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I was asked to put some thoughts together about where the world is going from a Scottish perspective so knocked up this article for what it is worth.
A wandering Scot looks back and wonders about the future.
Having now spent some 15 years studying the history of Scotland and the Scots at home and abroad I must confess I'm quite depressed about how we are doing today.
While it has been most interesting to study the history of Scotland and the Scots at home I feel the much larger story is about the Scots who left Scotland.
And when I talk about the Scots who left Scotland I mean those that left for England, Wales and Ireland as well as all over the world.
What these Scots did was truly amazing. They had vision and enterprise and a can do attitude. To use a phrase from today, they "thought out of the box".
At home in Great Britain they built numerous bridges, roads, canals and important buildings. And with their work with Steam they revolutionised transport on land and sea. They were also the Empire builders as they often led the pack to all parts of the world.
They put together a way of looking at the world that changed how we did business.
While they were soldiers of distinction they would far rather have sold your products than fight a war with you.
The Scots brought the world a means of calculation that made many discoveries possible. They brought you light in your homes, televison, and a means of fighting disease. At one point they were the Doctors of the world.
They fought long and hard in Canada and made it the nation it is today. They had huge influence in America and were often the owners and managers of huge ranches. They put in place a method of agrculture that serves the nation well even today. They even influenced the American constitution.
They built the world's largest ever company, the Hudson's Bay Company.
As missionaries they opened up parts of the world and brought Christianity to many countries through Africa, Asia and also with the head hunters.
And so often the Scots did amazing things and built commercial empires but they didn't need stimulous money or grants to do it.
They educated their people and sent them all over the world and they established schools and universities everywhere they went.
Look at how long we've been trying to find a cure for cancer. I can't help but think that if we could have brought these old Scots back we'd have had a cure by now.
Look at the discoveries the Scots made. They didn't need millions or even billions in funding to make things happen. They just went out and did it.
And so I look out into the world today and I wonder where we are going. The Scots went out into the world, opened it up and set the foundations for the future. What are we doing with this future we were given?
I suggest we're making an unholy mess of things.
Corporate greed is rife and that has led us to the global melt down we're still experiencing. We seem less able to invent products and services that will benefit mankind. Education is important for our future yet many countries have in place a system where many can't afford it. We're not investing in the future. We've become a "Now" generation. Where are the Statesmen? Where are the people that can look beyond the next few years?
I note with interest the huge illegal immigration in the USA but these people are doing jobs that Americas don't want and yet they get along ok while there are now millions of unemployed in America.
We can already see a huge shift from the Western Powers to Asia. China and India and Brazil are the new super powers without question. I watch the news in North America and note with interest that when watching CNN there is almost nothing being said about anything outside America. They'd rather spend their time talking about Politics which obviously is a big turn off for most Americans. They are now too inward looking.
In my view the media is to blame for much of what is wrong with the world. Some of the very best Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc. in history have been people that cheated on their wives or drank far too much. However they often did a brilliant job of running the country and back then the media didn't bother reporting these things. Now it's all sensationalism. They are picked to run the country not to answer questions about their personal lifes. It's on their running the country that they should be judged.
I'd like to see the so called "Presenters" being interviewed about their political agenda and leanings. It seems the news these days is not about news but rather the clever way a "Presenter" can turn an interview so he or she scores the points. The news should be the star and not the "Presenter".
I watched Anderson Cooper on CNN asking the then BP Chairman why they wouldn't show the well leak and didn't the "American People" have the right to see it. I'd have told him to take a 5 second clip and just run it over and over. The American people are far too intelligent to want to spend hours watching the same thing over and over but as a "Presenter" he has to score his points regardless. Small minded people is what they are.
