Google.org, the charity organization or division of the Google, claims that they can predict the flu activity across the States. Online behavior connected with the large scale statistics turns out to be actually an accurate indicator what is happening over the world. The Boxlife made a small investigation into Insights and confirmed, that the economical crisis went as the media described. Or was it the media, who affected the search behavior of consumers - that will be left open to be discussed in several upcoming articles.

The graph above shows how the queries for “unemployment” and related keywords started to slowly increase during the late summer 2008 in the United States. So far the peak was reached in early January 2009. An interesting decrease for the unemployment searches can be seen roughly at times when President Obama was elected, however soon after the search queries continued to increase.

From the European point of view the same graph for “unemployment” query is different. Whether the queries began to increase later is difficult to say from the graphs. However, the behavior is more unstable compared to the American counterparts. Interestingly enough, it seems that Europeans enjoy more peaceful Christmas holidays than Americans: besides UK queries, the significant drop occurs in other European countries as well.

When bringing the German graph, the line begins to change. However, the German equivalent gives the depth for this analysis. As the unemployment has been a severe problem in of the German economy for long, the financal crisis didn’t introduce significant change in the unemployment search pattern.

(Graphs sources: Google Insights for Search)

But the Monocle is not only a monthly piece of a fancy paper with ink stains forming some beautiful photographs and a fresh layout. A simple-to-use online approach to provide the video and podcast content is remarkable compared to many other traditional magazines, suffering the loss of a natural dialogue between offline and online content. Despite a step towards better online content, Mr. Brûlé forgot two essentials. First, make it free - the Wired magazine as itself should be a good lesson for everyone in the publishing industry. Second, make the readers participate.  As the readers are expected to address higher classes, the expectation for the level of conversation would be high.

But the paper - it has the feeling. The feeling of doing something different, and something for sale. Lessons learned from the Wallpaper times, after growing Monocle slightly larger, the case would be fresh and interesting purchase enough for some global publishing groups. So far the paper and the photos maintain the feeling of doing the magazine for its desired audience. But as professor John A. Quelch at Harward Business School says, maturing the company for the masses ends up asking a premium price for the product that is no longer premium.

So please Mr. Brûlé, let us enjoy the beautiful package of premium toiletry reading also in the future.

Some weeks after I finished that wonderful book, on February 24th 2002, I heard she had been kidnapped by the FARC. Since then, I have been collecting all the articles and news I could find about her.

I have always thought that in politics it is always necessary to make compromises and that for most of the politicians it is impossible to give clear cut answers. But no, Ingrid was different. When she was a deputy, she was an ecception. She reporterd the involvement of Ernesto Samper (the Prestident at that time) with the narcotrafic of the Cali Cartel and she spoke out against all the other politicians that were involved. She continued with her actions even if her life was threatened and even if she had to depart from her family (that was also threatened). Her objective was to win the presidential elections on May 2002 and fight against drug cartels and corruption for the sake of her country. I guess she would have make it, because she is an hero.

Go Ingrid!

Today, the world is one market. Simon Anholt writes in the Monocle that the advance of globalisation means that every country, city and region, rich or poor, competes for its share of the world’s consumers, tourists, investors, students, entrepreneurs, sporting and cultural events, and for the attention and respect of the international media, of other governments and of people in other countries.

According to Paula Scher the USA is suffering from very poor image and low approval overall the world. Elsewhere Africa suffers from “continent brand effect” as the little knowledge on individual nations allows the continental picture dominate. But what the Switzerland holds? An image of mountainous and safe, thou expensive tax paradise?

Branding the nations is not fancy advertisements or PR speeches. Branding a nation is acting and actually changing the country. The perceived image might stay short while, but the experienced one lasts forever. If your river water is not clean enough to drink, your country is polluted. A beautiful poster won’t change the reality.

A good image seduces investments and tourists. Unfortunately politicians seem to be bad branding people. And bad decision makers as well. Otherwise all the countries would enjoy the status of Switzerland. Wouldn’t they?

It is pretty hard to get a house there not only because of the high prices, but also because if you are a foreigner, you are not free to buy whatever you want. In fact, by law, only a percentage of the houses can be sold to foreigners. I happened to talk with somebody that has been waiting to get a house there for 5 years.

Indeed, very good policy to avoid indiscriminate construction investments with the consequent pillage of the landscape, but also a very clever way to exploit the existing structures (hotels, restaurants, etc) and to avoid that the place gets invaded, losing its reputation of high level holiday place.

These Swiss are clever!

