Crosspost:: A shorter version is available on Rhizomicomm.

When I was a senior in college, I must admit thought quite highly of economics and its rationality.  It was the early 1990s and I was contemplating law school and doctoral programs in environmental economics, with interests in law and economics and public choice.  I was given The Gift Economy by David Cheal to read, altering my worldview forever.  A close second was Jean Baudrillard’s Selected Writings, but that’s another post.

Cheal’s book focuses on the tensions between market relationships {political economy} and social ones {moral economy}, as a distinctive characteristic of the social milieu in capitalist societies.  While gifts may be given for instrumentalist means, they often are not, hence being representative of a wide array of behaviors firmly in the realm of the symbolic and the relational.  Cheal talks about the interplay between the market and social realms, which could easily be superimposed on a Pierre Bourdieu framework of fields, habitus, doxa, and forms of capital.  In the past, gift-giving was often marginalized and thought to be subsumed in a capitalist exchange model.  Recent thinking considers gifts to be a social process, one that has a significant economic impact.

So, how is this interplay affected by social media?  In my current work, I’ve been thinking of the use of Facebook by organizations, particularly in the realm of philanthropy.  Organizations have been embracing the idea of creating relationships with constituents, rather than focusing on transactions.  Health non-profits often provide information and advocate on behalf of their constituents.  By doing so, this creates a person-organization relationship and ideally leads to greater levels of philanthropy {economic resources for the non-profit}.  The key is that the relationship must have salient meanings for the constituents, i.e., the brand meaning system.  Depending on the context, this is often tied to outcomes, e.g., cures for diseases, social change, identity, etc.

Social media and social networking sites like Facebook not only foster person-organizational relationships via information disemmination and services, but also peer-to-peer relationships.  These relationships are social, but are within a capitalist market context.  Hence, we return to the gift.  We manage relationships through gift-giving and other behaviours, through the management of symbols::

Social media has the ability to move constituents from this model::

Organizational Activities -> Org.-Person Relationship -> Outcomes

more towards this one::

Organizational Activities  -> Communities of practice -> Outcomes

The latter being facilitated by the Internet and with the possibility of a richer set of outcomes stemming from an engaged community.  We want gifts to be expressive of our relational ties, hence full of meanings, within a given social context, e.g., a community of practice.

Facebook is a global player, but still needs a solid revenue model.  Apple’s success with “apps” show the power of a platform to deliver value, often at a low price-point.  The Facebook platform should be developed in line with how people, how a large number of people, actually engage in symbolic relationship management, tied to other strategies, such as::

• Bling gifts that are expressive of sentiments {various media}
• Donations and sponsorships
• Online events to engage community members
• Free/Low-cost personalized apps that add value, e.g., health monitoring, reminders, alerts, etc.

Organizations are still figuring out how to use social media and Facebook is still figuring out how to deliver value.  All I can say its future isn’t online ads and organizations just paying lip service to their constituencies with social media is as transparent as this::

Twitterversion::  #newblogpost #Facebook & #socialmedia in reconfig of econmics. Interplay {political&moral economies}.Implic.for orgs&FBk. http://url.ie/1x6e  @Prof_K

Crossposed on Rhizomicomm

McLuhan Way is just down the street from me, so perhaps it’s my inspiration.  I remember reading Marshall McLuhan‘s Understanding Media over 14 years ago in a seminar on the Internet.  The hot/cool media continuum perplexed many of us and some say technology has rendered the concept obsolete.  In terms of hot/cool, where does the Internet stand?

• Hot media are high-definition.  Media that fully-engages one sense of the audience member:: print {visual}, radio {sound}, film {visual}, & the photograph {visual}.
• Cool media are low-definition.  Media that require more active participation from the audience member to interpret::  Television {visual with limitations in the 1960s},  telephone {sound of a relatively poor quality in the 1960s}, and comic strips {cheaply reproduced mass-entertainment}.  The video game as a hyperreal construct, where the audience/player must fill in gaps of this representation of the real.

