But this one takes the cake – from the Voice of America, that over-the curtain (iron, bamboo, whatever) service so familiar with listeners in repressed countries -  comes news that China has blocked the business social networking site, LinkedIn.

Why?

“…one user set up a forum discussing the idea of a Jasmine Revolution in China.”

I use Linked-In a good deal – it is a great place to get the feel for the heartbeat of entrepreneurial America. And I am starting to get into the forums. There are great ways to connect and get ideas going there. I see a lot of it.

“Get ideas going…” Maybe the Chinese are afraid of that. It CAN lead to revolutions. Even here in the US.

Maybe create new jobs while we are at it.

Boomers Driving New Entrepreneurship Boom

Everyone from Wall Street to the White House has been crying for the entrepreneurs to come forth – to revive the economy, create new jobs and bring America back to the forefront of ideas and progress again. Many of us remember  Reagan and the 1980′s. That was a golden age of entrepreneur-ism and the revival of cottage industry – hundreds of thousands of people getting creative and figuring out how to do create new small businesses at home.  Who were some of those people? A Michael Dell making computer boxes in his dorm room; other guys creating small “personal” computers in their garages (IBM did not feel a threat); coffee roasters in rented warehouses who seemed to pose no threat to Maxwell House, part-time insurance salesmen working a second job under Art Williams’ tutelage – on and on it went. That generation created revolution after revolution. Many – perhaps most – of the real lights in those years were Baby Boomers unleashing their unfettered ideas about business and work itself.

Is it a surprising thing that many of that generation are still at it? It IS time, of course, to take succeeding generations under the wing and teach them how to do it.  But the best way to teach in this arena is to DO.

Godspeed! – jobs will follow, just like the 80′s and 90′s followed what happened in that previous revolution.

_________________

Apple is in trouble with a lot of people because of its censorship policies. It recently pulled a Christian app – The Manhattan Declaration one. The reason Apple gave?  It is “offensive to large groups of people.”  Many branded it “anti-gay” and a “hate app,” though the Manhattan Declaration is mostly a line drawn in the sand by a lot of church people on what the church has for centuries defined as marriage.  Whether you agree with where the line is drawn or not, making a statement does not automatically mean hate. This app simply gave access to a firm outline of a position and an argument.

I am convinced that Apple withdrew the app, not because of what it is (or was) but because of certain people’s reaction to it. 7,700 signed a petition to Apple and asked them to remove it. The company did. It is going to be interesting to see what happens next, because supporters of the app have now gotten over 61,000 names on a petition of their own to reinstate it. Apple is not famous for being a dog wagged by its tail, though, and so far they have not budged.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I must state that I presently work for one of the ministries that support the Manhattan Declaration, Breakpoint Ministries).

A larger question bothers me immeasurably: Is the Internet (and mobile, wi-fi, all-things-digital) moving into a zone where companies,  governments, or certain self-defined ‘large numbers of people’ can control the content that is accessible – and thus direct the debate and discussion in a society?

That was hinted at once before – in the late ’90s. The Internet was still young. Something came along called “Push Technology.” Many felt that the Internet was too wild, the information deluge too strong, and there was too much garbage online. They thought that someone needed to come along and clean it up. The old-timers online, many of us from the era of BBSes, Usenet and other “geeky” online pioneering groups, howled in protest. That was exactly what personal computing, online connections and digital networking were invented to circumvent! The Internet should be democratic to its core. No one should be able to control or influence the content stream. People should have free and open access to information.  In the very early days the power-mongers and legacy gatekeepers did not pay much attention to the Internet. They didn’t see everyone going over to this new medium. I talked to many of them (trying to sell them on the Internet). The idea seemed to be that it was for nerds and hobbyists and a few revolutionaries. Real people and real money were not there. What did they care? So the Internet was allowed to develop open and free.

Then, somewhere along the way, things changed.  Regular people all over the world discovered that this even-playing-field with its democratic and open exchange of information was a GREAT thing. People shifted much of their gaze and a large portion of their free hours to it. Gatekeeper alarms started to go off. Businesses sniffed the money to be made. There was a mad rush to the stock market (the dot-com bust followed).  “Push technology” was dreamed up. CONTROL was being lost by traditional gatekeepers. It had to be regained. For the first time, I sensed fear in the legacy gatekeepers.  That was about 1998.

