DECEMBER 23, 2008

One thing I love at the end of each year is the endless litany of “best of” lists. It ties up the year in a nostalgic, entertaining way that allows me to savor with satisfaction those “best ofs” that I enjoyed, and commit to pursuing those I overlooked. One of my personal “best ofs” this year has been here at the Undercurrents blog, both contributing to and consuming it, so I thought I would mention some of the blog entries I have appreciated the most since our March 31st re-introduction of the site.

On innovation, I particularly enjoyed Lisa Bader’s December 12th post about Google and Procter and Gamble swapping employees so that each organization could learn more about the other and how best to target consumers.  What cutting edge companies, I thought, and how could we encourage our clients to adopt the same kind of experimental attitude?  (I also liked how Lisa surveyed some of her coworkers for opinions on what companies they would like to “swap” with if they could.)

On personalization, I liked Ryan Baldwin’s December 3rd post about Deoxyribonucleic Influence - how individual DNA has become a hot commodity for products, art, and fashion.  I think we’d be surprised how many people are mapping their code and hanging it on their walls as part of their interior design.

On saturation, Michele Cimino offered perspective in her October 29th post about the overwhelming choices involved in planning a wedding, and how her sense of reason allowed her to tunnel through to the information and purchases she wanted.  I realized that in order to stop feeling overwhelmed by my unlimited options (a topic I wrote about on May 5th), it would help if I defined certain boundaries in advance of my pursuit of informational enlightenment.

Kristen Variola’s July 2nd post about the Taiwanese ”Love Boat” educated me about immigration and how - even with the melting pot it creates in terms of diversity - many subcultures fear the loss of their identity as a result.  Her example was insightful.  She talked about Chinese-American parents who send their kids on four-week educational tours on ships so they can interact and hopefully connect with other Asian youth.

Nothing tells a story better than a photograph.  In a globalized world, it is easy to feel disconnected from what’s going on in - say - Africa.  Gloria Huang’s August 28th post about professional photographers teaching the locals in Mozambique and South Africa how to take pictures was heartwarming.  The women and children were then able to share their photos with the rest of the world to improve understanding of their plight.  What a creative new way to communicate a message and make the world seem a little less isolated.

While these are my favorites, here are some honorable mentions:

The internet is changing the world of philanthropy (April 28th) - Corey Mull

The way our irrational fears about risk affect our behavior (May 23rd)- Kelly Stepno

Word-of-mouth is an underrated marketing tool (Aug. 5th) - Krissy Rigopoulos

The disappearance of the newspaper in an internet world (April 29th) - Mike Clements

Evaluating new tools based on usefulness instead of hype (April 3rd) - Gayle Weiswasser

The power of social media (April 11th) - Steve Skojec

And the great VIDEO that started us off - you have to check it out to see what kind of perceptive powers you have! (April 1st) - Jenn Dodd

I believe our beloved Nellie Lide, the original voice of our New Persuasion blog, whom we lost at too young an age, would be proud of us.

[Comment(1) »] [TrackBack »]

DECEMBER 22, 2008

With Christmas a few days away, I (like many) have been shopping more than usual these days. And as I’ve been browsing through the stores, I’ve become more aware of the “made in China” sticker stamped on the bottom of nearly every vase, teapot, scarf, and candle I pick up. I suppose these three little words have stood out to me more recently because of the current economic crisis that the United States is facing; like it or not, they have forced me to think more about things like importing, exporting, and outsourcing of jobs, and they’ve made me curious about the whether China is experiencing the kind of financial troubles that we are or not. After a little research, it seems that China’s economy is, in fact, also struggling.

According to Newsweek, China has been a contributor to global expansion for a long time, fueled mainly by export factories that send products over to the United States for retail sale; however, China’s export growth is slowing down dramatically and fell for the first time in seven years last month due to the global economic crisis. Bad news for China, considering exports now account for about 40% of their total output. Much like Americans, the Chinese are not spending the way they have in the past and are planning more for “emergencies”. Experts say that it may be years before they feel like its safe to start spending again. And so it seems that the Chinese economy is weakening right alongside the U.S. economy - further proof that globalization is alive and well.