Reading is engaging in hot media and is a solitary experience.  Reading, contrasted with speech, forces an isolating consciousness, perhaps one overly-immersed in the individual.

How does Web 2.0 fit into all of this?  Well, new technologies trend towards the hot.  The iPod engages us, bathes us in a bubble of sound of our choosing.  What about this paradox?  New technologies are higher-definition, engaging us more and more, but also allowing us to be interactive with others {social media}.  Moreover, there is convergence of the technologies.  The smartphone {MP3 player, telephony, Internet web surfing} is a stunning example of multisensory engagement that also allows us to communicate and share with others.

What happened?  Is the singularity of media, where all media is converging, making it all lukewarm?  The continuum is shrinking to a singular point, as in the multimedia experiences of the smartphone.  Has technology sped up our communications, so that there is the appearance that time has folded upon itself.  We read text or see a video and now we can immediately respond to others.  We read a tweet from Twitter and immediately respond to it.

So, bear with me as I think out loud here.  Let’s assume that media are approaching singularity.  As you go up the cone, technologies converge and the user is collapsing hot/cold, engaging both simultaneously.

Let’s assume that at the circular base of the cone, along the diameter is the continuum from hot to cold.  Perpendicular to that diameter is another continuum, the institutional semistructures, rigid {controlling} versus chaotic {open}.  The base would have 4 quadrants, each with prototypical examples::

1. Hot & Rigid- Old “big media” {print, radio, film, etc.)
2. Hot & Chaotic- Engaging content in unstructured/uncontrolled  databases
3. Cool & Rigid- Newsgroups
4. Cool & Chaotic- Synchronous unmoderated chat

The origin will be “lukewarm” and semi-structured.  The origin is somewhat of a normative assumption.  Individual user experiences may vary and may not even be contiguous.  I know I need to refine these ideas and construct a better diagram.  Nevertheless, I think this concept might be valuable in thinking about how people’s use of technologies is likely to evolve.  Where would you put the following::

• Facebook {social networking site}
• Twitter {microblogging}
• YouTube {video filesharing}
• Hulu {long-form professional videos}
• Google {all things data}

Where are they moving towards -or- how could they better provide value?  Of course, despite McLuhan being gone for quite a while, I half-expect this to happen to me::

Twitterversion:: Can #MarshallMcLuhan ‘s hot/cold continuum inform #socialmedia? #sociology #web2.0 http://url.ie/1wys @Prof_K

Song:: “Suspect Device” Ted Leo & the Pharmacists-lyrics

The conservative French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has expressed concern that the burqa is subjugating women in France.  Addressing both parliamentary houses in the Palace of Versailles::

“The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience…It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.”

The BBC clarified the different types of Islamic headscarves {below}.  Sarkozy emphasized that this isn’t about disrespecting Islam and a group of cross-party French legislators are interested in examining whether women wearing the burqa is undermining French secularism and also whether womem wearing the veil are doing so voluntarily.

The French government banned the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in 2004 although within the government, there is no consensus on the issue.  In the US, somehow I think that no matter how hard the polygamy and abuse angles are pushed, there won’t be any bans on FLDS garb.

Last year, the Urban Affairs minister, Fadela Amara, born in France to Algerian parents, has been a harsh critic of the burqa.  A feminist who has fought racism for decades, Amara grew up in one of the rough banlieues of Paris, knowing the often ugly intersections of race, culture, and gender.  After a 2008 court case case denying a Moroccan woman citizenship was upheld, Amara said she supported the ruling, in the hopes that it would  dissuade fanatical Islamic followers from imposing the burka on their wives.  In an interview with Le Parisien, she said::

“The burka is a prison, it’s a straitjacket”

“It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy.”

This brings up an interesting issue, since banning clothing has been associated with anti-immigration politics throughout Europe.  The fact of the matter is that if France decides to move towards a banning of the burqa, some argue this is likely to limit radical Islamic women’s freedom even more, as men may not allow them out at all.

