Brexit is More Cultural than Economic

Britain is thinking about abruptly leaving the EU with the Brexit proposal. While the exit could cause economic shock waves across Europe and throughout the international market those supporting Brexit are doing so more for cultural than economic reasons. It is the common worker that sees fear in further engagement in the global economy and hopes to encourage their country to set its own policies.

The biggest danger is that an exit from the EU will create a difficult to disentangle financial situation where England was a launching pad to the EU for many American businesses. An exit will force these companies to change the way they do business and adjust where their resources are located in order to maintain access to both markets. 

The financial backlash to both EU and England is likely to be substantial. It prompts people that the EU is facing difficulties and further tells people that England is moving back into pro-nationalist economic stance. While it doesn't make sense to exit abruptly and now for England the catalyst is more cultural. 

England always had its own sense of pride. It values its culture and its glory days as an important part of people's identity as both a nation and individuals.  The split is seen by many as saying we are British first and Europeans second. We set our own policies and don't rely on the German dominated EU. 

That has always been the funny thing about culture. Once symbols and history embeds itself into the psyche of people it is difficult to move away. While the days of severe conflict between England and Germany have long passed the idea of Us and Them has not gone away. Moving away from Europe is seen as moving toward national independence and Britain's destiny. 

Putting the Wind in the Sails of Your Business

Putting the wind back into the sales of your business rests on marketing, operations and value. As you learn to trim your sales and find tune your offerings your business will start to differentiate itself from the competition. Small business in particular have more navigability than larger businesses and should hedge their ability for quick market changes.

Marketing: Fine tuning your target customer and ensuring that you are reaching them is fundamental to creating strong businesses, Without sales you don't have business. The process of defining your target market takes some research and reflection. Watch who buys your product and why they buy them.

Operations: Operations cost money and can either increase or decrease take home profits. Investing is a wise choice when tangible results can be found. Ensure that your operations are running as efficiently as possible and not wasting resources. Sometimes it is necessary to take a look at everything from the input to the output and cut out extra wasted steps.

Value: Know the value of your product. Understand why people want your product and enhance its value as much as possible.  Ensure that you are meeting your customers expectations through developing a solid, quality, tangible product with appropriate customer service.

"We Can" Project Inspires Kids to Become Contributors to Society

The We Can Project has been implemented in Elementary, Middle and High Schools in an effort to help students learn self-esteem and positive ways to contribute to society. The program has around 125,000 participants and seems to be growing by the year. Students set and realize goals that not only help themselves but also society.

Step 1: Think. Students come up with goals that are important to them (I Can), the people around them (You Can) and their communities (We Can). Each student picks the one goal he/she is most excited about.

Step 2: Plan. Each student makes a plan to figure out the who, what, where, and when of his/her project to reach his/her goal.

Step 3: Act and reflect. Students put their plans into motion, take time to reflect on their progress, and adjust their plans accordingly.

For more information  http://www.wecanwecanwecan.com/

 

Is Crowd Capitalism Coming?

I recently had the pleasure of reading the article As On-Demand Economy Grows, Professor Sees New Kind of Capitalism Emerging about Professor Arun Sundararajan from New York University's Stern School of Business. In agreement with him I believe that fundamental changes in our economy will occur that relate to how we are paid. However, I would like to add that we will also be networking resources, people, and information to a higher degree for economic growth.

I like to think of the next era as the Information Age and have conducted some of my own research on it. It will be a time where technology creates greater efficiencies in the market. We will be developing and growing faster through the use of shared resources and information. Our world will get much smaller and our economies more integrated.

Changes in technology will influence employment. It is also a time that will influence the traditional "job". The standard 9 to 5 job will disappear and people will need to be much more self-motivated to earn a solid living in the new economy. Hours will only be method of calculating pay.

There will also be emerging opportunities for people who may have previously been blocked from being independent. It will be easier to be your own boss and choose which projects you want to take. Higher skilled and educated people will opt for higher paid projects with more benefits while lower skilled and lower educated people will be forced into lower paying projects.

Some will find it easier to move up in income while others will find it more difficult. A truer form of capitalism will emerge where data and use will determine necessity. Transparency will become greater and people will have more choice over their working conditions. Many will work from home and throw off the traditional office job.

It isn't an easy transition nor is it one that is set in stone. There will be the traditional and the non-traditional running alongside of each other. Some will enjoy the comfort of salaried employment while others will seek to be more entrepreneurial in their work. There will be job boards for those who want steady pay and there will be project exchanges where people can buy and sell their skills and projects for those who don't.

The Success of the Student is Based on the Motivation to Learn

While the environment is important in developing strong universities, and technology allows more people to learn in a convenient way, the student is still the fundamental component of success. Whether we are sitting under a tree with a mentor in ancient society or communicating from our cell phones it is the student that will determine the overall outcome of the learning process.

That doesn't neglect the quality of instructor, the curriculum, and the environment as factors in learning but it does recognize the student's personal characteristics as a central component to learning. The student must come to class willing to learn and seeking knowledge for their own personal development.

This desire to learn is a fundamental difference between strong and weak students. Strong students question in order understand while weak students question to earn a higher grade. One is focused on the learning while the other is focused exclusively on the grade. The personality and characteristics will determine which emphasis the student places.

Learning is a mindset of personal development. It is a person who takes in information, reflects on it and integrates information. While they understand that feedback is somewhat subjective they do look at all feedback as an important method of understanding. Over time the feedback becomes accurate as similar themes develop.

One must be motivated to learn in a term called "grit". No matter what is going on in their lives and what happens to them "grit" ensure that they maintain their course in learning. They will go through many problems in life and still seek greater knowledge and opportunity.

It is difficult for professors to develop motivation in their students because students often come to class with or without this inherent perception. However, it is possible to foster what is available in students by encouraging students to find greater connection between their effort and their long-term goals. By widening and deepening the student's perspective specific actions can be put within a context.