How the internet is transforming the economy

The 'Pareto Principle'- the idea that 20 percent of products generate 80 percent of turnover - may not always be rock. In 2004, the editor in chief of Wired, Chris Anderson claimed that nearly everything is offered for sale on the internet is also actually sold- however bizarre or unnecessary the product.
It appears that business is gravitating to where there is variety instead of uniformity.

Anderson use a demand curve to illustrate his claim. On the far left, the curve rises shortly upwards. Here the best sellers in the blockbusters account for 20 percent. Then the curve levels out gently to the right this is where we find the less popular books & films. It's part of the curve is much wider spanning many more products than the peak. Instinctively one would think that 'Pareto Principle' is right, the best sellers (20 percent) are more profitable than the rest Sales (80 percent). But the figures suggest something different. The long Tail as Anderson calls it, achieves a higher turnover than a few best sellers.

The internet is the worlds largest library. Its just that all the books are eon the floor. John Allen Paulos

THE MONTE CARLO SIMULATION MODEL

 The number pi (3.1415927...) is what mathematicians call irrational. It never be written out in full. It continues for an infinite number of decimal places in a seemingly random sequence of digits. Randomness is found in many phenomena that we would like to be able to predict, such as changes in the weather or movements in share prices. Inspired by the casino city Monte Carlo , a computer simulation method is being developed to calculate these apparently incalculable phenomena.

If you roll the dice you know that it will get a 1,2,3,4,5 or 6, but what you don't know is which of these numbers you will get within a given roll. This is exactly how the Monte Carlo simulation works. By running multiple trials based on random sampling to determine an outcome. Using a combination of probability calculation and statistics.

Why is the Monte Carlo model important? Because it reminds us that models do not represent reality. I simply approximation of reality.

If I know exactly what I'm going to do what's good in doing Pablo Picasso. 

THE GAP IN THE MARKET MODEL

Positioning is like drilling for oil close is not good enough.
How to recognise a bankable idea. The goal of every need businesses to discover an unoccupied gap in the market, but what is the best way of proceeding?
The gap in the market model helps by depicting a mock scenario.
Draw 3 axis and measure the development of your customers in future products.
Say that you want to launch, a new magazine. At Each stage, How well known is the product? How loud is your partner? Position your competitor's products on the areas. If you are densely competitor you should enter your business model only has the potential to be a category killer.
For example Grazia was able to conquer the already crowded by woman's weekly. By combining sophisticated fashion news, with its strictly 'A list clients'.
Look for in a an area that is being overlooked and is not yet occupied.
The away if the area is completely empty you should check whether there is a demand for it.

THE POWER OF SOCIAL PARTICIPATION

Micro mavens understand the power contexts and nuances of the social web, they get the fact that social networking is done strategically with enthusiasm and authenticity. You can launch your personal brand and your philosophies and ideas into the cyber-stratosphere.

Writing compiling original content for a blog, podcast or online video show is absolutely critical, but it's only one piece of the social web puzzle.
1. New content
2.  Social participation.

Social participation to me is regularly connecting and interaction with people via the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+ along with commenting on other people's blogs, sharing links and liking other people's content, attending meet ups and tweet ups and Social Media events together.
In other words getting involved in and values of the online community in general. Non conformists Chris Guillebeau understands this better than most. He spends half his time creating things and the other half connecting with people, understanding the importance of relationship marketing. Authority Mari Smith is big on getting the balance right too, she says that content is king engagement is Queen and she rules the house.

THE JOHARI WINDOW

WHAT OTHERS KNOW ABOUT YOU
We cannot 'grasp' our own personality, but we can be aware of what part of our personality we reveal to the outside world. The Johari Window (Johari is derived from the first syllables of the names of its inventors Joseph Luft, and Harry Ingham). It's one of the most interesting models for describing human interaction. A full paned window divides personal awareness into four different types.

A. The squadron describes the characteristics and experiences that we are aware about ourselves and that we like to tell others about.

B. This hidden quadrant describes things that we know about ourselves but choose not to reveal to others. It decreases in size small we build up a trusting relationship without others.

C. There are things we do not know about ourselves but that others can see clearly. And there are things that we think we are expressing clearly, which others interpret completely differently. In this quadrant feedback can be enlightening, but also hurtful.

D. There are aspects about ourselves that are hidden from ourselves as well as others. We are more complex and multifaceted than we think. From time to time something rises to the surface from our unconscious. For example, in a dream

Adjectives (fun unreliable etc) that you think describe you well. Then let others (friends, colleagues) choose adjectives to describe you.  The additives are then entered into the appropriate pains of the window.

USING TWITTER

Let's look quickly at Twitter, because this is the form in which micromanagement really come to the fore. Most micro mavens have a solid followings on Twitter indeed some have vast numbers of followers. But they are also incredibly active in terms of sharing interesting links and interacting with others. In terms of all round style and strategic uses of Social Media, Mari Smith is an excellent curator of valuable information, to do social media relationship marketing. Which she feeds on Twitter across half of the networks. She also tweets a good proportion of posts most often interacts heavily with excellence. At the time of writing Smith had tweeted 66,000 times and she had over 170,000 followers. It's not hard to say why.
She covers a number of bases including: sharing other people's content, promoting Smith's forthcoming tele-seminars and interacting with Twitter followers.

Messages fly in the blink of an eye on social sites Twitter in particular. So in our attention based society it's important to limit your communication to a small number of interesting powerful engaging messages that increase your chances. 

USING FACEBOOK

Over on Facebook the action continues for the micro mavens. More often than not the micro mavens will have a strong presence on the world's biggest social networking sites. It's where they can aggregate their fans and followers in the one spot in a simple cohesive way, giving them the opportunity to not only like posts, photos and videos, but also add their '2 cents' worth in the comments section.

Mignon Grammar Girl Fogarty's Facebook pages attracted more than 85000 like since 2009 and is a great example of what can be achieved in terms of nurturing a natural cultivating strong and vibrant community of enthusiasts around a personal brand. What is the purpose. Fogarty posts regularly to Facebook which serves as an excellent cross promotional out-post to her quick and dirty tips for better writing, blog posts and podcast series. Importantly her updates attract many likes and comments. Fogarty also jumps into the comment section every now and then.