Barring the possibility of some celebrity starting a burqa trend, i.e., secularizing it, such a ruling would be in conflict with the French concept of laïcité , a variant of the concept of the separation of church and state.  More subtle is an idea that banning the burqa does symbolic violence to the “other.”  Pierre Bourdieu notes in Distinction how subjugation and control are manifested in the everyday::

“…the social relations objectified in familiar objects, in their luxury or poverty, their ‘distinction’ or ‘vulgarity’, their ‘beauty’ or ‘ugliness’, impress themselves through bodily experiences which may be as profoundly unconscious as the quiet caress of beige carpets or the thin clamminess of tattered, garish linoleum.”

The Islamic veil has been isolated and socially categorized.  The attention given it has stigmatized it.  Ironically, within extreme Islam, it has its own symbolic baggage, particularly as it crosses national borders.  While scrutiny of the Islamic veil can foster a political agenda by conservatives and a feminist agenda, is doing so through such symbolic violence the best way to institute social change?

Twitterversion:: #Burka under fire in #France. #Sarkozy and #feminists meeting in anti-extreme Islam common ground? #feminism #Bourdieu http://url.ie/1wt4 #feminism @Prof_K

Song:: La Danse Des Negresse Vertes – Les Negresses Vertes

Notes from North of 49ºN

It’s not often I agree with Tom Friedman, but last fall when I was preoccupied with the US general election, teaching, and associate directing a center, he was advocating not just a bailout, but a green buildup.  He quoted Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy::

“It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America’s No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. … You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.”

Friedman was in favour of attaching green strings to bailouts, an idea I think warranted further study, at the very least.  Fast forward 9 months and focus on the province of Ontario, where at the federal level, the Conservatives {Stephen Harper}, and at the provincial level, the Liberals {Dalton McGuinty}, jumped on the US bailout bandwagon to a tune of $9.5B or $10.9B Canadian.  This is in addition to the Obama administration’s $49.8B.  The combined US and Canadian bailouts are worth 130 times the present value of GM.  Here’s what both Harper and McGuinty had to say about this::

“We had to save it all or have zero forever,”

–Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

“The alternative would have been a devastating blow to Ontario families and communities.”

–Dalton McGuinty, Ontario Premiere

The troubles in the industry are not new news and CBC has a chronology of layoffs.  I’ve alluded to this bailout before and the scant jobs it will save, but here are the specifics in terms of the Canadian GM assembly line::

“At present GM Canada has 12,000 hourly and salaried employees, but that number is expected to shrink to about 5,500 over the next couple of years. About 1,100 of the new total is expected to be salaried jobs, which are unrelated to assembly operations. That means Ottawa and the Ontario government are together spending an unprecedented $2.1 million for each assembly job at GM Canada they hope to save.”–Time, 1 June 2009

It’s likely that GM suppliers will also be affected, a $7.2B industry employing 45,000 workers, but it is unlikely that all these jobs are at risk.  While Canada accounts for about 19.4% of North American production, Canadian cost advantages have been eroded by a stronger Canadian dollar, a weakened US union in the UAW, and strong and strategic bargaining by the Canadian Auto Workers union.

While the situation looks gloomy for manufacturing in Ontario, quite a few are banking on green jobs.  So much so that St. Clair College has a 2-year green jobs programme and the province has a commitment to clean energy.  Currently, the province gets 25% of its electricity from coal, but wants to shut down all of its coal plants by 2014.  The province is hoping to convert some of the plants to carbon-neutral biomass, although the yields will be lower.  The slack will need to be picked up by alternatives, with greener options being wind and solar.  Ontario’s Climate Change Action Plan calls for greenhouse gas emission reduction to 6% under 1990 levels and the new Green Energy Act is meant to protect the environment, regulate, and spur investment in green technologies.

