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You have to wonder where we're all heading these days. Ireland is having to do massive cuts in their spending and raise taxes. Today we hear about the 24 hour general strike in Portugal. Then we see student protests in the UK. We've already had strikes and unrest on Greece, Spain, Italy, etc.
Civil servant jobs are usually well paid ones but as so many civil servants across Europe are now losing their jobs that's got to have an affect on taxes and subsequent unemployment benefit.
You can't make billions in cuts without there being repercussions. I've already made a comment elsewhere about us now getting into the baby boomers retirement and all the implications that has for the economy of many countries in Europe and North America.
I do remember a fact from the US that stated that during the great recession some 65% of Americans had an increasing standard of living so it's clear that we're not all affected equally by this global meltdown.
We're also seeing hikes in our utility bills and again I noted elsewhere that to generate power a gas powered station cost $1 million whereas green energy like wind turbines actually cost $12 million for the same output.
And so public spending cuts, higher taxes, increased unemployment, higher utility bills all mean that disposable income must be greatly curtailed.
To me all this means that we need to be more innovitive in selling our various countries at home and abroad. I however see no sign of us changing the ways we do business.
I also noted in a previous email that in the UK the online earnings were into the billions and yet here again I don't really see any real innovation. It's natural that online earnings should grow as it's less costly to order goods online and you don't need to form lines and battle your way through the stores.
However while Facebook has some 500 million members and Twitter also has many millkions of followers I really don't see either of these organisations being a positive for online development from a business or tourism point of view.
I have now spent some time on Facebook due simply to the fact that this community has a Facebook interface. However I get lots of invites to join various groups and events and I've noted as I've got involved I also get more spam coming in.
The invites are just worthless. Many want me to attend an event in Scotland and yet I live in Canada. Many invites just suggest I join this group or other but these invites don't actually give any details on what these groups are about. And if I do click to learn more I never learn very much at all. To me this is a pointless excercise.
It seems that social networking is not what it could be. They seem to have forgotten that building an online network is far more powerful when linked to a real network. Like building a network around a real community is to my way of thinking far more powerful and yet we're still not going in that direction.
Then I look at Economic Departments of local councils around the world. All I can see is that most will provide a business directory but from what I can see all they do is list the businesses and provide a phone number. There are very few entries that provide a description of the business or a web site or email address.
Like while here in Chatham I was interested in purchasing a sign for Electric Scotland to put on the outside of the house. There were 7 sign companies listed but no description. I phoned all 7 and none of them did a sign that I wanted.
It's also like the assumption that you know everything when people are looking to attract new immigrants. Here in Canada Tim Hortons is a famous brand but until I came here I'd never heard of them.
In some ways it's also like MacDonalds in that of course everyone has heard of them but in my case I very rarely visit them and if I do it's usually to buy a coffee. On the odd occassion I have purchased a meal from them but when you're in that lineup of cars going through the drive through you have to be pretty close to the advertising signs before you can read the offers and if they're moving quicky you don't really get a chance to read it properly. And yet they don't actually have a proper menu on their web site. Like one evening when I was getting home late I thought I might just get a "Big Mac" and so did buy one. I found that I could have done with getting a little more as I was still a touch hungry when I'd finshed it. I thus wondered what the next size up might have been but it took me ages to figure that out through their web site.
Like KFC. The first time I ever purchased a meal from them was in Birmingham in England. There was so little chicken in that meal that it was 15 years before I visited them again. I'd never heard of Taco Bell before coming to Canada or Wendy's or many other fast food outlets. And yet there is no attempt to make available their menus on sites that provide listings of restaurants in the area.
I was talking to the Tourism Dept. of the Province of Manitoba trying to persuade them to send me some content about their Province. They said that they couldn't send me anything as it was all on their own web site. I did say to them that all I knew about Manitoba is that it was a prairie province and grew wheat and so why would I ever even consider going there for a holiday. To me travel web sites of countries or states or provinces only preach to the converted. Like the only reason I'd go to the Manitoba web site is if I was visiting relatives or friends there or going for business. And so I am going there anyway and so they are providing information for people that are going there anyway. They are not reaching people that have never ever considered going there. I figured if they ditched their web sites and spent that money on promoting the Province on other web sites that had little or nothing to do with Manitoba that they'd likely get a better result.