HOW TO EXPLAIN THE WORLD TO ALIENS

On 2nd of March 1972,  pioneer 10 was launched into space, the first space probe to leave our solar system. Although ostensibly highly scientific, the plan was at heart child like: it was hoped that the probe would encounter aliens. For this reason ,the astronomer Carl Sagan was commissioned with the creation of the 15x23 centimetre plaque explaining our world.

But how should we explain our world to aliens?

Sagan optimistically presumed that our physical laws also applied to aliens. So he drew the most common element in the universe. The hydrogen atom, based on the assumption that there was a universal unit of length (hydrogen emits radio waves, with a wavelength of 21 centimetres). The web like net in the centre is a pulsar map. A kind of cosmic map that shows a position of our solar system. The human couple is standing and the man is depicted with genitals, the woman without. Both are caucasian: the man has his hand raised in greeting to indicate humans friendly intentions. Originally Sagan wanted you to depict the couple holding hands, but feared the Aliens might then interpret them as a single being. Behind the couple is the outline of Pioneer 10, so that the finders of this message could estimate the size of humans in relation to the probe. At the bottom edge of the plaque is a diagram of our solar system. On the left the sun, next to it the planets and then another sketch of the launch of the probe from Earth.

In the 1980's NASA it experts discovered that an unknown force had diverted the probe in the direction of the sun. In 1997 Pioneer 10, left our solar system at the speed of 12km/s. Since February 2003 there's been no further trace of the probe. 

How would you explain our world to an alien?

USING GOOGLE+

Google's social networking platform Google+ was launched in 2011 and so has given a decent start to Facebook and Twitter launched in 2004 and  2006. However with 400 million users (100 million of them are considered active). Google class has carved out a sizeable niche on the social web. Indeed some micro mavens believe Google+ has a big future and have established a solid presence on the network accordingly.

Chris Brogan is one of those micro mavens. He loves Google+ so much that he ditched Facebook for for it, plus he has written a book on the subject Google+ for business- How Google social network changes everything. In 2012 an article in entrepreneur.com Brogan explained why he was 'nuts' for Google's new social platform. Reasons included Google hangouts, a free video conferencing option ideal for instructional coaching businesses. The platforms search-ability on Google, and the ability to segment or communicate with potential customers via the Google+ circles function.

THE POWER OF RELENTLESS GIVING

We know micro mavens use their rich blog to publish rich and social networking mediums share links to their posts, videos as well as other people's content, they are also big on using Twitter and Facebook to connect and engage with people from around the world.

But it's one thing to want to add value and help others, it's another thing to actually do it on a regular basis. It takes certain mindset to consistently produce valuable content and chat freely with the world especially if you've spent years in youth building knowledge and expertise. It goes against the grain of conventional thinking to give stuff away.

Brian Solis, author and micro maven in his own right describes a practice of solving people's problems are constantly creating and distributing free content as relentless giving. This notion of producing high quality content relevant to your area of expertise and sharing that with your tribal community on a regular basis is not easy, but it is what sorts the wheat from the chaff.

And its not just about content, it takes time and energy to help others to connect to like minded people online and in person to answer questions and provide advice, freely, without the expectation of getting anything in return. To be frank most people couldn't be bothered. There more interested in themselves or orientated towards ensuring some sort of short term income is generated by the energy invested.

Not so the micro maven. They get involved. They help others, they provide content that informs and entertains. It takes time and not inconsiderable effort. There's no guarantee that this practice will lead to anything in terms of revenue. You have to want to do it because it's in your blood. Sharing is the fuel of the passion. Micro mavens are actually big hearted impassioned people who cannot help but get involved in a positive way in other people's lives, sometimes to their detriment because of the time involved, but ultimately it's what sets them apart from the more inward looking entrepreneur. The pay off eventually comes in the form of sales from committed fans and customers, as well companies and organizations, will want to buy from their brand in one form or another.

THE BLOGGING BUSINESS

Blogging is essential for a number of reasons and not just because it showcases a micro mavens knowledge in expertise. A well maintained blog does the following:

1. Helps you get found online, if no one could find you through Google it will pop up in search engines. It makes profile raising much easier.

2. Ensures that you have a steady stream of content to share with your fans and followers on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google plus.

3. Gives readers, listeners or viewers something to share online with their friends and peers, the power of this amplification effect cannot be overestimated.

4. Provides you with a platform from which to promote your products and services, you can even use it to house your e-commerce hub.

5. Helps you gain clarity around your thoughts and ideas. There's nothing more sobering than pushing the publish button on your blog, it will be out there on the worldwide web for all to see.

Had it not been for their own blog, online video series or pod cast show, micro mavens might not thrive like they do today.

THE UFFE ELBAEK MODEL

HOW TO GET TO KNOW YOURSELF

If you want to gain a general understanding of yourself and others Uffe Elbaek public opinion barometer is a good starting point. It reveals behavioral traits and tendencies.

You should bare in mind we are always subject to four different perspectives.
How do you see yourself?
How you would like to see yourself?
How others see you?
How others would like to see you?

Proceed as follows: Without taking time to think about it, decide on the following: On a scale of one to 10, how much of a team player are you and how much of an individualist?
Do you pay more attention to content or form?
What is more important to you, the body or the mind?
Do you feel more global than specific?

Now take a different coloured pens and mark on the scale how you would like to see your self.
Define your own axes.

WHY GENES RULE

Following the successful decoding of the Human Genome in 2001, molecular biology was raised to the status of singular secular religion by many. And yet today it cannot boast much success, cures for cancer and depression remain a utopian dream because of the relationship between genes and the environment has proven to be more complicated than initially assumed. And yet it is conceivable that in the future we will no longer turn to a psychoanalyst or confession in search for self knowledge, but rather complete sequencing of our personal genome.

