I’ve been wanting to blog about John Hughes for some time and with his recent passing I’ve given it a bit more thought.  Andrew’s blog on generation was the most recent time, as I was thinking about how each generation has its cultural touchstones.  Gen-Xers might recall their reactions to:: coming of age in the era of Reagan or Mulrooney, the AIDS scare, seeing John Hughes films, hearing the ubiquity of pop stars like Springsteen, Madonna, and Michael Jackson, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen massacre, political correctness, being typified by a slacker young-adulthood, relating to Cobain’s angst, relating to someone from the cast of Friends, living the era of diminished expectations, dot com to dot bomb, seeing Ferris Bueller 15 years later as a broken Jim McAllister {Election}, relating to the dysfunction of life through Palahniuk or the neurosis of it through David Sedaris, 9-11, celebrating failure with Wes Anderson and the Venture Brothers, the bubble economy, market meltdowns, and seeing that shift from W to O.

I was never a fan of John Hughes films.  The experiences portrayed didn’t resonate with me and the message was about the status quo masquerading as rebellion.  A few years later I would be in a French lit. course realizing that I had the same reaction to the overblown sentimentality of romanticism.  Hughes has a deft hand at skewering adults, portraying them as buffoons, and showing slabs of teenage life with all of its and pain injustices {See above clip of Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club}, but at the end of the day, the universe gravitates towards a social equilibrium of winners and losers.  Of course, with a cool soundtrack.

My “heroes” at that time were in the UK, in the likes of Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records, Tony Wilson of Factory Records, and designer Peter Saville, all iconoclasts of a sort, whose ideals would eventually clash hard with the vagaries of market capitalism.  In the mid-1980s, I felt these guys were onto something, an æsthetic and an ethos that was far removed from the suburban milieu of Hughes’ territory, which at the end of the day was just more identity posturing on my part.  I remember wanting to go to university in order to start the next Rough Trade, back when alternative was post-punk or new music.  So, imagine my chagrin upon seeing Hughes coöpt music that mattered to me back in the day, e.g., The English Beat {Ferris Bueller racing to get home running through yards to “Rotating Heads”, Psychedelic Furs {“Pretty in Pink”}, and the Smiths {The Dream Academy covering “Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”}.

Hughes’ mid-1980s was squarely in the Reagan era and his films are evocative of the zeitgeist of the times.  I think several of Hughes’ films capture this well and I can’t help but wonder how growing up in this era has affected Gen-X.  Hughes was a conservative himself and the defunct Premiere magazine dubbed him as a Normal-Rockwell-in-Hollywood type of guy.  I think this 2006 Slate article has it right, his “conservatism” wasn’t one that celebrated old money elitism and stuffiness, but rather an optimistic Reagan Republicanism with a party-animal twist.  Put another way, a middle-of-the-road “moderatism” of quiet desperation punctuated by good times.  Rebellion was an incrementalist affair and our individualistic identities navigate seemingly treacherous waters of acceptance, but at the end of the day, nothing really changes.  Misguided as it may have been, this is how I perceived many of my peers.  Aware of the hypocrisy of society, but far too complacent to do anything about it.  I would meet revolutionary characters from Gen-X years later, but it dawned on me that in a generation that often values the status quo, iconoclasts are going to be hard to spot, as they’re often content to be flying under the radar.

On a ThickCulture note, I finally had the pleasure of meeting Andrew Lindner at this year’s ASA.  I now feel pressure to get up to speed with soccer in order to have something reasonably intelligent to say when he and José start talking about the game.

Twitterversion:: Pondering political conservatism of #JohnHughes, captured 80s zeitgeist& a GenX touchstone. Does this inform who GenX is? http://url.ie/27hk  @Prof_K

Crossposted on Rhizomicon.

Just a short blog, as I’m on the road en-route from Toronto to San Francisco for ASA. So, I got into Iowa City around 9PM last night and I saw a tweet from CBC, linking to a story on the “mastermind” behind Pranknet, Tariq Malik. The Smoking Gun goes into great deal outing Pranknet {with media clips} and their nefarious activities and BoingBoing and Canoe.ca have a short articles on the matter.

