seattle at $US 38 Billion. Wow!

Now, the company has decided to open a new supplemental headquarters facility – with the promise of another 50,000 job opportunities. Where will they place this second HQ facility – HQ2? They are open to offers.

Let the bidding begin …

See the Press Release in the Appendix below and the related VIDEO here:

VIDEO – American cities vie to be site of Amazon’s second headquarters – https://www.today.com/video/american-cities-vie-to-be-site-of-amazon-s-second-headquarters-1055053379904

Many U.S cities are competing fiercely to show Amazon why they should become home to the online giant’s second headquarters. NBC business correspondent Jo Ling Kent reports for TODAY from one of them: Los Angeles.

As related in this VIDEO, Amazon HQ2 would be a “serious jolt to any local economy”. Consider these prospective cities that are lining up:

Atlanta El Paso, TX Nashville, TN
Baltimore Gary, Indiana Pittsburgh, PA
Birmingham, AL Houston, TX Phoenix, AZ
Boston, MA Las Vegas, NV Portland, OR
Chicago Los Angeles St Louis, MO
Cincinnati, OH Miami, FL Toronto, Canada
Denver, CO Minneapolis, MN Tucson, AZ

The Caribbean is not represented on that list; notwithstanding the frontier city of Miami. (Miami thrives due to the presence of the Caribbean Diaspora).

But that’s OK…this time. We have our own plans.

CU Blog - Amazon Opens Search for for HQ2 - Photo 1As related in previous blog-commentaries by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, Amazon is a model for the Caribbean’s own venture into electronic commerce. We have the design for www.myCaribbean.gov web-portal and the Caribbean Postal Union to perform a lot of the same functionality that Amazon does in the USA.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU). These entities are designed to address the “Agents of Change“ in modern society, but for a Caribbean scope only.  The “Agents of Change” at play in the foregoing news source are as follows:

  • Technology
  • Globalization

As related in the foregoing VIDEO, the business dynamics of Amazon will have a huge impact on some local community. That American city that lands HQ2 will have a lot to celebrate, as their societal engines will be elevated. An enterprise that can create that many high-paying direct jobs – 50,000 – will have a stimulating effect on the rest of the economy. This too is a feature of Amazon that “we” want to model in the Caribbean. The Go Lean/CU roadmap is designed to elevate the Caribbean’s societal engines starting first with economics (jobs, industrial development and entrepreneurial opportunities). In fact, the following 3 statements are identified as the prime directives of the CU:

  • 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 other engines. Governance will not grow the economy, commerce will.

One addition feature of Amazon that bears disclosing is their effect on stimulating other businesses. According to these words from the Press Release below, the home community of Amazon’s current headquarters – Seattle, Washington – has incubated many other Fortune 500 companies in the wake of Amazon’s rise and dominance:

Increase in Fortune 500 companies with engineering/R&D centers in Seattle: From 7 in 2010 to 31 in 2017

Incubation is a primary tactic addressed in the Go Lean book. It is explained (Page 28) as follows:

The Bottom Line on Incubators
Business incubators are programs designed to support the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management. Incubators vary in the way they deliver their services, in their organizational structure, and in the types of clients they serve. Successful completion of a business incubation program increases the likelihood that a startup company will stay in business for the long term: studies found 87% of incubator graduates stayed in business, in contrast to 44% of all firms. [Incubators are common in the US, Canada and Europe]. In 2005 alone, North American incubation programs assisted more than 27,000 firms that provided employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenues of $17 billion.

Incubators differ from research and technology parks in their dedication to startup and early-stage companies. Incubators also differ from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Centers in that they serve only selected clients. Most common incubators provide these services:

1. Help with business basics

2. Networking activities

3. Marketing assistance

4. Help with accounting/financial management

5. Access to bank loans, loan funds and guarantee programs

6. Help with presentation skills

7. Links to higher education resources

8. Links to strategic partners

9. Access to angel investors or venture capital

10. Advisory boards and mentors

11. Technology commercialization assistance

12. Help with regulatory compliance

13. Intellectual property management.

CU Blog - Retail Enemy - Amazon - Photo 1Amazon’s modus operandi is not to be an incubator, though they have invested in many other tech-related companies. No, the Seattle incubation resulted from more community synergy than direct planning. This is what is defined in the Go Lean book as “community ethos”:

1. The fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

2. The character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

We need this community ethos in the Caribbean!

Overall, in its 370-pages, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society. The required technocratic stewardship for the region’s economic engines was presented early in the book with these opening pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 and 14):

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.

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.

The points of effective, technocratic stewardship were further elaborated upon in previous blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12291 Amazon – The Retailers’ Enemy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8823 Lessons from China – WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7991 Transformations: Caribbean Postal Union – Delivering the Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3187 Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2488 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Alibaba
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Amazon
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=528 Facebook’s advances for e-Commerce payments

Congratulation to the selected city – whoever is selected – for Amazon’s HQ2.

For the Caribbean, let’s pay attention to this bidding process. Let’s lean-in and learn how the economic incentives were structured by the winning city to attract this “whale” of a corporate investor – Amazon commits to spending $5 Billion to enhance local infrastructure in the selected city. This chosen city will make great progress in their attempts to elevate their city … to live, work and play.

The lessons learned can help the Caribbean in our solicitations of Direct Foreign Investors. We can learn so much from this process, since it is also our desire to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

————-

Appendix Title: Amazon Opens Search for Amazon HQ2 A Second Headquarters City in North America

New headquarters will be a full equal to Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, and is expected to grow to 50,000 employees as part of the company’s ongoing job creation

Amazon plans to invest over $5 billion in construction and operation of Amazon HQ2

In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of jobs in construction and related industries, and generate tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the city where Amazon HQ2 is located

SEATTLE — (BUSINESS WIRE)

(NASDAQ: AMZN) — Amazon today announced plans to open Amazon HQ2, a second company headquarters in North America. Amazon expects to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow this second headquarters to include as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs. In addition to Amazon’s direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community. Amazon is opening the Amazon HQ2 Request for Proposal (“RFP”) now, and local and state government leaders interested in learning more about how they can bring Amazon to their community can visit www.amazon.com/amazonHQ2.

