A few weeks ago, I was a panelist at the 10th Annual Symposium on Communication, The Future of Communication, held at Bernard Baruch College, City University of New York, in the Big Apple. The panel’s topic, “More than Friending: Social Media and Communication in Business and Education,” provided for a lively discussion about social media and its impact on business and education and how the two institutions overlap and complement each other.
In one section of the discussion, one of the panelists brought up the topic of crowd sourcing and alluded to its reliability in determining “truth.” And to recall a line from that American “classic” film about the absurdities of modern business, Office Space, I said to him that “I was going to have to sort of go ahead and kind of disagree with him there,” or words to that effect. (To make for an interesting and entertaining discussion, all the panelists had agreed ahead of time to be somewhat “feisty” in the panel discussion. Although, now that I think about it, this lead-in was a lot more silly than feisty. Well, perhaps at least it was entertaining.)
To make my point that crowd sourcing was not as reliable as many propose that it is, I drew upon an example from the offline world. I said to test the validity of the crowd sourcing theory, one could simply ask liberals how valid crowd sourcing was during the elections that gave the United States the presidency of George W. Bush or, conversely, one could ask conservatives how valid crowd sourcing was in the most recent presidential election that has given us Barack Obama. The other panelist countered with the theory that in the “long-run” crowd sourcing was a more accurate representation of “truth” than crowd sourcing in the “short-run.” Until now, I hadn’t remembered this quote by John Maynard Keynes, the early 20th century British economist, “In the long-run, we’re all dead.” Had I recalled this quote during the panel discussion, it might have been even more “feisty,” or entertaining, for the audience.
The Keynes quote points out that, yes, perhaps everything “evens” out fairly in the long-run, but the long-run may be too long. Specific to our panel discussion about truth in social media, if in the long-run the truth will out, crowd sourcing may be a valid approach to arriving at the “truth.” But, what’s the long-run? Is social media old enough to even have a “long-run?” We may need to wait too long for the truth to win within Web 2.0. By that time, we’d all be dead, and the truth wouldn’t matter.
An idea to keep in mind for the next time we’re perusing the world of Web 2.0.
A quick idea for today.
Currently I am reading When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten. Among anti-corporate thinkers, this book is touted as one of the leading works in modern anti-corporate theory. I’m only up to page 65 so far, but I must say that, although overall I don’t agree with David’s point of view, in this book David has raised some interesting issues. A few of his arguments have been well-made and well-sourced, while some others . . . well . . . not so much. Today’s idea concerns one of those arguments that could have been made more soundly.
On page 59 of the paperback edition, near the beginning of Chapter Four – Rise of Corporate Power in America, when discussing the significance of the corporation as an institution, David states:
On the negative side, it (the corporation) allows one or more individuals to leverage massive economic and political resources behind narrowly focused private agendas while protecting themselves from legal liability for the public consequences.
Yes. This is true. Business corporations do do this.
And the corporation, at least the type to which he refers, pays taxes in return.
Yet, there is a type of corporation which fits David’s description and that does not pay taxes. Not one cent. In fact, the type of corporation of which I am thinking, in essence, does its business at the expense of taxpayers. Let’s consider David’s description from the perspective of the modern non-governmental organization (NGO).
Modern NGOs are corporate entities which permit one or more individuals to leverage and apply their economic and political resources on narrowly focused privately-defined agendas while they and their employees enjoy the liability protection of the corporate form. And let’s add to this description of NGOs that they do so while receiving a tax-exempt status, so that, in essence, taxpayers are implicitly paying for the actions of the NGOs and the common resources that those NGOs consume at taxpayer expense.
This corporate format has worked out very well for businesses, yes. But it has also worked out well for NGOs. Remember. There are always two sides to every coin. Were it not for the corporate form, NGOs would probably not enjoy much of the power that they currently exercise.
The coin of corporate power cuts both ways, but when making an argument it should be incumbent upon the advocate to consider both sides of any coin.
“Think Global(ly), Act Local(ly)” is the mantra of many NGOs and activist groups. Aside from yet another two adverbs taking it on the chin, this is a central theme to many of their strategies.
Recently the White House announced the signing of an executive order establishing a task force to fight childhood obesity. The executive order calls for the assistance of NGOs, as well as corporations, in fighting this problem. A worthy pursuit. But what about the mantra? The mantra states the solution.
Acting locally on childhood obesity, very locally, could be the solution to the problem if that local action was parents encouraging, and requiring, their children to exercise regularly (We used to call this “playtime.”) and discouraging (read that as “prohibiting“) their children from eating “garbage.” Discipline is not a word with which parents should be unfamiliar.
Perhaps if there was more very local, “household-local,” common-sensical, parental attention to the problem, people wouldn’t need yet another expensive government/NGO/corporate task force to tell them what they should already know.
This is the first post in my newly created Ideas category.
This category will contain very brief posts addressing random insights that occur to me, well, randomly. I’m jotting them down here because this is a web log, after all. And I’d like to keep track of them for possible incorporation into a future book or article. I’m also posting them here to invite feedback, which would also assist me in putting together future books and articles.
Today’s idea is job programs.
Finally, there is a major jobs program being created in Washington, DC.
After last Tuesday’s (1/19/2010) Massachusetts special election, which changed the political dynamic in the nation’s capital and effectively derailed the health care reform initiative that polls had been telling Washington for months they were ramming through despite the electorate’s wishes, the Democrats finally realized that they were at odds with the people’s desires.
The majority party is now turning, in a deliberately obvious fashion, toward other “issues of concern,” such as the economy and jobs. Yesterday, Mr. Obama announced new, proposed banking regulations and frightened the financial markets. This strategic turn, which is more politically-based than economically-based and (this next clause was added after the market close on Friday, 1/22/10) looks to be nothing more than a temper tantrum from a guy who never even ran a lemonade stand, was made at this point in time in an effort to take the public’s attention off the health care reform failure. Today, he doubles down on this new “hissy-fit” strategy and goes to Ohio to give a speech about jobs. All done, I believe, in an effort to convince the electorate that the majority party is addressing the people’s main concerns, jobs and the economy. Duh. It took them this long to figure this out? (For now, let’s put aside the fact that Mr. Obama’s proposed banking changes would actually do more to hurt the economy than help it.)
Yes, these strategic shifts are the leading elements of a new government jobs program.
But this program’s primary intent is not necessarily to generate jobs for the general public. The primary intent of this new program, this strategic shift, is to allow the majority party members to keep their jobs after the November 2010 mid-term election.
After last Tuesday’s election, the majority party knew that if they continued on the course of ramming health care reform through, against the trend revealed by just about every poll taken on the subject and definitely against the results of the Massachusetts special election, then most of them would be packing their desks come November and hitting the unemployment lines with their constituents.
So, yes. They are now turning to a jobs program. It’s just not the kind that you think it is.
The question is, will people see his proposals as an effort to help the economy? And if they misguidedly do, will that save the jobs of the dweebs in Washington? Or will the people recognize it for what it is? A poorly conceived notion. A notion which will actually damage
Continue reading There Is Only One Jobs Program Going On Now
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