Possible consequences of increasing geneticisation:

Positive genetics: Prenatal and pre-implantation not only mean genetic disease will die and also prevent existence of genetically abnormal people. (In Denmark the number of Down syndrome babies being born has gone down by 50% since the introduction of screening throughout the country).

CSI realities:

DNA databases simplify the (worldwide) search for criminals.

New customer structure and health insurance: 

Classified according to customers molecular makeup.

Personalised medication:

Ingredients are chosen on the basis of a persons individual biochemistry.

New Class Society

US molecular biologist Leanne M. Silver (authour of controversial book 'Remaking Eden'), predicts the division of society into 'natural', 'gene-enhanced' and 'gene-rich' people. The 'gene-rich' about 10% of the worlds population will no longer interbreed with the 'naturals'.

The end of solidarity

When social problems have their origins in a persons biological make-up,would the state and society no longer be responsible for social conditions?

Personal responsibility 

The Genome debate reveals a paradoxical simultaneously of determinism (gene dictate your life) and personal responsibility (those who have a predisposition predisposition for cancer they themselves are responsible for trying to prevent it).

Discovering an IQ gene 

If such a gene could be found us sociologists Thomas lemke, would not the notion of the inherent equality of all humans become obsolete, as there would no longer be a 'natural foundation' for it?

Would we abolish human rights? And above all: who would we be?

And also: finding the 'missing link'

Through the hybridization of chimpanzee DNA human DNA it will be a kind of rebirth of the australopithecus. The first pre-human.

We are not equal to the perfection of our products. We are producing more than we can answer for. We also think we are allowed to do what we're doing. Gunther Anders

WHY COMPUTERS ARE OVERTAKING US

The answer can be found in the acronym CPU (Central Processing Unit). In 1965 Gordon Moore made a prognosis that still applies today, the number of transistors in a CPU doubles approximately every 24 months. In other words computers became twice as fast every two years. 

Lets look at the inner workings of a computer: imagine the main storage as a warehouse, it is the computer's long-term memory. The RAM (Random Access Memory) it the short term memory and the CPU is a processor that stores new and retrieves old data. The difficulty is not in storing more information, the warehouse can be enlarged if needed, but in processing it.  The increased CPU performance means that we can now watch videos on a mobile phone. Not so long ago we could only write text messages, now smartphones are supposed to be able to do everything at once with the result that just like PC they can crash. The technology experiences an information overload.

Moore;s theory is not  a law of nature. The most important question is: is there a limit to a computers performance? Yes, says Moore. No, says the futurist Ray Kurzweil: in 2049 you will be able to buy a computer for $1,000 with a processing power equivalent to the brain capacity of living people. What does this mean? 

'I was surprised by it's human abilities' Garry Kasparov, after he lost again the chess computer Blue Deep in 1997

WHICH INDISTRIES STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH

According to Russian Economist Nikolai Kondratieff the global economy develops in overlapping cycles or 'long waves'. To start of each of these waves is a basic innovation i.e. an innovation that causes a fundamental structural change and influences the whole of society. The new technology is invested in for forty to sixty years and thereby stimulates the economy, until the mode of production reaches it's limits and there is no more growth. The search begins for a new innovation which heralds the next cycle.

The first Kondratieff was triggered by the invention of the steam engine and innovations of the textile industry. Steel and the invention of the railway marked the second Kondratieff. These two cycles were dominated by Great Britain. The third Kondratieff, electrical engineering and chemical industry was dominated by Germany and America. During the fourth Kondratieff the automotive and petrochemical Industries, the USA established itself as a global power. It was the Apex of industrial society. The oil crisis marked the changeover from an industrial zone to an information society: The fifth Kondratieff. With the global recession of 2001 2003, the sweeping potential of this technology declined. At the same time the six cycle was being established: the health market including biotechnology and psychosocial sector (eg therapies) as well as environmental technology. Here's Leo A Nefiodow, and expert on Kondratieff cycles, on the sixth cycle: The health cycle isnt really about health care, it is just called this. More than 97% of the financial capital is spent on research into and diagnosis therapy and management of diseases. In fact it's an illness cycle.

The length of the cycles their triggers as well as their impact are contentious. An important indicator for judging a Kondratieff cycle is volume of work that it generates. In developing countries the industry is creating as many new jobs as the health sector.

'I think that nowadays it is health, not sex that acts as a form of moral ie social control. It's all about controlling the body: staying slim, staying fit, eating properly'. Paul Strasburg

WHY CHANGE

Change is generally welcomed or at leased regarded as inevitable. But is this really so? just an example, why is a year in which company earned the same as the before regarded as unsuccessful? While searching for answers we came across this model by blogger Jessie Hagy.

The similarities between the way things are (A) and the way things will be (B) are often greater than expected (C). In other words even following big changes, much stays the same.

But the model can also read differently: Professor Philipp Zimbardo believes there are three categories of people who can be defined according to which 'time zone' they live in:

Focused on the past: 'Past Negative' those who define themselves according to their misfortunes and missed opportunities in the past and 'Past Positives' (those who are nostalgic and romanticise the past).

Focused on the present: 'Headonist's' (those searching for happiness) and 'non-planners' those who believe in fate, for whom the future cannot be planned. e.g because of religion or class affiliation).

Focused on the future: 'Planners' (Life is what you make it) and 'After-lifers' ('real' life begins only after the body has died)

In the Western world the vast majority of people are focused either on the 'past' or the 'future'.

So is C always getting smaller because we are too preoccupied with A or B?

'If I ain't broke, don't fix it'

WHAT 'IT' IS

As we discovered with Moores Law, there are signals that computers could surpass the human brain and evolve into a kind of artificial intelligence. The point at which this will happen is called 'technological singularity'. Some people say it is the moment at which machines will gain the upper hand.

The more we use it, the more it learns. The more it learns, the more we use it. It's omnipresent, it is all around it in-prisons our minds, it is supposed to distract us from the fact we are trapped. It knows where we are and knows where we were, it knows more or less what we are thinking. When it was created it was not seen as intelligent, because it is made up of codes and doesn't have a body, it is faceless. Because there are a million ways of accessing it, it is hard to say where it is. And because it is a combination of our intelligence and an alien digital memory it is hard to say what it is. 

