Model – Page 57 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: Model

NEXUS: Facilitating Detroit-Windsor Commerce

Posted on January 9, 2015 in Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Trade and location go hand in hand. Until globalization took root, the quest was always to do business in a nearby marketplace. Even now there is a Green Conservation movement to return to those principles, to minimize energy usage by growing most foods locally and consuming locally. This move uses the tagline: Think Global, Buy Local!

In Marketing 101, a basic tenet is “location, location, location”.

But what if that location is at the cross-roads of countries, borders and independent states?

The same precepts should apply, only with more coordination.

This is a lesson learned from the Detroit-Windsor metropolitan area; but this lesson is fitting for application throughout the Caribbean.

This consideration by the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, a roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), is a continuation of the effort to “observe and report” on the turn-around of the once great City of Detroit. Previous commentaries alluded that transportation options are critical to this metropolitan’s area’s revitalization. Now that consideration extends across the international border for the US and Canada. Detroit aligns the west-side of the Detroit River (see Appendix below); the east-side is the City of Windsor in the Canadian Province of Ontario. Despite the two cities and two countries, this area is actually just one “single market”.

The vision of the Go Lean roadmap is a “single market” out of all the Caribbean 30 member-states of independent countries and overseas territories. Since so many individual states are in close-proximity with other states, many times of different jurisdiction and even language, cross border coordination is fitting for deployment within this region. Consider these examples:

Haiti – Dominican Republic: Shared island with a border
St. Martin – Saint Maarten: Shared island with a border
Lesser Antilles: Neighboring islands, 30 to 40 miles apart
Trinidad – Venezuela: 7 mile strait
US – British Virgin Islands: 6 Major Islands 30 to 40 miles apart

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the deployment of ferries, railroads, tunnels, bridges, causeways, light-rail streetcars, natural-gas powered vehicles/buses and toll roads, all part of the effort to empower the region through transit (Page 205).

In order to facilitate commerce between the Caribbean member-states, there is the need to efficiently and effectively process Customs and Border Inspections. The Detroit-Windsor model furnishes a great example of pre-registering stakeholders as “Known Travelers” and then allowing this efficient border crossing system branded as NEXUS. See details here of the program and aligned products/features (NEXPRESS Toll Cards/Transponders and DWT Mobile App):

NEXUS
The NEXUS alternative inspection program has been completely harmonized and integrated into a single program. NEXUS members now have crossing privileges at air, land, and marine ports of entry. Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the NEXUS card has been approved as an alternative to the passport for air, land, and sea travel into the United States for US and Canadian citizens.

The NEXUS program allows pre-screened travelers expedited processing by United States and Canadian officials at dedicated processing lanes at designated northern border ports of entry, at NEXUS (CA Entry) and Global Entry (US Entry) kiosks at Canadian Preclearance airports, and at marine reporting locations. Approved applicants are issued a photo-identification, proximity Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) card. Participants use the three modes of passage where they will present their NEXUS card, have their iris scanned, or present a WHTI (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative) and make a declaration.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) are cooperating in this venture to simplify passage for pre-approved travelers.

What are the Benefits of NEXUS?
Individuals approved to participate in NEXUS receive an identification card that allows them to:

Receive expedited passage at NEXUS-dedicated lanes, airport kiosks, and by calling a marine telephone reporting center to report their arrival into the United States and Canada; and

Cross the border with a minimum of customs and immigration questioning

NEXUS applicants only need to submit one application and one fee. Applicants may apply on-line via the CBP Global On-Line Enrollment System (GOES) Web site. Qualified applicants are required to travel to a NEXUSEnrollmentCenter for an interview. If they are approved for the program at that time, a photo identification card will be mailed to them in 7-10 business days. NEXUS allows United States and Canadian border agencies to concentrate their efforts on potentially higher-risk travelers and goods, which helps to ensure the security and integrity of our borders.

How Do I Apply?

Applications can be submitted using the CBP on-line application system, Global On-Line Enrollment System (GOES), or to one of the Canadian Processing Centers (CPC), along with photocopies of their supporting documentation and the US $50 or CN $50 application-processing fee.

(Source: http://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/nexus)

————
NEXPRESS
As a NEXPRESS TOLL card holder you can take advantage of dedicated lanes, express toll lanes and expedited crossing-service to get to your destination faster.

o Travel to Caesars Windsor, Detroit Tigers baseball, Red Wings hockey, and other attractions… fast.

Are you commuting to work, visiting top restaurants, gaming in the Detroit Casinos and/or Caesars Windsor [Casino], attending your favorite sporting events and attractions, or just visiting family and friends?

No matter the destination, we’ll try to get you there as fast as possible.

Located between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, our tunnel connects the U.S. interstates to Ontario’s Highway 401. In fact, the Detroit Windsor Tunnel provides one of the fastest links between Canada and the United States.

o Use our expanded inspections facilities that ease the Customs and Immigration process.

As part of the U.S.Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), the United States requires that all travelers, including U.S. and Canadian citizens, present a specific document to enter the United States by air, land or water:

A valid Passport, a Passport Card, a Nexus card, or

An Enhanced Michigan Driver’s License, a FAST Card

Commercial Carriers

Have you replaced your larger vehicles with vans for environmental and economic reasons? You may enjoy a savings of up to 25% on toll and volume discounts!

And with our commercial credit system, you can take advantage of faster processing at the toll booths, automatic fare calculation by vehicle weight, easier record-keeping, and top-notch customer service.

o Tunnel Bus

Check out The Tunnel Bus, operated by Transit Windsor. With this exclusive feature of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, you can leave the driving to us and enjoy quick, cost-effective trips between downtown Windsor and Detroit.

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VIDEO: http://youtu.be/igdqylbm8yI – American Roads – “Innovating Mobile, Transit, Tolling and Parking technologies”

DWT Mobile

DWT Mobile is a free app now available for Apple and Android devices!

Cross the border faster and pay only $4.25 per trip with your smartphone! Pre-purchase your trips, show the barcode at the gate, and be on your way. You will save time, save gas, AND save money!
(Source: Detroit – Windsor Tunnel Authority – Retrieved December 11, 2014
http://www.dwtunnel.com/Default.aspx )

As the once great City of Detroit attempts to re-boot, remake and revive its metropolitan area, cross-border regionalism is very important to foster commerce in the wider metropolitan area. There is the need to efficiently move people between these “states” to facilitate live, work and play options.

There are security issues as well. The Appendix (Outlaw History/Prohibition) relate past challenges on the Detroit River. (The Caribbean was also complicit in Prohibition-era security breaches).

Customs and Border operations facilitates security as well as commerce. The NEXUS model demonstrate how technology can be employed to foster efficiency in this process. “Known Traveler” processing can be used to filter daily/occasional commuters, so that security officials can focus more attention on high-risk/high-threat cargo and passengers.

The Go Lean book asserts the economic principle that “voluntary trade creates wealth” (Page 21); the more trade the more wealth. The roadmap anticipates the challenges that port cities and border towns, (like the role of Detroit for the US), would have to endure and changes they must foster to help grow the regional economy. These points were pronounced early in the book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14), with these statements:

vi.     Whereas the finite nature of the landmass of our lands limits the populations and markets of commerce, by extending the bonds of brotherhood to our geographic neighbors allows for extended opportunities and better execution of the kinetics of our economies through trade. This regional focus must foster and promote diverse economic stimuli.

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, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, 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.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent OverseasTerritory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

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

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

The CU mission is to implement the complete eco-system to expand interstate trade in the region. There are many strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies that will facilitate this mission; a sample is detailed here:

Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited	Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security	Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Commerce – Interstate Commerce	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Transportation – Turnpike Operations	Page 84
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Command-and-Control	Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – Union Atlantic Turnpike	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry	Page 206
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Transit Options	Page 234
Appendix – Alaska Marine Highway System	Page 280

The world is preparing for changes to more efficient border crossing and customs operations, as demonstrated in Detroit. This is a tenet of globalization: less Customs duties-less barriers, plus easier access to foreign markets, customers and patrons. The Caribbean must compete better in this global marketplace by first optimizing interstate trade in the regional market. This blog commentary touches on many related issues and subjects that affect planning for Caribbean empowerment in this trade and transportation industry-space. Many of these issues were elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

M-1 Rail: Detroit’s Alternative Transit to Expand Commerce

Caribbean must work together to address rum subsidies and improve this trade

DC Streetcars – Model For Caribbean Re-development

Growing Trade and Transport – The NYNJ Port Authority Model

Trains and Trucks play well together

The Go Lean book introduces the “Union Atlantic” Turnpike as a big initiative of the CU to logistically connect all CU member-states for easier transport of goods and passengers. Crossing borders means there must be “Customs” operations embedded in this Turnpike structure; Known Traveler processing, as modeled by the NEXUS program, allows for the empowerments described here in this blog commentary and in the 370 pages of the Go Lean book. This plan refers to multiple transportation arteries envisioned for the Turnpike: Tunnels, Pipelines, Ferries, Tolled Highways, and Railroads.

The Caribbean needs help with transportation options, jobs, security and growing the economy; plus the heavy-lifting tasks of motivating our youth to impact their future here at home… in the Caribbean; as opposed to the recent history of societal abandonment. Detroit as a model, teaches many lessons: good, bad and ugly.

Let’s pay more than the usual attention to these lessons, examining how the Detroit metropolitan area has managed the agents of change; much is dependent on our applying lessons learned.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – Outlaw History / Prohibition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_River):

The Detroit River is a 24-nautical-mile-long^[1] river that is a strait in the Great Lakes system.^[2] The name comes from the French Rivière du Détroit, which translates literally as River of the Strait. The Detroit River has served an important role in the history of Detroit and is one of the busiest waterways in the world.^[3] The river travels west and south from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, and the whole river carries the international border between Canada and the United States. The river divides the major metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario — an area referred to as Detroit–Windsor. The two are connected by the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel.

On January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution was ratified, ushering in Prohibition in the country of the United States, which lasted from 1920 to 1933. To go into effect one year after its ratification, the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption were nationally banned. Detroit was (and still is) the largest city bordering Canada, where alcohol remained legal during Prohibition.

Detroit became the center of a new industry known as rum-running, which was the illegal smuggling or transporting of alcoholic beverages or any other illegal drinks during Prohibition. There were no bridges in the area connecting Canada and the United States until the Ambassador Bridge was finished in 1929 and the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel in 1930. Since ferry services were inoperable during the winter months, “rum-runners” traveled across the frozen Detroit River by car to Canada and back with trunk loads of alcohol. Rum-running in Windsor became a very common practice. This led to the rise of mobsters such as the Purple Gang, who regularly traveled across the frozen river and used violence as a means to control the route known as the “Detroit-Windsor Funnel” — parodying the newly built tunnel.^[12] The river typically freezes over during much of the winter. Detroit became the leader in the illegal importation of alcohol, which found its way all over the country.

The Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River (another strait connecting Lake St. Clair with Lake Superior) carried 75% of all liquor smuggled into the United States during Prohibition. During warmer months, specialized boats were used to haul alcohol across the river. There was no limit on the methods used by rum-runners to import alcohol across the river. Government officials were unable or unwilling to deter the flow of alcohol coming across the Detroit River. In some cases, overloaded cars fell through the ice, and today, car parts from this illegal era can still be seen on the bottom of the river. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, the rum-running industry ended.^[3][13][14]

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No Fear of Failure – Case Study: Bahamasair

Posted on December 29, 2014 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The book Go Lean … Caribbean stresses the need to adopt best practices in the regional airline industry so as to better facilitate the region’s primary economic driver of tourism. The tagline for the book is “a better place to live, work and play”.

The reference to “better” and “best practices” in this case refers to “quality” – a missing ingredient in much of the Caribbean air transport industry. The bad example being cited in this case is Bahamasair, the National Flag Carrier of the Bahamas.

Bahamasair Holdings Limited, operating as Bahamasair, is an airline based in Nassau. It is the national airline and operates domestic scheduled services to 14 destinations and regional scheduled services to destinations in the Caribbean and the United States. Its main base is Lynden Pindling International Airport. It has the same logo as the current Bahamas national tourism marketing logo, but with the tagline: “We don’t just fly there, we live there”.