Amazon estimates its investments in Seattle from 2010 through 2016 resulted in an additional $38 billion to the city’s economy – every dollar invested by Amazon in Seattle generated an additional 1.4 dollars for the city’s economy overall.

Details of Amazon’s Seattle Headquarters:

Direct1 Number of buildings 33
Square feet 8.1 million
Local retail within Amazon headquarters 24 restaurants/cafes + 8 other services
Amazon employees 40,000+
Capital investment (buildings & infrastructure) $3.7 billion
Operational expenditures (utilities & maintenance) $1.4 billion
Compensation to employees $25.7 billion
Number of annual hotel nights by visiting Amazonians and guests 233,000 (2016)
Amount paid into the city’s public transportation system as employees’ transportation benefit $43 million
Indirect2 Additional jobs created in the city as a result of Amazon’s direct investments 53,000
Additional investments in the local economy as a result of Amazon’s direct investments $38 billion
Increase in personal income by non-Amazon employees as a result of Amazon’s direct investments $17 billion
Other Increase in Fortune 500 companies with engineering/R&D centers in Seattle From 7 in 2010 to 31 in 2017

1 From 2010 (when Amazon moved its headquarters to downtown Seattle) to June 2017.

2 From 2010-2016. Calculated using Input-Output methodology and multipliers developed by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

With more than 380,000 employees worldwide, Amazon ranks #1 on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, #2 on Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, #1 on The Harris Poll’s Corporate Reputation survey, and #2 on LinkedIn’s U.S. most desirable companies list. Amazon was also recently included in the Military Times’ Best for Vets list of companies committed to providing opportunities for military veterans.

“We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”

In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for:

  • Metropolitan areas with more than one million people
  • A stable and business-friendly environment
  • Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent
  • Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options

HQ2 could be, but does not have to be:

  • An urban or downtown campus
  • A similar layout to Amazon’s Seattle campus
  • A development-prepped site. We want to encourage states and communities to think creatively for viable real estate options, while not negatively affecting our preferred timeline.

Amazon HQ2 will be a complete headquarters for Amazon – not a satellite office. Amazon expects to hire new teams and executives in HQ2, and will also let existing senior leaders across the company decide whether to locate their teams in HQ1, HQ2 or both. The company expects that employees who are currently working in HQ1 can choose to continue working there, or they could have an opportunity to move if they would prefer to be located in HQ2.

To learn more about Amazon’s current Seattle headquarters, plans for Amazon HQ2, and to submit a proposal, visit www.amazon.com/amazonHQ2.

———-

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

———-

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170907005717/en/

Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline
Amazon-pr@amazon.com
www.amazon.com/pr

Copyright Business Wire 2017

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Source: Posted September 7, 2017; retrieved September 26, 2017 from: http://www.nbc-2.com/story/36308962/amazon-opens-search-for-amazon-hq2-a-second-headquarters-city-in-north-america

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Dr. Thomas W. Mason – FAMU Professor & STEM Influencer – RIP

Posted on July 24, 2017 in Economics, Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“I didn’t come to FAMU; I came to Dr. Mason” – Familiar experience of FAMU Computer Science students.

It is with a heavy heart that we report the passing of a great educator and STEM influencer, Dr. Thomas W. Mason. He was the founder and legendary professor of Mathematics, Data Processing and Computer Science at Florida Agriculture & Mechanical University. The University offering has now evolved to now being embedded in the FAMU-Florida State University College of Engineering – see VIDEO in the Appendix below.

See the published obituary here:

CU Blog - Dr. Thomas W. Mason - FAMU Professor - STEM Influencer - RIP - Photo 1

Title: Obituary of Dr. Thomas W. Mason

Dr. Thomas W. Mason, a retired professor of Computer Science and Math at Florida A & M University, passed away from a long struggle with heart disease on July 3, 2017. He taught at the university for 30 years.

Dr. Mason received his doctorate in Information and Computer Systems at the University of Illinois in 1973, where he met Dr. Sybil Mobley who encouraged him to join the faculty at FAMU School of Business & Industry in Tallahassee.

Tom was born in Kansas City, Kansas on June 14, 1940. He lost his father, Thomas, early and was raised along with his sister, Elizabeth by his devoted mother, Thelma, both are deceased. He also lost two maternal uncles, Harold and Wendall Robbins and a cousin, Barbara Robbins.

After graduating Cum Laude from Sumner High School, Tom earned a degree in math at the University of Kansas in 1961 and moved to Washington, DC to work as a computer programmer at IBM. This was done while completing a Masters degree in Engineering from George Washington University.

While in DC Tom met and married Yolande Clarke who survives him and their deceased son, Thomas James “Jimmy”. He is survived by a second son, Christopher, who is a FAMU graduate in Journalism. Dr. Mason is also survived by his cousin, Wendell Robbins, Jr. (wife) and their two children, Sheryl and Corky in Houston, Texas; a niece, Tiea of Kansas; his mother-in-law, Thelma Clarke; sisters-in-law, Charlene Hardy and Sheryl Clark along with many nieces, nephews and friends.
Services will be planned at a later date. In lieu of flowers, send donations to the American Heart Association.

Published in the Tallahassee Democrat [Newspaper] on July 13, 2017; retrieved July 24, 2017: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tallahassee/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=186032969

CU Blog - FAMU is No. 3 for Facilitating Economic Opportunity - Photo 1

Back in the 1970’s, the idea of priority on STEM students appeared to be NO BIG deal; just a bunch of nerds and techies passing time in the Computer Lab. Internet and Communications Technologies (ICT) was only just a lab project of university stakeholders.