I recently came across an amusing workshop website from the era entitled: Taming the Internet:Push Technology. (The amusing part is the word “Taming”).  Yes, controlling information flow was really going to be for our good! It brought back memories. Microsoft even got into the game – they began building push technology elements into Microsoft Explorer – their web browser, which was in a bloody battle with Netscape in what as called “The browser wars.” A furor arose online. Many Net purists decried the temptation to control users’ information and replace it with that presented by large companies, carriers and other net media companies (no one even dared mention governments).  On the “control” side, the higher-minded ones advanced the notion that only the gatekeepers and channels really knew what was good for people.

The debate died out quickly, though. It was overrun by a reality: change was taking place at such blinding speed and people were in love with free search. The advent of  powerful search engines and people learning how to find, display (and publish) their OWN  information was a huge social movement.  The horses were out of the barn.

The mad rush towards push technology subsided, or at least faded into the background. Microsoft gave up on it for the time. (However, some of the elements built into the back-end of some browsers for eventual “push” functionality began to be hijacked by sinister coders and something known as “spyware” or “adware” evolved in the early 2000′s. We all began to get a taste of the worst elements of “push” technology and manipulative control).

The “free” Internet is more popular than ever. But the urge to control is back with a vengeance. In some places it is government pressing for control. China is dealing hard and Google, to its credit, resisted the government of the world’s most populous nation. In our own freedom-loving America, the “control” thing is popping up in strange places. Most of it is subtle pressure from rather obscure policies (like the recent FCC ruling on Net Neutrality).

Then along comes this issue with Apple. What part does “control” play?  I would have been just as upset if Apple had censured an app on the other side of the debate from where I personally stand, as long as the app made a fair and reasonable statement of its beliefs available.

The real issue is the availability of information.  I am frightened by the fact that some of the technologies that have given us such evenness of information distribution over the past 20 years are now coming under proprietary control in certain places. The Apple app store is just one of those places and it is just for this moment. What about other places and future moments? The future presents a narrower view of this free flow of information than we experienced the last 2 decades. In that regard, I don’t care who the gatekeepers are or even what they believe. I just don’t like them. And I hate to see the dream we all got to experience falling under their blade.

This “control” threat was beaten off once, pretty successfully. Can it be defeated again? The stakes are much higher now, for all parties concerned.

I remember, as a much younger man, spending some time with an elder in our church who was a farmer. He didn’t say much. But I have seldom been so impressed at how much one person could get done in life. And it was solid. I would float my lofty ideas by him, and his wise words were often: “We’ll see.” We did.

Here in DC it is not just The Administration, Congress and the Media that clobber us with lofty talkers. They are everywhere, at all levels and in most organizations. Oratory is in vogue.  It is so pervasive that I have named it The Washington Disease. You see it in business, with gusts of “my-idea-is-the-most-significant-idea”  blowing down corridors and swirling around meetings. You see it in schools with the teacher asking the class for their feedback and then cutting off the discussion because the teacher thought of something more important to say.  You see it in the frenetic pace from the beltway to the National Mall to the suburbs – as a friend of mine puts it:  “Everyone’s in a hurry even if they don’t know where they are going.”

Where does it come from? People feel the need to get something DONE – but they are trained here to TALK. It is easy to talk. Talk is cheap. Meetings are easy to schedule in Outlook. We get to talk a lot in meetings. Makes us feel better. Gets us through the day. Makes us look even better if we rush. It is easy to rush – hey, I am an adrenaline junkie too – it feels good.

How about really getting things done?  That costs us more. As my dad, who grew up on a farm,  would say: “Time to put your money where your mouth is.” (Note to Congress and the Administration – the proverb cites YOUR money – not someone else’s).  It boils own to DOING something. That usually involves more work than talking. A great deal more. Doing things makes you miss meetings.

A big part of the problem here in the DC area is that people are too tired out from the talking and the rushing to move down from the 10,000 foot level and get their hands in the dirt like a farmer and make something grow. Besides, there is not much social value here in being a farmer. Doers don’t get much credit. My theory – it is too provincial.  Seems too much like it comes from the heartland or a red state. I digress.

Now THAT gets me back to some of my recurring themes: Politics – Business – Spirituality – Life – What’s good for America – and stuff like that.