It will change everything. It is hard to explain what it is, you have to experience it for yourself.

(compiled from text by Kevin Kelly, Ray Kurzweil, Eric Schmidt, Andy and Lana Wachowski)

WHY THE SMALL FISH ARE OVERTAKING THE BIG FISH

How can I make more money? is a question all company managers ask themselves. One they don't understand themselves enough is: 'Have I missed out on a new development?' So argues Harvard Economist Clayton Christensen, who investigated by industry leaders usually miss the boat when it comes to developing groundbreaking innovations. His work is considered a milestone in economic research Christensen distinguishes between s'ustainable innovation' the improvement of existing products that are designed to keep prices and margins high and 'disruptive innovation', the lauching of new products and typically simpler, faster, cheaper. In most cases established companies trying to improve successful products that already meet more than the customers needs. Christensen calls it 'overshooting': the managers of a company producing a product have no idea why their product is so popular and ignore what customers really want in favour of adding yet more non essential features. For eample, who ever never uses all the features in Microsoft Word?

Because these companies focus on their existing markets rather than developing new products they don't see the threat of disruptive innovations coming from below. As a result they overlook disruptive innovation ganes a share of the market and eventually end up replacing the previously leading product.

I don't know if it gets better or if it's different. But it has to be different to be good 

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

WHY WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

Science stands for that internal human quest for knowledge, power and recognition. Scientific methodology is the means to achieving these ends. There are two classic Methodological approaches: The Deductive and Inductive. With deduction you extrapolate the particular from the general. With induction you extrapolate the general from that particular. 

Deduction. 

All people are mortal (rule)

I am a person (case study) 

I'm mortal (result). 

Induction  (using the example of a Turkey).

Turkeys are treated well by humans (situation)

Turkeys continues to be treated well by humans (situation). 

Turkey is always treated well by humans. (Rule only valid till day of slaughter). 

The danger of the induction method is that we can be lead to a false conclusion even if we start out with the correct assumptions. For example if the turkey is fed everyday by the farmer, we cannot predict that the farmer will slaughter it one day. It makes no sense to challenge and modify the assumption repeatedly until it is irrefutable. 

In everyday life, though, we do the opposite: we developed a set of rules based on personal experience and then apply these to other experiences. 

'Science is a cemetery of dead ideas' Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo

WHY M=3 AND N=1

Here is a good question to casually drop into conversation with the scientists at your dinner party. I that Are there other invisible dimensions besides the three known spacial dimensions (length, width hight). What you need to know in order to hold up your end of the conversation. Is that up until now there has not been a theory capable of explaining why we unable to recognise precisely 3 spatial dimensions. The realistic theory and quantum field theory can be formulated for many spatial dimensions as desired. If you're up to speed on the space and time debate. Here's a good follow up question. Why do we only have one dimension of time? The Swedish MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark researched the case with a time dimension m=1 and the varying number of spatial dimensions. n the result. 

n<3 insufficient complexity (no gravitation).

n>3 insufficient stability (unstable solar system). 

m<1 or m>1: insufficient casualty. (Physics would lose its ability to predict). 

What does this mean? 

Recent theories suggest a multi-universe in which the spatial and time dimensions vary from universe to universe. In this model Tegmark concludes that our universe has 3 spatial dimensions and one third dimension. Universes with other dimension ratios are probably uninhabitable.

Which is easier for you to imagine. Having no space or time?

WHY WE LET OURSELVES BE DISTRATCED

Some disturbing facts and figures about our time. During the working day we visit an average of 40 different websites. In the space of an hour we switch between different programs on our computers 36 times. We consume three times as much information as we did 30 years ago. We communicate more via the cloud, email, social networks, online forums except etc. than directly with people. And if we don't reply to an email within a few hours, or at the latest, after a day the sender gets angry, or often forgets why they sent it in the first place. Every time we check out email or when we feel the familiar vibration of our phone in our pocket we get a small dopamine injection in our brains. Over time this turns into an addiction which results in us wanting this distraction more and more. So when were bored we check how email or surf on Facebook but every time we interrupt ourselves we have to refocus up ourselves off to it, which cost time and energy. Of course these technological achievements also increase our efficiency. Google maps improves our punctuality, thanks to Skype we can call anyone and Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool. But the point is we have always equated computers with productivity, but when we look at the blackberry we actually just give the impression of being productive. In fact we are distracting ourselves from work. We don't work more effectively with digital devices we work fast and carelessly. We used to watch TV today we watch our smart phone.

Suggestions to avoid distraction:

1. Answer emails at the beginning and end of each working day.
2. Have no email Friday once a month.
3. Don't check emails on Saturdays.
4. Follow the 3 day rule. After 3 days without the internet. You begin to relax. You might sleep more soundly.


'Were always available, but also always distractable' Matt Richtel

WHY THE FREE MARKET DOESN'T WORK

George Soros is a speculator, he won his most lucrative battle in 1992 when he forced the British pound to its knees and consequently cashed in around a billion dollars. But Soros is also social philosopher. From this double perspective he was able to explain why the 'self regulating' forces of the free market don't work. According to his boom bust theory the financial markets don't even think about moving towards the point of equilibrium to it's our logically and inevitably headed. Shares that jump in value result in overly optimistic inventors and attract additional buyers (boom), which consequently cause prices to rise. If the market prices moves too far from the realistic value, there is a price correction leading to a slump (bust).

In the economic theory deviations from the equilibrium are usually sought in terms of pendulum-like balancing process. Both types of movement the pendulum gathering momentum and a slowing down of the pendulum can also be observed in reality. The slowing down of pendulum tends to be connected with the production of commodities, its gathering momentum with the financial markets tend towards excess. They work more like a wrecking ball than a pendulum.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. Dorothy Parker

WHY CITIES ARE THE NEW NATION

In 2002 the urbanist Richard Florida came forward with her interesting theory. Do people really follow jobs? Not anymore he claimed. Today jobs follow people because of the close link between growth and creativity, there is a battle for creative talent. The winners of this battle will not be Nations of cities and regions that can offer a combination of the '3T's':

• Technology: Growth needs technology and high technology centres offer attractive employment opportunities.
• Talent: Growth needs creative people entrepreneurs, programmers, artists 
• Tolerance: Growth needs openness, immigration on alternative approaches to life do not jeopardize future success (as Europe's neoconservative sides claim) but a condition for it. Change emerges from openness.