And as we can all see it was again corporate greed that caused the BP disaster. I know as my father worked for that company for many years and I lived in the same town where they had a refinery and chemical works. BP was one of my own major customers. The "old time" contractors were put through safetly courses before they were allowed to work on the plant. However BP decided to see how they might cut corners to make more profit and as a result there were explosions at the plant due to bad safety procedures. A number of the old contractors told me they were not getting contracts any more as they were too expensive but the "old BP" insisted they must apply good safety standards. The "new BP" decided they could get the job done cheaper and so safety was compromised and hence the problems in the Gulf and Alaska and elsewhere. Surely there should be some limits on how many billions you need to make?
But how many people are actually watching CNN? If you take the time to look at the ratings for these news programs in America it's actually very bad reading. Seems 95% of Americans don't bother watching the news.
And then when it comes to China. They have a huge population and so they are trying to build a country their way. Every country doesn't do things the same way we do in the West. Is democracy and free speach actually the best way to run a country? I don't know but it seems to me that this so called free speach just means you can talk about anything you want and give no regard to who you hurt in the process. What happened to just old fashioned good manners?
The culture of legal action in America is rediculous. How many millions did MacDonalds have to pay out because someone burnt their tonque because the coffee was too hot. I was told a story in Canada where an America got a bit of foreign matter in a bottle of beer. He automatically thought he could make a fortune by taking the company to court. He was astonished to learn that all he was likely to get in Canada was a case of beer.
Politics is really about two sides and each is basically opposed to the other side. So what is the point in getting two political views? Why waste our time talking to them as we already know what they are going to say. Even watching question time in the Canadian Parliament I can only see a lot of hate coming out. I no longer watch it as there is already too much hate in the world.
We need to find a way to get passed the current news offerings and to me the BBC still does the best overall job of supplying genuine world news. That's not to say they are perfect by any means but at least you do get some world news.
I'd like to find out more about what China and India are doing. Both these countries are very old and I am sure we could all learn a lot by understanding them better. I think we need a very different news channel linked to the web where we can really learn what is going on in the world. Perhaps it needs to be a paid for service so we can get rid of all the useless adverts we are forced to watch and which over the years have dumbed us down. You have no idea how painful it is to watch the mega advertsing in North America after being used to the BBC with no advertising. I would now be more than happy to pay the TV license fee.
However one of the ways you learn about a country is by watching their local news. Too much of the BBC output can't be watched if you are outside the UK. That needs to change.
Then I think it's time that we looked again at what we are doing on the Web. As I understand it one third of all Internet traffic is going through the top 10 web sites. That can't be healthy for out future surely.
Email is getting so unreliable these days that we are being forced to consider social networking just so we can communicate. There must be a better way of dealing with email but companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo and others just want to put up barriers so you can't ask them any difficult questions. They all make billions so why can't they employ a few thousand people to answer our questions? Why can't they put some of these billions into researching into a better way of dealing with email? Take the postal service. They have to deliver your mail and they take no view as to whether you should have it or not. However with email some computer program will decide whether you should get it or not. We must find a better way to fight spam.
I would be happy to pay something for a reliable service. I'd even go somewhere to let someone see my birth certificate or passport so they could verify I am a legitimate person and thus get put on an approved list so that my email would definately get through. If I want to send out a newsletter and people sign up to get it then it simply must get through but often it doesn't as some spam program or other will decide it's spam and won't deliver it.
I keep asking myself why everything to do with the Internet and Web should be free. I'm not saying I'd spend a fortune on it but I would be happy to pay something for quality information or reliability. It's really like the newspapers. We used to have to buy a newspaper if we wanted the news now we expect to get it for nothing. I applaud Rupert Murdoch for charging a subscription to read his newspapers online.
There are millions of web sites that require advertising to exist but that advertising is going to get less if more traffic goes through just the top sites. So quality web sites are likely to reduce in numbers if this trend continues. Even paying $1 a year to access a web site would make a huge difference to many sites and they'd likely do even better as a result.
Perhaps it is time that a whole bunch of quality web sites get together so you will need to pay to access them. I believe that time is coming but it needs a real entrepreneur to make it happen. Perhaps this is the next big step for the web?