Here is the summary:

• Politics: I think America is really tiring of DC talkers. Recent elections seem to bear that out.
• Business: It is still about the small-businessperson, the small business family, and the American worker who likes the feeling of being captain of his or her own ship.
• Spirituality: The Bible says it is not the hearer of the Word but the Doer of the Word that is blessed…  (I think that also goes for the talker-about-the-Word)
• Life and What’s good for America: It finally boils down to the regular American people who go about doing and helping their neighbors and making their small communities work. It is about volunteers and parents and kids and teachers and preachers and singers and diggers. It is about farmers with hands in the dirt. I would MUCH rather listen to the few words they have time to say than the over-caffeinated cacophony I hear in and around our nation’s capital.

I am about over that.

• I think some politicians are getting one of those reality checks but they don’t recognize it for what it is.

It looks like the president and politicians in Washington are ready to move the conversation to the economy and the job situation. I thought we already did that early in 2009 with the stimulus package. But somewhere in early summer the emphasis got moved over to the health care realignment project. (I wonder if that got the spotlight because the stimulus launch didn’t produce the bump in jobs many pols hoped for last spring).

• They can’t be unhappy about us

Now that a Massachusetts upstart (a Republican at that) helped put a stopper to the increasingly unpopular healthcare realignment project (as it now stands and was recently manipulated) it looks like it is time to turn the conversation back to jobs, jobs, jobs. After all, the public has shown it is not happy and it must really be about the economy, right? Perhaps we can lay the blame at the feet of the banks for the jobs situation and get some traction. If they’re unhappy, let’s by all means speak into their unhappiness!

Here is a possible script – “Jobs, jobs, Bush, jobs, last 8 years – oops before ‘the change’ – jobs, jobs, banks, Cheney, the French (wait, how did the French get there?)” Certainly they cannot be unhappy about us (ruling incumbents), so it MUST be about jobs and some still-repressed subliminal vibes from George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.  What else could it be?  So let’s hit jobs another lick.

• A clue – how jobs come about.

I don’t pretend to be a big businessman but I did start several small businesses and learned a lot about where jobs come from. In the private sector they come from people in businesses having confidence, feeling like the captains of their ships, and having the strength of heart to take on risks. Then they hire. Oh, and there is another element. Decent business leaders (and the ones I know are mostly very decent people) refuse to hire a person and take on responsibility for other people’s lives unless they feel that the ground is solid under their feet. It would be unfair to do differently. They must feel there is enthusiasm in the public marketplace.

• Why people aren’t enthusiastic

Massachusetts, an extremely entrepreneurial state, proved that the enthusiasm quotient is low. People questioned overwhelmingly answered that the thing they were most upset about was the way that Capitol Hill was approaching the health care realignment project. That does not explain the entire lack of enthusiasm, but it does point the way. The idea is that the politicians are not listening to us – they are only listening to themselves. The government seems to want to control all the ships (they understand ships in Boston).

Most businesses will not hire when they feel not-in-control. Maybe in France they do,  not in the good ‘ole USA. Not in the tinkering, garage-band, backlot-project world of the American entrepreneur. And when those folks are not enthusiastic, most of the rest of the country is not either, because they are us – by the millions – from the Amway rep to the basement programmer to the realtor to the Jaycees greeter.

• Time for  a reality check.

Go back and study how Ronald Reagan got confidence back to into the entrepreneur class and how the enthusiasm swelled back into the whole country in 1981 and 1982. That was right in the midst of the last really bad recession. That same army of American entrepreneurs and unorthodox, underfunded tinkerers helped create the digital revolution we are still riding today. Talk about jobs…

You have to get the nation’s enthusiasm up. You can’t push your product at us if we don’t want it. You have to listen.

What would Robert frost say about the present health care debate?  Well  -  he is dead – so it is hard to know exactly what he would say.

But one of my favorite poems of his,  “A Roadside Stand” contains these lines:

A Roadside Stand

While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,

Swarm over their lives enforcing benefits

That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits,

And by teaching them how to sleep the sleep all day,

Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.

True,  Frost did not write this poem about Government-run health care.  But he DID write it about the difference in the proud, individualistic life of country people who refused to go into the city and live on “a dole of bread.”

Most think it the poem was a reaction to the New -Deal-ism coming out of Washington in the 30′s.

What strikes me is that Frost talks about something no one is talking about today in all the discussion of government-run health care, car-making, or government-run anything else. 