We want to add another to these three factors 

Time Perspective: Florida also says, creativity stimulated by exchange, it takes place in communities and real places. Therefore it is not enough to throw a lot of creative people together extract their creative energy and set new ones where they used up. Creativity does not emerge in Skype conferences, creativity comes from relationships between people. If a company succeeds in retaining it's employees for several years, trust, tolerance and creativity will develop. Incidentally the same applies to people's relationships to cities and regions.

Where have you work so far?

Where would you like to live?

WHY AIR TRAVEL HAS BECOME SO CHEAP

In 1967 the lawyer Herb Kelleher sat with is client Roland King in the St Anthony Club of San Antonio. They were in the process of liquidating Kings failed Airlines business. But King did not want to give up without a fight. He grabbed a bar napkin and pen and wrote down the names of three boom cities Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. Then connected them into a triangle. Kelleher found he did not know what he just witnessed, the birth of budget air travel. The greatest revolution of recent aviation was devised on the back of a napkin. What is a strategy of low cost carriers?

• A limited number of direct connections between important cities we should be a short as possible point-to-point connections.
• Avoiding hubs too expensive too time consuming and going secondary airports (Luton instead of Heathrow).
• Only one type of aircraft, short ground times (sometimes less than 30 minutes)
• Only one service class, narrow seat spacing, no service, no lounge (no frills concept)
• Higher turnover through a reservation of rental cars, hotel bookings, on-board sale of snacks (cross selling)
• Low ancillary wages costs, no trade union membership 
• Low ticket prices 

We know this strategy from discount supermarkets: dispense with everything that was once believed to be indispensable.

Innovation means cutting out the unnecessary

WHO PAYS AND WHO EARNS?

What it's about:

Corruption is the abuse of intrusted power for personal advantage. It can range from small facilitation payments to corruption networks. Corruption is not only ethically reprehensible, it also distorts compensation: the resulting damage amounts to an estimated billion dollars.

What you need to know?

Corruption involves at least two parties: the one who pays a bribe and the one who takes it. When it comes to large sums, there is usually a third party involved who hides the money, usually an offshore financial Centre.

Our model shows these three forms of corruption based on data from globally recognised indices:

• Pay Money BPI bribe payers interdex 
• Take Monies CPI corruption perception index 
• Hide Monies FSI financial secrecy index 

What you can do?

Most important weapon against corruption is transparency. Transparency party financing, transparent administration, transparent reporting by multinationals. For example it will be a start  if mining and exploration companies required to disclose payments made to governments of source rich countries.

'Corruption profits a minority in the short term, but everyone suffers in the long term. Let's exclude and ostracize those who don't want to understand this'. Dr Christian Humborg,  Transparency International

WHO GOVERNS US?

Who should govern? The best person for the job said Plato. His ideal state as envisaged in the 4th century BC was a republic ruled by philosophers like himself, with a warrior class to protect the state, and a producer class to serve it with services and skills. In Plato's Republic each citizen would have an occupation suited to his nature and abilities. And that so that everything could just take course, newborn babies would be taken away from their parents and raised by the state.

Tt took 2,300 years until Carl Popper radically contradicted this theory. In the open society and it's enemies (1945), he depicts Plato as the father of the tolertarian State. Popper was the first voice to criticize not so much Plato's answer to the question 'Who should govern?' but questions itself. According to Popper it wasn't about developing the system in which the 'best' ruled, the ideal system was one in which was possible to get rid of bad rulers. Of course it's possible to overdo the disposing: like the Italian's to have already had 60 different governments since 1946, or the Germans prior to 1933 for whom the frequent changes of government among other things instilted a deep mistrust of the parliamentary democracy and yet the only form of governement that enables a relatively painless removal of a bad government is democracy.

In a democracy you say what you like and do what you're told. Gerald Barry

WHAT WE BELIEVE IN

Four observations at the start of the 21st century:
1. In English there will soon be more brands than words .
2. We are using more and more complicated channels and more and more money to reach fewer and fewer people.
3. Consumers are increasingly better informed about things I buy.
4. There are some initial signs of brand saturation. And some initial reactions in San Paulo every form of outdoor advertising has been banned and since 2009, the fashion brand Freshjive no longer uses it's brand logo on it's products .

What's going on here?

Hundreds of models of tried to explain how to win the battle for Consumer attention in a saturated market. What none of these models want to admit was noted by the communications exert Klaus Bernsau back in 2005. 'Although everyone is talking about brands there is still no universal and accepted brand theory'.

Our trust in brands seems to be unshakable and irrational as religious belief. Quietroom, the British brand language consultants recently developed an unscientific model that shows how people trust in the three brand's 'Father Christmas', 'God' and 'Socialism' changes they get older.

'The brand used to represent the company now the company represents the brand' Christoph Eschmann

WHY WE DONT LIKE FOREIGNERS

In 1992 Samuel Huntington predicted the clashes civilizations the conflict between 'us' and 'them' the 'other'. The literary theorist Gayarti Spivak coined the term 'othering' to describe the way in which we try to establish our own positive identity in relation to an inferior other.
The western way of thinking is based on dichotomies man/woman human/animal rational/emotional and us/others. Without 'otherness' there would be no other opinion, no dialogue and in psychoanalytical terms no self. We've had to define an other in order to develop the self for example in childhood to overcome Oedipus complex (the child's desire for the mother). The basic pattern differentiation between us and others takes a variety of forms. I think ethnic, black/white National, English/French ideological, liberal/conservative religious, Christian/Muslim sexual, man/woman. The dichotomies in themselves are not the problem, of course there are differences. The problem is that opinions about difference are usually inherently judgmental. for example the superiority of reason over emotion or civilization over wilderness.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Jane Austen

HOW YOU CAN MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION

Scenario: You want to buy a car. Problem: You can't decide which one to buy.
Seven strategies- Straight out of the labs of Neurobiologists inside psychologist.