I think it's time that we really looked hard at the web to see where it should take us. Another example are tourism sites. In my view they mostly preach to the converted. So you are only going to go there if you decide you wanted to visit friends or family or on business. That means you are going there anyway. So how does this attract people that aren't considering you as a holiday destination? It doesn't. In my view tourism web sites and by this I mean the ones run by government, should open their doors and provide great facilities that are free for anyone to take and put on their own web sites. Like I was talking to a tourism officer in Manitoba the other day and all I know about Manitoba is that they are a Prarie Province and grow wheat. So why would I even consider going to their web site as I haven't the slightest interest in going to some flat place that grows wheat.
All tourism organisations are the same no matter where they are in the world. They need to be far more co-operative if they are to make any meaningful difference to tourism numbers. I watched with horror the way the Scottish Homecoming was promoted... just terrible. None of this has a direct cost other than time and yes time is money but I'm sure that simply re-directing the time would provide a much better result than they are getting currently.
Then when it comes to Business web sites it's a joke. It seems most companies believe they need to have a web site but when it's up that's the web bit done and dusted. In the old days you employed a PR person to make sure you got read about but it seems today that they feel their web site does that for them so they don't need these people any more! Wrong! I was trying to find out about Scottish businesses and it's impossible to find out much if anything about them. Go to the local Chamber of Commerce site and you find you need to be a member to learn anything about their members. In other words they build a great big brick wall around their members so you can be assured if you are not a member you'll learn nothing.
A local Vice President of one of the SDI's incubatgor units in the USA was telling me they try to get information from the Scottish companies using them to give them postive PR but she said it was like pulling teeth to get them to talk about themselves. She guessed it must be a "Scottish thing".
It's like Economic Development departments across the world. Most are good about listing businesses but if you want to learn anything about the business all you get is a phone number. They won't provide a description of the busines, an email address or a web address. Not a lot of help. In other words they all put up barriers to doing business.
And yes Facebook has over 500 million members. But how often does someone want to become your friend? Do they tell you why they want to be your friend? No! How often do you get an invite to join this or that Group? Do they tell you anything about the Group or why they think you should join it? No! How many members actually join to play the games? Probably many millions and no they are not interesting in messaging with you they just want to play the games thank you very much. So apart from social chitchat what does it actually offer? Very little in my opinion.
The web offered us the very best way to communicate both personally and especially for business. When it comes to business it's fallen flat on its face as businesses just don't seem to be able to use it properly. As I've said above business builds barriers and won't go out of their way to communicate with potential customers unless quite by chance you just might stumble across their web site. Even then they are scared stiff to put anything up that makes them stand out from the crowd.
And if you are a big business then you just have to make it impossible for anyone to contact you to ask a question. And if you do manage to find a way to ask a question the recipient will take a few key words out of your question and send you a standard reply that is usually totally useless.
So the greatest communications tool the world ever invented is not being used to communicate in any meaningful way. It's now time we demand of our so called business organisations, tourism organisations, economic departments and so called marketing people to come good. They in my opinion are the reason for our downfall. They are all the biggest load of rubbish and we need to remove them all and look for completely new ways to work with the world and communicate with it.
I said way back in the 1990's that the web was there to be used but we needed to co-operate if it was to make a postive impact for Scotland. That co-operation never happened.
I like the YouTube web site but I note that when watching a Scottish video from the Scottish Parliament there are usually no more than low hundreds viewing it. When I complain to Scotland that they simply don't provide any information about Scotland they send me a list of a hundred web sites I can visit to get more information. Who the hell has the time to visit a hundred web sites? So the information is out there but who is reading it? The BBC did a survey of web habits and found that most people will only ever visit up to six web sites on a regular basis each week.
That's of course the latest excuse for not providing information. They just say visit our web site.
