Go Lean…Caribbean

5 years ago, the book Go Lean … Caribbean was introduced; the publication date was November 2013.

The book scanned the landscape in the Caribbean and found a lot of deficiencies in the economics, security and governance in the region. For example, for those 5 years the movement behind the Go Lean book have been telling people that there is an overriding need for a technocratic postal solution in the Caribbean region. This is how to keep up with the demands of globalization.

People – the audience – have only yawned.

Now the Caribbean member-state of The Bahamas has a crisis with their postal facility. The people there should now be ready, willing and able to consider alternatives and improvements to their regional governance.

Title: Wells confirms “undeliverable” mail was shredded
NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Addressing allegations that mail at the General Post Office had been shredded, Minister responsible for the post office, Renward Wells, confirmed on Thursday that the most recent and deliberate destruction of “undeliverable” mail was on November 1 and 2, upon the authorization of the Postmaster General.
…
The Bahamas has membership in the United Postal Union (UPU) and it is therefore required to ensure that delivery of mail among countries follows consistent rules and standards.
…
The General Post Office is in the process of being relocated to the Town Centre Mall in early 2019.

Wells outlined in his statement that the standards of the Post Office will be restored to one that will regain the respect of international partners.

“Postal workers and the Bahamian public have been in excess of three years without an adequate means for providing this essential service,” he said.
…
Source: Posted December 14, 2018; retrieved December 15, 2018 from: https://ewnews.com/wells-confirms-undeliverable-mail-was-shredded

This commentary is the first of a 4-part series from the movement behind the Go Lean book in consideration of the 5 year anniversary of the book’s publication. The theme on these 4 submissions is “5 Years Later and what is the condition now“. The focus here is on the Agents of Change that the book identified: Globalization, Climate Change, Technology and the Aging Diaspora.

Have the problems lessened, or have they intensified? The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

1. 5 Years Later: New Post Office Eco-system – Globalization issues ‘loud and clear’ now.
2. 5 Years Later: Climate Change – Coming so fast, so furious.
3. 5 Years Later: Technology – Caribbean fully on board.
4. 5 Years Later: Aging Diaspora – Finding Home … anywhere.

The Go Lean book was written 5 years ago as a 5 Year Plan to reform and transform the Caribbean region. Had the plan been adopted by the regional stakeholders, then the Agents of Change would have been mostly assuaged. The plan, or roadmap, to introduce and implement the Caribbean Union Trade Federation is still outstanding to even start. We now need to push the leaders – Top Down – and the subjects – Bottoms’s Up – to execute the strategies, tactics and implementation prescribed in this book.

This approach – rebooting the postal eco-system – had been relayed in a previous blog-commentary from January 23, 2018; it  is appropriate to Encore that blog-commentary here-now:

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The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean wants to deploy an “apolitical technocracy” in the Caribbean. What is an apolitical technocracy?

Quite simply, an organizational structure designed to just deliver.

Sounds familiar? Frankly, the Post Office is a powerful example of an apolitical technocracy:

They just deliver the mail …

… “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”.

(While the Postal Service has no official motto, the popular belief is that these words are tribute to America’s postal workers).

Technocracies are supposed to be automatons, a machine that just chugs-and-chugs. Think computers; think C.P.U.. But in the case of this Go Lean scheme, C.P.U. does not mean Central Processing Unit, no, it means Caribbean Postal Union.

The book Go Lean book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Postal Union, for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

This commentary is Part 6 of 6-parts; it completes the series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of the First Steps for instituting a new regime in governance for the Caribbean homeland. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

1. First Steps: EU: Free European Money – To Start at Top
2. First Steps: UK: Dignified and Efficient
3. First Steps: US: Congressional Interstate Compact – No Vote; No Voice
4. First Steps: CariCom: One Man One Vote Defects 
5. First Steps: Deputize ‘Me’! 
6. First Steps: A Powerful C.P.U.

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the Caribbean can finally get started with adapting the organizational structures to optimize the region’s societal engines. Whereas all the previous submissions addressed the need for reform at the Top. This commentary addressed the automation, the technocratic C.P.U.. This is designed to affect every man-woman-child in the Caribbean region, to just deliver. This simple functionality will do wonders for the quest of this roadmap: make the Caribbean member-states better places to live, work and play.

The Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal and postal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

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.