The story being related in the following article is a far cry from a pursuit of quality, in fact the overriding theme is “no fear of failure” on the part of the airline’s stakeholders; “if we succeed or fail, it doesn’t really matter”:

Title: Bahamasair Flights Cancelled as Pilots Strike
Local South Florida TV Newscasts (Posted 12/23/2014; retrieved 12/29/2014) –
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Bahamasair–286735471.html

Hundreds of air travelers hoping to get to the Bahamas continue to wait for answers as their flights on Bahamasair have been cancelled.

The cancelled flights have left some passengers at South Florida airports for more than 10 hours.

All flights out of Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale International Airport on board Bahamasair that were scheduled for Tuesday have been cancelled. That includes two scheduled arrivals in Fort Lauderdale, along with one departure from FLL. MIA has seen two departures cancelled along with one arrival.

Miami International Airport has one Bahamasair flight scheduled to arrive at 7:40 a.m. on Christmas Eve that is still on the board as of 8:30 p.m.

NBC 6 has reached out to Bahamasair about the cancellations, but has not received a response.

According to the website tribune242.com, the airline has seen their flights grounded due to a protest from pilots over salary negotiations. The Nassau Guardian reported that the pilots’ union denied it instructed its pilots to go on strike over the negotiations.

The airline told the Nassau Guardian, “Bahamasair is cognizant that this is the height of our peak travel period and we will do the best we can to mitigate any further disruption to your holiday travel plans.”

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/mPM0mDg4-5E – CBS4 Miami Reporting on the Christmas-time Bahamasair Pilots Strike

This airline has an eclectic history, one bred out of the need to optimize economic engines, and yet they have failed so often in their delivery of this charter. Bahamasair was born out of the oil crisis of the 1970s. In 1970, British Airways stopped flying to The Bahamas, and the Bahamian Government accurately predicted that some of the other major airlines flying to the country would follow British Airways’ lead. Bahamasair was therefore established by the government and started operations on 7 June 1973, by acquiring the operations of Flamingo Airlines and Out Island Airways.^[1]

Bahamasair initially encountered operating difficulties, including poor maintenance facilities, economic conditions and company structure. Those factors brought public distrust as a consequence. However, jet airliners started to arrive in the shape of British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Elevens followed by brand new Boeing 737s, and in 1972, it opened its first international service, from Nassau to Tampa, Florida. In 1973, the government’s vision of many airlines leaving the island became a reality, when Pan Am and some other major companies decided to stop operating to the Bahamas. This enabled Bahamasair to capture a substantial part of the Bahamas scheduled air transport market. Through the rest of the 1970s, Bahamasair kept adding flights to other cities in Florida and, domestically, the presence of the airline also grew rapidly.

During the early 1980s, Bahamasair unsuccessfully tried to expand to the Northeast United States [so as to influence market prices for this vital tourism source territory], opening flights to Philadelphia, Washington-DC and Newark, New Jersey. But in 1989, the airline’s directors decided that those routes were not profitable and eliminated them from the airline’s route map – an exercise in futility. In 1991, the airline streamlined it fleet operations, with the acquisition of de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8 turbine propeller aircrafts, purchased to substitute for the whole jet fleet; the Boeing 737-200s were taken out of service. In 1997 however, Boeing 737-200’s were returned to service because key routes warranted the cargo and passenger carrying capabilities offered by these jetliners. The 737-200 was deployed to Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando as well as one domestic route, being Nassau-Freeport. Today, Bahamasair operates efficient late model Boeing 737-500 jetliners, in addition to the stretched Dash 8 series 300 turboprop. But, the culture of dysfunction persists…

This foregoing news article, VIDEO and encyclopedic details are just echoes of the negative community ethos of failure with this airline for this country. While most Bahamians may not know the intricate details of the airline industry, they do know that the Bahamasair’s model is the epitome of failure, as the performance history has been consistently poor. This sad culture has resulted in the local community concocting phrases like:

1. BahamaScare
2. A religious airline: only God knows when they are arriving and only God knows when they are taking off.

This negative community ethos is even enshrined in the regulatory filing for the airline as an international carrier. Appendix B highlights the accepted quality standard in aviation known as the Warsaw Convention. Appendix C on the other hand, demonstrates how Bahamasair, and other Caribbean carriers, have petitioned for waivers so as not to abide by these high standards. Imagine the impressions and messaging this plea relates to the world:

No, hold us to a lower standard.
We are not afraid to fail.
We will not try to satisfy our customers.

This message aligns with the news report above. The Pilot Union in this case gained a bargaining edge in salary negotiations with the airline’s management, but at the expense of any goodwill with the flying public… or the affected tourist industry “partners” in the island-nation’s homeland.

This is sad … and embarrassing!

Change must come to the airline industry for the Bahamas … and the entire region. The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), an alliance of the 30 Caribbean member-states. This Go Lean roadmap has 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 Go Lean roadmap portrays the need for regional integration, administration, and promotion for Caribbean air carriers. The book posits that transportation and logistics empowers the economic engines of a community, in this case tourism. The forgoing news articles definitely assert this economic leaning. There must be efficient air carrier solutions, to service the transportation and tourism needs of the Caribbean islands with optimized deliveries and best practices.

Efficiency, optimization, best practices …
… a new standard for a national character, reputation, image, and brand!

For the region as a whole, Bahamas included, it is the expectation that air travel will continue to grow and impact Caribbean society – thus the need for more regional coordination. New models are detailed in the book in which tourism will be enhanced with features like “air lifts” and “air bridges” to partner with Caribbean events and properties.

For much of the Caribbean, air service is the only transportation option for land-based visitations (stop-overs), so this Go Lean roadmap introduces the Union Atlantic Turnpike to offer more transportation solutions (ferries, toll roads, railways, and pipelines) to better facilitate the efficient movement of people and cargo.

The roadmap also calls for regulating and promoting the Caribbean’s aviation industry. We need Bahamasair and other regional carriers to better deliver on their charters to facilitate air passengers to and within the Caribbean.

This is how the CU will optimize the region’s economic engines. This is change!

The Go Lean book presents a series of positive community ethos, in place of the negative ethos that permeates the Caribbean air transport industry; these positive ethos must first be adopted to forge the desired change. In addition, there are these specific strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to apply, that would contribute to better deliveries:

Introduction to Lean – Quality in Production and Delivery	Page 4
Who We Are – Experts in Lean, Agile and Quality Delivery	Page 8
Anecdote – Learning from the French Caribbean’s Peak Season Strike	Page 17
Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Choose Due to Scarcity of Resources	Page 21
Community Ethos – All Choice Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – Promote Excellence	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve on the Art of Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Impacting the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Customers – Visitors	Page 47
Strategy – Competitive Analysis – Event Patrons	Page 55
Strategy – Core Competence – Tourism	Page 58
Anecdote – Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Assoc. focus on Air Transport	Page 60
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Commerce – Tourism Promotion	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Aviation Administration & Promotion	Page 84
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Extracting Quality from Best Practices	Page 93
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media – Outreach to CU Stakeholders	Page 111
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives – Elevate Image	Page 116
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image – Public Relations	Page 133
Planning – Negative Lessons Learned from Egypt’s Tourism Mis-steps	Page 143
Planning – Ways to Measure Quality and Progress – Six Sigma	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Unions – Quality Adoptions	Page 162
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership – Inspire Excellence	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Market Southern California – Air Bridge	Page 194
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street – Tourism Spin-offs	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Aviation Promotion	Page 205

Previous Go Lean blogs also detailed the dynamics of the air transport industry in the region; see sample here:

Caribbean less competitive due to increasing aviation taxes

Lessons Learned from the American Airlines Merger

Caribbean Changes – Air Antilles Launches St. Maarten Service

What exactly can be done to immediately turn-around the delivery practices for Bahamasair, and other regional carriers? The Go Lean book provides specific details within its 370 pages, serving as a roadmap for forging change in Caribbean society. Here is a list of products/services that would have elevated the experiences of the travelling public in the foregoing news article/VIDEO:

Cooperative among Regional Carriers – Sharing the burden of industrial crises
Service Level Agreements – Guaranteeing performance of service providers and accepting liability for failures (Appendix B)
www.myCaribbean.gov – Social Media / Online Account Interactions – Awarding e-Credits for performance failures
Labor Union Escalation of Grievances – Providing recourse for the Pilots’ Petition – Mitigating the need for peak season strikes

Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean change, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. We cannot afford more news headlines like in the foregoing news article/VIDEO. Flying as a National Flag Carrier is a public trust. The Caribbean can – and must – do better.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix A – Source Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamasair retrieved December 29, 2014

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Appendix B – Hotwire/Industry Quality Standards: Warsaw Convention

See Photo 1 & 2 of Fare Rules/Details:

————————

Appendix C – Warsaw Convention Exemptions for International Carriers in the US.

See Photo 1 & 2 of Detailed List of Exempted Airlines – Highlighting Caribbean regional carriers:

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How One Entrepreneur Can Rally a Whole Community

Posted on December 21, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

We introduce the individual Brandi Temple… and declare that one person can make a difference.

This is a consistent theme in the book Go Lean…Caribbean in stressing the economic impact of artistic and entrepreneurial endeavors. The book pledges that Caribbean society can be elevated by improving the eco-system to live, work and play. The subsequent news article (Appendix) and VIDEOs address electronic commerce (e-Commerce) and the fashion/apparel industry; this covers “live” and “work”.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean stress an economic empowerment mandate for a community, that of supplying its own basic needs: food, clothing, shelter and energy. The book is a 370-page roadmap detailing how the Caribbean can elevate its community by leaning-in to these principles. The book therefore serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This technocratic agency will do the heavy-lifting of executing this roadmap; the prime directives are stated as follows:

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

Electronic Commerce is not the future. It is now … in North America and Europe; (even China, with Alibaba, has shown a lot of advances in this industry). Many innovators have exploited the opportunities associated with the expression “early bird gets the worm”. But now everyone has arrived to this marketplace. We now need our own version of “early bird” innovators to stand-up in the Caribbean.

The message that one person, a role model, can make a difference in transforming a community is echoed loud-and-clear in previous blogs/commentaries, the underlying Go Lean book and this news VIDEO here:

VIDEO 1: Published on Aug 31, 2014 – Stay-at-home mom Brandi Temple turns her sewing machine into a million dollar business, Lolly Wolly Doodle. – http://youtu.be/KSf8MvfQHw8

The Go Lean roadmap declares that the region needs “all hands on deck”, stressing the mission of creating jobs in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM), and also the less-“geeky” areas – like clothing/apparel – that are essential for life. The book relates that many people show genius qualifiers in areas unrelated to STEM, like fashion, music, arts, sports and media endeavors. This point is pronounced early in the following statements in the book’s Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 & 14):

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

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.

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

There are economic and change considerations with this subject and news article (Appendix). This is also a lesson in e-Commerce. How, what, why, when can a company market their wares via electronic and social media portals? This role model of Brandi Temple also provides detail guidance for fostering this market approach. See VIDEO here:

VIDEO 2: 7 Secrets to Growing Your Business on Social Media | Inc. Magazine – http://youtu.be/jOI1pyMHgMM

Published on May 30, 2014 – Brandi Temple, founder of Lolly Wolly Doodle, explains exactly how she achieved massive success selling kids clothes on social media.

The Go Lean roadmap accepts that change has come to the marketplace. This is due mostly to the convergence of Internet & Communications Technology (ICT) and electronic payment options. The book posits that size no longer matters, that from any location, innovative design and creations can be promoted to an appreciative audience. 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/CU roadmap details the empowerments needed for progress in this industry. With these efforts and investments by the people and institutions of the region, the returns will be undeniable. The book posits that the technocratic facilitations may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state to invest alone, rather the collaboration efforts of the CU is necessary, as the strategy is to confederate all the 30 member-states of the Caribbean despite their language and legacy, into an integrated “single market”, allowing better leverage of supply and demand.