Now, in 2017, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students and ICT are all the rage. We recognize now, that we need more STEM students and educators in Black-and-Brown communities; but this was the vision of Dr. Mason all the while. When excessive focus was paid to FAMU’s esteemed Business School, led by Dr. Sybil Mobley – a fellow University of Illinois PhD cohort who recruited Dr. Mason to FAMU – he felt that the focus was overlooking STEM students …

… he was right!

According to a new study [(2014)] by Brookings Institution, there is a clear evidence of a skills gap in the US. The report stated that a high school graduate with a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) background seems to be in higher demand than a person with an undergraduate degree not in a STEM background. – Money Economics Magazine

Considering the proud legacy of Historical Black Colleges and University (HBCU), Dr. Mason was agnostic to all of that; he was first and foremost a computer scientist, who happened to be Black, He matriculated for his PhD at the University of Illinois (completing in 1973); there he worked on the ILLIAC project, directly on the ILLIAC IV effort:

ILLIAC (Illinois Automatic Computer) was a series of supercomputers built at a variety of locations, some at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). In all, five computers were built in this series between 1951 and 1974. Some more modern projects also use the name.

The architecture for the first two UIUC computers was taken from a technical report from a committee at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton, First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC [1945], edited by John von Neumann (but with ideas from Eckert & Mauchley and many others.) The designs in this report were not tested at Princeton until a later machine, JOHNNIAC, was completed in 1953. However, the technical report was a major influence on computing in the 1950s, and was used as a blueprint for many other computers, including two at the University of Illinois, which were both completed before Princeton finished Johnniac. The University of Illinois was the only institution to build two instances of the IAS machine. In fairness, several of the other universities, including Princeton, invented new technology (new types of memory or I/O devices) during the construction of their computers, which delayed those projects. For ILLIAC I, II, and IV, students associated with IAS at Princeton (Abraham H. Taub, Donald B. Gillies, Daniel Slotnick) played a key role in the computer design(s).[1]

———
The ILLIAC IV was one of the first attempts to build a massively parallel computer. One of a series of research machines (the ILLIACsfrom the University of Illinois), the ILLIAC IV design featured fairly high parallelism with up to 256 processors, used to allow the machine to work on large data sets in what would later be known as vector processing. After several delays and redesigns, the computer was delivered to NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, California in 1971. After thorough testing and four years of NASA use, ILLIAC IV was connected to the ARPANet for distributed use in November 1975, becoming the first network-available supercomputer, beating Cray’s Cray-1 by nearly 12 months.

CU Blog - Dr. Thomas W. Mason - FAMU Professor - STEM Influencer - RIP - Photo 2

Notice the reference here to ARPA and ARPANet – ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1972 – this was the forerunner to today’s Internet. Dr. Mason was proud of this participation and accomplishments of this endeavor – he often embedded this history in his lectures. He sought to influence the next generation of students to look, listen, learn, lend-a-hand and lead in the development of these cutting-edge technologies. (By extension, his impact extended to the Caribbean as well).

For those who listened and learned, we are forever grateful for Dr. Mason contributions and tutelage.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean recognize the life contributions of Dr. Mason as a STEM educator, visionary and influencer. The book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the quest to elevate the region’s job-creating prowess. Any hope of creating more jobs requires more STEM … students, participants, entrepreneurs and educators. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to put Caribbean people in a place of better command-and-control of the STEM field for their region. We need contributions from people with the profile like Dr. Mason; he provided a role model for inspiration … for this writer, a former protégé.

Like Dr. Mason, the prime directive of the Go Lean book is also to elevate society, but instead of impacting America, this roadmap’s focus is the “Caribbean first”. In fact, the declarative statements are 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.

Dr. Mason  is hereby recognized as a role model and influencer that the entire Caribbean can emulate. He provided a successful track record of forging change, overcoming obstacles, influencing next generations, inspiring thought leaders and paying forward to benefit future stakeholders in technology education. While the Go Lean book posits that economics, security and governance are all important for the development of Caribbean society, the process starts with education. So we must honor the teachers, professors and researchers.

Though Dr. Mason was not of Caribbean heritage, planners for a new Caribbean posit that one person, despite their field of endeavor, can make a difference for the Caribbean, and its impact on the world; that there are many opportunities where one champion, one advocate, can elevate society. In this light, the book features 144 different advocacies, so there is inspiration for the “next” Dr. Thomas Mason to emerge, establish and excel right here at home in the Caribbean.

This Go Lean roadmap specifically encourages the region, to lean-in and foster this “next” generation of Dr. Mason’s with these specific community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Job Multiplier – STEM should be a Priority Page 22
Community Ethos – Return on Investments – ROI Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Strategy – Agent of Change – Technology Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department Page 85
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Labor Department – Job Training Page 89
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Appendix – Education and Economic Growth Page 258

This quest to elevate society through technology innovations is pronounced early in the Go Lean book in the Declaration of Interdependence at the outset, pronouncing this need for regional solutions (Pages 13 & 14) with these statements:

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.

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.

If attention was paid in Dr. Mason’s classes, then it would have been obvious that the key to future growth in a society is to build-up the industrial infrastructure to explore the STEM and ICT eco-systems. This advocacy is consistent with the pledge for more STEM education here at home in the Caribbean. This is also a familiar advocacy for the Go Lean movement; consider these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12532 Where the Jobs Are – A.I.: Subtraction, not Addition
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11184 JPMorganChase spent $10 billion on ‘Fintech’ for 1 year
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9751 Where the Jobs Are – Animation and Game Design
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341 Tourism Digital Marketing & Stewardship — What’s Next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6269 Education & Economics: Lessons from Detroit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6151 3D Printing: This Changes … Everything
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3915 ‘Change the way you see the world; you change the world you see’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490 How One Internet Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126 Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698 STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416 Amazon – A Role Model for Caribbean Logistics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=476 CARICOM Urged on ICT
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308 Caribbean Communications Infrastructure Program Urges Innovation

With the participation of many advocates on many different paths for progress, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book focuses primarily on economic issues but it recognizes that computer technology is the future direction for industrial developments. So education in the fields of STEM and ICT is essential for the Caribbean community to invest in to be consequential for the future; no wait, for the present. The life and legacy of Dr. Thomas Mason, is that the computer-connected world he envisioned – and toiled for – manifested in his lifetime.