• The loss of thinking individuals that takes place when the government forces its benefits on folk.
• The loss of the independent spirit.
• The loss of the beauty, the real life, and the drama of making your money the country way – even if not as slick as the way the city money is made.

It is in the news that all these pitiful kin

Are to be bought out and gathered in

To live in villages next to the theater and store

Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore.

He seems to believe that it is better to eke out your existence with proudly earned dollars from the roadside stand and go to bed and sleep the honest way, worn out and having earned it.

I am with Frost – on any issue about stuff  pushed down by “greedy good-doers.”

(It was hard to find an online version of the poem – not a popular one at all.  Here is a PDF that has the lyrics and some good questions).

Interesting, now that the president and all are talking bankruptcy, people accept it and think it is “smart.” Back a few months ago, when just some of us were seeing the same light, from a distance, we were called “right-wing radicals.” 

Take a look at some of my other posts, including the interesting conversations with Scott Monty, the public communications director for Ford Motor Company. The point of those posts was not just that it needed to be done (for GM and Chrysler at least) but that they all – especially Ford –  had a great opportunity to gain the collaboration of the public if they could just lower their pride barrier and talk with people (like they did with us on TCOT). I believe the table is still set for that, but time is lapsing.

In the meantime, the more liberal “thinkers’” of our time seem satisfied just to accept the inevitable and – probably – think that they were the first to recognize it.   Such is life. But it is not the stuff real progress and change are made of.

Hurrah!

I am convinced that the real problem with the economic turmoil we are in now is not Wall Street and it is not the housing market. Its root cause is not even greed, though that has played a big part.  Greed has been around a long time and we have overcome it before.

The real culprit is cynicism. There is more cynicism than ever and precious few dreamers left to combat it.

But Scotland gave us one.

Susan turned the cynics to believers in seconds, right before our eyes. It is a beautiful thing to behold. That is why we can’t stop watching it.

Note: click this link to see the video or click twice on the image – the play arrow below will not play directly.

Remember the 1980 US Hockey team in the Olympics? Times were bad. After three assassinations, years of riots, Watergate, Vietnam ending in retreat, we were then faced with oil crises, terrorism and Iran imprisoning 52 US diplomats for 444 days while the U.S. seemed totally inept. To add to it all, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and seemed determined to push the world to the brink of war by starting a trail of conquest for territory. The cynics were all over the place.

Then along came a batch of dreamers – the US Hockey team, a bunch of gutsy college kids going up against the invincible Soviet Olympic team. The USSR team, staffed mostly by the Red army “amateurs” (pros were not allowed in the Olympics in those days),  could handily beat any professional hockey team in the world on most days. But not during the days of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

How I remember sitting up in the middle of the night (I lived in Germany at the time), watching that incredible match – and watching the impossible happen. The US kids laid their hearts on the ice and knocked the USSR out of the games and won the gold medal. I’ll never, ever, forget that feeling. Spunky dreamers overcame the cynics and the unbelievers. Hope was reborn and people began to believe again.

US Hockey team beats USSR - 1980 Olympics

That same year another dreamer and idealist came to the stage, Ronald Reagan. Again the cynics howled and scowled. But he stood up and started preaching optimism and hope. He even dared to voice his belief that communist Russia could be turned toward freedom and Germany could be reunited. In the process of leading the nation to dare to dream, our economic malaise evaporated and the American entrepreneurial spirit led the world into a technological revolution unmatched in history.

It all happened, to the jaw-dropping amazement of cynics worldwide.

As I watched the Britain’s Got Talent video again and again, I tried to remember when I had last felt like I felt watching that video clip. It took me back to 1980.

Perhaps an amazing Scottish spinster has reignited a weary world’s capacity to dream and to hope – once again.

What if a major auto company in an industry in great peril, were to open up to the American people and humbly ask them to help figure out how to make it out of this mess?

What if, rather than asking for money, they asked Americans to contribute their hearts, spirits, minds and experience – in the tens of thousands – to this experiment?

Sound crazy? maybe not —

There is a famous story in the book Wikinomics, How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Dan Tapscot and Anthony Williams. It is about a mining company that was in major trouble called GoldCorp. They were not able to find enough gold and were about to go under. In desperation they humbled themselves, threw their problems out to the public in a plea for help, and a miracle happened.