Policy & Innovation:: The California Example

The PPIC has a report on the effects of California’s Zero-Emissions Vehicle {ZEV} mandate, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s.  During this time, the California government, through the Air Resources Board {CARB} initially set in 1990 requirements that by 1998 that 2% and by 2003 that 10% vehicles sold in California would be ZEV.  Suffice it to say, concessions were made over time, but the original mandate set the wheels in motion for innovation.  The effects of the program were::

• The policy spurred patents in near-term technologies
• CARB arguably responded to technological changes when revising the program
• Technological spillovers resulted in a greater number of indirect  innovations
• Increased market development for emerging technologies
• Broadened design parameters
• Lower emissions in California

The program, albeit complex and not without politics and controversy, shows how policy can help to shape market-based activity in ways that would not occur otherwise.

Ontario:: Good Money After Bad

While not surprising, Canada and Ontario should have considered asserting themselves more, rather than caving to bailout pressure.  Why not move forward to develop policies that help transition away from declining industries and in-line with over provincial objectives?, e.g., environmental and energy.  How I see it is that the US and Canada are bailing out a company the capital markets have little faith in and now face the daunting task of rebuilding with a new CEO, “Big Ed,” who has a reputation for being an empire-builder.  I question having an empire-builder in charge of a company needing to be leaner, a company needing to reinvent itself overnight.  Let’s hope he indeed  “learns something about cars,” and doesn’t make mistakes like this one, the old CEO Rick Wagoner copped to:: “axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids. It didn’t affect profitability, but it did affect image.”

While there have been debates on whether or not the US needs an auto industry {NY Times} and criticisms abound, such as this one on how GM betrayed our trust, Canada is nevertheless a 12% equity shareholder.  This creation of a capitalist-state joint venture opens up a huge can of worms, as which interests will prevail and how to balance autonomous management and control versus paternalism?  I think the answers are in economic sociology, a topic for a future post.

Song:: “Canada” – Low

Video::

Twitterversion:: #Canada #bailout of #GMfail =more #fail ? Can #Ontario still dvel #greeneconomy & innov.w/enviro&energy policy objctves? http://url.ie/1wdt  @Prof_K

I’m currently working on a project exploring Facebook and public deliberation. In this project, I’m asking questions like: What does Facebook portend for deliberative democracy? When, where, and how do Facebook and its users invite or obstruct the development of public argument/s? How does Facebook’s very form and content promote or impede opportunities for argumentation? Rosen (2007) asks some parallel questions:

What cues are young, avid social networkers learning about social space? What unspoken rules and communal norms have the millions of participants in these online social networks internalized, and how have these new norms influenced their behavior in the offline world? (p. 23)

We know very little about the potential for social networking sites to help or hinder public deliberation, and what kinds of norms are involved in these processes. As the site draws an increasingly large user base, this would appear to be a critical subject for argument studies. Overall, I’m exploring the idea that Facebook has created civic spaces for a new kind of networked argumentation, which leverages the trust of anchored online identity and offline friendship toward social issues. Subsequently, I’m wondering if some of the communication that occurs on Facebook could be viewed within the framework of what I term diasporic-virtual publics. Users create a diasporic-virtual public on Facebook by threading together central and peripheral friendships from the past and present. Despite the wide geographical dispersion of these friends/acquaintances, each is moored in a past/present relationship that carries implications for arguments and arguing online. At the same time, my current analysis is trying to figure out whether various facets of Facebook are anti-deliberative, in both content and form. I invite your critiques or extensions on this subject. . . .  – Don

Updated:: 18 June 2009 10:53 EDT

Overshadowed by rather serious events in Iran and subsequent stutter-steps by mainstream media in its coverage, David Letterman got into a dustup with Sarah Palin over allegedly tasteless jokes about her 14 year-old daughter, Willow.  The Huffington Post has a 1:43 compilation of the affair::

Dave went to great lengths to apologize and Sarah Palin accepted his apology on Tuesday.  Old news.  Now, one group is clamoring for Dave’s firing.  Just to be clear here, Dave is protected by the First Amendment’s right to free speech, but that doesn’t guarantee employment.  Ask Don Imus about how big media can frown on inappropriate humour. The FireDavidLetterman site announced that Olive Garden supposedly dropped its sponsorship of The Late Show::

In a Politico article, according to Sherri Bruen, the company’s guest relations manager::

“We apologize that Mr. Letterman’s mistake, which was not consistent with our standards and values, left you with a bad impression of Olive Garden.

but, this HotAir post finished the paragraph with this::

“There will be no more Olive Garden ads scheduled for The Late Show with David Letterman in this year’s broadcast schedule.