Rest in Peace Dr. Mason. Thank you for your contributions; thank you for the tutelage. You showed us a way, to help our region to be a better homeland to live, work, learn and play. 🙁

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

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

———–

Appendix VIDEO – FAMU-FSU Engineering Students Reap Benefits of Dept. of Defense Grant‏ – https://youtu.be/plmu77iWYF0

Published on May 1, 2013 – A U.S. Department of Defense grant is paving the way for Florida A & M University students and faculty to work on four projects that could assist the military and average citizens.

  • Category: Education
  • License: Standard YouTube License
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Where the Jobs Are – A.I.: Subtraction, not Addition

Posted on July 22, 2017 in Economics, Ethos, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Artificial Intelligence or A.I. … this is “where the jobs are”.

TIME Summit On Higher Education

When you hear the phrase “where the jobs are”, it most certainly connotes addition: the industries, places or circumstances where new employment can be located – “where the jobs are … coming from”. However in this case, the phraseology connotes “where the jobs are … going to”.

It is that serious! This is the charter of the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to optimize the societal engines for all 30 member-states. The roadmap starts the focus with economics first – jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, direct foreign investments, education and occupational training. The movement asserts:

Frankly, selling economic empowerment to the public is easy…

… just show up with a boat-load of jobs and people will “cow tail” and cooperate; (the heavy-lifting is involved in selling industry stakeholders). Security and governing changes on the other hand require much more heavy-lifting: consensus-building, convincing and compromise of existing institutions and officials.

So this Go Lean/CU roadmap joins in chorus in declaring:

“It’s the economy, Stupid” – James Carville coined this phrase as a campaign strategist of Bill Clinton‘s successful 1992 presidential campaign against sitting president George H. W. Bush.
CU Blog - Where the Jobs Are - A.I. - Subtraction, not Addition - Photo 2

The Go Lean/CU roadmap complies with this strategy by adhering to these 3 prime directives:

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

So the CU presents a functionality to monitor the eco-system of job creation; this means considering where the jobs are “coming from” and “going to”. A.I. is all the rage, as it pronounces that it does affect jobs … by subtraction; think: 3.5 million truck drivers in the US.

  • This is not soon; this is now!
  • This is not tomorrow; this is today.

That is the topic in this AUDIO Podcast from NPR’s show “The 1A” (1A = First Amendment). Listen to the show here:

AUDIO Podcast – Getting Really Smart About Artificial Intelligence – https://the1a.org/segments/2017-07-19-getting-real-smart-about-artificial-intelligence/

Getting Really Smart About Artificial Intelligence

Chances are, you’ve already encountered artificial intelligence today.

Did your email spam filter keep junk out of your inbox? Did you find this site through Google? Did you encounter a targeted ad on your way?

We constantly hear that we’re on the verge of an AI revolution, but the technology is already everywhere. And Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng predicts that smart technology will help humans do even more. It will drive our cars, read our X-rays and affect pretty much every job and industry. And this will happen soon.

As AI rises, concerns grow about the future of humans. So how can we make sure our economy and our society are ready for a technology that could soon dominate our lives?

So the CU/Go Lean roadmap calls for fostering job-creating developments, incentivizing many high-tech start-ups and incubating viable companies. These career options now proliferate:

  • Big Data Analysis
  • Search Engines
  • Online Advertising
  • Realtime Credit Decision Engines
  • Machine Learning
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • Self-Driving Cars, etc.

Accepting that technology start-ups can be disruptive to legacy businesses means that we have to be prepared for subtractions and not just additions. This is “why“ the Go Lean plan to create 2.2 million new jobs is such heavy-lifting: we have to hit a moving target while our society is moving itself. Whew!

Welcome to transformational change!

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

The “why’s and how’s” were detailed in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

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=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 the “job creation” roadmap for the Caribbean must be Caribbean people. The book therefore stresses the process to reform and transform the region’s societal engines. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The subject of automation is a familiar theme for the Go Lean movement. Consider this sample:

Robots Building Houses – More than Fiction
Bill Gates: ‘Tax the Robots’
‘Olli’ – The Self-Driving Public Transit Vehicle
Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims
Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
The need for Google’s highway safety innovations
Autonomous Ghost Ships

Heavy-lifting, yes! But still, this plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. This is the track record of technology-innovations emerging from many corners of the world. Where there’s a will – community ethos for fostering innovation – there is a way.

The Go Lean book details the special focus of this advocacy on Page 197:

10 Ways to Foster Technology

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

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

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

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Big Tech’s Amazon – The Retailers’ Enemy

Posted on June 22, 2017 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The retail industry now has a “name for its pain”; they know who-what is undermining their business model. It is not just the Internet; it is …

Amazon.
Amazon 2

In a previous blog-commentary by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, it was asserted that the industry is being threatened by the Retail Apocalypse. That was just generalizing the threat as “all things internet”, but now we see that Amazon is attempting to emerge from cyber-space and dominate the retail space.

To the victor go the spoils.

A lot is being spoiled, as shopping malls have suffered a dire disposition. See the full story here:

Title: What venture will Amazon tackle next?

People were shocked by Amazon’s announcement to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, prompting many to wonder what the future of grocery and clothes shopping might look like as the online retailer attempts to dominate. NBC’s Jo Ling Kent has the report for TODAY.

VIDEO – American Giant Shopping Shift – http://www.today.com/video/what-venture-will-amazon-tackle-next-972676675883

This is the reality of Big Tech. There are 4 anchor companies in the Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) industry that continue to impact the modern world and disrupt the legacies of commercial enterprises:

These companies have the treasuries, talent and temperament (culture, values and commitment) to change the world, for good and for bad. Amazon and its Founder-CEO Jeff Bezos are “talking the talk and walking the walk”; they put their “money where the mouth is”. They’ve just agreed to spend $13.7 Billion to acquire brick-and-mortar grocery store chain Whole Foods. This is a big deal!