The CU is designed to do the heavy-lifting of organizing and optimizing Caribbean delivery systems; we need clothiers, like Lolly Wolly Doodle… to provide for all citizens: babies, toddlers, children, teenagers (school uniforms), and adults (work uniforms). The following list details the ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster this industry:

Community Ethos – Forging Change	Page 20
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Anecdote – Valedictorian Experience	Page 38
Strategy – Strategy – Caribbean Vision	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Central Bank – e-Payment Deployments	Page 73
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, and Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Trade	Page 79
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons from New York City: Fashion	Page 137
Advocacy – Ways to Measure Progress	Page 147
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Education – Online Job Training	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Better Provide Clothing	Page 163
Advocacy – Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Anecdote – Caribbean Industrialist: Butch Stewart	Page 187
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking: e-Payments	Page 199
Advocacy – Impact Main Street: Big Box Stores	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Electronic Commerce	Page 204
Advocacy – Anti-Poverty – Entrepreneurial Values	Page 222
Advocacy – Empower Women Seamstress Jobs	Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Arts and Fashion	Page 230
Appendix – New York Model Fashion-related Jobs	Page 277
Appendix – Job Multipliers	Page 259

Considering the experience of Brandi Temple in the appending news article and foregoing VIDEOs, the Go Lean roadmap asserts that one man, or woman, can make a difference in the quest to elevate Caribbean society. We want to foster any genius qualifiers found within the region. This refers to the “apparel design” of Brandi Temple’s firm or their website design genius or their marketing prowess. There is a need for many contributors.

The point of one person, role models, making a difference in transforming a community has been frequently conveyed in previous blogs/commentaries. Consider this sample here:

Role Model Shaking Up the World of Cancer

Caribbean Fashion Role Model – Oscar De La Renta – RIP

e-Commerce Role Model Jack Ma brings Alibaba to America

The Lion King’s Julie Taymor – Role Model for the Arts

Role Model Berry Gordy – No Town Like Motown

Bob Marley: The Role Model’s legend lives on!

The Go Lean/CU roadmap represents the change that has come to the Caribbean. The people, institutions and governance of the region are all urged to “lean-in” to this roadmap for empowerment. We know there are “new Brandi Temples” in our region, throughout the Caribbean member-states. They are waiting to be fostered; we are waiting to nurture them – all for the Greater Good. 🙂

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Appendix: Inc Magazine Profile of Lolly Wolly Doodle

(Though not the norm, due to it’s length, this news article here reporting on Brandi Temple’s entrepreneurism is presented as an Appendix to this blog/commentary.)

Inc. Magazine – Small Business & Entrepreneur Monthly (Posted June 2014; retrieved 12-21-2014) –
http://www.inc.com/magazine/201406/tom-foster/lolly-wolly-doodle-explosive-growth-from-facebook-sales.html
By: Tom Foster, Editor-at-Large
Title: The Startup That Conquered Facebook Sales
Sub-title: How a small-town manufacturer became the hottest seller on social media.

In a squat little structure overlooking a highway access road in Lexington, North Carolina, smack in the hilly, pork-loving Piedmont region, a revolution is brewing. There’s no sign on the building but a piece of paper taped to the door: LOLLY WOLLY DOODLE, it says, as if in some Southern code. Lolly Wolly Doodle. That’s the name of an unassuming online children’s clothing company started by Brandi Temple, a likable local mom who had never held a corporate job when she started posting her homemade dresses on the Web five years ago–then managed to seize one of the Holy Grails of online sales.

Over the past year or so, Lolly Wolly Doodle has become the envy of the e-commerce establishment, and the story of this nice lady in Lexington has become something of a viral legend. At a time when big brands are trying (and mostly failing) to harness social media to goose business, the story goes, an unheard-of startup out in the sticks has cracked the code on social commerce. Behind that little piece of paper on the door, it turns out, is a company that says it does more sales on Facebook than any other brand in the world. And outsiders seem to agree.

“I have an e-commerce crush on Lolly Wolly Doodle,” says Will Young, the director of Zappos Labs. Young does a lot of public speaking, and he tells the Lolly story every chance he gets. He first heard it at a retail conference in Germany, from an analyst who herself heard it from a venture capitalist in New York. As a rough benchmark for Lolly Wolly Doodle’s social success, Young points out that the company has about 900,000 fans on Facebook, whereas Zappos has 1.5 million. “But their business is a tiny fraction of our size,” he adds. More important, Temple’s fans are delivering: “Lolly,” says Young, “has been able to do something that no big brand has been able to do, which is to convince people to actually buy on Facebook.”

Lolly Wolly Doodle brought in about $11 million in 2013, and it has roughly doubled its revenue every year since its inception in 2009. It expects revenue to double again this year. Last June, Revolution Growth, a fund started by AOL co-founder Steve Case, invested $20 million in the company, and (of course) aims to make it a multibillion-dollar brand. The size of Case’s investment–and a look at how Temple’s business will probably evolve–suggests that Lolly has done more than solve the social-commerce conundrum. Along the way, Temple has created an innovative U.S.-based manufacturing process and supply chain that feed off the brand’s social-media cues to maximize efficiency. That mechanism seems likely to be adaptable to any number of products and services. Unlikely as it may seem, Temple’s company may just represent the beginning of the next e-commerce revolution.

Temple didn’t plan on becoming a CEO. “Really, I wanted to be a trophy wife,” she says, laughing at her former self. “I wanted to support a great husband and look cute.” This strategy led her to marry and have a son in her 20’s (the marriage ended in divorce), then to move to Orlando, where she got engaged again and had a daughter with Fran Papasedero, the coach of the Orlando Predators arena football team.

One night, on his way home from a team dinner, Papasedero crashed his car and died, apparently as a result of driving drunk. Temple moved back to Lexington, where her family has lived for generations. Within a few months, she met Will Temple, her current husband, and they combined their two families, Brady Bunch-style (he had a son from a previous relationship). Brandi and Will had a daughter, and life settled into a nice groove, with her as a stay-at-home mom while he made a good living selling bulldozers and other heavy equipment for the construction business.

The company Will worked for thrived during the housing boom of the mid-2000s, but over the course of 2009, the construction business stalled, and the couple watched Will’s earnings drop by half. Brandi, meanwhile, had started sewing clothes for her two daughters, who were five years apart, much as her mom and grandmother had done for her. The clothes had a certain ruffled, matchy Southern charm: “I wanted something that was cute for church that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, and I wanted to be able to monogram it,” she says. “I wanted the kids to look wholesome and look their age.” Not the mini-sexpot styles offered by many major brands, in other words. She also refused to pay the $80 charged by specialty boutiques that did stock the right styles.

Temple’s parents had never had much money and raised her to be thrifty (“I was born with a silver-plated spoon,” as she puts it), so she quickly grew frustrated with the fabric left over after making her daughters’ dresses. She figured she could post her finished garments on eBay as samples and offer to make more, on demand, in a size range that would use up all her remnants. The idea worked, and within a few months she found that she couldn’t keep up with demand, so she enlisted her family members and friends from church to help with cutting and sewing. She started to show her garments at Junior League events and began to establish a small following for Lolly Wolly Doodle. (About that name: It’s a nickname Temple once gave her niece, a twist on the old children’s song.)

But Temple isn’t one to dabble. “Anything I’ve ever done, I go over the top,” she says. “I can’t just pick up a book and start reading it, because I’ll stay up all night and keep reading.” Despite her best efforts at being a full-time homemaker, she’s also a born entrepreneur who had been trying to make and sell things to people since she was a little girl–friendship bracelets, pages from her coloring books. Now, as Will’s business dwindled, she started taking Lolly Wolly Doodle seriously.

One day, looking to scale her fledgling business, Temple tried having a company in China that she had found through the website Alibaba make a few dresses based on one of her patterns. When they came in, the dresses weren’t perfect–the smocked zebras looked more like cows, and the sewing wasn’t up to her standards. Wary of getting bad feedback on eBay, she posted the pieces on Lolly’s Facebook page and asked people to comment and leave their email address if they wanted to buy them cheap; she would just send them a PayPal invoice. She had 153 Facebook fans, mostly Junior League contacts.

“I walked away from the computer and came back in like 30 seconds, and all the dresses were gone!” she remembers. That afternoon, she tested a few other designs on Facebook, offering to make them to order, just as she had been doing on eBay. She had never seen anyone sell anything this way (no one had), and didn’t really understand how Facebook worked. She never used the social network, personally. But she sold more that first day on the site than she had in the previous month on eBay.

Temple closed her eBay store a few weeks later, and over the next six months, she says, she slept two hours a night and made as many dresses as she could to keep up with the demand. She filled her garage with friends-and-family seamstresses. By day, they would sew dresses and boys’ rompers and post them on Facebook and take orders. At night, they would send out invoices and ship product. Everybody pitched in. Will learned to monogram. Brandi’s dad would cook a family meal, and everybody would sit around the kitchen working late into the night.

Late in 2010, JCPenney opened the world’s first Facebook store from a major retailer–a separate, shoppable tab on its Facebook page–and many other retailers followed suit. So-called F-commerce was hailed as a potential Amazon killer in the press, but nothing happened. Within a year, all those social stores started to quietly shut down. “It was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar,” Forrester online retail analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said at the time.

Temple’s Facebook business, on the other hand, was thriving. The reason was simple. Because her sales appeared in people’s regular News Feeds, alongside posts from their friends, and because buying an item required nothing more than entering a quick comment (with an email address, size, quantity, and customization request) then paying an invoice later, people were able to make impulse purchases. (See, “How a Small-Town Manufacturer Predicts Hits With Facebook”.) It was actually the opposite of what Mulpuru said: JCPenney’s store wasn’t asking people to shop at the bar; it was asking people to leave the bar and go to another tab, whereas Temple was essentially setting up trunk shows in the bar. And thanks to Facebook’s network effect, she didn’t have to spend a dime on marketing; her customers’ comments on the Facebook News Feed showed up on their friends’ News Feeds, and the community grew organically.

It wasn’t just Facebook that made it a good business. Temple was making each dress to order, so she had virtually no inventory risk. She could also react quickly to customer preferences, tailoring her designs accordingly. And because she was selling her goods directly to consumers, she was able to cut out layers of markups and offer great prices. If a particular dress sold well one day, she would post a similar one the next. This kept the sewing process simple–she didn’t have to reinvent her patterns, just riff on them–and eliminated much of the guesswork of merchandising. “When something went crazy, I would go really deep into that style and those colors,” she says. “And if it didn’t, then forget it. I didn’t make it again. We would fill whatever orders we got and move on to something else.” Those same dynamics power the business today.

Around mid-2010, though, everything almost ended. Will came home from work one day and said he was about to be laid off. Brandi, meanwhile, says she “hit a wall. I couldn’t do another thing. I knew this was a great business, but it was way beyond what I could keep doing in my garage.” Her first instinct was to sell the company. She plucked a number out of thin air–a million dollars–because it sounded like a lot of money and would buy the family enough time to get them through Will’s unemployment. She called a friend of a friend who was a banker in Charlotte and asked him if he could help line up buyers, and he called back a few days later suggesting she call an investor named Shana Fisher.

Fisher, a New Yorker, had become known for her knack as a deal hunter when she ran mergers and acquisitions for Barry Diller’s IAC. She had recently started her own venture capital firm, High Line Venture Partners, and has since been among the earliest investors in MakerBot, Vine, and Pinterest, and other star startups.

“Don’t you dare sell this company,” Fisher said over the phone, as Temple sat on the floor in the bathroom, trying to shut out the noise of her kids from the next room. “Let me invest, and let’s grow this business. You don’t realize what you’ve done.”

Temple had never run a business, aside from running a short-lived day spa she had opened in Lexington a few years earlier. Despite having built Lolly from scratch, she had no idea how to place a value on the company. “I was like, ‘If you’re telling me this is not worth $1 million but maybe $5 million, that’s interesting,’ ” Temple said.

Fisher laughed. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I thought this company were worth $5 million.” If they could keep expanding Lolly’s community, it could become a $50 million or $100 million business, she explained (let alone the much larger number Revolution Growth would love to see). Fisher invested $100,000 in the young company, and a few months later helped Temple line up a $1.4 million seed round of financing. Temple moved the operation out of the garage into a 4,000-square-foot former tire warehouse in Lexington and started hiring.

A town of antique stores and decaying red-brick factories, Lexington is a former textile and manufacturing hub, and it had fallen on hard times. Over the previous 10 years, many of the area’s manufacturing jobs had moved to China, and the recession had made things all the worse. Local unemployment hit 14 percent in early 2010.

That fall, Temple answered a knock on the unmarked office door and found an elderly woman standing there. “I don’t know what you do in there, but are you hiring?” the woman asked. She was 72 years old, and her name was–almost inevitably–Miss Daisy. Through tears, she explained that her husband had a heart condition and they could no longer afford his medication. “We’ve lost everything, and I just need a job really bad,” she said.