1. Decide on a research strategy. Set yourself boundaries, one hour of internet research, ask three friends, read one car magazine, visit 2 car dealers.

2. Limit your options. The paradox of choice goes like this, we think that the bigger choice, the better our decision. In fact we spend too much time weighing up the options, so that at the end we may not reach a decision at all. The smaller the choice, the less we expect from the result.

3. Accept 'good enough'. Decide on something that meets your basic requirements instead of searching for 'the best'.

4. Don't fear the consequences. 'The consequences of mice decisions are not as lasting as we think'. wrote US psychologist Daniel Gilbert. In the scheme of things every decision loses importance.

5. Go with your gut instinct. In recent years there has been a lot of research into our intuition. Two  findings it seems there is a part of us that knows more than we think we know. And, we tend to be more accepting of wrong decisions that we made impulsively, i.e. intuitively. The months we spent a long time thinking about. We forgive our heart more than our head.

6. Have someone else choose. We tend to think that we're happier if we take things into our own hands. The opposite is true: Simona Botti from from Cornell University has shown in experiments that when we make our own decisions we suffer nagging doubt that we  didn't make the best choice. However if another person decides how or if we toss a coin, we are either grateful or if the outcome is bad, we can blame someone else.

7. Don't question your decision anymore, or take on a completely different approach: In the sixteenth century the principal founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius. Loloya, came up with the following simple method for making the right decision. Spend the first three days, as if you had made the decision. During the three days, make a note of your decision. During these three days make a note of your thoughts, feelings and dreams. Then go through the same process with an alternative decision. Compare your notes at the end and then decide.

All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. Marcel Proust

WHAT CAN WE BET ON?

Humans have always tried to see into the future. Periods of crisis, in particular, fuel the desire for prognoses, although the prognoses in turn fuel the crisis, because the (mostly) hostile future forces people t take action in the present. So in fact prognoses probably say less about the future and more about the present in which they are formulated.

One of the most interesting futures institutes in the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. Cleverly combing serious mission with a bit of fun, you can bet on the future at longbet.org. A few examples. By 2040 'Chi' will be recognised as 'Life Force' in traditional medicine, by 2060 there will be only three currencies world wide, in 2100it will be almost impossible to tell the difference between humans and machines. Anyone who bets has to explain reasoning behind his or her bet, with the result that the site generally attracts real experts with sometimes abstruse but never absurd ideas.

Long bets is part of of a large NGO which with the help of patrons including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has itself an ambitious task to change our fast/cheap thinking into longer term- better thinking. We Shouldn't just be thinking as far as our next birthday or up to the next legislative period, but in longer time spans. The project also confronts us with an uncomfortable question: do we really care what happens to the human race after we and our families are gone?

Kevin Kelly co-founder of the initiative, has bet that by 2060 there will be far fewer people on the earth than today. His rationale is that the trend towards small families with fewer than three children will spread the 'This world'. Is Kelly's predictions visionary or deeply racist? His explanation implies that the rest of the world needs to adopt our small family model and all the problems over over population will be solved.

What is going on here exactly? While we are being encouraged to think about the future, we are also being given a platform to question precisely these prognoses. The negative bets on the site are also interesting: The last video store will close in 2015. The computer mouse will disappear by 2030. By 2035 the Aral Sea will no longer exist. By 2020 taxes will no longer be levied. Our favourite: in 2100 there will be no racism.

'I prefer to remember the future'. Salvador Dali

HOW DO TEAM MEMBERS PARALYZE EACH OTHER

How free are we in all of the decisions that we make? Not at all according to my studies. During the 2008 financial crisis customers of the financial institution Washington mutual withdrew $16,000,000,000 from their accounts within a matter of days. Simply because that hurd that this is what other people were doing. The phenomenon is cold herd instinct. Another form of collective behaviour is the 'swarm intelligence'. Familiar to us from ant algorithms. On first sight the ant colony appears to be moving around completely randomly but if you look closer a patern can be seen. The swarm finds the shortest route to the best source of food and allocates defence territories.
Based on this observation professor Marco Dorigo solved a variety of logistics problems. Truck routing slot allocations at airports and controlling a military robots.
But it is debatable whether this sort of algorithm also works with groups of people because it does not take into account the human side of  swarm intelligence. Group thinking. In homogenous groups, opinions and viewpoints can intensify and become cohesive very quickly. And if too many people act to show up at the same thing attitudes can become radical and actions rash. Researchers have observed this phenomenon with juries. The more united a jury is the harsher the sentence and the more convinced the members of the jury are that their verdict was the right one. It is a kind of uncritical consensus: if everyone does the same as you, you believe your are in the right.

'Why do we follow the majority?' Is it because they have more reason? No, because they have more power. Blaise Pascal

WHY CHANGE HURTS

Until the 1980's change within companies was usually dictated from the top. The CEO made the decisions and the middle and bottom levels implementation. The underlying values for control consistency and predictability. The result employers often did not know why something was being changed and also did not understand what was expected of them in the future. 

With the growing importance of psychology in business studies there was a new approach to change and learn. Employees were no longer expected submissively obey (of course), but to think for themselves (Why we doing that?) The point was: change has to be understood if it is to be carried out effectively. Change management has developed into a discipline in its own right. Today there are hundreds of models that deal with the subject, including pioneering ones like John Kotters eight stage model. But what most of them don't take account of is that change is rarely a painless process. Because change presupposes movement which leads to friction. Friction causes pain. Every change- whether in a private or wider context- requires sacrifice and effort.

In reality, when the management of a company decides to make a change, it is usually other areas that bear the brunt of the pain. So we have to ask ourselves: of we want change, are we prepared to bear the pain that comes with it ourselves?

"Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again".