It's like Newsnet Scotland. A great web publication but amongst all the other things that I have to do each day it can be weeks before I remember to visit them. They need to find a way to get themselves intergrated into as many other web sites as possible and in as many ways as they can. That's what I mean about co-operation. Give a little get a lot. I note with interest that the "Flag in the Wind" now gives them a permanent link in their weekly newsletter. How much better that link could be if they could somehow incorporate an RSS feed or something similar. That way someone might spot a story they'd like to read and actually visit their site.
It's really like magazines. The media has moved to the web so the magazines of today are becoming the web sites of tomorrow. In the process they are losing advertising revenue and circulation. And again that's because they won't co-operate with other web sites. Remember the BBC survey? What makes them think that by operating alone and in isolation they will do better? That's the sheer arrogance of the print media and it's also why they are going downhill quite rapidly.
Look at the huge loss of circulation reported from the "Sunday Post". Do they co-operate with anyone? No! That's why they are losing circulation. Write to any local newspaper in Scotland suggesting they might like to share some content and you won't even get a reply.
And boy am I fed up with these so called Scottish visits from the old homeland. Go to a Scottish event to greet a politician or some other Scottish organisation. Ask anyone at the event what they thought about it and you'll get great enthusiasm about it. Great food, music, goodie bag, etc but when you ask what did the visit achieve they are usually stumped for an answer.
I could go on and on but I won't.
So when I look back to the inventiveness, enterprise and thinking "out of the Box" of the old Scots I believe we have much to learn from them. We need to work better together and find ways to do things differently. The world is moving to a new world order and we need to understand it and change the way we do things if we are to be successful. We need completly new thinking and a radical overhaul on how we communicate.
And if I may I'd like to suggest a book to read which is not yet printed but is available online. It's called "A Fisherman’s Reflections on a beautiful but troubled world" by David B Thomson from Lossiemouth. So far it's recorded some 188,000 visits. You can reach it at http://www.electricscotland.com/thomson
Alastair McIntyre
Alastair runs the Electric Scotland web sites which were started in Scotland, moved to the USA and now run from Canada. He was brought up in the Middle East and Malta and has travelled through Europe. Before the days of the Internet he ran Almac BBS from Grangemouth, Scotland, the largest online operation outside North America.
A wandering Scot looks back and wonders about the future.
Having now spent some 15 years studying the history of Scotland and the Scots at home and abroad I must confess I'm quite depressed about how we are doing today.
While it has been most interesting to study the history of Scotland and the Scots at home I feel the much larger story is about the Scots who left Scotland.
And when I talk about the Scots who left Scotland I mean those that left for England, Wales and Ireland as well as all over the world.
What these Scots did was truly amazing. They had vision and enterprise and a can do attitude. To use a phrase from today, they "thought out of the box".
At home in Great Britain they built numerous bridges, roads, canals and important buildings. And with their work with Steam they revolutionised transport on land and sea. They were also the Empire builders as they often led the pack to all parts of the world.
They put together a way of looking at the world that changed how we did business.
While they were soldiers of distinction they would far rather have sold your products than fight a war with you.
The Scots brought the world a means of calculation that made many discoveries possible. They brought you light in your homes, televison, and a means of fighting disease. At one point they were the Doctors of the world.
They fought long and hard in Canada and made it the nation it is today. They had huge influence in America and were often the owners and managers of huge ranches. They put in place a method of agrculture that serves the nation well even today. They even influenced the American constitution.
They built the world's largest ever company, the Hudson's Bay Company.
As missionaries they opened up parts of the world and brought Christianity to many countries through Africa, Asia and also with the head hunters.
And so often the Scots did amazing things and built commercial empires but they didn't need stimulous money or grants to do it.
They educated their people and sent them all over the world and they established schools and universities everywhere they went.
Look at how long we've been trying to find a cure for cancer. I can't help but think that if we could have brought these old Scots back we'd have had a cure by now.
Look at the discoveries the Scots made. They didn't need millions or even billions in funding to make things happen. They just went out and did it.
And so I look out into the world today and I wonder where we are going. The Scots went out into the world, opened it up and set the foundations for the future. What are we doing with this future we were given?
