Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

People have always consumed media; the technology may change, but the consumption continues; see the flow of methods throughout history:

• Scrolls
• Books
• Telegraphs
• Newspapers/Magazines
• Electronic Media: Radio, Television, Phonographs, etc.
• Digital Media: Internet & Communications Technologies

Today, young people are consuming media as digital, but the ancient Bible prophecy still applies; maybe even more than ever right now:

Beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body. – Ecclesiastes 12:12; The New American Standard Bible

So though technology may change, the consumption of media always continue: music is being played, stories are being told (on the screen), books are being read, hours upon hours are being spent (by each individual consumer). Only now, this consumption is transpiring with a digital transformation.

So make that e-Books, not just books.

… and make that music streamed and not just played.

… and make that a small screen (smartphones) and not just screen.

The world has changed, is changing now and will continue to change. Technology is an Agent of Change. For the Caribbean, this is not just a matter of “keeping up with the Joneses”; the problem now is that the “Joneses” have a competitive advantage; they are “eating our lunch”. Those best equipped to contend with this Agent of Change, our most educated ones, are abandoning us more and more as each day goes by. One report relates an average of 70 percent of the tertiary educated population fleeing. The abandonment is a direct result of our failure to compete.

See this Variety news article here relating the digital transformation for the music industry:

Title: With 70 Million Subscribers and a Risky IPO Strategy, Is Spotify Too Big to Fail?

By: Jem Aswad and Janko Roettgers

Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood has served as the home of Spotify’s U.S. headquarters since 2010, but not for much longer.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Vesa Moilanen/REX/Shutterstock (7529625p)
Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek
Slush event, Helsinki, Finland – 30 Nov 2016
Slush is the focal point for startups and tech talent to meet with top-tier international investors, executives and media

Later this year, the streaming music company plans to move most of its 1,200 New York-based employees into 14 floors at 4 World Trade Center in the rejuvenated Financial District. As part of the deal for the 15-year lease, New York is granting an $11 million rent reduction in exchange for keeping more than 800 jobs in the state and adding 1,000 more employees.

But Spotify will make its presence felt in Lower Manhattan in 2018 in more ways than one. Sometime in the coming months at the New York Stock Exchange, just blocks away from its new home, the company will embark on what’s known as a direct listing, an unconventional initial public offering method that has never before been attempted on such a large scale.

Spotify and Wall Street aren’t the only ones that will be anxiously watching; count the music industry in as well. Its fortunes are largely bound with Spotify, which is becoming the industry’s top music distributor. Should the Sweden-based firm’s bold move backfire, its partners at the major record labels will feel the pain too.

“Just think about their depth of influence in the world,” says Capitol Music Group chairman-CEO Steve Barnett of Spotify. “[A recent Nielsen] report noted that Americans are spending more than 32 hours a week listening to music — up from [23.5] hours in two years. That tells you, for all the mistakes the industry made over a long period of time, things have been corrected.”

…

Spotify may draw some inspiration from Amazon, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in its first few years as a public company, but investors stuck with the stock because the e-tailer reliably grew its business every quarter. On the other hand, Twitter and Snapchat stumbled not because of their monetary losses but primarily because of stalling user growth.
…
See the remainder of this article here: http://variety.com/2018/music/features/spotify-ipo-wall-street-music-industry-1202674266/ posted January 22, 2018; retrieved February 12, 2018.

In a previous Go Lean commentary, it was detailed how educational institutions are turning to tablets rather than textbooks. It is cheaper, faster to market and more engaging for young people. This is the point! Young people are more receptive to the efficiency of emerging (electronic) media outlets than the older generations. But that is the market that counts. Remember:

• Young people are the ones that buy music
• Young people go to the movies every weekend
• Young people spur new trends
• Young people will watch TV programming for young and older audiences, while older ones would not watch young programming; i.e. cartoons.

