New Pathways Throughout Southern California

Yesterday I spent the morning at Caltech for the Angling in the Sea of Social Networks: The Future of Venturing in the Community Internet.

The session included: User Community Keynote: Doc Searls

• Senior Editor, Linux Journal
• Chair of ProjectVRM and Berkman Fellow at Harvard University
• Recipient of 2005 Google/O'Reilly Open Source Award for Best Communicator
• Co-Author, “Cluetrain Manifesto”.

All the speakers were good and I attained a good deal of insight into social media and am rethinking some pathways I was taking in this endeavor. Mainly how fast I can implement this type of system at work.

I did try to elicit some more insight regarding local governments using the Web 2.0 social media universe, but somehow my question either did not register or it is not something that has been thought about to any great extent. I did, however, have a very engaging conversation with one of my fellow audience members. Engaging because I got to go on a long spiel about my perspective as a city economic development professional and using social media for community building purposes and he connected positively to what I was saying as a social web media/marketing professional. This is definitely a pathway I plan to explore more.

In the afternoon I went with family to Otis to help our niece get in. She has attained a full scholarship and is going into Otis Communication Arts - Illustration. So I was able to see the best of California Education from a wide expanse of perspectives. The second trip helped to inform the first trip and get some ideas flowing.

This morning was spent with coffee, croissant and the L.A. Times Sunday paper. Three stories caught my eye in the Images section, Gehry on L.A., art (and Gehry), 'Conversations With Frank Gehry' by Barbara Isenberg and The Hammer Museum gets together with artists, outside the box; and again this helped to provide more ideas to contemplate and pathways to follow. Now I need to let that jumble of ideas settle and percolate a bit.

Some Related Posts:

• Organizational Permeability: Breaking Down The Walls Between You And "Them" And You And "Us"
• Inform, Engage, and Empower During Your Freetime

Assumptions of Living - Good and Bad

One approach taken in the writing of this blog is finding different ideas on the Internet and see how they can be connected. Sometimes it is obvious, but other times there is just a sense of connection. I found two such sources of interest at TED.

The two TED talks were Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal (sometimes) - Dan Ariely (2009) and Celebrating work -- all kinds of work - Mike Rowe (2008).

Both speak to our tendency of holding assumptions of how moral we are ourselves , how we perceive others and how those others deal with life, both good and the bad. What helped make the connection was Mike Rowe's tying his observations of the everyday lives of working people to the Aristotelian theory of tragedy. Dan Ariely takes that idea from the level of the individual to the level of community reminding me of the words from Julius Caesar.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves...

Cassius
The Life and Death of Julies Caesar
ACT I.
SCENE II.

China's New and Growing Role at the World Economic Table

The G20 meeting in London is set for 2 April 2009. One of the relative new and now major participants will be the People's Republic of China. Whatever happens to the World Economy, and therefore to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, will depend to a great extent upon China.

One of my news sources is the China Daily. I took a look over the last couple of weeks to see what they were putting out as news worthy in terms of world economics.

To a great extent they pull what they want from the same sources as we do. Which can mean that their information is as conflicted as ours is, depending upon who is talking.

China Daily (Xinhua) Updated: 2009-03-19 23:07
IMF: World economy to shrink in 2009, first time in 60 years

WASHINGTON - The world economy is expected to contract in 2009 for the first time in 60 years as advanced economies will shrink sharply, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

In the analysis, the IMF called on G20 governments to take steps to relieve their financial systems of distressed assets and free up credit.

"Turning around global growth will depend critically on more concerted policy actions to stabilize financial conditions as well as sustained strong policy support to bolster demand," the IMF said.

For a different perspective

China Daily (Agencies) Updated: 2009-03-18 16:46
ECB chief: Growth may resume in 2010

PARIS - European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said Wednesday that economic growth could resume next year, although 2009 will be "very, very difficult." "2010 could be the year of a moderate resumption of growth, but that depends on us," he said on France's Europe-1 radio.

He said an economic recovery depends on the confidence of governments, businesses and consumers. "The essential problem is not to make predictions in an uncertain world, it is to find confidence again," Trichet said.

That seems to be saying that our only problem is that we have a bad attitude. Others have written about the Europeans refusal to follow President Obama's economic strategy. China seems to be willing to participate with the IMF, but on its own terms. It seems that China now as a far greater ability to set its own terms than it did in the last century.

By Zheng Lifei (China Daily) Updated: 2009-03-28 08:42
Vice Premier: China will aid IMF bond scheme

China is ready to buy bonds issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if the multilateral financial institution's quota-based contributions fall short of immediate needs, Vice-Premier Wang Qishan wrote in a Friday article for the London Times newspaper.

In an article titled "G20 must look beyond the needs of the top 20", Wang said the IMF should set the scale of contributions by per-capita GDP rather than the size of a country's foreign exchange reserves.

"It is neither realistic nor fair to set the scale of contribution simply by the size of foreign exchange reserves," he wrote, "China is ready to play an active part in exploring ways to raise resources and will contribute to this effort within its ability. We hold that the IMF should mobilize resources through the quota-based system as well as voluntary contributions, striking a balance between the rights and obligations of the contributing countries."

Links to Related China Daily Articles

• China cautioned to lend less to IMF
• Increasing stake in IMF should be voluntary, Wen says
• IMF to set up 2 more technical assistance centers in Africa
• IMF: China's 8% growth this year challenging but possible
• Brown: End western control of IMF, WB
• China may offer IMF $100b during G20 summit: expert
• UK fully supports China's role in IMF
• Major IMF reforms seen at G20 summit