Miss Daisy had never worked as a seamstress and had little or no experience cutting and sewing, but Temple agreed to hire and train her because she needed as many hands as she could get. Word got around Lexington that a new company had jobs, and one after another, people started showing up at the door asking for work. “Person after person, they’d tell the same story,” Temple remembers. “I’ve lost my house, I’ve lost my car; what can I do?” She hired them all.

Temple tells this story in her bright, pastel-green office in one of the four buildings that now house the company. A 20,000-square-foot former medical-equipment warehouse, the headquarters facility opened in early 2012 after the state of North Carolina agreed to pay for half of the cost of buying and renovating it, to help boost job creation in the region. Manufacturing and design happen here, and next door a smaller building houses the company’s photo studio. Across town sits an 80,000-square-foot warehouse and shipping hub. With about 250 employees, Lolly Wolly Doodle is now one of the largest employers in Lexington. At the rate it’s growing, it could soon be the largest.

Increasingly, however, Lolly is not a local operation: The fourth location is in New York City, and a cadre of experienced retail and technology hands have climbed aboard, many recruited with the help of Shana Fisher. The COO, Emily Hickey, was a co-founder of the business-networking service Hashable and, earlier, a VP at HotJobs. The former e-commerce chief at Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, now heads up Lolly’s New York tech team. Recently, John Singleton, a former JCPenney and Abercrombie & Fitch executive, came on to build better supply chain and manufacturing processes. “Brandi is recruiting some of the very best people in the world,” says Donn Davis, the co-founder of Revolution Growth and a member of Lolly’s board since his firm’s $20 million investment last year. “Most of the time, those people’s first reactions are like mine when I heard about the company. It’s called what? It’s where? It sells what? Then they see what the company is doing, and they say, ‘Wait, everybody is talking about trying to figure this out, but you’re already doing it.’ ”

What Temple is really doing, says Davis, is “reinventing apparel much as Dell reinvented the PC industry. It’s affordable custom [manufacturing] in real time with little inventory risk.” Davis sees Lolly’s Facebook commerce as an important tactic that kick-started the company, but it’s just that: a tactic. The real innovation is using social media as the starting point for a new e-commerce model that’s powered by a social feedback loop.

The cycle works like this: First, the company makes a sample product and puts it up on Facebook or another social platform for sale (the company is expanding to Instagram and will leverage Pinterest and other platforms soon). Then it makes only the sizes that people order, so there’s no overstock. The company compares sales of that product with past styles and decides if it’s a winner. If it is, two things happen: One, Lolly can mass-produce it and keep some of it on hand for sale on its own site, LollyWollyDoodle.com (even those garments are customizable with monograms and other touches, so customers are always getting something unique). Two, a winning design can become the basis for a new product “pod,” an ever-expanding collection built on that template; new iterations might be tweaked with different fabrics or necklines or ruffles, but there’s a limited palette of tweaks for any given pod, keeping manufacturing complexity to a minimum.

As the company cycles through this feedback loop, it amasses ever more data about what works, so that it can make smart design decisions and configure its operations accordingly. Social commerce, in other words, is not just about virality but also about predictive analytics. The company introduces about 15 new product SKUs every day, and one of the biggest priorities this year is to finish building custom software that better structures the design and sales data and allows the supply chain, cutting and sewing operations, and warehouse to be reorganized so that each piece of fabric moves through production as efficiently as possible.

If traditional garment manufacturing is a pretty straightforward assembly-line affair, the seamstresses at Lolly work more like short-order cooks in a diner where the menu changes daily. In one room, a dozen people cut fabric according to order tickets that flow through in real time–15 size-2 aqua chevron Charlotte dresses here, a single size-6 salmon Ruffle dress there. On the sewing floor, efficiency comes from how the orders are bundled (not necessarily by garment or size but, because many items share attributes, by the type of sewing required) and minimizing how many people or machines have to touch a garment. That information then informs the design process for new garments. A made-to-order dress now takes two weeks to land on a customer’s doorstep; Temple hopes to shave that down to a week.

Hickey, the COO, calls Lolly Wolly Doodle a “fast-fashion” company, referring to the category of retailers, epitomized by the Spanish chain Zara, that constantly refresh their product lines according to trends and sell at low prices, with low margins. Fast fashion is largely immune to the slow seasonal cycles that drive traditional fashion companies–which inevitably have to rely on deep discounts to move unsold inventory–but it requires nimble manufacturing that can take on small product runs and constantly adapt to demand signals. When companies rely on remote mega-factories, they have much less control. “It’s no small coincidence that Zara is not made in China,” says Forrester’s Mulpuru. “It’s no coincidence that Lolly Wolly Doodle is made in the U.S.”

Well, partly. Lolly Wolly Doodle these days outsources about 30 percent of its manufacturing to China and Latin America, but those garments are all the proven winners that emerge from the U.S.-made small runs that first appear on Facebook and the Lolly site. The Lexington warehouse has racks of premade blanks that were made overseas and await monogramming or other customization before being shipped.

“There’s still going to be a level of imprecision in that system,” Mulpuru cautions. “There are all kinds of early demand indicators that could be wrong. But your chances of picking a hit are going to be better, and you will have fewer markdowns.” She finds it “truly baffling” that more companies haven’t “got their heads out of their asses” and adopted a similar model to predict and make hits.

Larger companies may not have caught on yet, but there are certainly Lolly imitators. In early 2012, a San Francisco entrepreneur named Chris Bennett heard Temple’s story right around the time he was looking to start a new company. Called Soldsie, Bennett’s new technology platform helps other entrepreneurs start businesses based on the Lolly Wolly Doodle model by handling all the order processing for them. “Lolly was really the light bulb moment,” for him he admits. “I read an old news story [from a local paper in North Carolina] that said they had generated something like $2 million in revenue based on 30,000 fans, and it was just far more volume than I’d seen anyone do with Facebook.” Today, Soldsie has more than 1,000 mostly tiny client companies, but it processes over $1 million in transactions every month, and Bennett says he’ll announce partnerships with several “huge” brands this summer.

Lolly, meanwhile, hopes to become a huge brand using the model. Davis, of Revolution Growth, thinks the company has created a template that it can ultimately apply far beyond children’s clothes. “Kids’ apparel, age 0 to 8, is a $10 billion market,” he says. “So the first step is to become the leading company there. And the second step is…to add new brands on top of it that go into other segments.” That means men’s and women’s clothes, home goods, and beyond.

Temple still marvels at how she has arrived at this point. She has “been blessed,” she likes to say, and at one point I ask her how much her faith has been a part of Lolly’s success story. “It is the story,” she says. “That moment I had the idea to put something on Facebook….” She chokes up and has to collect herself. “That idea didn’t come from me. God had a purpose in reaching out to build this business. From our missions in Africa to our Moms in a Jam”–two of the company’s recent philanthropic efforts–“to the people we employ, it’s not about me creating a business. It was about what we could all do together, the pay-it-forward mentality.”

The moment hangs there for a second, and she makes a self-deprecating joke about God’s sense of humor: Why would He choose her? Then she sits up straight and starts talking about the virtues of a vertically integrated supply chain, how to create authentic interaction on social media, the importance of Hickey, her COO (“She can never leave. I will hunt her down; I’m Southern enough”), quality control in China, her insistence on approving every design before it posts…. “We don’t even think about competition,” she says. “We are our only competition.”

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Forecast for higher unemployment in Caribbean in 2015

Posted on December 18, 2014 in Economics, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

The quest for jobs is going to get harder. This is the point of the following news article; the regional forecast for the Latin American & Caribbean region is that economic conditions will be distressed even more in 2015.

All hands on deck!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean anticipates creating 2.2 million new jobs … despite those projected distressful conditions; see VIDEO below. The goal is to make the region “a better place to live, work and play”. So all the empowerments and remediation need to be applied now.

The quest to create these jobs will take 60% inspiration – new ideas – and 80% perspiration – hard-work and heavy-lifting. The math of this addition exceeds 100 percent. This is the key: winners give more than 100%. See story here:

Title: ILO report forecasts higher unemployment in Latin America, Caribbean in 2015
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – A new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) has found an “unusual pattern” in this year’s urban employment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean, which continued to fall despite warning signs of economic slowdown.

The ILO report titled “Labour Overview for Latin America and the Caribbean 2014,” noted that the region’s urban unemployment rate may reach 6.3 per cent in 2015, which means that there will be some 500,000 more without jobs.

“There are warning signs,” said Elizabeth Tinoco, the ILO’s regional director. “The concern is that we are creating fewer jobs despite unemployment remaining at a low level,” she added.

Although unemployment has not risen due to this slowdown in growth, there has been a sharp reduction of new jobs reflected in the employment rate, which fell by 0.4 percentage points to 55.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2014.

“This means that at least one million (fewer) jobs have been created,” Tinoco said.

The ILO said that this “scenario of uncertainty” comes after a decade in which the region enjoyed significant economic growth. The unemployment rate dipped to record lows and allowed for a higher quality of jobs.

The urban unemployment rate of young people dropped from 14.5 per cent to 14 per cent but still remains between 2 and 4 times higher than that for adults. What’s more, the unemployment rate for women is 30 per cent higher than that for men, and 47 per cent of urban workers work in the informal economy.

“Many people who temporarily left the workforce in 2014 will return to search for a job next year, together with young people entering the labour market. The region will have to create nearly 50 million jobs over the coming decade, just to offset demographic growth,” Tinoco said, adding “we are talking about almost 15 million people unemployed.

“So we have to face the huge challenge of rethinking strategies to push growth and a productive transformation of the economy to foster economic and social inclusion through the labour market,” Tinoco said.

The ILO is calling on countries in the region to prepare for the possibility of a labour market which has to take specific measures to stimulate employment and protect individual incomes.
Caribbean 360 – Online Regional News Source (Posted 12-15-2014; retrieved 12-16-2014) –
http://www.caribbean360.com/news/ilo-report-forecasts-higher-unemployment-latin-america-caribbean-2015

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society, starting with economic empowerment. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for many empowerments, such as the infrastructure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE), to allow for industrial developments in a controlled (bordered) environment. This creates the right climate, entrepreneurial spirit, and access to capital for job-creators to soar. The book starts with a focus on the community ethos of job-creators: protecting property (in this case intellectual property), bridging the digital divide, fostering genius and better managing negotiations.

This strategy is valid for urban areas, as SGE’s can avail the close proximity of a willing work force, and quickly deploy transportation options like electrified streetcars, light-rail, natural gas buses and other transit options.

In response to the dire predictions in the foregoing news article, the fear is that despite the love the Caribbean populations may have for their homeland and culture, they will leave to find work, when none is available locally. This is factual from the past. This actuality has been the “siren call” for this Go Lean book. The foreword of the book thusly states (Page 3):

Many people love their homelands and yet still begrudgingly leave; this is due mainly to the lack of economic opportunities. The Caribbean has tried, strenuously, over the decades, to diversify their economy away from the mono-industrial trappings of tourism, and yet tourism is still the primary driver of the economy. Prudence dictates that the Caribbean nations expand and optimize their tourism products, but also look for other opportunities for economic expansion. The requisite investment of the resources (time, talent, treasuries) for this goal may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state. Rather, shifting the responsibility to a region-wide, professionally-managed, deputized technocracy will result in greater production and greater accountability. This deputized agency is the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This book advocates that all Caribbean member-states (independent & dependent) lean-in to this plan for confederacy, collaboration and convention.

Populations leaving the islands create a whole new set of problems, for those leaving and those left behind. “The grass is not greener on the other side”; see the VIDEO below of European dire forecast for 2015. The Go Lean roadmap posits that it takes less effort to remediate Caribbean life than to thrive as an alien in some foreign land. This point has been frequently addressed in blog/commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2547	Miami’s Successful Now after first discriminating against immigrants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2251	What’s In A Name? Discrimination of Hispanics in the US.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222	Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Negative Attitudes & Images of the Caribbean Diaspora in US
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector (Afro-Caribbean) workers strike over ‘poverty pay’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to brain drain
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1350	PayPal expands payment services to 10 markets – More Latin Transfers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1296	Remittances to Caribbean Increased By 3 Percent in 2013
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=857	Caribbean Image: Dreadlocks
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We *Don’t* Want from the US – Job Discrimination of Immigrations

Also consider what happens after the societal abandonment. There are less of the educated classes remaining in the region to execute effective and efficient administration of the economic, security and governing engines. The disposition goes from bad to worst. (Even the flight of non-educated classes has a devastating effect: less people to support the marketplaces). Alas, classic Anthropology provides a key assessment. This science maintains that when a community comes under assault the responding options are “fight or flight”. For the past 50 years, “flight” has been the default reaction. The Go Lean roadmap now proposes the alternative: “fight”. But this is not a “call to arms” or for a revolt against the governments, agencies or institutions of the Caribbean region, but rather a petition for a peaceful transition and optimization of the economic, security and governing engines in the region.