I wonder what things will be like next year at this time. Will those three little words stamped on the bottom of my purchases be just as easy to find, or will they be a little scarcer? Given that Chinese goods are cheaper than their domestic counterparts, in most cases, I doubt that the volume of imports will decline.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

DECEMBER 9, 2008

Distance learning has become increasingly more popular with the introduction of new and affordable communications technologies.  In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) estimates that the number of students enrolled in distance education courses will grow to over 18 million in the next 5 years. The biggest factor affecting enrollment, NCES predicts, will be the greater likelihood of traditional college-age students (18-24-year-olds) to participate in distance learning programs, rather than traditional universities.

According to a recent article from George Washington University, a growing population of its graduate students no longer needs to set foot on University property to complete its GW education.  Over the past four years, to be sure, the number of new students who entered a graduate-level, distance-education program run by GW has nearly doubled, while the number of online courses has almost tripled.  Last year, 550 new graduate students entered 18 programs, and during the fall 2008 semester alone, 365 graduate students enrolled in an online program, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

Schools that solely specialize in online education are also on the rise, and for good reason.  Take a look at Western Governors University, recently profiled by Time magazine.  Chartered in 1996 by the governors of nineteen western states, WGU now serves students in all 50 states and in several foreign countries, and employs faculty mentors in over 30 states.

According to Dr. Robert Mendenhall, president of WGU, over 75 percent of students are underserved in at least one of the following four categories: low-income, minority, rural, and/or first-generation college.  Tuition at WGU is under $6,000 for a twelve-month year - without state subsidies of any kind - and the average time to graduation is under three years.  Most importantly, students and employers have reported that WGU graduates are equipped with “all the necessary competencies” to excel in the workplace.

It’s no secret that the success of the online education industry is due to its compatibility with modern, oversaturated lifestyles and career needs – personalization at its best - but I’m willing to bet that this industry’s success is just beginning. 

A brief case in point: Ten Sleep, Wyoming (pop. 350) is home to a company called Eleutian Technology, which has been hiring people in small towns across northern Wyoming to teach English to Koreans of all ages using Skype, the free online calling and person-to-person video service.  According to a recent Associated Press article, Eleutian already has close to 300 teachers hooked up with more than 15,000 students in Korea. That’s amazing!

Just two years old, Eleutian is already one of Wyoming’s fastest-growing businesses, and CEO Kent Holiday says he’s just getting started.  However, in my humble opinion, it’s the entire online education industry that’s really just getting started!

[Comment(1) »] [TrackBack »]

NOVEMBER 26, 2008

In high school, I made the decision to pursue a career in a creative industry. The decision was based mostly on gut instinct; although I managed to get pretty decent grades in math and science, neither really arrested my attention the way my artistic hobbies did. I was always aware that the Asian-American community promoted science and technology, but the high accessibility of creative studies at school compelled me to follow that track instead. Looking back, I really think that the ease with which I went down this path is partially due to an American approach to education that values creative pursuits such as literature and art just as much as science and technology.

In the past, studies have shown that the Chinese approach to math and science in children’s education was far more rigorous. This study from 2006 suggests that the strong emphasis on math and science in China’s college entrance exams shows that Chinese culture displayed a preference for these areas of study. However, some of that cultural sentiment is changing thanks to economic transformation, government support, and new education initiatives. Zafka Zhang and Lisa Li write in this blog post that in the last 5 to 8 years, the kind of encouragement seen from the government for art students has changed dramatically.

This recent surge in support and attention for art students in China seems to be a very conscious effort on the part of the government to strengthen and diversify some of the intellectual exports of the country. As a result, Zhang and Li believe that Chinese youth are developing their identities in a global society with greater ease than the previous generation. I think this transformation is fascinating; it is fostering the exploration of national expression through dialogue with the international art community. The internet has played a very important role in making art programs and professionals around the world available to Chinese art students. China’s creative industries could quickly gain prominence worldwide through unfiltered channels online.