And if you look at adverts on the web... mostly through Google... they don't educate us in any fashion. It seems companies around the world have forgotten about Public Relations where they used to employ PR people to place stories about themselves in newspapers and magazines. When it comes to the web they seem to feel having their own web site means that it not necessary to place stories about themselves on other web sites. And yet it's web sites that are taking over from traditional newspapers and magazines.
The web to my mind is the greatest communication tool we've ever had but it's not really being used the way it was envisioned which was to educate and collaborate. Like this diatribe I'm producing right here wouldn't fit onto Facebook or Twitter. That in part is why I prefer forums to social networking.
We seem only able to communicate in small paragraphs or sentances hence the explosion in text messaging. Is that not just dumbing everyone down?
Then thers is the whole education thing. Student debt is horrendous these days. Is that not just turning people away from a university education? Also I still think that in Europe and North America where we are seeing more girls being born than boys and the fact that girls are so much better in school that this must transition to issues for the future. We still see women getting less of a salary than the men in many companies. In some ways this must translate to lower overall earnings in the years ahead until many more women are in positions of authority and power and can make changes to the salary issues.
And then you'd have to be blind or deaf not to note the rise of India, China and Brazil as economic power houses of the future. They have a much greater population that Europe and North America. In the forseeable future they are going to be more innovative and technically advanced than we are currently. All this means is that we are living through the next big change in superpowers.
In a small way I have started to profile India on the site and also Indonesia and the Philppines. I note with interest that since doing that these countries are now in the top 10 visiting countries to Electric Scotland. China is more of an issue as most do not speak or read English but I am looking at finding out more about China for future development on the site.
There is no doubt in my mind that the next generation is going to go through substancial changes in the years ahead and it's my guess that this won't be pleasant for most of them. Being a baby boomer myself I suspect I've had the very best of life and will avoid most of these unpleasant changes.
I found a quote in an old book of the nineteenth century which stated...
It is the illusion of each generation that what is well-known and definite today will always be so. Hence, records are inadequate and incompletely kept; important letters are destroyed; precautions against fire are not taken; and of course the duplication of documents is held to be superfluous. In another decade or two there will be hardly any one living who will remember much of the previous generation.
I believe we need to make a huge shift on how we communicate using the Internet and unless we can make that change we're going to go downhill quite fast. The warning signs are there and we ignore them at our peril.
Alastair
Civil servant jobs are usually well paid ones but as so many civil servants across Europe are now losing their jobs that's got to have an affect on taxes and subsequent unemployment benefit.
You can't make billions in cuts without there being repercussions. I've already made a comment elsewhere about us now getting into the baby boomers retirement and all the implications that has for the economy of many countries in Europe and North America.
I do remember a fact from the US that stated that during the great recession some 65% of Americans had an increasing standard of living so it's clear that we're not all affected equally by this global meltdown.
We're also seeing hikes in our utility bills and again I noted elsewhere that to generate power a gas powered station cost $1 million whereas green energy like wind turbines actually cost $12 million for the same output.
And so public spending cuts, higher taxes, increased unemployment, higher utility bills all mean that disposable income must be greatly curtailed.
To me all this means that we need to be more innovitive in selling our various countries at home and abroad. I however see no sign of us changing the ways we do business.
I also noted in a previous email that in the UK the online earnings were into the billions and yet here again I don't really see any real innovation. It's natural that online earnings should grow as it's less costly to order goods online and you don't need to form lines and battle your way through the stores.
However while Facebook has some 500 million members and Twitter also has many millkions of followers I really don't see either of these organisations being a positive for online development from a business or tourism point of view.
I have now spent some time on Facebook due simply to the fact that this community has a Facebook interface. However I get lots of invites to join various groups and events and I've noted as I've got involved I also get more spam coming in.
The invites are just worthless. Many want me to attend an event in Scotland and yet I live in Canada. Many invites just suggest I join this group or other but these invites don't actually give any details on what these groups are about. And if I do click to learn more I never learn very much at all. To me this is a pointless excercise.
It seems that social networking is not what it could be. They seem to have forgotten that building an online network is far more powerful when linked to a real network. Like building a network around a real community is to my way of thinking far more powerful and yet we're still not going in that direction.
Then I look at Economic Departments of local councils around the world. All I can see is that most will provide a business directory but from what I can see all they do is list the businesses and provide a phone number. There are very few entries that provide a description of the business or a web site or email address.