The fighting spirit being advocated here is the community ethos to protest against the status quo:

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.

We need jobs in the region and we need them now! The Go Lean roadmap provides job-creating solutions; so now that the forecast is for more economic distress in 2015, the urging is to double-down on this roadmap.

The points of the arts and sciences of job creations were foremost in the consideration of this book. Early, this intent was pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14) with these statements of the need to remediate Caribbean communities:

xix.        Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx.        Whereas the 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.

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

xxvi.        Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, pre-fabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

The purpose of the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap is to compose, communicate and compel economic, security and governing solutions for the Caribbean homeland. We want a better society than the past; and perhaps even better than the countries so many of our citizens flee to. (We also want our Diaspora to repatriate; to come back home).

How, what, when for the Go Lean roadmap to effect the region with the harvesting of new jobs? The book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact job empowerment in the region, member-states, cities and communities. Below is a sample:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Close the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Facilitate Job-Creating Industries	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Transportation Enhancements	Page 84
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Self Governing Entities as Job Creating Engines	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – OECD-style Big Data Analysis	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Battles in the War on Poverty	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234
Appendix – Job Multipliers (new indirect jobs from created direct jobs)	Page 259

Other subjects related to job empowerments have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3164	Michigan Unemployment – Then and Now – Lessons Learned
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3152	Making a Great Place to Work®
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3050	Obama’s Immigration Reforms to take more Caribbean STEM workers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2953	Funding Caribbean Entrepreneurs – The ‘Crowdfunding’ Way
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857	Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2800	The Geography of Joblessness
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2750	Disney World’s example of Self Governing Entities and Economic Impacts
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126	Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003	Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under the SGE Structure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698	Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Where the Jobs Are – Fairgrounds as SGE & Landlords for Sports Leagues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=398	Self-employment on the rise in the Caribbean – World Bank

The purpose of this roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society, and create 2.2 million new jobs.

The Go Lean roadmap provides the turn-by-turn directions for accomplishing this goal for new jobs. Based on the foregoing article, we need to lean-in now, more than ever if we want to “prosper where we are planted” here in the Caribbean. While the future always has an amount of uncertainty, there are preparations that must always be made for seasonal change; a “winter” season is coming to the Caribbean; ignorance is no excuse.

A Bible proverb says to look to the “ants” (insect) for a lesson. They do not know exactly when the weather will change, so they forage in the summer to prepare food storehouses for the winter. These lowly creatures teach us so much:

Holman Christian Standard Bible – Proverbs 6:6
Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise.

Now is not the time to be a slacker nor to flee. We must stand up and be counted, fight the good fight and elevate our community. We too can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Appendix – VIDEO: Commission revises down economic forecast – http://youtu.be/JJimIOHy2C0

The European Commission has projected weak economic growth for the rest of this year in the Eurozone.

Unveiling its autumn economic forecast on Tuesday, the EU’s executive said that the 18-nation bloc will only grow 0.8%, a forecast below what was estimated earlier in the year. Growth is expected to rise slowly in 2015

“There is no single, and no simple answer. The economic recovery is clearly struggling to gather momentum in much of Europe. We believe that it is essential that all levels of government assume their responsibility and mobilise both demand- and supply-side policies to boost growth and employment,” EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici said.

“Country-specific factors are contributing to the weakness of economic activity in the EU, and the euro area in particular. Such factors include the deep-seated structural problems that were already well-known before the crisis, the public and private debt overhang; ongoing financial fragmentation related to the sovereign debt crisis and unfinished and uncertain reform agenda in some of our member states,” Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen stated.

According to the newly appointed commissioner, the EU sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukrainian conflict, and a weaker global economy, are damaging business confidence.

Eurozone leaders are relying on a 300 billion euro investment fund to kick-start economic recovery, after newly elected Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised to unveil the plan in December.

“Our first priority now is to boost investment, to kick-start growth, and sustain it over time. We will be working at full speed, under the coordination by Vice-President Katainen, to put in place the 300bn investment plan announced by President Juncker,” Moscovici said.

The EU’s unemployment rate is likely to fall to 10%, the Commission said. But as for the eurozone, it will be significantly higher.

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M-1 Rail: Alternative Motion in the Motor City

Posted on December 11, 2014 in Government, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Buy local!

This is the first mandate for any economic empowerment plan. Applying this logic would influence the City of Detroit to deploy public transportation options utilizing products and services of their local home-grown industries: The Big 3 auto makers.

And yet, Detroit is celebrating their initiation of a streetcar system – with no Ford, General Motors (GM) or Chrysler contributions; (they do no produce streetcars).

Yet, this is indisputably wise!

Streetcars were a common mode of transportation in many American cities, then something villainous happened: most systems were dismantled in the 1950’s & 1960’s as part of a switch to bus service. Detroit ceased their service in 1956, while Philadelphia never stopped and still continue to operate the same streetcars, even today. (The buses were manufactured by the Michigan-area auto companies; the Big 3). This plutocratic behavior proved a “greedy monster that ultimately ate itself”.^[1](In 2008 GM & Chrysler had to file for Bankruptcy Protection; 5 years later Detroit filed for Bankruptcy Protection as well).

The once great City of Detroit has to re-boot, remake and revive its metropolitan area, and streetcars are now part of the solution. There is the need to efficiently move people forward to facilitate live, work and play activities. See the M-1 Rail story here:

M-1 RAIL is a non-profit organization formed in 2007 to lead the design, construction, and future operation of a 3.3-mile circulating streetcar along Woodward Avenue between Congress Street and West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. M-1 RAIL is an unprecedented public-private partnership and model for regional collaboration Notably, the first major transit project being led and funded by both private businesses, philanthropic organizations, in partnership with local government, the State of Michigan, and U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mission
The mission of M-1 RAIL is to create a catalyst for investment, economic development and urban renewal that positively impacts the entire region through the construction of a streetcar circulator system running along and connecting Woodward Avenue from the Riverfront to the NewCenter and North End neighborhoods.

Vision
The M-1 RAIL Woodward Avenue Streetcar project is envisioned to be one element of a future modern, world-class regional transit system where all forms of transportation, including rail, bus, vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian, are considered and utilized to build a vibrant, walkable region that includes a thriving Downtown Detroit. This city center is envisioned by supporters of M-1 RAIL to become a foundation for growth and prosperity throughout the surrounding neighborhoods adjacent to the Central Business District, Midtown, NewCenter and North End.

———-

Video: M-1 Rail: Moving Forward Together – http://vimeo.com/106327746

M-1 RAIL: Moving Forward Together from M-1 Rail on Vimeo.

Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, and soon Detroit. All home to modern streetcar lines that serve as connectors throughout their respective regions, as well as economic catalysts, spurring investment and growth along their routes.

Construction will soon be underway for the M-1 RAIL streetcar connecting 20 stations serving 12 locations between Congress Street in Detroit’s Central Business District up to West Grand Boulevard at the North End.

Stretching 3.3 miles along Detroit’s famed, Woodward Avenue, A National Byway®, the modern streetcar will travel between Congress Street in Downtown to West Grand Boulevard, in the North End, providing access to hundreds of businesses and connecting neighborhoods and points of interest along the way including major cultural landmarks, sports stadiums, entertainment venues, restaurants, hospitals and universities.

When completed, whether going to work, going to lunch, or going to a game, visitors and residents alike will have the option to ride the M-1 RAIL Streetcar.
M-1 RAIL Project – Website; About Us – Retrieved December 11, 2014
http://m-1rail.com/about-m-1-rail/

This consideration by the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, a roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), is part-and-parcel of the effort to “observe and report” on the turn-around of the once great City of Detroit. Previous commentaries alluded that streetcars are also being considered for Caribbean deployment, especially since these member-states report very high fuel costs. In addition to streetcars, light-rail, natural-gas powered vehicles and toll roads are all part of the effort to empower the region through mass transit (Page 205).

It is the conclusion that the American auto industry played a key role is dissuading cities from streetcar deployments, but now that the dynamics have changed (oil price inflation, declining city residential populations/tax base, and re-gentrification to repatriate a middle class back to the inner city); this mode of transit is now “all the rage”. This is the consensus despite any objections or lobbying on behalf of auto manufacturers. After careful analysis, this commentary asserts that Detroit has been very kind to the Big 3 auto makers, but these companies have not reciprocated to Detroit. The references show that GM, Ford and Chrysler have grown their manufacturing footprint, many times globally, while decreasing their presence in Michigan^[2][3][4].

There is a matter of self-interest. Though there is some interdependence, the Big 3 auto makers must execute strategies and tactics for their best interest while Detroit must execute strategies and tactics for its best interest; though these may not align. The ethos, the Greater Good was missing in prior iterations of city administrations, but it is hoped now that this lesson is learned; and if not in Detroit, then surely we must practice this ethos in the Caribbean.

The Go Lean roadmap anticipates the challenges that communities like Detroit – failed-states/failed cities – have had to endure and pledges to pursue a course of action for better outcomes on our end. These points were pronounced early in the book, in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 14), with these statements:

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. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

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

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

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.

xxxiii.   Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … Detroit…

The CU mission is to implement the complete eco-system to deliver on market opportunities of streetcars, as related in the foregoing article/website. There are many strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies that will facilitate this readiness; a sample is detailed here:

Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Choose because Resources are Limited	Page 21
Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of State – SGE’s	Page 80
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Transportation	Page 84
Implementation – Security Initiatives at Start-up – Command-and-Control	Page 103
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage – Electrified Buses/Trains	Page 113
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry	Page 206
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Transit Options	Page 234

The world, including Detroit (for 2016), is preparing for the change to more efficient mass transit options to make transit to urban areas more appealing to live, work and play. This ethos of adapting to change has also now come to the Caribbean.

This blog commentary touches on many related issues and subjects that affect planning for Caribbean empowerment in this transportation industry-space. Many of these issues were elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

DC Streetcars – Model For Caribbean Re-development

Mitigating the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’, as GM practiced in the US in the past to quash Streetcar enterprises

The Criminalization/Abuses of American Business – Applying Lessons Learned

Preparing for the automotive future – Google self-driving cars to mitigate highway safety concerns

Go Green Caribbean – Streetcars are electric, less carbon footprint

Trains and Trucks play well together

The Go Lean book relates that the “greatest good to the greatest number of people is the measure of right and wrong”. This Greater Good mandate has a different charter for a city-community versus a for-profit corporation. This logic was lost during the modern history of Detroit; but we must ensure this principle is adhered to in the Caribbean future.

The Caribbean needs help…with transportation, jobs, urban renewal, growing the economy, and motivating our youth to impact their future here at home… in the Caribbean; as opposed to the recent history of societal abandonment. We have much to learn from Detroit.

Let’s pay more than the usual attention to these lessons; too much is dependent on our efforts.

The people of the region are urged to “lean-in” for the Caribbean empowerments as described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits of this roadmap are very alluring: emergence of an $800 Billion single market economy and 2.2 million new jobs. That is a great destination in which we need the right vehicle to get the whole community there. Like the M-1 Rail in the foregoing article, let’s Move Forward Together.

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix:
1.   Erysichthon – The monster that devoured everything and then itself. Retrieved December 11, 2014 from: http://sonjablignaut.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/a-monster-that-devours-itself-a-capitalists-parable/
2. List of General Motors factories. Retrieved December 11, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_General_Motors_factories
3.  List of Ford Motors factories. Retrieved December 11, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ford_factories
4.  List of Chrysler factories. Retrieved December 11, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chrysler_factories

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Role Model Shaking Up the World of Cancer

Posted on December 9, 2014 in Economics, Ethos, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary:

The book Go Lean…Caribbean relates the statement that “if 1-in-3 Americans are at risk for cancer, Caribbean citizens cannot be far behind”. (Page 157). Though well qualified, this statement does not need to be verified; everyone knows people that have battled or is battling cancer; (more frequently that we would care to admit). The disease often wins.