As innovation continues to drive the “brain race” around the world, China is investing in a homegrown generation of young thinkers who can pave the way to establishing the country as a premier source of artistic thought and creative services. I’m glad to see the changing attitudes in China; cultural attitudes never change completely overnight, but it seems like the proactive actions of the government have gone a long way towards validating creative studies as a worthwhile field of study. I’m sure that within 5 years or so, China will offer a competitive community of professionals that is also deeply connected to international communities through online collaboration.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

In 2004, vintners and wine store owners commonly referred to the “Sideways effect,” whereby the Oscar-winning film directly influenced consumer impressions and purchases of pinot noir, a once relatively obscure red wine.  According to ACNielsen, sales of pinot noir reached an impressive 370,000 cases between October 24, 2004 and January 15, 2005, an increase of nearly 16% from the same period a year earlier.

It still came as a surprise last week, however, to learn that the “Sideways effect” may have actually reached Japan. Seriously. In an article in Variety magazine, I read that Fox Japan and the Fuji TV network recently announced the details of their joint Japanese remake of Alexander Payne’s 2004 hit movie.  “Wait,” I thought.  “Japan remaking Hollywood?  Usually it’s the other way around!”  This time, though, it wasn’t.

Curiously, as Cinematical’s Peter Martin reports, Japan doesn’t have a native wine culture equivalent to that of the United States, mostly due to weather and soil issues, not to mention a scarcity of land.  In the past year, however, California wine imports have significantly increased in Japan.  Martin writes, “And the comic Kami no Shizuku (translated as The Drops of God; pictured) has become a phenomenon over the last couple of years, read by 500,000 Japanese weekly, according to Telegraph (UK), and sending wine sales skyrocketing across Asia.  The series details a young man’s quest to identify the 12 wines described in his father’s will.”

Set to release in Japan next fall, the remake, which is already shooting on location in California’s Napa Valley, will likely spark a new Asian interest in American wines.  And, if I were a Napa Valley vintner or wine seller, I would already be personalizing my website and my shop for the massive wave of Japanese tourism that is sure to seek my business next winter.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Are you familiar with Stanley Milgram’s 1967 Small World Experiment?  What about the popular late 90s trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?”  Even if you aren’t, well, chances are you have a not-so-distant acquaintance in your social network who is.

According to an article in The Washington Post, Milgram’s famous experiment was recently corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication, loosely referred to as the “Microsoft Messenger Project.”  The study included every member of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging service from June 2006, or roughly half the world’s instant-messaging traffic at the time.

After reviewing 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, Microsoft researchers found that “any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.”  For the purposes of their experiment, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another a text message.

In response to the study, lead researcher Eric Horvitz said, “It was pretty shocking . . . there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity . . . that this idea goes beyond folklore.”

That Mr. Horvitz would find this study “pretty shocking” is pretty shocking to me.  Has it not already become conventional wisdom that people are connected in such ways – perhaps in more ways than we could ever count or possibly even comprehend?  Take you and me, for instance.  I’d be willing to bet that we have hundreds if not thousands of ties among us, and I would be placing that bet on intuition alone.

There’s even a well-known mathematical law we can use to put the shock value of this social “phenomenon” into perspective.  Known as the Law of Truly Large Numbers, it states that, with a sample size large enough, any outrageous thing is likely to happen – including (you guessed it) meeting someone who “coincidentally” shares a mutual acquaintance or some other personal connection with you.

For example, did you know that more than 16 million other people on this planet celebrate the same birthday as you?  At a typical football game with 50,000 fans, it’s likely that you will share your birthday with approximately 135 of them (unless, of course, you were born on February 29 – in this case, you will share your birthday with an estimated 34 other fans).  Therefore, according to the Law of Truly Large Numbers, it’s not really that unlikely, on any given day, for you to be in close proximity to someone who was born on the same day as you.  Most of the time, you just don’t realize it.

