May 2004

No. 029

“In Concert with Change - First Feature"

First, we are living in a time within history whose dominate force is change itself. Thus, change has always been with us since the beginning of time though never known at such a hastened pace. Science, technology, economics, politics, culture - these five have always been arenas of change. And today revolutions are taking place in all five platforms. In science, where permutation usually takes place in just one field at a time, such as physics in the first part of the twentieth century, now are occurring in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, agriculture, medicine, engineering, geography, geology, and applied sciences.

In technology, transfiguration in microelectronics, communications, materials, manufacturing, neurorobotics, and time-travel processes keep the industrial view in a state of constant turbulence. Technology is an influential force redirecting lifestyles. A new product is suddenly obsolete, an industry leader is caught off guard and panicked, a small entrepreneurial company nobody ever heard of surprises the market with a patented state-of-the-art product. The new product has antiquated an industrial leader's most recent innovation and made extinct three peripheral products. Usage of the new product has caused radical lifestyle changes among its applicants.

Economics itself has been transposition from an indigent social science to the acknowledged spokesperson explaining national and global change. The reporting systems granted to economists attempt to explain government policies for taxation, regulation, currency exchange rates, and public spending temporarily energize some countries and enervate others. At present, the world is seen as four common markets competing against each other. There is the Western Hemisphere consensus common market, the Asian sphere common market, the European unity common market, and the Middle East, African, and Russian alliance common market. The Western Hemisphere market is perceived as a capitalist entrepreneurial free enterprise hotbed of tech-driven development where liberty is the key to prosperity. Asian market is where an emerging middle class offers the largest English speaking population and capable of providing a competitive advantage in manufacturing because of an abundant labor and high-tech known-how for durable and mass-produced goods. The European market is in a transitionary form of deindustrialization and has taken on the role of leading the world into globalization. Middle East, African and Russian market has a growing population, natural resources, and proximity to the three major markets. Economic forces favor the lowest cost producers and lower prices for consumers under the economic variables at the time which spurs market turbulence.

The state of world politics has never been more volatile. This statement would bare out in any forward history. Men, as Aristotle said, are by nature political animals. And men, like markets, are irrational. The population leads change, then businesses follow, and lastly governments react; but, the world's markets are driven more and more by politics. Thus, political change is novation and does not happen by chance. Politics is driven by the economics. Ex, the United States has been forced into new global roles out of necessity. Russia is seeking to glue back its alliances with its neighbors. China with an emerging power center has dreams of prominence. United Europe is presenting globalization as the next frontier. Wake up in the morning and we find another government overthrown somewhere in the world with the head of state your business has courted for years thrown in jail or worse, another terrorist attack somewhere else, or another leader with the answers on the brink of vast political power.

Culture tracking has never been more difficult for a government or business to chart its transformation and then sustain its course of operation. We live in cities with a myriad of various neighbors. The close proximity to so many strangers leaves little alternative than to be political. Cyclical conclusion, the larger the population is the higher belief in the politic (socialistic) and less in the market (capitalistic). It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the platform of global power is shifting in both arenas.

In concert with change means that no sooner do you decide what the prevailing circumstances are than your judgment begins to loose validity, so you are constantly running to keep up. Imagine how uncertain it would be to choose the best crop to plant for market if the only business plan you had was so smudged and faded you could scarcely read it. Now imagine that your farm was in a climate where entire weather patterns were unpredictable from one location to another and unstable where rivers and mountain ranges shifted overnight. What if your market closed and opened with little warning and moved from one location to another. It is unpredictable out there. Figuring out what is going on requires a fearless effort and when you do finally figure it out everything out there moves on you as the world goes on without you. The only thing you have been able to count on is change and how to be in concert.

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