Notes from north of 49ºN

Update 4 August:: Video on Jack Layton from MSNBC-below.

Jack Layton is the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada whose riding is the next one over from me, Toronto-Danforth.  Over on the Huffington Post, Jack did a post on the realities of the Canadian health care system.

I have a lot of strong views on health care in the US based on my work in non-profit health and my research on the biotech industry.  It’s worth mentioning that today’s US health care system began as employer perquisites {benefits}, back when health care and pharmaceuticals were cheap.  The private insurance model starts to break down when costs escalate resulting in employers and employees getting squeezed and uninsured rates rising.  Some say a perfect storm of events {recession, rising costs, uninsured rate of 19%, and Obama} is leading to a tipping point in health care.  It should be noted that the US will not adopt a health care system like Canada’s, where the government {provinces} provide health care, but rather a system where the government finances health care delivered by private enterprise.

On the The Huffington Post, Jack makes some compelling points, whether you agree with his politics or not::

“Costs are under control in Canada. We spend similar amounts on public care – around 7% of GDP. For that price, Canada covers everyone, the U.S. just one third of the population. In case you’re worried Canada wastes money on bureaucracy, know that just 2.4% of our total costs go to administration compared to 7% of what your government spends. In end, Canadian care costs $2,500 less per capita – and covers everyone.”

He points out that the system isn’t perfect::

“Our system does have flaws. We need better prescription drug coverage, better remote access to care and better practices in hospitals and clinics. No honest advocate for our health care system would dismiss these things. But Canadian health care works — and works well.”

Does all this mean that the United States should adopt Canada’s health care system?…No. America can no more adopt our health care system than we can swap hockey for baseball as our national pastime. A good health care system reflects a country’s values, and each country’s values are different…But a system with 47 million uninsured, coverage denied due to pre-existing conditions and people thrown off plans when they become ill? That doesn’t reflect American values.”

Unfortunately, there are other competing values in play in the US, making healthcare a contentious issue.  It’s not a simple matter of costs and taxes, but one that also affects innovation and entrepreneurship.  Biotechnology is predicated upon using the human genome to better match diseases, patients, and therapies.  “Pre-existing conditions” and genetic skeletons in one’s closet can thwart innovation in biotech because it adds additional business risk.  If insurance refuses to pay, where are the revenues?

One question on my mind and one I pose to my students, is healthcare a public infrastructure or should it be treated strictly as a business?  The Canadian model is one where the state is the financier and provider, where the provinces oversee a large, integrated health infrastructure.  As stated above, a new US healthcare model is unlikely to be this comprehensive, instead focusing in financing.  The current US model uses market mechanisms heavily, where healthcare delivery, insurance, and pharmaceuticals all having a dog in the healthcare reform fight.  Altering the landscape through healthcare reform will alter business models and likely create windfall gains and losses.  On the other hand, we have that perfect storm of recession, rising costs, uninsured rate of 19%, and Obama.  Another implication of the current model, where healthcare is an employment benefit, is that it limits new business creation, i.e., creates “entrepreneurship lock.”  A recent working paper supports this reasoning::

“Overall we find some evidence that the U.S. emphasis on employer-provided health insurance may be limiting entrepreneurship.  The clearest evidence comes from the regression discontinuity results which create the most comparability in experimental and controls groups.  The finding of ‘entrepreneurship lock’ is important as it suggests that the bundling of health insurance and employment may create an inefficient allocation of which or when workers start businesses.”

Healthcare can also has an affect on the arts in the US in same fashion, necessitating that creatives take on dayjobs with health benefits.  One artist once told me that money {or lower costs} means the freedom to create.  The current system does precious little to create incentives for cash-strapped entrepreneurs and creatives to innovate and create.  Does this matter?  I think it does in terms of sustainable economic growth and treating healthcare as a publicly financed infrastructure, i.e., a social good, paid with {gasp} taxpayer dollars makes more sense than the current system, but the devil’s in the details and good implementation is critical in order for a new system to be successful.  That said, these challenges shouldn’t be reasons not to do it.
Video:: Jack Layton on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, NDP Blog via Twitter

Link

Twitterversion:: Jack Layton of #NDP clarifies healthcare in #Canada. Should healthcare be infrastructure? Implications for innovation & entrepreneurship. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song::  Planet Health – Chairlift {Brooklyn, NY of iPod Nano fame}

In California, identity politics is a way of life.  Ask Pete Wilson, ex-Governor of California on how Latino politics can derail a career, as detailed in a LA Times magazine article from 2004.  The same article highlights Republican concerns with shifting demographics::

“Many Republicans view the mushrooming Latino voter rolls in the same way a person looks at a growing mole: One hopes it’s benign but fears for the worst.”