It’s not just Amazon and Whole Foods: Here’s the enormous Jeff Bezos empire, in one chart – June 21, 2017
CU Blog - Retail Enemy - Amazon - Photo 1

Amazon and Bezos are disruptive role-players. They have disrupted the business model of so many industries and companies. This is the Retail Apocalypse … personified.

Amazon and this Retail Apocalypse are germane issues for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book posits that there are “Agents of Change” that are impacting the economic, security and governing engines in Caribbean society; these “Agents of Change” include:

  • Technology
  • Globalization

Monitoring these “Agents of Change” is part-and-parcel of the roadmap this book presents for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The quest of this Go Lean/CU roadmap is to elevate the Caribbean’s societal engines starting first with economics (jobs, industrial development and entrepreneurial opportunities). In fact, the following 3 statements are identified as the prime directives of the CU:

  • 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.
  • Improve Caribbean governance – as e-Commerce alters sales & border taxes – to support these engines.

According to the foregoing VIDEO, Amazon and Internet & Communications Technologies disrupting retail commerce is not all good and not all bad:

  • Good: Prices with internet commerce are cheaper than at retail stores.
  • Bad: Retail stores and jobs are endangered.
  • Good: Greater variety and product options.
  • Bad: Mall closures undermines local communities (tax base of neighboring properties).
  • Good: Technological innovations create economic opportunities in the ICT industry space.
  • Bad: State government revenue reductions based on prohibitions on internet taxes.
  • Good: Delivery options create logistical jobs.
  • Bad: Family businesses/Main Streets cannot compete.

The future matches forward.

Whether its Amazon or no Amazon, Jeff Bezos or someone else, change will come to the Retail Economy. This applies in the US or in the Caribbean. The point is to prepare for the change, to position regional institutions to explore all the opportunities that change brings. According to the Go Lean book …

‘Luck is the destination where opportunity meets preparation’ – Page 252.

What are Main Streets to do?

This question was fully analyzed in the Go Lean book in its 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, and the the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. Consider  this sample advocacy on Page 201:

10 Ways to Impact Main Street

1 Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market
This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion. The mission of the CU is to enhance the economic engines of the region, fostering institutions like capital markets and secondary mortgage funds to facilitate local governments and town-planning efforts for downtown developments and enhancements. The CU’s adoption of electronic funds transfer modes will allow for more card-based transactions in the region. This facilitates Mail-Order / Telephone Order (MOTO), internet and mobile commerce modes – this is the future of retailing, and allows Mom-and-Pops to compete with “Big-Box”.
2 Repatriated Diaspora – Shopping Habits
3 Big-Box Competition: Cooperatives
4 Big-Box Competition: e-Commerce
Electronic commerce holds the promise of “leveling the playing field” so that small merchants can compete against larger merchants. To facilitate e-Commerce, purchased merchandise must get to their destinations as efficiently as possible.
The CU’s implementation of the Caribbean Postal Union allows for better logistics for package delivery.
5 Downtown Wi-Fi – Time and Place
The CU will foster the implementation of more technology solutions, including Wi-Fi for internet connectivity, especially in downtown areas. The emergence of mobile applications allows for the coordination of “time and place” to convert internet browsing to real-time purchasing. This communications service can be advertising based or subscription based.
6 Theater Districts
7 Downtown Development Authorities
8 Magnate and Charter Schools
9 The Arts in Public Places
10 Cruise Industry Port-side Merchants
In this [Caribbean] region, many tourist destinations for cruise ships are centered on Main Streets and downtowns, i.e. Bay Street in Nassau-Bahamas. The CU will foster more cruise passenger spending at the port-side merchants by facilitating e-Payments and settlement for the proprietary cruise passenger smart cards in Caribbean Dollars (not US$ or Euros).

Though not directly mentioned in the book, Amazon and the Retail Apocalypse is planned for in the Go Lean roadmap. A comprehensive view of  the technocratic stewardship for the region’s economic engines is presented early in the book with these opening pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 and 14):

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.

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.

The business models of Amazon and similar companies – and competitors – have been further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11453 Location Matters, Even in a Virtual World
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9839 Alibaba Cloud stretches global reach with four new facilities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9800 Model of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – By The Numbers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7297 Death of the ‘Department Store’: Exaggerated or Eventual
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7023 Thanksgiving and American Commerce – Past, Present and Amazon
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2488 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Alibaba
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Amazon

Notice to all retail stakeholders: Amazon is not just your enemy; they are your “Pace Car”, the “target rabbit in a Greyhound race”.

CU Blog - Amazon - Retailers' Enemy - Photo 2

CU Blog - Amazon - Retailers' Enemy - Photo 3

Know your enemy!

Notice to all Caribbean stakeholders: Lean-in for the empowerments for e-Commerce described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. We can do this; we can elevate our communities and our own retail eco-systems. We can be a better place to live, work and play; and a better place to shop.

🙂

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

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

 

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Location Matters, Even in a Virtual World

Posted on April 24, 2017 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary 

CU Blog - Location Still Matters in a Virtual World - Photo 1Location, location, location …

Despite the direct references to the physical world, it turns out that ‘location’ is equally important in the virtual world.

The consideration of location is the most important factor in the Art-and-Science of Marketing. That field has these 4 charters, considered the 4 P’s, but location rises to the front of the priorities:

  • Place – Location, location, location… (See Appendix below).
    Can also refer to distribution; the destination and activities that make the product available to consumers.
  • Product – The goods and/or services offered by a company to its customers.
  • Price – The amount of money paid by customers to purchase the product
  • Promotion – The activities that communicate the product’s features and benefits and persuade customers to purchase the product.
    Source: Marketing Online Journal

But for the virtual world – or electronic commerce – the discussion of location considers “community” more so than buildings. “Community” as in community ethos; this is defined as the fundamental character of a culture, that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society.

