The Upper Peninsula's Very Own DeYoung Zoon

The DeYoung Family Zoo is located in one of the most rural environments you can imaging. Wallace Michigan is a small town with few residents and even less places to shop or eat. However, nestled between the pine trees is the "Wallace" or DeYoung Zoo hosting an impressive array of exotic animals drawn from all over the world.

Big cats, bears, canines, reptiles, primates, birds and other exotics are available for viewing. Sometimes they have petting opportunities were new animals are socialized through contact with other people. As people pet and play with the animals they become more domesticated.

N5406 Co Rd 577, Wallace, MI 49893
thedeyoungfamilyzoo.com

Declining Birth Rates in the U.S. and its Impact on the Economy

According to an article in the LA Times the birth rates in the U.S. are declining. While we have an ever increasing world population the U.S. population is not replacing itself. What is making it possible is immigration. We may wonder why we shouldn't just allow the birthrate to continue to decline in hopes of saving the environment and gaining ourselves a little more land. Here might be a couple of good reasons?

1.) The productivity of a nation is dependent on young people producing products that help support the economy and the nation. It is possible to increase productivity with less people but in general, over history, each human being accounted for some level of economic contribution.

2.) As the nation imports more people from overseas the character and nation of the change. Its not a problem if we have a plan. For example, if we are going to become an international nation then having people from different places can be extremely helpful in raising our international knowledge. However, for some it may be a concern that new values may supplant old ones. Finding a way to mesh and integrate may be helpful here.

3.) I wonder if the health and quality of rearing are going to make a significant impact. If we raise our children right, get them solid prenatal care, and encourage physically and psychologically healthy childhoods it isn't necessarily a bad thing we have less if the people we do have are better capable of meeting modern challenges. Its a quality over quantity issue.

4.) As childbirth rates continue in emerging economies our population begins to decline. It changes the sources of population and the places where new business are likely to grow. Business and services move to where people are going to pay for them. This means that dense emerging markets are likely to see an increase in new services even if the income of those populations doesn't rise.

5.) More mature nations seem to have less children. People begin to enjoy their lives and children become more of an issue of convenience than actual necessity. We have 1 or 2 children because we want to raise them and are less concerned about passing on our genetics, working them on our "farms" or using them as retirement support.

The Necessity of Civility in Politics

Eyes have been turned on politics since the last election with growing partisanship and lack of basic civil respect. No names, no side, no person will be mentioned because the blame lands on both parties equally. They created the environment were hate and anger are the mainstay of government business. As a value system we failed to contemplate the long-term disadvantage of brutality.

Some of you were raised with a religious background and some of you were not. You don't necessarily need it to have a religious participation to have a civil approach to treating others. We as human beings know that our society is based on the ability to work together as a group and this is deeply rooted in our psychological, biological, and historical existence.

Whether we are discussing a nation, or some savage band living in the woods, the principles are the same. It is our ability to work together and overcome our challenges that makes the difference in our survival. Once we decide to not work together the fabric of our "togetherness" begins to break down; society weakens and new paths are created.

Its unfortunate that some of the rudest and selfish people are seen as strong personalities to emulate. People are beginning to copy and act in the same way. A true sign that as Americans we need to question our values should consider where we want to end up in the future and in our lives. Our future is defined by the choices of our present and past.

Worse, we are encouraging bad behavior and even worse characters through financial and social rewards.

I have seen it in the workplace and I have seen it in politics where the profane move up the ranks and good people are left to the side. The selfish are hungry and don't care one way or another the consequences of their choices unless those consequences land directly on them. Yet..who cares...by the time people come to their senses the barbarism already took its course.

I guess this might depend on how you define Barbarians. Cruel, insensitive, not following societal norms and not part of civilized society seems to be a common definition.  Standing outside the norms reflects on the people who violate such social values while changing our American value system reflects on us as a nation.

Sure...they may fear breaking the law and getting in trouble but they don't care one way or another the social consequences of their behavior. As long as they get what they want, they eat from the trough, and move on. If they are ever held accountable for their actions they simply just deny, blame, and jump ship. Values and loyalty are in short supply.

Civility allows us to work toward a beneficial solution versus spending our time and energy fighting each other. As we spend our time in tit for tat arguments we waste our energies that could be used for finding real solutions to real problems. Without solutions we only gain more problems, more problems and even more problems. Perhaps so many problems we can't fix them all.