Unlike in California where immigration is resulting in dramatic demographic shifts, here in Canada, a hot-button issue is Québec separatism that stems from centuries-old disputes.  The province of Québec has a distinct francophone culture when compared to the rest of predominantly anglophone Canada and this cultural divide naturally affects politics at both the provincial and federal levels.

Currently, at the federal level, Canada {with a variation of the Westminster parliamentary system} has a minority government {plurality of parliamentary seats} with Conservative Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.  Minority governments tend to be unstable.  Indicative of this, the Conservatives had a scare last December when Stephen Harper angered the other parties, bringing the country to the brink of Constitutional crisis.  Recent polls in Canada showed that about half of the voters wanted a more stable majority government, where one party has a majority of the seats.  Moreover, recent polls indicated that support for the Conservatives is dwindling, likely leading to a situation where the Conservatives and Liberals have close to the same number of seats, further deadlocking Parliament.  An article a week and a half ago by the Montréal Gazette brought up a controversial argument::

The 2008 federal results in Québec saw BQ making a strong showing with 49 ridings {seats} of 75 in Québec and 308 in Canada. The map below shows Bloc in light blue, Conservatives (PC) in dark blue, Liberals (LP) in Red, and New Democrats (NDP) in orange. The Bloc is strong throughout the province, while the Conservatives have support in a few rural areas, and the Liberals and NDP have appeal in or near the cities of Montréal and Ottawa.

“It’s the same good old Liberal Party of Canada that wants to put Québec in its place.”

–Pierre Paquette, Bloc MP Joliette

“It shows that he’s not only been out of Canada for 35 years, he’s never known anything about Québec except what he learned at Upper Canada College and, frankly, I’m not afraid of him a bit.”

–Thomas Mulcair, NDP MP Outremont

Song:: Tricot Machine -L’Ours {Montréal, QC}

Crossposted on Rhizomicomm.

Most people don’t know who Carl Malamud is and probably don’t care, but he’s the guy who wants the US Patent & Trademark Office and the National Archives and Records Administration to offer up its bulk data for free.   The idea is by allowing open access, non-profits and third-parties will use new technologies like Web 2.0 to create wikis and applications, allowing for better transparency and value-creation.

Web 2.0 & the Free

Yesterday, I blogged about intellectual property {IP} in a global context with pricing pressures towards the free.  In an era of piracy and difficult enforcement of IP rights, what’s an IP producer to do?  The “work” must be a part of a model that generates value.  Today, in my inbox I received an announcement from the God Help the Girl project, a “story set to music” envisioned by Glasweigian Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian fame.  There was an announcement about a BBC4 documentary on the band airing in the UK and a mention of how fans can “subscribe” to the music on their website::

Those familiar with B&S know of Stuart Murdoch’s entrepreneurial roots.  The band starting off as a college course  project and going viral in 1996-97 is a story that DIY indie rock legends are made of.  So, it should come as no surprise that Murdoch is on top of the  Web 2.0 concept of the “free.”  Sure, you can hear the track “Funny Little Frog” on the site and see videos on YouTube for free, but the die hard fan can experience God Help the Girl directly in their mailboxes and inboxes for $47US in North America or £40.50 in the UK.  The idea here is to go beyond the song as a digital commodity, but the creation of value and meaning to people that gets them to subscribe.  The “free” stuff is the hook.  The danger is offending fans with a seemingly-blatant cashgrab, territory in which The Pixies have ventured in.