We have not yet finalized next year’s advertising plan but will consider our valued guests’ opinions when doing so.”

The context being that the contract was already allowed to expire and no ads were planned.  So, they caved to pressure.  Or, did they?  Apparently, the sources confirming the pulling of the ad sponsorship weren’t authorized to speak for the company and the NY Times reported there was no such decision.  The Politico article was updated and the title revised from this::

to “Olive Garden Backtracks on David Letterman Ads.”  Well, as the story d/evolved, quel surprise, comments from the Twittersphere started to trickle in, some defending Olive Garden, some critical of the chain, and a handful advocating a boycott for allegedly pulling the ads {recent} and for sponsoring Dave {2+ days ago}::

Olive Garden is in a tough PR spot.  If their online demos {Quantcast} are fairly similar to their customer base, their market trends towards being white, female, 18-49, with 0-2 kids, making under $60K, and with some college.  In other words, moderates.

Dave.  Well, he’s getting a bounce from all of this.  According to the NYTimes Media Decoder blog {16 June}::

“In preliminary national ratings, Mr. Letterman pulled in 700,000 more viewers than Mr. O’Brien Monday night, 3.9 million to 3.2 million, his biggest margin yet over his new competitor. Mr. Letterman routinely trailed the former ‘Tonight’ host Jay Leno by a million viewers or more.”

O’Brien still owns the coveted younger demos.

Update:: Video of Fire Letterman Protest from New York magazine

Twitterversion:: #newblogpost #Palin supporters want #DavidLetterman fired. Advertiser #OliveGarden flinches? Dave gets ratings boost. http://url.ie/1qzi  @Prof_K

Song:: Lolita – Throw Me The Statue

Video:: Directed by Matt Daniels

Back in April, we had a lively discussion here on Twitter and language.  I recently saw that the dictionary team at the Oxford University Press is on top of the sitch.  Here’s some of their observations::

“Since January OUP’s dictionary team has sorted through many random tweets.  Here are the basic numbers:

Total tweets = 1,496,981
Total sentences = 2,098,630
Total words = 22,431,033
Average words per tweet = 14.98
Average sentences per tweet = 1.40
Average words per sentence in Twitter= 10.69
Average words per sentence in general usage = 22.09”

Verbs in the gerund form are pretty popular, as well as informal slang like “OK” and “fuck.”  Most common word on Twitter & general English:: “the,” with #2 on Twitter being “I.”

The OED folks seem to just be reporting some of their analyses, which I have no problem with.  They’re not indicting anyone and even end the blurb with “Tweet on.”

Now, enter the shrill cassandras at HigherEdMorning who report on the above with a post, “The Hidden Problem with Twitter.” Talk about framing.  That title is priming the reader to be wary of Twitter, but there’s more.  The image used in the article decries the lament of every frustrated educator who has endured reading a crappy essay::

They report the OUP observations, but finalize their Twitterproblem trifecta with::

“So here’s the question: Is Twitter – along with instant messaging and texting – contributing to the destruction of language skills among college students?”

Twitterfail?  I actually have a big problem with this.  It’s taking observations and drawing inane conclusions that would pass muster in the most laxed ethnography course and would be a social science epic fail.

What gets really interesting is the discourse that follows in the comments.  I urge you to take a look {there were 69 as of 3:18a on 18 June}.  The interesting thing, to me, is how the social aspect of technological use creeps into the dialogue.