So where – which community – an e-Commerce company is located in really matters … for access to the right ethos, skilled talent, support services and capital. Is the Caribbean a good location for electronic commerce? No, we are not!

Can we be a good location for electronic commerce? Yes, we can!

We must simply adopt the appropriate community ethos; then execute the proper strategies, tactics and implementations to foster the industrial policies, entrepreneurial opportunities and jobs.

There is a model for us to follow:

Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In a previous blog-commentary on April 16, 2015 by the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, the college-town of Ann Arbor was examined as part of a year-long tour of the economic anatomy of City of Detroit and surrounding Michigan cities. The book identified the Detroit metropolitan area (Page 140) as a Failed-City that parallels many Caribbean communities. Yet still, out of the “ashes of decay”, a few positive innovations were observed-and-reported on, such as the impactful community of Ann Arbor. That previous blog quoted the following:

The idea of impactful cities aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean in stressing the elevation of the societal engines through entrepreneurial endeavors. The book asserts that Caribbean society can be elevated by improving the eco-system to live, work, learn and play. This is the example of Ann Arbor.
…
The Go Lean roadmap accepts that change has come to the global marketplace, due mostly to the convergence of Internet & Communications Technology (ICT). The book posits that size no longer matters, that from any location – like Ann Arbor … – innovative solutions can be developed and promoted to an appreciative audience. What matters most is the innovation, not the location; so any Caribbean member-state, large or small can be impactful. The first requirement is the community ethos of valuing intellectual property. This ethos would be new for the Caribbean market; it is therefore a mission of the CU to forge.
…
The Go Lean roadmap asserts that one individual or community can make a difference in the quest to elevate Caribbean society – the promoters of Go Lean have come to Ann Arbor to observe and report on their progress. We want the same outcomes by fostering genius qualifiers in our region; we therefore need impactful college-towns in the Caribbean.

Consider this example of a world renowned company, based in Ann Arbor, that embraced that city’s spirit and most-assuredly rebooted their company, culture and fortunes. That company is Domino’s Pizza. Yes, a pizza company with more staff in Information Technology than any other department in the corporate headquarters. They place a huge emphasis on developing- deploying technology-based solutions, while also improving their underlying product, Pizza. This story is portrayed in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO: Behind Domino’s Pizza’s recipe for success – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/dominos-pizzas-recipe-for-success

Published on Mar 25, 2017 – Domino’s Pizza is hotter than ever.
One big reason has to do with marketing seven years ago that helped save the day when the flat-bread company was flatlining… .
“In 2009, we decided that technology was going to be a big deal,” CEO Patrick Doyle said. Domino’s has more people working in IT than anywhere else in the company, at its Ann Arbor, Michigan, headquarters. CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports.
(Read the full transcript here: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/dominos-pizzas-recipe-for-success)

CU Blog - Location Still Matters in a Virtual World - Photo 2

See a related VIDEO here: Domino’s® Pizza Turnaround by Domino’s Pizza on YouTube

The book Go Lean…Caribbean strategizes technology as well; in fact that Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) – e-Commerce is one such economic activity – is presented as a great equalizer for Small Country-States versus Big States on the world stage. The book stresses this point early (on Page 14) in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

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.

The Go Lean book details technology and other strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge a cyber-friendly community ethos in the Caribbean. The book presents one such advocacy on Page 127, entitled:

10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region

8 Cyber Caribbean
Forge electronic commerce industries so that the internet communications technology (ICT) can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade. This includes e-Government (outsourcing and in-sourcing for member-states systems) and e-Delivery, Postal Electronic Last Leg mail, e-Learning and wireline/wireless/satellite initiatives.

The opening Declaration of Interdependence also stressed the need for entrepreneurship and job creation. The book relates that the right community ethos can be – must be – forged, especially if we want to create jobs … in this new economy; (we want those jobs). See that pronouncement here also in the opening Declaration of Interdependence on Page 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 … frozen foods …. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism… – impacting the region with more jobs.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of all 30 member-states of the Caribbean. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

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

This commentary examined many other companies and many other cities, detailing their successes and failures in transforming their communities. Consider this sample of earlier blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10449 Model of an ‘empowering’ family/company empowering a city: Detroit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10140 Lessons Learned from Detroit demolishing thousands of structures
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8982 GraceKennedy: Profile of a Caribbean Transnational Corporation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8669 Detroit makes Community College free
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7586 Company Blink Health: The Cure for High Drug Prices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235 Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4587 Burlington, Vermont: First city to be powered 100% by renewables
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3152 Making a Great Place to Work®
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3490 How One Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2488 Role Model Jack Ma brings Alibaba to America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416 Role Model Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone

The Go Lean book and these accompanying blogs posit that the economic failure in the Caribbean in the past in general is the result of the lack of diversity in our industrial development. The region depends too heavily on tourism. We need to be prepared for the new economy – with the tenants of ICT. While location does not matter online, when it comes to e-Commerce, location does matter for having a community that fosters the right attitudes and achievements.

The Go Lean book asserts that the Caribbean nations must do better! We must look for these ICT opportunities for economic expansion; consider “10 Ways to Foster e-Commerce” (Page 198).

The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone, so shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability.

The Go Lean roadmap is designed to facilitate economic growth and job creation, by modeling companies like Domino’s and cities like Ann Arbor. We want to be their protégés … and definitely not their parasites.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, entrepreneurs, business establishments and even the governing institutions, to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

———-

Appendix Title: Who coined the phrase ‘location, location, location’?

Language expert William Safire searches for who came up with the phrase “location, location, location” in the Times Magazine this weekend after a colleague working on a wedding announcement said the phrase was attributed to a British real estate tycoon named Lord Harold Samuel. Lord Samuel’s 1987 obituary names him as the phrase coiner, but the editor of the “Yale Book of Quotations” found the phrase used in a real estate classified ad in the Chicago Tribune in 1926.