I suggest we're making an unholy mess of things.
Corporate greed is rife and that has led us to the global melt down we're still experiencing. We seem less able to invent products and services that will benefit mankind. Education is important for our future yet many countries have in place a system where many can't afford it. We're not investing in the future. We've become a "Now" generation. Where are the Statesmen? Where are the people that can look beyond the next few years?
I note with interest the huge illegal immigration in the USA but these people are doing jobs that Americas don't want and yet they get along ok while there are now millions of unemployed in America.
We can already see a huge shift from the Western Powers to Asia. China and India and Brazil are the new super powers without question. I watch the news in North America and note with interest that when watching CNN there is almost nothing being said about anything outside America. They'd rather spend their time talking about Politics which obviously is a big turn off for most Americans. They are now too inward looking.
In my view the media is to blame for much of what is wrong with the world. Some of the very best Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc. in history have been people that cheated on their wives or drank far too much. However they often did a brilliant job of running the country and back then the media didn't bother reporting these things. Now it's all sensationalism. They are picked to run the country not to answer questions about their personal lifes. It's on their running the country that they should be judged.
I'd like to see the so called "Presenters" being interviewed about their political agenda and leanings. It seems the news these days is not about news but rather the clever way a "Presenter" can turn an interview so he or she scores the points. The news should be the star and not the "Presenter".
I watched Anderson Cooper on CNN asking the then BP Chairman why they wouldn't show the well leak and didn't the "American People" have the right to see it. I'd have told him to take a 5 second clip and just run it over and over. The American people are far too intelligent to want to spend hours watching the same thing over and over but as a "Presenter" he has to score his points regardless. Small minded people is what they are.
And as we can all see it was again corporate greed that caused the BP disaster. I know as my father worked for that company for many years and I lived in the same town where they had a refinery and chemical works. BP was one of my own major customers. The "old time" contractors were put through safetly courses before they were allowed to work on the plant. However BP decided to see how they might cut corners to make more profit and as a result there were explosions at the plant due to bad safety procedures. A number of the old contractors told me they were not getting contracts any more as they were too expensive but the "old BP" insisted they must apply good safety standards. The "new BP" decided they could get the job done cheaper and so safety was compromised and hence the problems in the Gulf and Alaska and elsewhere. Surely there should be some limits on how many billions you need to make?
But how many people are actually watching CNN? If you take the time to look at the ratings for these news programs in America it's actually very bad reading. Seems 95% of Americans don't bother watching the news.
And then when it comes to China. They have a huge population and so they are trying to build a country their way. Every country doesn't do things the same way we do in the West. Is democracy and free speach actually the best way to run a country? I don't know but it seems to me that this so called free speach just means you can talk about anything you want and give no regard to who you hurt in the process. What happened to just old fashioned good manners?
The culture of legal action in America is rediculous. How many millions did MacDonalds have to pay out because someone burnt their tonque because the coffee was too hot. I was told a story in Canada where an America got a bit of foreign matter in a bottle of beer. He automatically thought he could make a fortune by taking the company to court. He was astonished to learn that all he was likely to get in Canada was a case of beer.
Politics is really about two sides and each is basically opposed to the other side. So what is the point in getting two political views? Why waste our time talking to them as we already know what they are going to say. Even watching question time in the Canadian Parliament I can only see a lot of hate coming out. I no longer watch it as there is already too much hate in the world.
We need to find a way to get passed the current news offerings and to me the BBC still does the best overall job of supplying genuine world news. That's not to say they are perfect by any means but at least you do get some world news.
I'd like to find out more about what China and India are doing. Both these countries are very old and I am sure we could all learn a lot by understanding them better. I think we need a very different news channel linked to the web where we can really learn what is going on in the world. Perhaps it needs to be a paid for service so we can get rid of all the useless adverts we are forced to watch and which over the years have dumbed us down. You have no idea how painful it is to watch the mega advertsing in North America after being used to the BBC with no advertising. I would now be more than happy to pay the TV license fee.