The Law has previously been used to put into perspective the odds of a person winning the lottery twice in his/her lifetime.  You might think the odds are something like 1-in-17 trillion, but they are really closer to 1-in-30.  The same principle can be applied to miracles.  If you (1) define a miracle as an exceptional event occurring at a frequency of one-in-a-million, (2) experience one event per second (3) for no less than eight alert/waking hours of the day, then after 35 days, you will have experienced 1,008,000 things.  Therefore, in keeping with the Law of Truly Large Numbers, you should actually experience about one miracle every five weeks over the course of your life.

So, please, Mr. Horvitz, save us the whole dog and pony show.  It would be an understatement to say that we kind of already suspected it was a small world, after all.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

To: Ladies Professional Golf Association
From: Monica Trucco
Re: Globalization Concerns Regarding Your English-Language Requirement

This week, I learned about your requirement for players who have been on the LPGA tour for two years to pass an oral English-language test or face suspension. This new requirement may most affect your South Korean contingent of players, since they make up 45 of the 121 international players from 26 countries on your tour. Also, of the last 30 majors, 24 have been won by international players.

I respect your decision to communicate your policy and your desire to “make [your] expectations very clear.” However, part of your message may have been lost in translation with some of your best players due to the manner that it was communicated. I would strongly encourage you to put it in writing and distribute as soon as possible to avoid future misunderstandings.

While I’ve read opinions about how your decision isn’t racist or culturally insensitive, it does strike some as bad business in a global marketplace which represents the predominant opportunity for growth:

By considering themselves an exclusively American market and adopting what will appear to foreigners as a pigheaded policy, [the LPGA] instantly
diminish[es] their stock in emerging markets like China and South Korea, where women’s golf really could grow and thrive thanks to few existing athletic opportunities for young women.

As a business, it has been written that you are “struggling to stay alive[;]” you need your “players to promote the game to the media and its sponsors[;]” and by implementing the testing requirement you possibly are creating “an environment for the tour to succeed” by attracting sponsors and intensifying national interest. Moreover, winning players understand that the tour is “losing sponsors” in a tough economy.

However, your new policy seems to be missing the globalization piece of the puzzle, one of 5 Forces that we’ve identified at TMG Strategies as a game-changer in the world as we know it. Some of the largest companies – and top revenue producers – have bent over backwards to take advantage of this Force. For example, while more than half of Proctor & Gamble’s revenue has come from countries other than the U.S., they went as far as reducing the size of their shampoo containers in China after research revealed to them that a smaller size was more in line with Chinese expectations – and, as a result, sales skyrocketed.

Or take McDonald’s – the prototypical American restaurant, right? Consider this: while they still have a big presence here, “Europe is now McDonald’s largest region by revenues, despite having roughly one-quarter the number of outlets as the U.S.” due in large part to changing its design to meet expectations. Both companies have shown that while respecting their business needs for growth, they can also respect global considerations by conforming and changing. Can you?

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

AUGUST 28, 2008

This project, titled “the house is small but the welcome is big“, is an ongoing effort to inform people about the lives of Africans who live in HIV-stricken communities. Conceived by the venicearts center, the project brings professional photographers to Mozambique and South Africa. The photographers have a simple mission: teach some of the resident women and children to take pictures so they can capture elements of their lives for the whole world to see. Their goal is to show the world how, even with the threat of HIV or the stress of poverty, they carry on and live to the fullest. Journal entries, photographs, and video are archived online while venicearts exhibits the collection in different locations worldwide.

I’ve always thought that photography provides one of the best ways to gain a little insight into someone’s mindset. That’s exactly what I felt while looking through the site; the images coupled with simple captions drew out some intense empathy in me. I felt sad, joyful, and even awed by the photos, coming away with a better understanding of what life is like for the women and children there. The effect was stronger than it would have been if I’d just seen some photos taken by professionals in a National Geographic magazine. This is due to the project’s emphasis on teaching participants how to effectively use photography as a means of communication with the rest of the world.

As our technological progress hurtles forwards in the United States and other leading countries, humanitarian efforts such as this one are also trying to help developing nations keep up. If we learn these stories from nations where people deal with significantly different living conditions, maybe we can be better prepared to think about and take action on global health, environment, and social issues.