As the incessant barking at each other continues the nation is running into deep problems. Deficits, education, emerging economies, military power flexing, and declining standards of living. Few things can be based and solutions are not rooted in compromise but set in stubborn dogmatic lines. We are not only losing our moral fabric but also letting our futures slip through our hands. Present leaders are setting a precedence which may reverberate for a long time.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.- Abraham Lincoln

2018 International Conference on e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education, and e-Technology (e-CASE & e-Tech 2018)

2018 International Conference on e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education, and e-Technology (e-CASE & e-Tech 2018)
April 1-3, 2018, Osaka, Japan
http://tw-knowledge.org/ecase

We cordially invite you and your colleagues to participate and submit papers to 2018 International Conference on e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education, and e-Technology (e-CASE & e-Tech 2018) which will be held in Osaka, Japan, April 1-3, 2018. We welcome submissions from all over the world and we encourage you to join us in Osaka, Japan to share your research and knowledge. To submit abstracts/papers for presentation or participate as an audience member, please visit the conference website for more details. All submissions will be subject to a double-blind review process. All accepted manuscripts will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISSN reference, on CD-ROM support.

The objectives of the conference are:
1. Provide a platform for the researchers to seek further opinions, comments, and suggestions.
2. Contribute knowledge in the fields of e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education, and e-Technology.
3. Provide wider opportunities for participants to interact and create networking.
4. Deliver your research findings to global audiences.
5. Participate in a truly international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event.

Osaka is known throughout Japan as an international and progressive business center and is the mover and the shaker of the Kansai region. The cherry blossoms (sakura) usually bloom in the last week of March and the first two weeks of April in Kyoto (roughly between 20 March and 14 April). In an average year, the blooms peak on April 1 in Osaka. Once they bloom, they are notoriously fickle: sometimes almost all the trees will come into full bloom (mankai) at the same time and stay in full bloom for a week or even longer. We believe that you will enjoy your stay in Kyoto. If you need any assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Conference Website: http://tw-knowledge.org/ecase
Online Submission: http://my-ecase.org/ecase
Enquiries: ecase.conf@gmail.com
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2017

Conference Chairs
Wachara Chantatub, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Norbert Jesse, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Yixuan Wang, Nagoya University, Japan

Employee Performance and the Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne studies helped us understand that a persons social network and environment has as much influence as their innate abilities. I recently read an article in the Economist that brought up a a lot of great ideas I learned in college. A person's potential is defined as much by the environment as it is by their actual abilities.

I know this is a little odd. While looking for a dog I went down to the animal shelter and was show a
mild Chihuahua that was afraid of everything. It was meek, mild, was frightful of its own shadow and barely took any treats you provided it.

I asked the volunteer what the story was with this lifeless dog? She stated with some sadness that the dog lived with other dogs in an old man's house and it was at the bottom of the dog pack. It ate last, got pet last, got its food last. It was simply socialized to be seen as "not worthy".

That got me thinking of corporate culture. We are so busy with trying to win the next promotion that we sometimes start treating others as though they are the bottom of the list. We don't see their potential because we have not actually created the right environment. In essence, we socialize others as thought they are not important so they act in unimportant ways.

It does seem as though the most selfish of us seem to get promoted. The complete lack of concern for others with the notion that one must achieve above all ethical considerations take precedence. This is the fault of our system and the fault of company administrators. But they are only responsible so far.

It is hard to blame leadership either as they are under pressure to produce results. People with a selfish disposition do get results. They simply don't care one way another. They seek to make strong performance metrics that enhance their position; even if there is cost to employee moral. The result is often strong performance by all team members.

Somewhere along the line it would seem that short-term results and long-term performance would clash against each other. The environment that might be created through narrow focus might also encourage less performance as employees are forced into specific responses that pleas their bosses. Creative think is discouraged.

I do believe it is possible to create a performance based environment where positive group interaction can lead to the best of both words of employee performance. Results are more inclusive and different contributions are encouraged because metrics can sometimes be limited if they are not capturing all of the required data.

This will require a level of civility and inclusiveness within the environment. People should not be sidelined because they haven't got the same social connections. Their performance should be encourage and they should be actively sought out to form their opinion. Those opinions lead to personal "buy in" and greater performance.

Open environments encourage the ability to act and interact in ways that encourage new ideas, norm formation of teams, and pushing of expectations in ways that have a wide draw in. Because much of this environment is created through social-psychological knowledge it can be difficult for people calculating the bottom cost to create. Someone would have to use multiple parts of their brain to grasp what specifically can be done and how it can be calculated in terms of dollars.