The book does not posit to be a roadmap for curing cancer, but rather a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society by optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region. Yet, within this roadmap is the strategy to incentivize cancer research and facilitate treatment centers and workable solutions. In fact this roadmap invites role models like medical researcher, bio-technology entrepreneur and billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, featured here in the following VIDEO and article:

VIDEO Title: Disrupting Cancer
Sub-Title: Billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is turning heads with unconventional ways of treating the deadly disease

CBS News Magazine 60 Minutes – Posted 12-07-2014 –
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/disrupting-cancer

In this week’s 60 Minutes story, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta — on assignment for 60 Minutes — profiles Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who has invested nearly a billion dollars of his own money to help find a better way to treat cancer. (VIDEO).

———————————–

Article Title: The Billionaire shaking up the world of cancer
Sub-title: Patrick Soon-Shiong: An owner of the L.A. Lakers, friend of Kobe Bryant, and a doctor who’s shaking up the world of cancer

60 Minutes producer Draggan Mihailovich tells 60 Minutes Overtime that the most challenging aspect of this profile was to give viewers a sense of what goes on in Dr. Pat’s brain.

The following is a script of the video produced for 60 Minutes Overtime by Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson and Lisa Orlando.

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: We now have patients with pancreatic cancer that are free of metatheses for five years. How many people know of that?]

That’s Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. This week on 60 Minutes Dr. Sanjay Gupta profiles the renowned doctor and entrepreneur who is shaking up the cancer world with a revolutionary approach to treatment. Dr. Soon-Shiong, also known as Dr. Pat, is not just the wealthiest man in Los Angeles; he’s a partial owner of the Lakers. And a familiar face [at court-side and] in the team’s training room.
…
Draggan Mihailovich: You’re talking about a city that thrives on celebrity and status.

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: He’s neither.

Draggan Mihailovich: He’s neither. You know, most people have no idea. They think it’s somebody involved in the entertainment industry. Or, you know, a movie producer or, you know, even an actor. And it’s Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.…
Sanjay Gupta: I think Dr. Soon-Shiong is one of these guys who is probably used to having been the smartest guy in the room probably from a very young age.

One of the biggest challenges for Gupta and Mihailovich was how to give viewers a sense of what goes on in the mind of a medical genius.

They began by asking him about his ground-breaking cancer drug Abraxane.

Draggan Mihailovich: There was a white board there. He takes a marker and he starts, you know, as you saw at the beginning of the piece, and off he went. And this goes on for 45 minutes. I mean, it was as if your kid took, like, a bowl of spaghetti and threw it up against a white wall.

Sanjay Gupta: It was this idea that cancer patients lose weight. But why do they lose weight? Even if they eat the same number of calories or even double the calories that they used to eat, they could still be losing weight. Why? What Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong was sort of thinking about was it’s the protein in the blood that is just sucked up by these cancers. So if the cancers love proteins so much, here’s an idea. Let’s stick the chemotherapy in the protein, and the protein’s now a Trojan horse around the chemo. So the cancer is happy. It’s being fed. It’s getting all this protein. Boom. Chemo goes off on the tumor. And all of a sudden, you got a very, very effective, potentially, therapy.

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: We have it approved in breast cancer, we have it approved in lung cancer and were talking about patients in pancreatic cancer, and melanoma.]

Sanjay Gupta: That’s Dr. Patrick’s mind.

Dr. Soon-Shiong believes that the conventional approach to classifying cancer according to its location in the body is short-sighted. He says it’s the mutation of the gene, what made it go haywire, that matters.

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: We need to reclassify cancers now to its molecular fingerprints.]

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: He’s not just thinking out of the box. I mean, he’s creating a revolution.

Sanjay Gupta: He’s absolutely creating a revolution, and it involves so many different facets that are not just medicine. Quick example, when you’re talking about sequencing genomes of many, many patients — around the United States and around the world, that is a lot of data, you’re talking about 6 billion pieces of information for each patient. Right now, we move things through the Information Superhighway at about megabytes per second. He’s talking about wanting to do that in petabytes per second.

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: Never heard of that.

Sanjay Gupta: You got megabytes. 1,000 megabytes is a gigabyte. 1,000 gigabytes is a terabyte. 1,000 terabytes is a petabyte. So you’re talking, you know, exponentially, more data per second. And he’s basically figured out ways and funded ways to make that happen. That’s part of what a revolution looks like.

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: Here we have the world’s fastest video camera, what we’ve done is to take the power of optics or the sun and created a rainbow from laser light.]

Draggan Mihailovich: He’s involved in the technology. He’s involved in immunotherapy.

[Sanjay Gupta: So you’re literally watching cancer cells die here?]

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: Correct.]

Draggan Mihailovich: He’s involved in circulating tumor cells. You know, he’s involved in metastatic cancers. He’s still involved in some respect with his original drug, Abraxane, and how that’s used in combination therapies. And the brain is always working with Patrick.

[Sanjay Gupta: Is there anything like this right now? I mean, is anyone doing this sort of.]

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: No, it’s in our lab. This is what you call the clinical translation world where 21st century exists today.]

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: He comes across as incredibly confident and, if one has cancer, is he the only game in town?

Sanjay Gupta: I don’t think Doctor Pat is the only game in town, by any means. I think he’s someone who’s looking at trying to disrupt the whole system. I think there are a lot of great oncologists out there, and frankly, there are a lot of oncologists who not only believe what he’s doing is the right thing to do, but they’re doing it themselves. They’re doing it; it’s just its smaller scales. Patrick’s, sort of, belief is, “Look, I already think that this is what’s going to work.”

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: He’s screaming it from the rooftops.

Sanjay Gupta: Screaming it from the rooftops, spending his own money.

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: Well, I haven’t really counted, but it’s close to a billion dollars.]

[Sanjay Gupta: A billion dollars?]

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: Billion dollars.]

[Sanjay Gupta: Where’s the government in all of this?]

[Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: Trust me, we tried. You know, since 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, I was in Washington, I was at the White House, I was at Congress, I was everywhere. We have not received one penny of funding.]

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: Is he an easily accessible physician?

Sanjay Gupta: There were times when I’d be riding along with him, his phone would ring and, it would be somebody who had been, sort of, referred to him by somebody, you know, one of those situations. And he’d be on the phone with them for 15-20 minutes. “Here’s what I think you need to do.”

Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson: For the hundreds of thousands of people on chemotherapy, Dr. Soon-Shiong is not saying, “Stop what you’re doing.” But he’s pretty much on the edge of that.

Draggan Mihailovich: What he’s saying is, “Ask questions.” You know, is this the right thing to do. Because more and more what scientists and oncologists will tell you is that perhaps in some cancers, and I’m gonna qualify this. In some cancers, a heavy blast of chemotherapy may not necessarily be, you know, the long-term answer.
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-billionaire-shaking-up-the-world-of-cancer/

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

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

The Go Lean book asserts that one person can make a difference and maybe even change the world. The innovations and passions of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong may very well fit this advocacy. He is a role model for Caribbean innovators and scientists. We invite him; and others of his ilk, to impact the world from a Caribbean domicile. How?

One feature of the Go Lean roadmap is the adoption of Self-Governing Entities (SGE). These dedicated, bordered grounds are ideal for medical research and treatment campuses for resources like Dr. Soon-Shiong. We hereby extend the invitation to him … and all like-minded individuals looking for cooperative and supportive governing structures to facilitate their impact on the world.

The Go Lean book strategizes a roadmap for economic empowerment in the region, clearly relating that healthcare, and pharmaceuticals/cancer drugs research are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 & 14), these points are pronounced:

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

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

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

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues of cancer and other medical research and practices, sampled here:

The Cost of Cancer Drugs

Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US

CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones

Welcoming Innovators and Entrepreneurs under an SGE Structure

Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business

Medical Research Associates Kidney Stones and Climate Change – Innovative!

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

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

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

New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries

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

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

This premise is loud-and-clear from the foregoing VIDEO. Dr. Soon-Shiong is already a billionaire from his development (and returns) of other cancer drugs (like Abraxane). This demonstrates that there is money to be made in this industry-space. Most importantly, however, there are lives to be saved.

The foregoing news article and VIDEO provides an inside glimpse into the cancer research discipline. Obviously, the innovators and developers of drugs have the right to glean the economic returns of their research. The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations will emerge in the region as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions. This is based on the assumption that intellectual properties (IP) registered in the Caribbean region will be duly respected around the world.

This IP protection mandate, on behalf of all 30 member-states, is a heavy-lifting task for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. (Cuban cancer drugs do enjoy this recognition at this time, despite the country’s irrelevance in American commerce).

This is an issue of economic, security and governance.

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

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D)	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration	Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cancer	Page 157
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management – Trauma Medicine	Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations	Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities	Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers	Page 336

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical or cancer research best practices. The economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for cancer research and/or treatment. But the war on cancer has been stagnant for far too long; yet more can be done. As depicted in the foregoing article, the solutions are not coming from the governments, so the needed innovation must be incentivized from private enterprises. The SGE structure invites innovations like that of Dr. Soon-Shiong and many others with his passion…and genius.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region, that of Self-Government Entities (Page 127), in which R&D and Genius can take hold, and thrive. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Sports Role Model – espnW.

Posted on December 8, 2014 in Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Introducing a network without the “network”. This is espnW, the ESPN (see Appendix below) channel, without a channel, specifically catering to women’s sports; this network is delivered via the internet only.

Wow, how the world has changed.

So this commentary is a melding of ICT (Internet & Communications Technology), sports, television, gender equality and economics – this is a big deal for the Caribbean to consider.

espnW…

espnW’s mission is to serve women as fans and athletes. espnW.com provides an engaging environment that offers total access to female athletes and the sports they play, takes fans inside the biggest events, and shares a unique point of view on the sports stories that matter most to women.

Founded in July, 2010, espnW lives across television, films, events, digital and social platforms. The annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit is the leading event of its kind in the sports industry. The Women’s Sports Foundation is a charity of choice for espnW.
ESPN W. – About Us Page – Official Website (Retrieved December 7, 2014) – http://espn.go.com/espnw/v1/about

VIDEO: espnW at the 2012 Olympic Games – http://youtu.be/z7vGVQAatig
Published on Aug 14, 2012
Alex Morgan sits down with Julie Foudy to talk about what it feels like to have her first Olympic gold

The Caribbean does not currently have an eco-system for sports business … for men nor women. There is no viable sporting enterprises, other than baseball development/winter leagues in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Communist Cuba. There is absolutely no intercollegiate athletics arrangements. Only Amateur athletics abound in the region.

While so much of the sports business infrastructure is missing, the Caribbean is awash in the underlying assets: the athletes. The Caribbean supplies the world with the best-of-the-best in the sports genres of baseball, basketball, track-and-field, soccer-FIFA-football and other endeavors. This athletic supply applies equally to men and women.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. The roadmap recognizes and fosters the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean men and women. The goal now is to foster the local eco-system in the homeland so that those with talent would not have to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments.

This Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap strategizes to create a Single Media Market to leverage the value of broadcast rights for the entire region, utilizing all the advantages of cutting edge ICT offerings. The result: an audience of 42 million residents (plus 10 million Diaspora) across 30 member-states and 4 languages. ESPN and espnW provides a great role model for this execution, see Appendix below, facilitating television, cable, satellite and internet streaming wherever economically viable.

At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports, for all genders, in the roadmap with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi.      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.

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

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

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations and community investments to garner economic benefits of sports and talented athletes, men and women. One of the biggest contribution the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. Sports can be big business (and great educational opportunities) for the athletes, promoters, vendors and landlords. Still, even fans get great benefits: image, national pride, and entertainment. (The E in ESPN means Entertainment). The eco-system of sports is therefore inclusive in the roadmap’s quest to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play.

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

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Consolidating the Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #5 Four Languages in Unison / #8 Cyber Caribbean	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Reduce Brain Drain	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology – Intellectual Property Protections	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women	Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The book Go Lean…Caribbean, and aligning blog commentaries (highlighted throughout this page in bold), asserts that the region can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in sports and sports broadcasting/streaming at all levels: professional, amateur and intercollegiate.

The Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap is bigger than just sports, its a concerted effort to elevate all of Caribbean society, for all genders: men and women. The CU is the vehicle for this goal, this is detailed by the following 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs (21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sport venues).
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap adheres to economic principles of supply-and-demand. Similar to the foregoing website on espnW, the roadmap looks for the opportunities to foster interest that may exist in specific endeavors, in this case women’s sports, and then explore the business opportunities around servicing that demand. This is not limited to the domestic Caribbean, but rather can refer to local interest in sports abroad and foreign interest in Caribbean sports and athletes.

This is heavy-lifting. This is the quest of Go Lean/CU, to do the heavy-lifting to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

———

Appendix – Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN)

ESPN is a U.S.-based global cable and satellite television channel that is owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) and Hearst Corporation (which holds the remaining 20% interest). The channel focuses on sports-related programming including live and recorded event telecasts, sports news and talk shows, and other original programming.

ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices in Miami, New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles. While ESPN is one of the most successful sports networks, it has been subject to criticism, which includes accusations of biased coverage^[1] (not showing enough hockey or Women’s athletics), conflict of interest, and controversies with individual broadcasters and analysts.

As of August 2013, ESPN is available to approximately 97,736,000 pay television households (85.58% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.^[2] In addition to the flagship channel and its seven related channels in the United States, ESPN broadcasts in more than 200 countries,^[3] operating regional channels in Australia, Brazil, Latin America and the United Kingdom, and owning a 20% interest in The Sports Network (TSN) as well as its five sister networks and NHL Network in Canada.

Source References:

Geography lesson: Breaking down the bias in ESPN’s coverage, ESPN.com, August 15, 2008.
Seidman, Robert (August 23, 2013). “List of How Many Homes Each Cable Networks Is In – Cable Network Coverage Estimates As Of August 2013”. TV by the Numbers. Zap2it. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
ESPN Inc Encyclopedia Britannica.

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[Top]

Gas Prices Drop Below $2

Posted on December 4, 2014 in Economics, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This is one of the year’s biggest economic stories; Gas Prices have dropped below $2.

The OnCue Drive Thru in Oklahoma sold gas for $1.99 a gallon Wednesday, a trend that many U.S. drivers are hoping will spread. – Published December 3rd 2014, 6:52 pm

Video: http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/gas-prices-drop-below-2-gallon-oklahoma-n261101

It’s worth appreciating what’s going on here. The Power Player in this story is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (better known as OPEC):

OPEC – a cartel of [12] oil producers that include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela – had a big meeting in Vienna on November 27. Before the gathering, there was speculation that OPEC countries might cut back on their own oil production in order to prop up prices. But in the end, the cartel couldn’t agree on how to respond and did nothing.

Oil prices promptly nosedived, with the price of Brent crude now hovering around $70 per barrel.

As recently as the summer, that price was over $100 per barrel.

…

At this big meeting in Vienna, there was a lot of heated debate among OPEC members about how best to respond to this current drop in oil prices. Some countries, like Venezuela and Iran, wanted the cartel (mainly Saudi Arabia) to cut back on production in order to prop up the price of oil. The reason is that these countries need high prices in order to “break even” on their budgets and pay for all the government spending they’ve racked up:

Source – Brad Plumer of Vox.com. Posted November 28, 2014; retrieved December 4, 2014 from: http://www.vox.com/2014/11/28/7302827/oil-prices-opec

OPEC is an international intergovernmental organization and economic cartel whose mission is to coordinate the policies of the oil-producing countries. This structure aligns with the book Go Lean… Caribbean, a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This calls for the confederation, collaboration and convention of 30 member-states into one intergovernmental organization. The same as OPEC does for its 12 oil-producing nations – a proxy agency to represent all members – the CU seeks for the Caribbean region. But instead of elevating oil prices, the CU coalition has these 3 prime directives:

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

The goal of the CU is to optimize Caribbean society, allowing us to better compete globally and hopefully present more favorable options for our youth here in the homeland. (Previous generations sought refuge abroad).

The goal of OPEC is to secure a steady income to the member states and to collaborate in influencing world oil prices through economic means. Though this charter seems fairly benign, the reality of OPEC is vastly different; they have emerged as a monstrous entity! Autocratic leaders of OPEC countries – think Saddam Hussein – would constantly urge pushing world oil prices up; their claims were to help all OPEC members financially, but their motivation were purely nationalistic. The public view of OPEC now coincides with this dialogue from a movie, “art imitating life”:

“It can’t be bargained with, it can’t feel pain or mercy, and it will stop at absolutely nothing until you are dead!” – Movie dialogue from The Terminator (1984)

OPEC is not a monster, just protective of its own self-interest; many of their member-states feature a mono-industrial economy; it’s oil or bust! Plus, with 40 percent of global oil production, they do wield some power, influence and control of the eco-system of crude-oil pricing. But their power-influence-control is not absolute; there are always the laws of Economics!

Back to the foregoing article, the fact remains that oil prices were falling well before OPEC’s Friday announcement; this change was driven in large part by factors from Economics 101: less demand + higher supply = lower prices. In this case, economic slowdowns in much of the world have dampened demand, as supply has expanded considerably, especially within the U.S.

This premise directs the Energy Policy as communicated in the Go Lean book: the Caribbean region must lower crude oil demand.

This Go Lean/CU roadmap recognizes that modern life has expanded the definition of basic needs to now include food, clothing, shelter and energy. And thusly the book proposes many solutions for the region to optimize energy generation, distribution and consumption. No “stone is left unturned”. Go Lean posits that the average costs of energy can be decreased from an average of US$0.35/kWh to US$0.088/kWh in the course of the 5-year term of this roadmap. (Page 100).

Primary to this strategy of lowering the demand for crude oil is increasing options with alternative energy sources: natural gas, solar, wind and tidal. This will translate to more electric, hybrids, and fuel-efficient vehicles. The CU is a strong proponent of compressed-natural-gas vehicles (buses, trucks and passenger vehicles).

Lowering demand for energy works in lowering the costs.

In the US, the Obama administration’s improved fuel-efficiency standards have ultimately affected consumers, in that they are using less gas: “The sales-weighted fuel economy of vehicles in the U.S. increased from 20.8 miles per gallon in 2008 to 25.3 miles per gallon in 2014.” Other countries share the same experiences.

The Go Lean roadmap details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the progress in the wide fields of energy generation, distribution and consumption. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Regional Taxi Commissions	Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Anecdote – Pipeline Transport – Strategies, Tactics & Implementations	Page 43
Strategy – Harness the power of the sun/winds	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 82
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Energy Commission	Page 82
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Energy Permits	Page 93
Anecdote – Caribbean Energy Grid Implementation	Page 100
Implementation – Ways to Develop Pipeline Industry	Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage	Page 113
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works	Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Monopolies	Page 202
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation	Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry	Page 206
Appendix – North Dakota Oil Boom Economic-Societal Effects	Page 334

This commentary asserts that energy needs are undeniable; and that OPEC may or may not be classified as a “monster”. The main take-away though is that monitoring and mitigating the realities of the global energy eco-system is a necessary role, a heavy-lifting task for the lean, agile operations of the CU technocracy.

So the message to the Caribbean region is clear: Help is on the way – the Terminator can be defeated – “life imitating art”!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, business, institutions and governments, to lean-in for the optimizations and opportunities described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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[Top]

Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday

Posted on December 3, 2014 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

To understand American commerce, one must learn the BIG shopping “days of the week” – Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, as follows:

Black Friday – This is the Friday following the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the US (the fourth Thursday of November). Since the early 2000’s, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and most major retailers open very early and offer promotional sales. Black Friday is not a public holiday, but some states observe “The Day After Thanksgiving” as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day.^[5] Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. In 2014, $50.9 billion was spent during the 4-day Black Friday weekend. While approximately 133 million U.S. consumers shopped during the same period.^[6]
Small Business Saturday – This refers to the Saturday after Thanksgiving during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. First observed in 2010, it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retail and e-commerce stores respectively. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick-and-mortar businesses that are small and local. Small Business Saturday is a registered trademark of American Express Corporation. Small Business Saturday UK began in the UK in 2013 after the success of Small Business Saturday in America.^[7]
Cyber Monday – This is a marketing term for the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday. The term was created by marketing companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005, in a Shop.org press release entitled “‘Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year”.^[2] According to the Shop.org/Bizrate Research 2005 eHoliday Mood Study, “77 percent of online retailers said that their sales increased substantially on the Monday after Thanksgiving, a trend that is driving serious online discounts and promotions on Cyber Monday this year (2005)”. In 2014, Cyber Monday online sales grew to a record $2.68 billion, compared with last year’s $2.29 billion. However, the average order value was $124, down slightly from 2013’s $128.^[3] The deals on Cyber Monday are online-only and generally offered by smaller retailers that cannot compete with the big retailers. Black Friday generally offers better deals on technology; with nearly 85% more data storage deals than Cyber Monday. The past Black Fridays saw far more deals for small appliances, cutlery, and kitchen gadgets on average than Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is larger for fashion retail. On the past two Cyber Mondays, there was an average of 45% more clothing deals than on Black Friday. There were also 50% more shoe deals on Cyber Monday than on Black Friday.^[4] Cyber Monday has become an international marketing term used by online retailers in Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Uganda, Japan, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Giving Tuesday – refers to the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It is a movement to create a national day of giving at the beginning of the Christmas and holiday season. Giving Tuesday was started in 2012 by the “92nd Street Y” (Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association in New York, NY) and the United Nations Foundation as a response to commercialization and consumerism in the post-Thanksgiving season (Black Friday and Cyber Monday).^[8][9] This occasion is often stylized as #GivingTuesday for purposes of hashtag activism.

That’s a lot of commerce … and philanthropy too!

This encyclopedic discussion is necessary for the Caribbean to model the best-practices of American commerce. The focus of this commentary is the role of one company in the pantheon of Cyber Monday, Amazon. This firm has previously been featured in a Go Lean blog, and is identified as a model for Caribbean logistics, our means for delivering the mail; this is the vision for the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU).

The focus of the book Go Lean…Caribbean and the CPU is not just postal mail, but rather logistics. Mail requires logistics, but logistics encompasses so much more than just mail. So we would want to model a successful enterprise in this industry space, like Amazon, not just another postal operation, like the US Postal Service (Page 99).

Amazon provides a good example of lean technocratic efficiency. So Amazon is a good model, not just for the CPU but the entire Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic CU.

One reason why Amazon is modeled for their lean stature is their use of automation. This following VIDEO depicts the creative solution of using robots to facilitate logistics in a warehouse environment:

VIDEO: Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/robots-help-amazon-tackle-cyber-monday/

December 1, 2014 – Cyber Monday is the biggest sales day of the year for online retail giant, Amazon. Last year, Amazon customers ordered 426 items every second on Cyber Monday, and this year that number is expected to grow. In addition to the 80-thousand seasonal workers they employ to fulfill orders, thousands of robots also crawl the warehouse floors. CNET.com’s KaraTsuboi takes us inside an Amazon fulfillment center to watch the robots in action. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

Lean, automation, robotics, technocratic …

… welcome to the new Caribbean.

This is the mission of Go Lean roadmap, to elevate the economic engines of Caribbean society; industrial policy plays a key role in this roadmap. The region needs the jobs, so we need job creators: companies. These companies, or better stated, Direct Foreign Investors, need a pro-innovation environment to deploy their automated solutions. The Go Lean roadmap allows the structure of Self-Governing Entities (SGE) to incentivize industrial developments in the region. It is the expectation that robots and automated systems will flourish. The independence of the SGE structure neutralizes conflicts with “labor”.

Related issues have previously been detailed in these Go Lean commentaries listed here:

Disney World – Successful Role Model of a SGE

Using SGE’s to Welcome the Dreaded ‘Plutocracy’

Where the Jobs Are – Ship-breaking under SGE Structure

Fairgrounds as SGE and Landlords for Sports Leagues

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

In addition to the roadmap encouraging robotic automation, the CU will directly employ such technologically innovative products and services to impact its own prime directives; the CPU is such a reflection; more automation and less labor. The CU’s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

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

The CPU features economic, security and governing concerns.

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to change the entire eco-system of Caribbean logistics and resulting commerce – the interaction with postal operations. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 12 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

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.