Here are some quotes from a great summary at http://www.bullnotbull.com/archive/wikinomics.htm…

“…If Goldcorp employees couldn’t find the Red Lake gold, maybe someone else could. And maybe the key to finding those people was to open up the exploration process in the same way Torvalds ‘open sourced’ Linux. “

“McEwen raced back to Toronto to present the idea to his head geologist. ‘I’d like to take all of our geology, all the data we have that goes back to 1948, and put it into a file and share it with the world,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll ask the world to tell us where we’re going to find the next six million ounces of gold…’”

“…more than one thousand virtual prospectors from fifty countries got busy crunching the data….Within weeks, submissions from around the world came flooding in to Goldcorp headquarters. As expected, geologists got involved. But entries came from surprising sources, including graduate students, consultants, mathematicians, and military officers, all seeking a piece of the action. ‘We had applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, and organic solutions to inorganic problems. ‘There were capabilities I had never seen before in the industry,’ says McEwen. “

“‘When I saw the computer graphics I almost fell out of my chair.’ The contestants had identified 110 targets on the Red Lake property, 50 percent of which had not been previously identified by the company. Over 80 percent of the new targets yielded substantial quantities of gold. In fact, since the challenge was initiated an astounding eight million ounces of gold have been found. McEwen estimates the collaborative process shaved two to three years off their exploration time.”

“…McEwen saw things differently. He realized that … by sharing some intellectual property he could harness the power of collective genius and capability. In doing so he stumbled successfully into the future of innovation, business, and how wealth and just about everything else will be created. Welcome to the new world of wikinomics where collaboration on a mass scale is set to change every institution in society.”

Could it be those at #TCOT and Ford might be onto something here?

–end of article comments –

As one who has been on the Web since the beginning and in online community building (BBS’s, The Source, Compuserve etc.) since the early 80′s, this is an astounding moment. To imagine that a major business like an auto manufacturer might open up and ask the American people for real advice -

It has been proven again and again in recent years that the opening up of businesses to the real voice of grassroots people and the ensuing transparency and accountability that comes is revolutionary for businesses which engage. It also transforms society in that regular people feel a part of business – even bigger business.

To think that a grassroots organization – of conservatives, no less – could offer thousands of hands up instead of hands out to one of our most critical industries is nothing short of breathtaking.

It might work!!

Why?

Could it be that the ones in the South are producing cars that people prefer? Is it possible that they actually made autos that saved their owners a lot of money recently when gas prices went over $4.00 a gallon? Are their (American) workers are more efficient?

I know this does not sound patriotic. Foreign-owned companies doing better than Amerrican? I should wash my mouth out with soap!

Truth be told, I am more patriotic than almost anyone I know. I am so patriotic I believe in tough love for those I love. I am a realist.

I honestly believe – now more than ever – that American businesspeople and entrepreneurs are fully capable of reinventing American industry WITHOUT the patronizing help of government, without bailouts and without a codependent dependency on a dole from Washington.

I also believe that businesses will not do that without the freedom to fail. Freedom to fail. That is right – it is an important part in the development of any person, family or business. It is part of the development of a school kid. We have to have failures. It is how we learn. I failed Chemistry the first quarter of tenth grade in High School. I brought the grade home to my father, a very influential engineer and scientist. His response – he bought me a slide rule and he taught me how to use it. He sat down and explained long formulas to me. Then he sent me back to work my *** off and succeed. I did. That failure became an important part of my development.

Detroit may need some failure experiences. They, and all other American businesses, do not need to be sheltered from the realities of life. If their cars or their efficiency are not up to par – they need to bleakly face it and either fix it so the market supports them or give way to those who can.

While I lived in Germany there was a lively debate about the German Autobahn, probably the world’s finest system of roads – and  no speed limit. They are engineering marvels. Porsches and Mercedes often cruise the system at 90-110 mph. They do it pretty safely and with a very strict driving ethos (unlike here).

The debate was about whether Germany should impose a speed limit on the Autobahn – in the interest of safety. It raged back and forth in Parliament for weeks, with the papers copiously reporting both sides of the question.

It was finally solved by one statement some delegate made. End of debate. Everyone silenced.

The statement?

“If we put speed limits on the autobahns, in 10 years we’ll be making cars as badly as the Americans do.”

That was 1980.

There is still no speed limit on the Autobahn.