Gov 2.0

While some corners of indie music are catching on to Web 2.0, what about government?  Will the government see that they would serve the public good by creating value through the availability of free access to Federal databases?   The Obama administration has promised openness and transparency, but what are the current realities?  Unfortunately, the US agencies in question that Malamud is fighting aren’t always interested in free.  There are prohibitive paywalls for annual subscriptions to the federal regulations and patent databases to the tune of $17,000US and $39,000US, respectively.  The US government isn’t making a lot of money off of this, which begs the question why the high prices?  It makes one suspect that the corporate interests have a vested interest in maintaining an information oligarchy with the government’s support.  While this may be a case of negligent gatekeepers, I’ve heard anecdotal tales of US Department of Labor data being suppressed for political reasons and have seen access granted to “restricted” data based on social ties.

Opening up these databases will likely see a flurry of usage, usage of data that’s public.  If Malamud gets his way, in the future if you need government data on such-and-such, there’d be an app for that.  Ideally.

Canadian Example

Up here in Canada, I came across a data barrier with respect to Federal electoral ridings {districts} and postal codes.  So, if a non-profit is interested in doing an advocacy campaign where voters can e-mail Federal candidates for Parliament, there’s a pricetag on that public data.  The cost from Statistics Canada is $3,000 CAN, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s sufficient enough to be a barrier for many nonprofits and smaller colleges.  A UK company, Advocacy Online, is utilized by some organizations needing this data, turning the cost barrier into a revenue stream for them.  Should this data be free?  Wouldn’t that serve the public good, as we would see more and more usage and possibly more civic engagement?

The handwriting is on the wall regarding the power of data access in Canada.  In the last Canadian federal election, VoteforEnvironment created a mashup of election data, riding data, postal code data, and Google maps.  This allowed users to make better, data-driven choices about strategic voting, where voters make their choices on the basis of how their vote affects Parliamentary makeup, not on the basis of party.  The implications according to CBC are compelling::

“If every green voter followed the website’s suggestions (as of Saturday), it says that instead of electing a Conservative minority of 141 MPs to 73 Liberals, 57 Bloc, 35 NDP, and no Greens, the electoral result would shift to a Liberal minority with 109 MPs to 97 Conservatives, 53 Bloc, 46 NDP, and one Green.”

Here in Toronto Centre, when you punch in the postal code on the VfE, voters get a summary and their anti-Tory recommendation.  Ex-Dipper Bob Rae has a safe seat as a Liberal candidate, so the recommendation is to vote your conscience.

Tim O’Reilly has a few interesting ideas on Gov 2.0.  It’s a time for fewer barriers, including those of cost.  If any data should be free, shouldn’t it be public data?

Twitterversion:: Will free access to Federal data enable #Gov2.0, increase transparency, & civic engagement?Implications for US & #Canpoli http://url.ie/23qx @Prof_K

Song:: Funny Little Frog – God Help The Girl

Crossposted on Rhizomicomm

I’m currently working on an ethnographic paper examining innovation in a global context.  The above map is a depiction of innovation clusters throughout the world, on the dimensions of patent growth and firm diversity.  As it turns out, the area I’m looking at is off the chart with very high growth and few firms.  The area is also one where western notions of property rights are out the window.  The main question we are addressing is how should firms innovate globally when their intellectual property {IP} rights are tenuous or uncertain?  The economic argument for granting exclusive property rights is to ensure an entrepreneurial entity has the incentives to commercialize an idea.  So, an innovator is allowed a monopolist position for a period of time, allowing for a path to cash and attracting investors, in order to ensure there is grist for the innovative mill.  In our research, exclusive property rights may exist, but aren’t enforced.  This begs the question, why is there growth?  Why would anyone invest in such a chaotic environment?  There must be some value in doing so.  Finally, I think it would be interesting to re-examine the above map with cultural dimensions, not in terms of sweeping generalizations, but nuanced, regional differences like the ones AnnaLee Saxenian found between Silicon Valley and Route 128 in Massachusetts.

Macleans had two articles on the buzz generated by Chris Anderson’s {Wired editor and proponent of the long tail} new book, Free: The Future at a Radical Price, which Russell has referred to. The first article talked Anderson’s ideas of “freeconomics,” where costs of storage and distribution are approaching zero and consumer behavior can go viral when the price is free.  It goes on to describe how critics were lambasting Anderson for his notions, including Malcolm Gladwell’s savaging of the book in the New Yorker. The other article invokes Frankfurt School critical theorist Walter Benjamin to highlight a trend where what is valued is what cannot be readily reproduced and digitized…the return of aura of the experience.