However one of the ways you learn about a country is by watching their local news. Too much of the BBC output can't be watched if you are outside the UK. That needs to change.
Then I think it's time that we looked again at what we are doing on the Web. As I understand it one third of all Internet traffic is going through the top 10 web sites. That can't be healthy for out future surely.
Email is getting so unreliable these days that we are being forced to consider social networking just so we can communicate. There must be a better way of dealing with email but companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo and others just want to put up barriers so you can't ask them any difficult questions. They all make billions so why can't they employ a few thousand people to answer our questions? Why can't they put some of these billions into researching into a better way of dealing with email? Take the postal service. They have to deliver your mail and they take no view as to whether you should have it or not. However with email some computer program will decide whether you should get it or not. We must find a better way to fight spam.
I would be happy to pay something for a reliable service. I'd even go somewhere to let someone see my birth certificate or passport so they could verify I am a legitimate person and thus get put on an approved list so that my email would definately get through. If I want to send out a newsletter and people sign up to get it then it simply must get through but often it doesn't as some spam program or other will decide it's spam and won't deliver it.
I keep asking myself why everything to do with the Internet and Web should be free. I'm not saying I'd spend a fortune on it but I would be happy to pay something for quality information or reliability. It's really like the newspapers. We used to have to buy a newspaper if we wanted the news now we expect to get it for nothing. I applaud Rupert Murdoch for charging a subscription to read his newspapers online.
There are millions of web sites that require advertising to exist but that advertising is going to get less if more traffic goes through just the top sites. So quality web sites are likely to reduce in numbers if this trend continues. Even paying $1 a year to access a web site would make a huge difference to many sites and they'd likely do even better as a result.
Perhaps it is time that a whole bunch of quality web sites get together so you will need to pay to access them. I believe that time is coming but it needs a real entrepreneur to make it happen. Perhaps this is the next big step for the web?
I think it's time that we really looked hard at the web to see where it should take us. Another example are tourism sites. In my view they mostly preach to the converted. So you are only going to go there if you decide you wanted to visit friends or family or on business. That means you are going there anyway. So how does this attract people that aren't considering you as a holiday destination? It doesn't. In my view tourism web sites and by this I mean the ones run by government, should open their doors and provide great facilities that are free for anyone to take and put on their own web sites. Like I was talking to a tourism officer in Manitoba the other day and all I know about Manitoba is that they are a Prarie Province and grow wheat. So why would I even consider going to their web site as I haven't the slightest interest in going to some flat place that grows wheat.
All tourism organisations are the same no matter where they are in the world. They need to be far more co-operative if they are to make any meaningful difference to tourism numbers. I watched with horror the way the Scottish Homecoming was promoted... just terrible. None of this has a direct cost other than time and yes time is money but I'm sure that simply re-directing the time would provide a much better result than they are getting currently.
Then when it comes to Business web sites it's a joke. It seems most companies believe they need to have a web site but when it's up that's the web bit done and dusted. In the old days you employed a PR person to make sure you got read about but it seems today that they feel their web site does that for them so they don't need these people any more! Wrong! I was trying to find out about Scottish businesses and it's impossible to find out much if anything about them. Go to the local Chamber of Commerce site and you find you need to be a member to learn anything about their members. In other words they build a great big brick wall around their members so you can be assured if you are not a member you'll learn nothing.
A local Vice President of one of the SDI's incubatgor units in the USA was telling me they try to get information from the Scottish companies using them to give them postive PR but she said it was like pulling teeth to get them to talk about themselves. She guessed it must be a "Scottish thing".
It's like Economic Development departments across the world. Most are good about listing businesses but if you want to learn anything about the business all you get is a phone number. They won't provide a description of the busines, an email address or a web address. Not a lot of help. In other words they all put up barriers to doing business.