“Baloo559 Says:

Twitter, instant messaging and texting ARE contributing to, let’s call it degraded language skills, by providing a set of forums in which these degraded skills are accepted and encouraged. I believe acceptance is primarily a function of the youth of the majority of contributors. They lack experience with more formal language and don’t seem to grasp the subtly and nuance that come with its complexity. Degradation is encouraged by the fact that even the best texting phones or IM clients are poor writing instruments. 12 keys are inadequate as are one eighth scale, not quite QWERTY keyboards. Further encouragement comes from the satisfaction developing personalities take in expressing themselves in creatively alternative manners, especially if it tends to confuse authority figures.”

Not everyone is a naysayer::

“Catherine Politi Says:

Did the abbreviated wording used in telegrams destroy the English language? I don’t think so. Neither will Twitter, or texting in general – as long as schools continue to stress good language skills in the classroom. As an English teacher and student of linguistics, I realize that English and all other living languages are constantly evolving, so Twitter and its “siblings” will affect English, but not to necessarily destroy or devalue it. As for spelling, well, English is a terrible model for spelling, so maybe these mediums will improve it!”

and this comment makes an interesting link to dictation::

“Jill Lindsey Says:

I believe that Twitter, messaging and texting language is just like the dictation shorthand from the last century. My mother wrote in shorthand and it just looked like a bunch of symbols to me but she and others skilled in it decoded it with fluency. No one but Golden Agers know or use shorthand anymore, but now we text. It is simply a new shorthand for a new context in a new age. Formal language is constantly evolving too. Think of the transition from Olde English to American English. Change does not have to mean destruction of language- its just evolution. Just like shorthand was a symbol system for more formal language, so is texting- the meaning is conveyed through a symbol system and translated in our minds. Spelling is just agreed conventions- those have and will continue to change over time. The only problem of concern should be when the meaning one is trying to convey cannot be discerned by the reader. We have to have common understandings for any symbol system to work- formal or informal.”

Whenever I see criticisms of youth or youth culture, I tend to look for ad hominems and finger-waving.  Damn, fool kids.  The Cisco fatty meme brought out a bunch of such anger.  So, when it comes to Twitilliteracy, JRB offers his 2¢::

“jrb@msu Says:

As long as texting is treated like vocal dialects, I have no objection. Cajun, Cockney, etc. are fine but rarely get transcribed unless the accent is essential to the story. Likewise telegrams – they serve a purpose but we don’t ever see “telegram text” in written stories or formal correspondence.

But when this sort of “abbrev-speak” traverses the chasm into formal writing I think we risk losing a substantial chunk of our discreet and collective cultures, so much of which are recorded as written words (not wrds). Just as learning a second languange [sic] enhances the developing brain, so does an understanding of the colorful and deeply descriptive nature of the written word.

SS I think you miss a key point with using text speak for formal communications – sometimes, like it or not, we _have_ to adhere to a minimal level of decorum, and frankly students who cannot adopt such probably have an issue with authority which suggests ther are not the best candidates for a good old fashioned college experience (where the instructor still wields authority) – perhaps they are better suited to informal cloud-based learning, just before they step out to that job at Burger Queen.“

Bitter, much?  Clearly, this gets people into a lather, but what plays out is a culture war of sorts, where technology and the social collide with a normative vengeance.  What strikes me is a reduction of the “other” to a stereotype and having no interest in contextualizing what’s going on here with Twitter.  There are also a lot of assumptions about an ideal orthodoxy, in terms of psychological information processing, learning, and expression, let alone the hegemony of English usage online.  Going back to the OUP report, what about non-English tweets or tweets by non-native speakers?  So many questions, but I’m a social science geek.

So, is this no big thing?  While many think this is just a tempest in a teapot, I think these debates are just a tip of the iceberg in an increasingly globalized world.  I think Novia in the first pic. will do just fine despite Twitterish communication.  Oh, for all the n00bs, BFF 4 realz=Ben Folds Five.

Twitterversion::  #newblogpost #Twitter kllng English lang-still! SmOnePlsThinkoftheChildren‽ HighrEdMorn takes OxUnivPress stry&stirs pot. http://url.ie/1qqo  @Prof_K

Song:: Battle of Who Could Care Less – Ben Folds Five

Video::

Crossposting:: An abridged, less sociology-heavy version is here.