How does this relate to global IP concerns?

Let’s assume that we’re in an economic reality where intellectual “work” can often be readily digitized and reproduced infinitely.  We’re talking creative content, educational resources, biotechnology/genetic information, etc., so it would seem that the producers of music, film, news journalism, the university lecture, and the sequenced genome all have a dog in this fight.  Producers of valuable things want to profit from their efforts.  Their investors demand it.  Here comes Chris Anderson saying that the new economic model is to offer things for free.

Enter Malcolm Gladwell and other naysayers.  Gladwell asserts that Anderson is wrong on several counts.  The YouTube business model has failed to make money for Google, hence the “free” business model is untenable.  The logic of “free” is flawed, as capital-intensive infrastructures, costly complementary goods and services, and downstream costs often mean that goods simply cannot be free.  One can nitpick the flaws in Gladwell’s arguments.  He cites that the costs of clinical trials is what drives up pharmaceutical prices, which is true today, but the objective with biotech. is to use genomics to better target the use of molecules for specific therapies geared towards specific diseases and specific people, based on genetic profiling.  To use an “Obamaism,” the idea is to bend the innovation curve.

When IP faces rampant piracy or when property rights are not or cannot be enforced, globally, the potential of infinite reproduction puts pricing pressures towards the free, whether the producer likes it or not.  This is what’s happening to the firms in our research.  The successful global firms we studied are the ones that are embracing cultural particulars and negotiating as best they can their claims to IP revenue streams.

Interestingly, Chris Anderson has been accused of cribbing IP from sources like Wikipedia, acting like a veritable Web 2.0 Jack Sparrow.  The question I have is does this or should this diminish the value of his book by readers?  Is this a violation of some “authorly” ethics or is this just the new IP where everything is up for grabs and the key is deliver value.  Anderson even stated that one could get the information in Free by compiling blog posts and articles, but that the book adds value by synthesizing it.  He also practices what he preaches.  One can read Free for free, but just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it will be easy.  The free versions of the book text are limited by format or are DRM-protected.  Some consumers are complaining because of different expectations of what “free” means, but this approach is consistent to Anderson’s core ideas.  Being in Canada, I’ll have to jump through more hoops to read this for free, due to publishing restrictions, but I’ll figure it out and I’m actually looking forward to reading it.

Is this commerce or is this anarchy?  The lessons being learned are similar to those in the second Macleans article.  The focus needs to be on the delivery of value, rather than the protection of rights.  Globalization is achieving what a thousand socialist mandates could not.  The erosion of property rights is forcing firms to figure out how to deliver value when an innovation is free.  Web 2.o has offered firms the ability to do what I have called “stagesetting” in several research projects and a case on Pixar.  Stagesetting is where a firm has a sequential approach to its ultimate strategic objectives.  We see firms trying to leverage network effects to create value for users through sites and technologies using social media.  Flickr has no value with hundreds of users, but has tremendous value with millions.  One can talk about MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook revenues in terms of advertising, but the holy grail is the data mining and finding what the exact value proposition is to generate revenues from business and institutional clients.  The “freemium” model of the basics for free, but added features are extra, is based upon stagesetting, where value is created.  What Anderson offers is a glimpse into a global economic reality and gives firms the incentives to rethink the nature of value…or they can try their luck in the courts, like the RIAA did with prosecutions of a Minnesota mom and college kids.

Twitterversion:: Will IP matter in global contxt?ChrisAnderson=Web2.0 JackSparrow decentrng IP auth,making value-creation salient. http://url.ie/23kj @chr1sa @Prof_K