Take a look at the site and let me know what you think– is it provocative or meaningful to you as well?

[Comment(1) »] [TrackBack »]

JULY 25, 2008

While skimming one of my favorite blogs, YumSugar, I learned that Monday was National Junk Food Day.  I didn’t even know that there was a day dedicated just to junk food, because it seems like every day is a junk food day for many Americans. “The number of people who are overweight or obese has sharply increased since the 1980s”, as have the sizes of our portions.  For example, when McDonald’s opened in 1955, the biggest soda available was 7 ounces.  Now a small is 16 ounces.

Plus, who can forget “Super Size Me” by Morgan Spurlock?  I know it made an impression on me… but sadly enough, I found myself in the mood for some McDonald’s food while I watched it.

The New York Times published a piece last December about McDonald’s restaurants in Seminole County, Florida who reward students with a Happy Meal from McDonald’s as a “food prize” in their “report card incentive” program.  This stirred up quite a bit of controversy.

A BBC News poll of 9,000 people found that although 40% of respondents blame food for obesity issues (over lack of exercise or genetics), our fast food habits aren’t slowing down at all — globally too.  Some analysts predict that 55% of McDonald’s earnings this year will come from outside the U.S.

It seems to me that as much as we love to complain about our health issues, we are unwilling to change our habits and do anything about it.  I love a juicy cheeseburger as much (if not more) than the next person, even though I realize that I probably shouldn’t eat one every single day.  Our culture still enjoys the rush that comes from eating.  Oddly, while we are often in control of most areas of our lives, we let food consumption spiral out of control, because we enjoy eating so much.

So, I’m sorry fast food restaurants, but I hope that we start eating less from your establishments and start getting healthier. It is possible to change; our portion sizes sure have!

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]

JULY 24, 2008

As a parent of two teenagers – one a rising high school senior and the other a high school freshman – college is a looming reality. It’s a part of our daily household conversation thread, and the source of not just a little anxiety. We talk about it at the dinner table, during long car rides to out-of state softball tournaments or while sitting on the back porch in candlelight on summer nights. We talk about the challenge of getting admitted to your first-choice school at a time when there is a glut of qualified applicants. We debate the merits of small colleges vs. big ones. And we try out different majors and discuss essay strategies. However, one thing we don’t talk about is the value of a college education.

But that’s just what Wall Street Journal economics writer Greg Ip did in a story this month, “The Declining Value of Your College Degree.” For much of the last century, a college degree pretty much guaranteed that your income would rise faster than it would for someone without one. But around the turn of this century, that equation began to change. Since 2001, Ip reports, the inflation-adjusted wages of all U.S. workers – including college graduates – did not grow.

Ip’s point is not that a college education is worthless; it’s that it’s not enough anymore. It’s simply the price of admission to the modern workforce. Employers are demanding more specialized knowledge – what Ip describes as skills that are “more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college.”

And the cause of this shift? The same basic forces that are reshaping every aspect of modern life: globalization and technology. Today’s graduates are competing not just against one another, but against immigrants and foreign nationals who have similar educations and skills. And, as we all reside today in a borderless Web environment, they are direct, not distant, competitors.

That competition has caused some political backlash against globalization. A decade ago a solid majority of college grads said that globalization had been good for the U.S., according to a poll conducted for the WSJ and NBC News. But in March, the same poll found only a third of graduates thought globalization was good and nearly half thought it bad. But globalization is not an exclusively negative economic force. It produces winners and losers. Increasingly, specialized knowledge and skills are what separate the two.

So our late night conversations about college with our daughter will become broader. Yes, she’ll still be going to college. But the question of “what unique skills should I acquire” needs to be added to the list of all the others. Because her post-college life will be lived in what we at New Persuasion call the Brain Race – the global competition for specialized knowledge that will define the power of individuals, corporations and nations going forward. And a college education will be only one piece of the required 21st century skill set.

[No Comments »] [TrackBack »]