Notes from north of 49ºN.

Social capital is nothing new to ThickCulture, with quite a few posts on the topic, including this one by José, Trust is for Suckers.  When I teach sociology, I draw heavily on Pierre Bourdieu and have the class get a sense of how different forms of capital interact.  Cultural capital has always interested me {here’s a great overview of it by Weininger & Lareau}, despite going crazy trying to explain graphs like these::

I’ve used this very graph, but I’ve always wanted a way to engage students in a discussion of cultural capital that they could relate to.  So, I was catching up on Macleans reading and found articles on Canada’s smartest cities. It brings up an interesting question of how learning capacity affects the local economic development. The Composite Learning Index, using ideas developed by UNESCO, gauges a city’s ability to foster lifelong learning::

Twitterversion:: #newblogpost Hey Canada…How smart is your town? @macleansmag article on Composite Learning Index popularizing sociology? http://url.ie/1qkn  @Prof_K

Song:: Town Called Malice – The Jam

Video::

Notes from north of 49ºN.

I now live in a relatively small country, ranked 36th. in population, at 33.7M {versus 306.7M in the US}, but in the top 10 in terms of economies with a GDP of $1.3T {#9 ranking}, versus 13.8T for the US {#1 ranking}.  I mention this, as I wonder about scale and innovation, i.e., can smaller countries effectively compete in technology in a global environment?  One of my interests in innovation is biotechnology, a “new economy” area focusing on better outcomes for “health, the environment, and for industrial, agricultural and energy production.”  Advances in genetics are creating a race for companies and countries, with the idea of dominating the biotech field in order to enjoying profits and prosperity.

Last summer, I saw on a Canadian network a segment on how Canadian government investments in biotech were getting bought up by US firms, implying that the relatively small Canadian government was, in part, subsidizing innovations flowing south of the border.  The Matthew effect kicks in, as rich get richer and the poor get poorer, given that Canadian firms were being snapped up by US firms with deep pockets, transferring value southward.  According to a Globe & Mail article {click on license option}, another issue is that Canadian venture capital is lacking, so Canadian biotech firms often are capitalized by US venture capital firms that like to keep close tabs on operations and encourage offices/operations in the US.

Well, is Canada even a player in this biotech area?

According to 2006 OECD data, Canada is a player in terms of the number of firms {532}, the number of patents {ranked #6 in 2004}, and revenues {$83M}, along with an 11% compound annual growth rate {CAGR} of revenues from 1999-2005.

Given how collaboration and capital are now global, does it even matter where innovations are incubated?  A study by Bagchi-Sen & Scully {2004} is illuminating.  They divide biotech forms into two categories:: high R&D intensity and low R&D intensity.  Each has a different take with respect to strategies within the context of globalization::

• High R&D Intensity:: Ties to local universities/Canadian researchers & collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, but desire global capital inflows.  Prototypical firm is in health theraputics.
• Low R&D Intensity:: Emphasis on local production and development of Canadian market.  Focus on strategic alliances with foreign firms.  Prototypical firm is in diagnostics or agricultural biotech.

In terms of innovation policy, this brings up interesting food for thought for Canadian politicians in light of this recession.  Thanks to Barack Obama, Canada’s large neighbour to the south is pumping $21.5B of stimulus towards science and technology, which begs the question, how will this affect Canada?