The Wired Magazine wrote recently that about 50 percent of the world’s freshwater lies in a half-dozen lucky countries. People are thirsty - and the soda won’t make it easier. Bottled water is an old story, but its future might be enormous. Currently Wikipedia recognises 78 different water brands, the real world might hide hundreds of more bottled water brands. As with all products, some of them represent cheap and everyday, some exclusive and top quality brands. Water might be a supplement, where the brand matters most: HO2 is same in every bottle.

But what happens, when the shortage makes today’s wealthy countries thirsty? Water is expensive to transport, even without mentioning all-time-rising oil price. Despite Wired stating that economically advanced regions face unavoidable pressures on their industrial output, the agriculture spends the most. So thirsty and hungry with decreasing industries.

As the industrial trend has shifted from the local outsourcing to “made in Asia”, the agricultural and industrial future might shift back to the north in long term. Agricultural and industrial society - here we come. With a punch of Bottled Water Brands.

A piece of art might turn out to be profitable. Thus not all the commercial intensions turn cash flowing successes. Outside the Hollywood hills profitable “arts” might be scarcity, but those exist. Take the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, Vienna Philharmonic orchestra, or fine art names as Manolo Valdes, Salvador Dali or Andy Warhol. Big brands - this case most traditional or shocking brands rule. But also profitable names need to pleasure the audience - the revenue source. And we have seen to what it leads: Hollywoodication of copy-paste movies and television shows.

Might be a time for a debate, but government art support are necesity to keep the art alive. Whether art is biased by commerce or government, there always will be the rebellious ones.

If the wage of the artists was calculated on the basis of the average wage that other workers earn in other sectors, the price of the theater tickets would increase much more than the price of other goods or services that benefit from increasing productivity, with the associated risk that the demand would decline dramatically. If instead the artists were paid on the basis of their productivity, today they would earn the same wage that they would have earned at Shakespeare’s times, becoming one of the poorest social classes. This dilemma is avoided because usually governments could pay part of the costs. 

However, the public intervention could create distortions in the natural evolution of the supply of cultural and art goods. In fact it might happen that, to obtain funding, the artists would tend to produce something than the politicians, rather than the public, would like.

If one would keep eyes in the Asia of today, she would see the phenomena that shaped the Americas in the past 60 years. The universities of China currently educate more than a million students. Every one of them eager to learn, penetrate, conquer and get rich. And compete for the same positions with the students of the old continents. To keep it short, without the income transfers it would make no sense paying an European or an American employee more of the work that an Asian or an African one makes with the same quality.

Universities or nationalities as brands won’t last long competing with hard working and better behaving masses. Maybe the competitive edge could be found from branding personalities. Skilful and well educated, but anonymous, odourless, and tasteless people might be good to be deployed by knowledge industry. But where it comes other than routine brainwork, the personality matters.

From the forties till nowadays we have seen a shift from product to brand. Now it might be time for a shift from anonymous identities to personality brands.

Manufacturing in China is cheap to the detriment of workers. Holidays, social security contributions, unemployment insurance and safety on the job are expensive. Since China is on his way towards development, it is hard to imagine that there could be any job protection or whatsoever insurance or social security.

If Chinese workers are hard-hitting machines, the machinery used substantially lag behind the international standards of efficiency and pollute more than plants situated in other countries. The laws to protect the water, air and soil exist, but the real problem is the enforcement of environmental regulations. Very often, the production objectives established by the local factories in an area have to be pursued at any cost and the environment has to pay the expenses. It has been estimated that 60 % of the precipitations are constituted of acid rains for more than 1/4 of the Chinese territory (World Bank, 1997). As a matter of fact, China is the world leader in production of SO2 and NOx. Taking a look at the lakes, we see that 75% of them are considered to be polluted. The drinking water available to each inhabitant is estimated to be just a quarter of the world average. The machinery and plants used in China use more energy and produce more waste and pollution.

Most worryingly, the products made in China are made with materials that are not in conformity with western standards of safety because toxic. Very often, the products are of such a lousy quality that you have to throw them away after two usages, thus augmenting the amount of waste existing on our planet.

Is it worth to produce such expensive and often useless goods that require a huge amount of labour and raw materials? Besides everything, China is very thirsty of raw materials, such as oil or steel. The boosting demand of raw materials from China is driving up the world prices. If prices increase, and firms want to keep margins, manufacturing becomes more expensive and many firms have to close down or to move their production units where something else (the labour- the environment) is cheaper. More and more people will lose manual skills and craftsmanship, thus production could be nowhere else than in China.

World eats from the same pie: if someone gets a bigger slice, then someone else has to grab smaller slices. A price is not just a tag that have influence on your wallet. If decisions are price oriented, they should take into account the costs of environment and labor rights.