Lord Samuel was 14 years old at the time. Safire said the context of the 1926 ad suggests it was already a familiar phrase in Chicago and phrasal etymologists are not yet finished with this challenge.
Source: The Real Deal – South Florida Real Estate News – Posted June 9, 2009; retrieved April 24, 2017 from: http://bit.ly/2jyEzbD

 

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Retail Apocalypse – Preparing for the Inevitable

Posted on April 18, 2017 in Implementation, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Remember the dream … of 7 Fat Cows and 7 Skinny Cows?

The articulation of the dream was that the 7 Fat Cows represented 7 prosperous years while the 7 Skinny Cows represented 7 years of famine with poverty and distress. – The Bible; Genesis Chapter 41.
CU Blog - Retail Apocalypse - Preparing for the Inevitable - Photo 0

In that Bible drama of Joseph in ancient Egypt, those circumstances were more than just in a dream; it was a prophecy of prosperity and famine. It came true!

Joseph was able to use the foresight to prepare that kingdom for adversity, after first exploiting the opportunities.

Here it comes again.

There is feast and famine “in the cards” as related to the retail eco-system. On one end of the spectrum , there will be prosperity for electronic commerce stakeholders, but on the other end, for brick-and-mortar establishments, there will be a Retail Apocalypse.

Will be? Actually, the threat has already manifested!

This is the assertion in this news article by the financial-economic magazine Business Insider:

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Title: The retail apocalypse has officially descended on America
By: Hayley Peterson

Thousands of mall-based stores are shutting down in what’s fast becoming one of the biggest waves of retail closures in decades.

More than 3,500 stores are expected to close in the next couple of months.

Department stores like JCPenney, Macy’s, Sears, and Kmart are among the companies shutting down stores, along with middle-of-the-mall chains like Crocs, BCBG, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Guess.

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Some retailers are exiting the brick-and-mortar business altogether and trying to shift to an all-online model.

For example, Bebe is closing all its stores — about 170 — to focus on increasing its online sales, according to a Bloomberg report.

Some are going out of business altogether, like The Limited which recently shut down all 250 of its stores.

Others, such as Sears and JCPenney, are aggressively paring down their store counts to unload unprofitable locations and try to stanch losses.

CU Blog - Retail Apocalypse - Preparing for the Inevitable - Photo 3Sears is shutting down about 10% of its Sears and Kmart locations, or 150 stores, and JCPenney is shutting down about 14% of its locations, or 138 stores.

According to many analysts, the retail apocalypse has been a long time coming in the US, where stores per capita far outnumber that of any other country.

The US has 23.5 square feet of retail space per person, compared with 16.4 square feet in Canada and 11.1 square feet in Australia, the next two countries with the most retail space per capita, according to a Morningstar Credit Ratings report from October.

Visits to shopping malls have been declining for years with the rise of e-commerce and titanic shifts in how shoppers spend their money. Visits declined by 50% between 2010 and 2013, according to the real-estate research firm Cushman & Wakefield.

And people are now devoting bigger shares of their wallets to restaurants, travel, and technology than ever before, while spending less on apparel and accessories.

As stores close, many shopping malls will be forced to shut down as well.

When an anchor store like Sears or Macy’s closes, it often triggers a downward spiral in performance for shopping malls.

Not only do the malls lose the income and shopper traffic from that store’s business, but the closure often triggers “co-tenancy clauses” that allow the other mall tenants to terminate their leases or renegotiate the terms, typically with a period of lower rents, until another retailer moves into the anchor space.

To reduce losses, malls must quickly find a replacement tenant for the massive retail space that the anchor store occupied, which is difficult — especially in malls that are already financially strapped — when major department stores are reducing their retail footprints.

That can have grave consequences for shopping malls, especially in markets where it’s harder to transform vacant mall space into non-retail space like apartments, according to analysts.

The nation’s worst-performing malls — those classified in the industry as C- and D-rated — will be hit the hardest by the store closures.

The real-estate research firm Green Street Advisors estimates that about 30% of all malls fall under those classifications. That means that nearly a third of shopping malls are at risk of dying off as a result of store closures.
Source: Business Insider e-Zine. Posted 03/21/2017; retrieved 04/17/2017 from: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-retail-apocalypse-has-officially-descended-on-america-2017-3

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Related:

1. Monday Market Mayhem – The Retail Apocalypse – Look out Wall Street

2. Dollar General is defying the retail apocalypse and opening 1,000 stores

See the related AUDIO Podcast below here:

———–

AUDIO Podcast – Wal-Mart battles Amazon with discounts for online ordering and store pickup – https://www.marketplace.org/2017/04/14/business/its-battle-amazon-walmart-offers-discounts-ordering-online-and-picking-store

Published April 14, 2017 – Big Box giant Wal-Mart battling e-Commerce giant Amazon for New Economy fulfillment.

As noted in the foregoing, the Retail Apocalypse is affecting the news in the United States. It’s only the news today, tomorrow will be jobs, the next day the finance apparatus holding the debt (mortgages and security instruments on Wall Street) for the many shopping malls and then soon, the rest of the economy will be impacted.

This is so familiar. Remember the housing-real estate bubble in 2003 to 2010. This previous blog-commentary identified the following 5 steps of a bubble:

1.   Displacement

2.   Boom

3.   Euphoria

4.   Profit Taking

5.   Panic

Here we go again! Sounds like a crisis is imminent.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and Caribbean Central Bank (CCB); it declares that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste – quoting famed American Economist Paul Romer. Though the impending crisis is slated for the US, the actuality of economic contagions mean that the Caribbean member-states will be affected as well.

Where do the tourists come from that drive the Caribbean region’s primary economic driver?

The question is rhetorical; the answer is obvious!

The Go Lean book seeks to prepare the Caribbean region for the change dynamics impacting the world. The “Agents of Change” at play in the foregoing news source are as follows:

  • Technology
  • Globalization

The underlying issue with the Retail Apocalypse is not the demand for retail products, it is the supply. Consumers are still demanding and consuming fashion and commodities, just not at shopping malls; e-Commerce is “all the rage”.