In addition to the efficiency of electronic or New Media, there is also the matter of effectiveness. Old Media has historically been a source for abuse and bullying, especially for young participants. New Media now allows for better options: direct-to-consumer deliveries and the bypass of the middle-man. The past Crony-Capitalism of media middle-men has often been the source of societal dysfunction. So the hope is that the effectiveness of New Media will bring more media productions.  This hope is realized! See this VIDEO here depicting the completion from direct-to-consumer streaming and the resultant decline on traditional television, Old Media:

VIDEO – The Real Reason Behind The Big Bang Theory’s Ratings Drop – https://youtu.be/aHvJkaGdY6A

Published on January 10, 2018 – After more than a decade as a CBS primetime mainstay, The Big Bang Theory remains one of the most popular shows on TV. However, fewer and fewer people are regularly tuning in to see what the most famous fictional nerds in the world are up to each week. So how come Big Bang isn’t popping the way it used to? Let’s explore …

TV ratings are down overall | 0:21
It’s hard to stream | 1:02
Blame football | 1:48
It’s part of a dying breed | 2:51
It’s a different show | 3:35
It’s inevitable | 4:19
Read more here → http://www.nickiswift.com/102976/real…

• Category: Entertainment 
• License: Standard YouTube License

As related in the foregoing VIDEO, the Number One scripted television show is still Number One, but the audience is smaller, for television in general. Change is afoot!

So the media industry has moved forward, but with economic success “bad actors” always emerge. This consistent theme is presented by the movement behind the book Go Lean… Caribbean (Page 23). The book calls for the Caribbean to take its own lead in being “on guard” for bad actors and Crony-Capitalistic abuses. This means not being an American parasite.

As related in a previous commentary, the Go Lean movement asserts that the Caribbean region must not allow the US to take the lead for our own nation-building, that American capitalistic interest tends to highjack policies intended for the Greater Good. The recommendation in the roadmap is the key strategy of leveraging the needs of all 42 million people (4 languages) and become an American protégé, not parasite.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), to manage this change for New Media. We especially want to engage Caribbean young people with this foray into New Media. The youth of the Caribbean is the future of the Caribbean. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 future-focused prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines – and the educational apparatus – in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to leverage the full Caribbean population, that’s a media market of 42 million people – in 4 languages. This roadmap is presented as a planning tool, pronouncing the collaborative benefits of a Single Market. This agenda was pronounced early in the book in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12 & 14):

viii.  Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The Go Lean book presents a roadmap for a confederation of the 30 Caribbean member-states doing the heavy-lifting of optimizing economic and media policies. Within its 370-pages, the Go Lean book details future-focused policies; and other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the media landscape in the region.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for bridging the Digital Divide, deploying a homegrown Social Media network and fostering technology in general. In addition to just communicating with 42 million people, we must do so in 4 general languages (Dutch, English, French and Spanish). So, the plan is for the CU to steer policy and capital to digital delivery and New Media.

Websites, music streaming, tablets and e-Books should be all the rage.

The foregoing news article and VIDEO relate to topics that should be of serious concern for Caribbean planners. We want to foster New Media and propel forward for the Caribbean’s best interest. No, we do not want to be parasites of America; we want to be better.

Many of these issues have been addressed in previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample here:

In general, the Go Lean book and movement projects a Cyber Caribbean (Page 127):

Forge electronic commerce industries so that the internet communications technology (ICT) can be a great equalizer in economic battles of global trade. This includes e-Government (outsourcing and in-sourcing for member-states systems) and e-Delivery, Postal Electronic Last Leg mail, e-Learning and wireline/wireless/satellite initiatives.

Strategically, the Go Lean roadmap posits that  we must compete as a homeland. We must keep our young people excited about their future prospect here in the region. To succeed in the competition of the global marketplace, our region must not only consume but rather also create, produce, and distribute intellectual property. We must be technocratic!

These are hallmarks of the CU technocracy: policies that reflect a future-focus.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and school administrations, to lean-in for the changes described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.