It makes sense that Canadian policy would encourage the projects of low-intensity R&D firms with ties to the US, as these firms:: may be able to capitalize on relationships with stimulus-receiving firms, will develop innovations for the Canadian market, and will be focused on local Canadian production and manufacturing.  The high-intensity R&D firms could use funding {hint:: even more than $1B+CAN stimulus} that focuses on spurring innovations and the building of a sustainable base of Canadian talent and resources.  Dalton McGuinty’s {Liberal Premiere} efforts in Ontario might be a step in the right direction, but I’m not seeing clearly how this all fits together with an economic recovery plan.  Biotech. is not without risks, particularly with respect to agricultural biotech, which consumers are uncertain of.  Activists have alerted consumers with terms like “Frankenfood” for genetically-modified organisms {GMOs} and Monsanto’s lawsuits against journalists and farmers don’t help the cause.  So, maybe ag. biotech is a lose, but developing Canadian competitive advantage in innovations, in terms of other forms of biotech, nanotechnologies, clean energy, and green collar jobs, may provide fertile terrain for politicians and policymakers.

Well, enough of this talk of the “new economy” of biotech and innovations, what about the old economy, still prevalent in many parts of Canada?  Globalization has drawn Stephen Harper’s {Prime Minister} Conservative government into bailout fever to the tune of $9.5B, in order to secure that 16% of GM’s production remains in Canada.  This includes $3.1B that the Province of Ontario ponied up by Dalton McGuinty’s government.  Unfortunately, this might only save 4,400 jobs, after projected layoffs, according to CBC::

Given how the Tories and the Grits have played their cards in this {along with playing a current game of Federal “chicken”}, I see an opportunity for the NDP to make inroads with their platform based on developing new technologies and saving jobs.  Alas, more on “GMfail” and job losses in Canada in a future post.

So, it looks like nation matters, but in a global milieu.  Nothing surprising.  If you were to advise Canadian politicians, should new technologies {e.g., biotech, green, energy} be developed more aggressively {or at least explored} and does it make sense to commit billions to save jobs with an untested GM restructuring?

Twitterversion:: #newblogpost How should Canada compete {bio}tech, given globalzatn, US domnce, & recession? #GMfail bailout, good idea? http://bit.ly/18bBq8 @Prof_K

Song:: Genetic Engineering – Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Video::

José blogged about protests over the Iranian elections and this evening I noticed on Twitter that the hashtag “#CNNFail” was a trending topic::

Another hashtag I saw was #MSMfail for mainstream media fail.  In the past, I’ve looked to CNN to have some coverage, but as one “tweet” noted, the switch from analog to digital TV was the big story::

In Iran, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the  reformist presidential candidate who ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been placed under house arrest, riots have erupted, and telephone service has been cut.  This is a big story.  Are there just interns at CNN headquarters in Atlanta this weekend?  Twitterers have posted coverage by various news agencies and MyNewsJunkie noted the CNN failure.  One tweet had a link to another social media site, Flickr, with a slideshow of images from Tehran::

Well, if you believe the Daily Show, CNN is all over the social media out of desperation to get/engage viewers::

Canadian viewers without a US proxy or HotspotShield can see the clip here, but go to 7min 40 sec mark.  Comedy Network won’t let me deep link to the exact spot on the clip.

CNN seems desperate to connect with viewers seems to be dropping the ball here.  ElleMac just let me know that someone at CNN directed Twitterers to the CNN International page, which has coverage, but as of 2:22 EDT, CNN.com has nothing on the home page, but there is one article on the  CNN.com/World tab.  On Twitter, CNN has nothing on Iran and CNNBrk has three tweets::

“Crowds in Tehran break into shops and start fires as they protest re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.about 13 hours ago from CNN

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won country’s election with 62 percent of vote, government says.about 18 hours ago from CNN

Main challenger in Iran’s presidential election calls for counting of ballots to halt due to “blatant violations.”

Are Twitterers being too hard on CNN and the mainstream media -or- is this just the state of journalism?  Is this a case of CNN not really understanding what it means to truly engage in social media?  There is content at CNN International and from CNN Twitterers, so why not be responsive 24/7?  It reminds me of an emerging social media adage I’ve been seeing.  You need to both shout & listen.

Twitterversion::  Lack of US coverge on Iranian election/protests/clampdown lead Twitterers to cite #CNNfail &#MSMfail. Too harsh or journalist #socmediafail?

HatTip:: ElleMac

Song:: Clampdown – The Clash