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in the book is entitled “10 Ways to Improve Mail Service … in the Caribbean Region“; this detailed the best practices for postal mail and logistics; (Page 108). See this Bottom Line introduction:

The Bottom Line for the Caribbean Postal Union
Without a regional hub-and-spoke system, mail from one island to another can take weeks – such a business climate cannot breathe success with this lack of efficiency. The purpose of the CU is to facilitate the economic engines of the region. Therefore postal communications between individuals, households, businesses and governmental institutions must be efficient and effective – establishments must be able to connect with their customers and governments to its constituents. The Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) will operate as a private business, a multi-national corporation, owned by CU member-states, chartered to employ best practices and world class methods in the execution of the fulfillment side of the e-Delivery model. A mark of success: delivery of first-class mail in 3 – 5 days.

Improving the postal mail eco-system in the Caribbean can have a transformative effect on regional society. CPU is mostly an e-Logistics enterprise. Imagine the following (global) trends that wait in the balance:

• Logical Addresses
• E-Commerce – Retail Apocalypse
• Indigenous Social media: myCaribben.gov
• Government-Citizen Communications
• E-Voting

Imagine a Caribbean reality with flat-rate envelopes and flat-rate boxes. Imagine the automation, the robotic technologies, the scanning and sorting. The brand CPU would really be apropos – more software, e-Commerce and Internet Communications Technology – as opposed to the neighborhood mail-carrier. See this industrial shift in the related news article in the Appendix below. In fact, the company www.Stamps.com provides a model for the CPU to emulate. See this Introductory VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Welcome to Stamps.com, USPS Postage Software Overview – https://youtu.be/wCCAkRkUWE0

Stamps.com

Published on Apr 23, 2013 – Welcome to Stamps.com, USPS Postage Software Overview This video shows new customers how Stamps.com software works. Highlights include how to buy and print postage stamps and shipping labels, e-commerce shipping features, postage spending reports plus many more features.

• Category: Howto & Style
• License: Standard YouTube License

In addition, previous Go Lean blog-commentaries detailed the width-and-breadth of the mail-logistics business model for the Caribbean; see these prior submissions here:

Forging change is heavy-lifting for the CU/Go Lean roadmap, but conceivable, believable and achievable? Why because so many other entities have executed these action plans before. We do not need to “re-invent the wheel”; we only need to conform to the published best-practices. This applies to the Caribbean Postal Union and all other societal engines.

Yes, we can succeed in forging change and assuaging the crises in the Caribbean. We have the existing organizations constructs of the CariCom, British Overseas Territories, US Territories and the EU. We can use these to “touch” every country-establishment-person in the region. This will lead to the success of our goals, to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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

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Appendix Title: Important: USPS making changes to First-Class Mail International Flats

January 21, 2018 Update: Stamps.com has launched a new International Flat service.  Get more info on how to ship merchandise with International Flats.

Merchandise No Longer Allowed in First Class Mail International Flats
If you ship merchandise abroad using USPS First Class Mail International Flats, there’s a new rule going into effect soon that you need to know about. Effective Sunday, January 21, 2018, First Class Mail International Large Envelope/Flat service for merchandise will NO LONGER be available from the USPS. First Class Mail International Flats will only be approved for use when sending documents. This change is occurring to comply with Universal Postal Union requirements.

Here are some examples of what USPS considers a document (still OK to ship using First Class Mail International Flats):

• Audit and business records
• Personal correspondence
• Circulars
• Pamphlets
• Advertisements
• Written instruments not intended to be resold
• Money orders, checks, and similar items that cannot be negotiated or converted into cash without forgery.

Here are examples of items that will NO LONGER be allowed to be shipped as First Class Mail International Flats, effective Jan. 21, 2018:

• CDs, DVDs, flash drives, video and cassette tapes, and other digital and electronic storage media (regardless of whether they are blank or contain electronic documents or other prerecorded media)
• Artwork
• Collector or antique document items
• Books
• Periodicals
• Printed music
• Printed educational or test material
• Player piano rolls
• Commercial photographs, blueprints and engineering drawings
• Film and negatives
• X-rays
• Separation negatives

These goods are dutiable and must be must be shipped using First Class Package International Service. Once this change goes into effect, shippers will need to include Customs Forms and the recipient could pay a duty or tax to receive the product.

Cost Savings Using First Class Mail International Flats
Moving from First Class Mail International Flats to First Class Package International Service will have a big impact on shippers.

Source: Posted December 26^th, 2017; retrieved January 21, 2018 from: http://blog.stamps.com/2017/12/26/important-usps-making-changes-first-class-mail-international-flats/