Amazon is not our only example. A previous blog/commentary identified Chinese company Alibaba as a fitting role model for Caribbean consideration. There are so many best-practices around the world for the region to study and glean insights and wisdom from. The successful application of this roadmap will foster such best-practices for the delivery of the CPU logistics in the Caribbean. The wisdom the Go Lean book gleans are presented as a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies; a detailed sample is listed as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Strategy – Customers – Citizens and Member-states Governmental	Page 47
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Postal Services	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration	Page 79
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish CPU	Page 96
Anecdote – Implementation Plan – Mail Services – US Dilemma	Page 99
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Improve Mail Services – Electronic Supplements	Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce	Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy –Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Call Centers	Page 212
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234

Following the Amazon’s example (and Alibaba’s example) will spur the Caribbean to embrace more robotic technologies. This field is new, fresh and ready for innovation. There is a level-playing-field for any innovator to earn market share. The underlying company in the foregoing VIDEO is Kiva Systems – a Massachusetts based company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfillment systems.^[10][11] They rolled out a great product, then “Lo-and-behold”, they were acquired by a major e-Commerce company. Today, they are a subsidiary of Amazon, yet their material-handling systems are currently used by many other retailers including: The Gap, Walgreens, Staples, Gilt Groupe, Office Depot, Crate & Barrel, Saks 5th Avenue, and more.^[12]

This commentary therefore features the subjects of commerce, logistics and entrepreneurship. The Caribbean can emulate this model from Amazon. The biggest ingredient missing in the region is the ‘will’. But the ‘will’ can be fostered anew in the Caribbean. This is the heavy-lifting for the CU, instituting such new community ethos.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region; that of a Cyber Caribbean, in which Cyber Mondays may become a big deal for our region – not only as consumers, but producers as well. Therefore, this roadmap is not just a plan for delivering the mail/packages, but rather a plan for delivering the future.

We must employ whatever tools and techniques, robotics included, to make the region a better homeland to live, work and play.

Does “play“include Robots? Yes, indeed. Consider this fun VIDEO here. 🙂

Supplemental VIDEO – The Nutcracker performed by Dancing Kiva Order Fulfillment Robots: http://youtu.be/Vdmtya8emMw

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix – Source References:

2.    “‘Cyber Monday’ Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year”. Shop.org.
3.    “Fundivo – Cyber Monday Statistics”. Fundivo.
4.    “What’s the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday?”. Mirror.co.uk. Mirror.co.uk. Nov 28, 2013. Retrieved 2014-11-25.
5.    “Pima County in Arizona Replaces Columbus Day with Black Friday”. BestBlackFriday.com. 2013-08-07.
6.    “”Fundivo – Black Friday Statistics””. Fundivo.
7.    Small Business Saturday Hailed as Success. The Telegraph. 8 December 2013″. Telegraph.co.uk. 8 December 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
8.   Fox, Zoe (October 23, 2012). “6 Inspiring Organizations Joining in #GivingTuesday”. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
9.    “#GivingTuesday: About”. Giving Tuesday. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
10. http://www.kivasystems.com/about-us-the-kiva-approach/
11.   http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2012/03/amazon_buys_warehouse_robotics.html
12. http://www.kivasystems.com/about-us-the-kiva-approach/history/

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Michigan Unemployment – Then and Now

Posted on December 2, 2014 in Economics, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

The tagline “a better place to live, work and play” is the focus for empowering the Caribbean, placing equal emphasis on all 3 spheres of activity. But the focus of work is easier said than done. Without work, the Caribbean will continue to suffer societal abandonment – our good people would simply leave to go elsewhere to find the missing work element. They will do this despite how pleasant the “live” and “play” elements may be in our society.

This is a lesson learned from Detroit, Michigan USA.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap to elevate the Caribbean “work” environment. It analyses the regional disposition and then seeks solutions by studying the performances of other global cities, especially in the US.

The following chart highlights 50 cities, 2 of which were studied for the Go Lean book, a good example, Number 1 on the chart: Omaha, Nebraska and Number 50 on the chart: Detroit, Michigan, the once great industrial city.

The lessons from Omaha have already been a subject of this commentary. Now we focus on the other end of the chart, Detroit; this city specifically and the overall State of Michigan in general.

The entire eco-system of jobs was crippled in Michigan during the recent Great Recession (2007 – 2009). In response to the crisis throughout the country, the US federal government began extending unemployment benefits as a safety-net. There was a federal program to provide additional weeks of unemployment benefits to people starting in 2008.^[2] The program was then extended again and again; the most recent extension was provided by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which continued the supplemental unemployment benefits until the end of 2013.^[2] Only then was the comfort level established that the “recession was over”, and the recovery was well enough in hand.

The United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in November 2013 the average (mean) duration of unemployment was 37.2 weeks.^[3] The median duration was 17.0 weeks. 22.6% of people who were unemployed found a new job in less than 5 weeks, while 37.3% had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.^[3]

These numbers were very bad during the throes of the Great Recession. In line with the following article, which quotes statistics, the impact on the streets of Michigan were 1 million unemployed. See article here:

Michigan unemployment tops 15% – July 2009
Sub-title: Government says jobless rate is the highest for a state since 1984. Rate tops 10% in 15 states and District of Columbia.
By: Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Michigan became the first state in 25 years to suffer an unemployment rate exceeding 15%, according to a report released Friday by the Labor Department.

The state’s unemployment rate rose to 15.2% in June (2009). It was the highest of any state since March 1984, when West Virginia’s unemployment rate exceeded 15%.

Michigan, which has been battered by the collapse of the auto industry and the housing crisis, has had the highest unemployment rate in the nation for 12 months in a row.

Rhode Island had the second highest unemployment rate at 12.4%, followed by Oregon at 12.2%.

A total of 15 states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rates of at least 10%.

Friday’s report from the U.S. Labor Department also showed that six states recorded record-high unemployment rates in June.

Over the month, jobless rates increased in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Michigan’s 1.1 percentage point increase from May to June was the highest in the nation, followed by Wyoming’s 0.9 point increase.

On an annual basis, jobless rates where higher in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Michigan also recorded the highest yearly increase at 7.1 percentage points. Oregon came in second with a year-over-year increase of 6.3 percentage points in its unemployment rate.

The national unemployment rate rose for the ninth straight month in June, climbing to 9.5% from 9.4%, and hitting another 26-year high. Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.

Unemployment rates decreased in five states, and seven states had no rate change.

North Dakota’s 4.2% jobless rate was the lowest in the nation, followed by Nebraska at 5%.

The Midwest and West both had jobless rates of 10.2%. The jobless rate in the Northeast rose to 8.6% from 8.3% but was the lowest of any U.S. region. In the South, unemployment rose to 9.2%.

Non-farm payroll employment fell in 39 states and the District of Columbia in June. California had the largest month-over-month decrease in jobs.

Payrolls increased in 10 states and were unchanged in one state. The largest over-the-month increase occurred in North Carolina.

Source: CNN Money Online Financial News Site (Posted July 17, 2009; retrieved 12-02-2014)http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/17/news/economy/state_unemployment_report/

The Great Recession was truly a crisis. That was then; this is now.

Detroit still has the highest unemployment rate of the 50 largest cities in the U.S., at more than three times the national average for May, which was 6.3%. The unemployment rate for Detroit hovered at 23%, six percentage points ahead of the nearest on the list — Oakland City, Calif., at 16.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in June 24, 2014.^[4]

Once the metrics fall so low, there is no place to go but up.

In the past year Michigan is starting to finally feel the beneficial effects of the recovery. From those ghastly numbers of 1 million in 2009, the numbers petitioning for the Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) at December 19, 2013 were slightly “over 43,000 people in Michigan”. (The extension measure failed in the US Congress – the economy was a victim of its own success).

The Go Lean publishers are here to observe and report. Detroit in specific and Michigan is general is starting now to experience a turn-around. While there may be an ongoing hardship for those 43,000 people, the overall economy of Michigan has greatly improved since 2009, as the foregoing article relates, when the state “recorded the highest yearly unemployment increase of 7.1 percentage points”.

Michigan unemployment rate edges toward pre-recession numbers
Sub-title: …but employment hasn’t recovered
By: Emily Lawler – elawler@mlive.com MLive.com

LANSING, MI – Michigan’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate dropped to 7.1 percent in October, according to data released by the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

October’s 7.1 number is a .1 percent decline from September and the third monthly decline in a row. A year ago, in October 2013, unemployment was more than a point higher at 8.6 percent.

That’s the lowest rate this year and in fact the lowest since January through March of 2008.

“October’s 7.1 percent jobless rate was the lowest in Michigan since the January thorugh March 2008 period, and close matched pre-recession rates from 2003 to 2007. However, Michigan employment remains far below pre-recession levels,” noted the Department in a press release.

In October 2007, total employment in the state was 4.6 million. In October 2014, total employment in the state was 4.4 million.

Gov. Rick Snyder issued a statement on the unemployment:

“There is optimism and opportunity in Michigan as our state’s economy continues to move forward. More people are working and our labor force is growing as companies create more and better jobs. Our reinvention is helping working families and we are seeing results.

“But while we can recognize this accomplishment, there is more to do to fulfill our goal of the brightest possible future. We need to continue creating an environment for success, and that includes building a workforce with in-demand skills – and making sure a pathway to those skills is available for Michigan students and adults.”

Emily Lawler is a Capitol/Lansing business reporter for MLive Media Group.
Source: http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/11/michigan_unemployment_rate_edg.html

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society, not Detroit, starting with economic empowerment. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

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

The CU will foster the right climate for Direct Foreign Investments, entrepreneurial initiatives, industrial development, and preparation for a ready, willing and able work force.

These points are pronounced early in the Go Lean book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14) with many statements that demonstrate the need to empower the Caribbean labor force:

xx. 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.

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

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, pre-fabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

Despite the weaknesses of its current dilemma, Detroit does have strengths. The city is working hard to turn-around. See VIDEO here of a Job Fair for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) jobs peculiar to the Motor City:

Engineering Society of Detroit job fair on Monday – Posted November 9, 2014

Video – http://www.wxyz.com/money/job-finder/engineering-society-of-detroit-job-fair-on-monday#Job%20fair%20today:

We must learn from Detroit. The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact jobs in the Caribbean region, member-states, cities and communities. Below is a sample:

Assessment – Anecdote – Caribbean Single Market & Economy	Page 15
Assessment – Anecdote – Dutch Caribbean – Integration & Secessions	Page 16
Assessment – Anecdote – French Caribbean – Organization & Discord	Page 17
Assessment – Anecdote – Puerto Rico – The Greece of the Caribbean	Page 18
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Around	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Facilitate Job-Creating Industries	Page 46
Strategic – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – $800 Billion Economy – How and When – High Multiplier Industries	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – State Department – Self-Governing Entities	Page 80
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization	Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Cuba/Haiti	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Planning – Lessons from Omaha	Page 138
Planning – Lessons from Detroit	Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Battles in the War Against Poverty	Page 222
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Middle Class	Page 223
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234

Other subjects related to the pros-and-cons of job empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here::

Making a Great Place to Work® – Detroit Employer Example

Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk

The Geography of Joblessness

Continued Discriminationor Latins/Caribbeans in Job Markets

Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market

Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario: Shipbreaking

Casino Jobs – Changing/Failing Business Model

The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism Jobs

STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly – High Demand, Low Supply

Where the Jobs Were – British public sector now strike over ‘poverty pay’

Where the Jobs Are – Fairgrounds as SGE & Landlords for Sports Leagues

Self-employment jobs on the rise in the Caribbean – World Bank

The purpose of this roadmap is to elevate Caribbean society. To succeed we must apply lessons from advanced economy countries like the US, and the cities there in; lessons from their good, bad and ugly experiences of the past.

The Go Lean movement (book and blog commentaries) posits that there is less effort to remediate the Caribbean homeland, than to flee to a city like Detroit and try to thrive as an alien in that land. So the book thusly advocates to “prosper where planted”. With the appropriate effort, as defined in the Go Lean book, the Caribbean can truly become a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

—————–

Source References:

http://www.michigan.gov/uia/0,4680,7-118–318402–s,00.html
Ayres, Sarah (20 November 2013). “Why Congress Must Extend Emergency Unemployment Benefits”. Center for American Progress. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
“Economic News Release: Table A-12 Unemployed person by duration of unemployment”. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 6 December 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/should-you-move-to-detroit-2014-06-24. Retrieved December 2, 2014.

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