Song:: O.P.P – Naughty By Nature lyrics

Crossposted on Rhizomicomm

I was reading a review on Salon of Ellen Shell’s Cheap.  The premise is an intriguing one.  The world wants cheap, mass-produced items that are relatively disposable, but we are often unaware of the global implications of our desires, in terms of labour and the environment.  I’m currently revising a manuscript on innovation, technology, and China, so these concepts are top-of-mind.  One of the arguments that Shell makes is that downward wage pressures in low-wage nations are used to keep wages in the U.S. down through threats of downsizing and outsourcing.  The linchpin of the argument is one of costs, i.e., keeping them low, which revises quality expectations and feeds the corporate oligarchy.  Shell goes on to use IKEA as an example of a company selling disposability at the expense of true craftsmanship.  Sure, there is design that goes into the pieces, but the materials used and the mass-produced nature are indicative of a society that values disposable furnishings with cutesy names.  Palahniuk used what he called the “Ikea nesting instinct” as a social critique on consumption providing meaning, which Fincher captures in his adaptation of Fight Club {1999}::

I think that IKEA is doing what all mass-cult brands do.  They sell a meaning system, but this meaning system is increasingly tied to a fashion system {Roland Barthes; Grant McCracken}.  So, it’s not that we just want new things, but we want new things that have the right meanings.  After all, that’s the key to happiness.  While this may seem cynical, I think that this reflects a trend towards impermanence in our lives, in terms of jobs, where we live, and relationships.

Where’s the loyalty, where’s the love?

It’s in places like Red Hook, Emeryville, East Palo Alto, Coquitlam, Etobicoke, Boucherville…

Is IKEA that bad?  They could stand to do a better job of living up to their positioning, but I think Shell is right to make us think about our own culpable actions.  I think we need to be more conscious of what we value.

Twitterversion:: New book by Ellen Ruppel Shell takes on IKEA&what we value.Is the disposable society increasingly pervasive?#ThickCulture http://url.ie/22bq @Prof_K

Song:: Ikea – Jonathan Coulton

On the lighter side, I offer this {click on image to play video}::

Via @ZanyPickle on Twitter.  I’m not geek enough to tell if this is 8-bit graphics or not.  I’ll freely admit that many readers of this blog might be muttering TLDR when seeing my blog posts.

Twitterversion:: RT: @ZanyPickle New: How to speek geek http://cli.gs/TrqML || https://thesocietypages.org/thickculture/2009/07/15/geekspeak/ #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Technologic (Radio Edit) – Daft Punk

Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE, online MBA namesake {this Economist article is funny}, and policy critic is no stranger to controversy.  Here’s “Neutron” Jack warning of Obama running up deficits::

I have no problem with criticizing policy, but when it drifts from rhetoric towards potshots, my patience wears thin remarkably fast, regardless of the ideology.  Welch offered the curious advice of a “fake plan” after revisions of the deficit came out and Obama already responded to the news.  In my book, Welch isn’t offering analysis, but just stirring the pot and trying to seem relevant in the eye of the public.

Fast forward to June 28, when Welch offered up more controversy at a human resource management conference and was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article.   Now, after his comments have gotten into the press, Welch is getting into a bit of hot water for statements he made on there not being such a thing as a work-life balance.  Welch said those taking time off for family won’t be there “in the clutch” and could be passed over for promotions.

“We’d love to have more women moving up faster…But they’ve got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.”

According to Welch, there is a consolation.  While you might not get to the top for trying the career-family balancing act, you can still have a nice career, nevertheless.  Some praised Welch for his bluntness, while others lambasted him for being “out of touch.”

One comment on the article accused the WSJ of attempting to increase pageviews with inflammatory articles and another accused Welch of trying to peddle his book.   The Twittersphere was abuzz with Welch’s statements, as of 7:12 EDT, with plenty of retweets of the article and quite a few naysayers.  Welch himself, who has a Twitter account, is in the hospital with a serious spinal infection, so don’t expect anything from him on the matter any time soon.  One Tweet called him a grumpy old man, as did a blog at The Conglomerate {via Salon}.  Grumpy or not, is he right?