Like while here in Chatham I was interested in purchasing a sign for Electric Scotland to put on the outside of the house. There were 7 sign companies listed but no description. I phoned all 7 and none of them did a sign that I wanted.
It's also like the assumption that you know everything when people are looking to attract new immigrants. Here in Canada Tim Hortons is a famous brand but until I came here I'd never heard of them.
In some ways it's also like MacDonalds in that of course everyone has heard of them but in my case I very rarely visit them and if I do it's usually to buy a coffee. On the odd occassion I have purchased a meal from them but when you're in that lineup of cars going through the drive through you have to be pretty close to the advertising signs before you can read the offers and if they're moving quicky you don't really get a chance to read it properly. And yet they don't actually have a proper menu on their web site. Like one evening when I was getting home late I thought I might just get a "Big Mac" and so did buy one. I found that I could have done with getting a little more as I was still a touch hungry when I'd finshed it. I thus wondered what the next size up might have been but it took me ages to figure that out through their web site.
Like KFC. The first time I ever purchased a meal from them was in Birmingham in England. There was so little chicken in that meal that it was 15 years before I visited them again. I'd never heard of Taco Bell before coming to Canada or Wendy's or many other fast food outlets. And yet there is no attempt to make available their menus on sites that provide listings of restaurants in the area.
I was talking to the Tourism Dept. of the Province of Manitoba trying to persuade them to send me some content about their Province. They said that they couldn't send me anything as it was all on their own web site. I did say to them that all I knew about Manitoba is that it was a prairie province and grew wheat and so why would I ever even consider going there for a holiday. To me travel web sites of countries or states or provinces only preach to the converted. Like the only reason I'd go to the Manitoba web site is if I was visiting relatives or friends there or going for business. And so I am going there anyway and so they are providing information for people that are going there anyway. They are not reaching people that have never ever considered going there. I figured if they ditched their web sites and spent that money on promoting the Province on other web sites that had little or nothing to do with Manitoba that they'd likely get a better result.
And if you look at adverts on the web... mostly through Google... they don't educate us in any fashion. It seems companies around the world have forgotten about Public Relations where they used to employ PR people to place stories about themselves in newspapers and magazines. When it comes to the web they seem to feel having their own web site means that it not necessary to place stories about themselves on other web sites. And yet it's web sites that are taking over from traditional newspapers and magazines.
The web to my mind is the greatest communication tool we've ever had but it's not really being used the way it was envisioned which was to educate and collaborate. Like this diatribe I'm producing right here wouldn't fit onto Facebook or Twitter. That in part is why I prefer forums to social networking.
We seem only able to communicate in small paragraphs or sentances hence the explosion in text messaging. Is that not just dumbing everyone down?
Then thers is the whole education thing. Student debt is horrendous these days. Is that not just turning people away from a university education? Also I still think that in Europe and North America where we are seeing more girls being born than boys and the fact that girls are so much better in school that this must transition to issues for the future. We still see women getting less of a salary than the men in many companies. In some ways this must translate to lower overall earnings in the years ahead until many more women are in positions of authority and power and can make changes to the salary issues.
And then you'd have to be blind or deaf not to note the rise of India, China and Brazil as economic power houses of the future. They have a much greater population that Europe and North America. In the forseeable future they are going to be more innovative and technically advanced than we are currently. All this means is that we are living through the next big change in superpowers.
In a small way I have started to profile India on the site and also Indonesia and the Philppines. I note with interest that since doing that these countries are now in the top 10 visiting countries to Electric Scotland. China is more of an issue as most do not speak or read English but I am looking at finding out more about China for future development on the site.
There is no doubt in my mind that the next generation is going to go through substancial changes in the years ahead and it's my guess that this won't be pleasant for most of them. Being a baby boomer myself I suspect I've had the very best of life and will avoid most of these unpleasant changes.
I found a quote in an old book of the nineteenth century which stated...
It is the illusion of each generation that what is well-known and definite today will always be so. Hence, records are inadequate and incompletely kept; important letters are destroyed; precautions against fire are not taken; and of course the duplication of documents is held to be superfluous. In another decade or two there will be hardly any one living who will remember much of the previous generation.
I believe we need to make a huge shift on how we communicate using the Internet and unless we can make that change we're going to go downhill quite fast. The warning signs are there and we ignore them at our peril.
Alastair
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