Bikram Choudhury

THE FIVE STAGES OF DYING

In her model 'The five stages of dying' the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926 to 2004) described the process a person goes through after being told that that dying. 

Denial: I'm fine. The dying person represses a diagnosis, she looks for another doctor in hope of getting a better diagnosis. 

Anger: Why me. The dying person directs her rage at everyone who's able to continue living, relatives and carers. 

Bargaining: I would give anything to live another year. The dying person accepts. her impending health but begins to negotiate with doctors, with god with fate. She tries to buy time. 

Depression: I'm going to die, nothing matters anymore. The dying person becomes disconnected refuses visitors. Psychologically speaking this phase allows her to take leave from people she loves. Acceptance: I cant fight it, I might as well prepare myself for it. The dying person comes to terms with her mortality. 

What is going to be your best memory on earth?. What one moment for you defines what its like to be alive on this planet?

Douglas Coupland generation X.....

WHAT WE THINK ABOUT OTHERS

Religion has always exploited prejudices. But what kind of prejudices do we have against particular religions. A good tool for working this out is the Google algorithm. On Google.com you begin by typing 'why I are Jews' with the help of the Google algorithm the sentence is finished by somewhat the search criteria. Other uses for example "Why I Jews.... so greedy" "Why are Jews so celever?". The algorithm is determined by the popularity of the search terms. In other words all of the completed sentences. Resulting from the partial search were previously typed in as search terms by Google users. This automatic completion (Google autocomplete results) is a little revealing, a revealing little method for gauging the interests and attitudes of Google users. 

The model shown here reveals our results when we typed into Google 'Why are...' adding one of the 5 worlds religion. Buddhists, Muslims., Hindus, Christians, Jews and then we tried atheists and Jehovah's witness. 

If god exists I hope he has a good excuse Woody Allen

WHY PARENTS ARE UNIMPORTANT

Why parents are unimportant. How the parents real at the child has no long term effects on the child's personality intelligence for mental health. When the psychologist Judith Richard Harris made the assertion in 1955 she became a persona non grata. But all she was really doing was questioning what extent our personalities are shaped by our up bringing. Harris noticed that most studies which purported to prove the influence of parental nurture neglected to analyze the importance of genetic influences. What more, there were no studies on the interplay between parents and children. i.e. whether children elicit particular behavior in their parents and not just vice versa. According to Harris the concept of 'the family' is apparently profound influence of the individual- is the modern phenomenon. She contradicted the Freudians and the development psychologist by suggesting that we modify our behaviour depending on the environment we are in. Her conclusion: children are shaped not by their parents but by the peer group in which they are socialised.

Critics argued that her theory was an excuse for bad parenting. She countered: ‘Are you only loving towards your children because you think you can influence them?’

One of Harris’s arguments: children speak the dialect of their peer group, not that of their parents. Critics retorted that parents determine their children social environment by selecting their school of them, and therefore still have influence.

He’s a chip off the old block

WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE UNFAITHFUL

Eric Johnson from the Kinsey Institute developed an infidelity metrics. The chill control model of sexual response. To explain human sexual behaviors. It uses the analogy of a gas pedal with breaks to describe the dual forces of excitation. Being easily attracted to another person and innovation. Fighting the sexual attraction. In order to find out how these 2 forces a balanced. 

Jensen designed to survey with questions, such as 'If somebody you find sexually attractive accidentally brushes against you, are you immediately aroused? Jensen elicits whether and how effectively our brakes work by asking 'If others can hear you having sex, do you quickly lose your desire? or 'Do you lose your desire if you feel coerced into having sex?' This is where up bringing and convection come into play. According to Johnson around 40 percent of people are easily aroused: their engines are revved. Which doesn't necessarily mean they are unfaithful because only about half of these 'racers' have trouble applying the brakes. You could call them two-timing cheats or say that they live a different value system. Systems such as polyamory ie sexual non-monogamy.

Twenty percent I are racers who are good at braking. They are faithful but feel the urge to go astray. The solution serial monogamy promising underlying love again and agian.

I never loved another person the way I loved myself.

Mae West

What happens if nothing happens anymore?

What happens. If nothing happens anymore. What is the engine of history. There is a rock to theories that deal directly or indirectly with this question. Thomas Hobbes believed in the survival instinct, Adam Smith in self interest, Karl Marx in the class struggle. George Wilhelm Frederick Hagel said the engine that led us from primeval tribal society through serfdorm to democracy was the struggle for recognition. According to his philosophy historical development is about the recognition of the individual. History ends in a state without political contradictions in which the human desire for recognition is satisfied. In the liberal democratic state. (Karl Marx approach was similar but the development he described had a different name a communist and classless society, which is not based on the principle of recognition but on redistribution). Hagel believed the end of history had been reached in 1806 When Napoleon defeated Prussia in the battle of Jena, which signified the triumph of the French Revolution and the aristocracy. Fredrich Nietzsche was also influenced by Hagel. He called a person who receives recognition in the Hegelian sense 'the last man'. Everyone wants the same, everybody is the same whoever feels different goes voluntary into a mad house. We have invented happiness say the last men and they blink. 

 In the 1990’s the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama ceased the notion all of the end of history and proclaimed that it had materialized the end of the Cold War since only one system had survived. Liberal capitalism. He was severely criticized. His critics called terrorist attacks of September 11 the end of history. Fukuyama was refuted most convincingly. By the facts the great powers such as Russia and China remained authoritarian states. Which have little in common with liberal democracy. But still become ever  richer thanks to capitalism. Fukuyama defeated this argument pointing to the fact. That even the recent financial crisis have not resulted in a fundamental change of the capitalist economic system and that even more recent revelations that uprising in Arab countries were inspired by western liberal values. In short history is still at an end. 

So what next? Fukuyama predicted an age of boredom. Once history had ended the terrible feeling that in a world without contradictions in which everything is possible nothing has value anymore what are the possible consequences. 

History could start again or repeat itself. 

A return to nationalism, as crisis driven Europe indicates. 

A renaissance of communism.

A step towards a New World order. 