While his words might seem to apply to both men an women equally, the fact of the matter is that there are key perceptual gendered differences in organizations when it comes to family, bringing up a double-standard.  Scott Coltrane’s paper, “Elite Careers and Family Commitment: It’s (Still) about Gender,” makes this point clear::

• “Family men” are viewed as having mature leadership qualities
• Women getting married or having children can derail their previous “fast track” status, as that choice renders her as less-qualified

Welch is advocating what some in sociology call a “separate spheres” ideology, regarding gender, allowing the double-standard on the meaning of “family” to persist.  The fact of the matter is that even if you talk about “family” with respect to both men and women, the meanings aren’t the same.  Research on CEO succession are consistent with the tenets of economic sociology, i.e., if one desires to be heir to the CEO throne, social relations within the organization and with the corporate board matter {e.g., See Cannella & Shen}.  So, if you’re up for a CEO spot, it matters how others perceive you, whether you like the double standard or not.  Welch is promoting a mythology of the CEO as an individual totally committed to the organization.  Along with his other statements, CEOs and managers all should have a draconian stance and total obeisance to the almighty shareholder value, or perceptions thereof {including cooking the books?}.

It’s a bottom-line world, right?  Companies face a reality and Jack is simply reflecting it.  Maybe not.  BusinessWeek taped a Q&A session with the CEOs of Sony {Howard Stringer} and Best Buy {Brad Anderson}, two companies with very different attitudes towards the “balance” issue::

“What became apparent in subsequent discussions from both CEOs was that personal time was pretty hard to come by. Stringer talked about the differences in the Japanese and U.S. career cultures. The Japanese work much longer hours including one weekend day, and the idea of a great deal of leisure time, or time spent in their homes with their families, is still not part of their culture. He also noted that many employees, manager level really, were still mostly male (something he hoped to help change).

This was in stark contrast to the recent changes at Best Buy and their new flexible hours program being implemented at all levels of the company. Mr. Anderson gave the example of two women (working mothers) promoted to manager who were now able to job share, since neither due to child care commitments could work the hours required.”

Organizations are social systems and are often in states of flux.  Welch is advocating a received-view way of thinking, but on the basis of what logic?  I would argue that we need to rethink the role of the CEO, away from organizational financial performance and towards meaning and leadership.  A strong leader creates meaning, which guides actions throughout.  It would be interesting to compare the meaning systems of Sony and Best Buy and how it affects corporate culture and decision-making.  Maybe students in Welch’s online MBA programme can take that on.

Twitterversion:: Jack Welch stirring pot w/comments on work-life balance. Oldschool ideas reinforce faulty logic. #Fail  http://url.ie/21sr #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Work Is A Four-Letter Word – The Smiths

ThickCulture bloggers and friends, what kind of tech user are you?  According to Pew, I’m a digital collaborator::

Click on the image of the link here to find out which type you are & feel free to post your results here, as well as your thoughts on it.  Detailed descriptions are here.

“Digital Collaborators: 8% of adults use information gadgets to collaborate with others and share their creativity with the world.

For many Digital Collaborators, digital information is input into a creative process that often involves others and whose output they share with the world using the web. Members of this group can almost always get access to the internet, whether that is with an “always on” broadband connection or with an “always present” mobile device. With such robust connectivity, Digital Collaborators share their thoughts or creative content with others. Using blogs and other content-creation applications, they collaborate with others online to express themselves creatively. For Digital Collaborators, the internet can be a camp, a lab or a theater group — places to gather with others to develop something new.

This pattern of active and continuous information exchange puts ICTs [information and communication technology users] at the center of how Digital Collaborators learn, work, socialize and have fun. Most play games on electronic devices, with half playing games on the internet. At least occasionally, most of them watch TV on a device other than a traditional television set. And one-quarter have avatars that let them participate in virtual worlds. The typical Digital Collaborator is in his late 30s and has had years of online experience to hone his skills to get the most out of ICTs.”

I think this is fairly accurate.  I’m not tethered to my cellphone, using it primarily for texting and quick “I’m at the front” type of calls in “real-life.”  One of these days I might tweet a Giants or ‘Jays game, but maybe just uploading photos via TwitPic.  Speaking of games, untrue to the digital collaborator type, I’m not into electronic games at all.  My technology use is primarily forms of blogging, including Twitter.  My presence on Facebook {social networking site} is often phantom, since I push my Tweets over to my wall.

So, again, what type are you?  Feel free to post your responses in the comments.

Twitterversion:: What’s your”techuser”type?Take short test@ #PewInternet.Link to test:: http://url.ie/202m Feel free to post results/thoughts. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Home Computer – Kraftwerk