And yes Facebook has over 500 million members. But how often does someone want to become your friend? Do they tell you why they want to be your friend? No! How often do you get an invite to join this or that Group? Do they tell you anything about the Group or why they think you should join it? No! How many members actually join to play the games? Probably many millions and no they are not interesting in messaging with you they just want to play the games thank you very much. So apart from social chitchat what does it actually offer? Very little in my opinion.
The web offered us the very best way to communicate both personally and especially for business. When it comes to business it's fallen flat on its face as businesses just don't seem to be able to use it properly. As I've said above business builds barriers and won't go out of their way to communicate with potential customers unless quite by chance you just might stumble across their web site. Even then they are scared stiff to put anything up that makes them stand out from the crowd.
And if you are a big business then you just have to make it impossible for anyone to contact you to ask a question. And if you do manage to find a way to ask a question the recipient will take a few key words out of your question and send you a standard reply that is usually totally useless.
So the greatest communications tool the world ever invented is not being used to communicate in any meaningful way. It's now time we demand of our so called business organisations, tourism organisations, economic departments and so called marketing people to come good. They in my opinion are the reason for our downfall. They are all the biggest load of rubbish and we need to remove them all and look for completely new ways to work with the world and communicate with it.
I said way back in the 1990's that the web was there to be used but we needed to co-operate if it was to make a postive impact for Scotland. That co-operation never happened.
I like the YouTube web site but I note that when watching a Scottish video from the Scottish Parliament there are usually no more than low hundreds viewing it. When I complain to Scotland that they simply don't provide any information about Scotland they send me a list of a hundred web sites I can visit to get more information. Who the hell has the time to visit a hundred web sites? So the information is out there but who is reading it? The BBC did a survey of web habits and found that most people will only ever visit up to six web sites on a regular basis each week.
That's of course the latest excuse for not providing information. They just say visit our web site.
It's like Newsnet Scotland. A great web publication but amongst all the other things that I have to do each day it can be weeks before I remember to visit them. They need to find a way to get themselves intergrated into as many other web sites as possible and in as many ways as they can. That's what I mean about co-operation. Give a little get a lot. I note with interest that the "Flag in the Wind" now gives them a permanent link in their weekly newsletter. How much better that link could be if they could somehow incorporate an RSS feed or something similar. That way someone might spot a story they'd like to read and actually visit their site.
It's really like magazines. The media has moved to the web so the magazines of today are becoming the web sites of tomorrow. In the process they are losing advertising revenue and circulation. And again that's because they won't co-operate with other web sites. Remember the BBC survey? What makes them think that by operating alone and in isolation they will do better? That's the sheer arrogance of the print media and it's also why they are going downhill quite rapidly.
Look at the huge loss of circulation reported from the "Sunday Post". Do they co-operate with anyone? No! That's why they are losing circulation. Write to any local newspaper in Scotland suggesting they might like to share some content and you won't even get a reply.
And boy am I fed up with these so called Scottish visits from the old homeland. Go to a Scottish event to greet a politician or some other Scottish organisation. Ask anyone at the event what they thought about it and you'll get great enthusiasm about it. Great food, music, goodie bag, etc but when you ask what did the visit achieve they are usually stumped for an answer.
I could go on and on but I won't.
So when I look back to the inventiveness, enterprise and thinking "out of the Box" of the old Scots I believe we have much to learn from them. We need to work better together and find ways to do things differently. The world is moving to a new world order and we need to understand it and change the way we do things if we are to be successful. We need completly new thinking and a radical overhaul on how we communicate.
And if I may I'd like to suggest a book to read which is not yet printed but is available online. It's called "A Fisherman’s Reflections on a beautiful but troubled world" by David B Thomson from Lossiemouth. So far it's recorded some 188,000 visits. You can reach it at http://www.electricscotland.com/thomson
Alastair McIntyre
Alastair runs the Electric Scotland web sites which were started in Scotland, moved to the USA and now run from Canada. He was brought up in the Middle East and Malta and has travelled through Europe. Before the days of the Internet he ran Almac BBS from Grangemouth, Scotland, the largest online operation outside North America.
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