Consider the experience of this commentator:

I went to buy 3 pairs of slacks.

I was only able to find one – with the brand, make, size and color – at a Big Box retail store. So then I went home and matched the brand, model, size with the e-Commerce merchant Amazon.com and acquired the same pants in 2 divergent colors that the Big Box retailer did not have in inventory. 3 days later, the whole shopping expedition was over; I acquired 3 pairs of slacks, primarily from the online merchant and delivered by the shipping company United Parcel Service (UPS).

The quest of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is to elevate the Caribbean’s societal engines – not the US – starting first with economics (jobs, commercial developments and entrepreneurial opportunities). In fact, the following 3 statements are identified as the prime directives of the CU:

  • 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 – as e-Commerce alters sales & border taxes – to support these engines.

The changes taking place in the US with the Retail Apocalypse will eventually traverse the Caribbean member-states as well. This is the parallel with the opening Bible Drama. A crisis is coming and we have the opportunity to exploit the prosperous years and prepare for the famine. The Caribbean region – all 30 member-states – needs to better exploit e-Commerce. There are so missing ingredients, fully detailed in the Go Lean book; see  this sample advocacy on Page 198:

10 Ways to Foster e-Commerce

1 Leverage the full population – 42 million people in all 30 member-states to deploy the CU and the CCB.
2 Regional Currency (Caribbean Dollar or C$)
3 Card Culture
The CU will seek to foster the eco-system for e-payments beyond government activity. To assimilate this change, a card culture, on Main Street, will entail utilizing debit/credit cards, benefits pay cards, and even smart cards on cruise ships.
The CU will collectively bargain with the cruise lines to deploy C$ electronic “purses” to facilitate port-side and onboard retail commerce. All of these changes will garner a better monetary multiplier on the CU economy, by expanding M1.
4 CU Social Media
The CU web portal www.myCaribbean.gov will grant free access, email, IM, and profile pages for CU stakeholders, even normalizing communications thru social media sites. This will facilitate internet commerce activities in the region, as the CU will have hot data on profiles, habits and previous activities, thereby creating opportunities for measured marketing.
5 A Market for the Downloads of Intellectual Properties
6 Remittance Methods (Card & Email)
7 Mobile Apps – Hi-Density Wi-Fi
8 Regional Postal Services – CPU
The CU will assume the responsibility for mail services in the region; (all member-state postal employees will become federal civil servants). The embrace of the Caribbean Postal Union allows for parcel mail to be optimally shipped and delivered throughout the region, with Customs considerations in place. The CPU will therefore ensure the fulfillment side of e-commerce, even allowing for computer applications for printing electronic stamps/barcodes for value savings.
9 Turnpike Logistics
10 Customs and Import Optimizations

The missing ingredients for this new marketplace – electronic commerce – are not just banking-related, the full eco-system must be enabled: electronic (technology), commerce (trade) and fulfillment (logistics). The implementation of these provisions will constitute a New Day for the region. Overall, the Go Lean book stresses the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to reboot, reform and transform the economic engines of Caribbean society, so as to benefit from changes coming due to the Retail Apocalypse, this New Day.

Though not directly mentioned in the Go Lean book, this Retail Apocalypse is planned for in the roadmap. A comprehensive view of  the technocratic stewardship for the region’s economic engines, including the banking eco-system, is presented early in the book with these opening pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 and 14):

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.

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.

The points of effective, technocratic banking and retail stewardship were further elaborated upon in previous blog/commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11184 Big Bank investing $Billion on ‘Fintech’ for e-Commerce positioning
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8823 Lessons from China – WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8704 Lesson from MetroCard
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7991 Transformations: Caribbean Postal Union – Delivering the Future
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7034 The Future of Money
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6635 New Security Chip in Credit Cards Unveiled
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5668 Move over Mastercard/Visa – Time for Local Banking Cards
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4425 Cash, Credit or iPhone …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3889 Royal Bank of Canada’s EZPay – Ready for Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 The Need for Regional Cooperation for Cyber-Security & e-Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3858 Model of Central Banking Technocracy: ECB 1 trillion Euro stimulus
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2488 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Alibaba
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416 Model of an E-Commerce Fulfillment Company: Amazon
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1350 PayPal’s model to pay for e-Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=906 Bitcoin model to pay for e-Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=528 Facebook to pay for e-Commerce

Warning to all retail stakeholders – buyers, sellers and governments: Change is coming!

This is a familiar stance – preparing for the inevitable – for the Go Lean movement; there have been previous warnings of disruptive changes; see this sample here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7847 To the Personal Computer industry: Cloud Computing, Smartphones and Tablets are making actual laptop and desktop computers inconsequential.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6151 To the regional government’s Revenue Officials: 3-D Printing is coming and will change fabrication to local rather than import. This will disrupt border taxes revenue expectations.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6016 To the Infrastructure Planners: Climate Change is making Caribbean summers hot-hot-hot and northern winters milder; there must be cooperative refrigeration to provide relief, otherwise people will leave for northern destinations.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5784 To Jamaica’s Public Safety Officials: Human Rights protections must be extended to people who identify as LGBT. Whether you agree or not, the international community will force you to respect their rights for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5210 To the Cruise Line industry: The Caribbean region’s collective bargaining will extract greater benefits and protections for port city commerce.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 To the Caribbean Power Grip: Home-based batteries will allow for successful deployments of solar/wind power generation and require less power from the grid.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4767 To the regional government’s Revenue Officials: Under the WTO regime, customs duties must eventually be eliminated; same too with conditional property taxes. VAT or Sales Taxes are OK.

As for the Retail Apocalypse, now is the time for all stakeholders of Caribbean banking, retail and governments to lean-in for the empowerments for e-Commerce described here-in and in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is where the marketplace is going, not just tomorrow, but already here today. We can do this; we can elevate our communities and our retail eco-systems. We can be a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

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

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

 

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