It is completely wrong to imagine. That Arab revolutionaries want the same liberal capitalism that exists in the West. Slavoj Zizek

THE RESULT OPTIMISATION MODEL

Why the printer always breaks down just before a deadline.

There are many project management models and methods, most of them are based on the premises that there is a fixed amount of time in which to carry out a project.  Generally within this time ideas are gathered, the GM consolidated and a concept is selected and implemented. In the eye of the real life we all know that we never have enough time and the little time we do have is reduced by unforeseen events, like a printer breaking down the minute you want to use it. The result optimisation model device takes available time in 3 sequences loops of equal length. Thereby forcing the project manager to complete the project 3 times. The idea: to improve the outcome in each successive loop. Working with this model leads not to only improved output quality, but also has a more successful final outcome. At the end of a project instead of simply being glad that it is finally been put to bed, the whole team has a threefold feeling of achievement. Beware the stringed instrument when carrying out the strategy: work in such a way that each loop is properly completed before embarking on the next, otherwise this model loses it's dynamic with development processes. It is important to separate the three stages of gathering, consolidation and implementation.

A beautiful thing is never perfect Anonymous

THE ROLE PLAYNG MODEL BELBIN AND DE BONO

How to change your own point of view. When the creative thinking Guru Edward De Bono presented his Six Thinking Hats in 1986 critics dismissed the idea as just a bit of fun. De Bono's idea was to assign the members of a working group a temporary one dimensional point of view. Today the technique is widely accepted and De Bono's six hats are used as a team meeting technique to simulate communication and create playful scenarios. How it works, strategies are discussed by the members of a group during the discussion all members are given a hat colour with a personality to match. Each of the six points of view of the colour hat are important. All members of the group where the same colour hat at the same time these are the characteristics associated with each colour white hat analytical objective thinking the emphasis on facts and feasibility, redhat emotional thinking subjective feelings perceptions and opinions, blackhat critical thinking risk assessment identifying problems scepticism critique, yellow hat optimistic thinking speculative best case scenario, greenhat creative associate thinking new ideas brainstorming constructive, blue hats structured thinking process driven the big picture. Beware the meeting must be moderated to ensure the team members do not slip out of their designated roll. Teams in which the members have similar views and character traits don't work as well. If you have a good idea but fear it may meet with strong resistance try to lead the discussion in such a way that the other members of the group think that they came up with the idea themselves the more people feel that they have originated an idea the more passionately they fight for its implementation. If nobody claims to have come up with the idea, perhaps it wasn't a good idea in the first place.

 I never did anything alone, what was accomplished was accomplished collectively Golda Meir

THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA

When is it worth trusting someone? as the saying goes trust makes way for treachery but it is true.

Here is a puzzle that provides an answer.

Two prisoners are suspected of having carried out a crime together the maximum sentence for the crime is 10 years. The two suspects have been arrested separately and each is offered the same deal,  If he confesses that they both committed the crime and his accomplice remain silent, the charges against him will be dropped.  But the accomplice will have to serve the full 10 years if both he and his accomplice remain silent. There will only be circumstantial evidence which nonetheless puts both men behind bars for 2 years. But if both he and his accomplice confess to the crime they are both to be sentenced to 5 years in prison.

The suspects cannot confirm how should they react under questioning. 

Should they trust each other?

This is the so-called prison dilemma a classic conundrum in game theory. The two suspects both lose if they opt for the most obvious solution, ie put themselves first they get a 5 year sentence each.

Far better if each one trusts one another.  If they remain silent then they get a 2 year sentence. Note: If only one of the suspects confesses then the sentence is 10 years for the other suspect the confessor is freed.

In the 1979 the political scientist Elroid Rod organised the tournament in which 14 academic colleagues play 200 rounds of the prisoner's dilemma against one another in order to work out the best strategy. He found that in the first round it is best to co-operate with your accomplice, trust him in the second round. Do what your accomplice did in the previous round by initiating his moves he will follow you.

 You can't shake hands with a clenched fist, Gandhi

THE TEAM MODEL

Is your team up to the job regardless of whether you are the head of a nursery or a national sports team. Whether you want to set up a company or fundraising committee you'll be asking yourself the same questions do I have the right people for this project? do the skills correspond to our goals? are we capable of doing what we want to do? 

The team model will help you to judge your team beginning by defining the skills expertise and resources that you think are important for carrying out the project.

Note the skills that are absolutely necessary for the job distinguish between soft skills 

EG loyalty, motivation, reliability and hard skills EG computer business and foreign language ability.

 For each skill define where your critical boundaries lie on a scale of 0 to 10 for example an acceptable level of fluency in French might be 5/10. Judge your players according to these criteria, connect the point with a line. What are the teams weaknesses and what are their strengths? even more revealing than the model itself is a subsequent self-evaluation by the team members. A good team is one that can correctly judge's own capabilities. Beware real strengths lie in differences not similarity. The best executive is the one who has sent good enough men to pick men who do what he wants done.

THE STATUS MODEL

How to recognise a winner whether you wish you had been born into privilege or just a little richer we all have social aspirations that how can we recognise class distinctions of social status and model over the next page has two axes how you spend it and how you earned it.
The Matrix we define 4 types.

Old money the established Elite can be characterised by their dogged adherence to old school conventions in the face of a changing world they drive two identical rolls royces for fear of otherwise appearing to showy. They donate millions to charity to soothe their consciences. There is a touch of the ridiculous about them.

Children of rich parents sound like a broken record searching for identity that never was good for nothing, they should be routinely ignored.

The Nouveau riche
Spend their money like there's no tomorrow- as conspicuously as possible so that everyone notices the status symbol of this group is the monster SUV however their propensity for hysteria suggest that it could all be over soon.

The green SUV
The creative career, organic lifestyle and the green SUV proclaim an alternative globalisation in which good conquers evil but this sustainable way of life is motivated less by bad conscience than personal advantage. The green SUV is do not forgo luxury because nowadays luxury is green the metaphor of this new Elite is the green SUV: sustainable luxury.

The poor wish to be rich, rich wish to be happy the single wish to be married and the married wish to be dead. Ann Landers