The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix""
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
The Value Of A Paying Pustomer.
Emergence Of the "Empire of One".
All customers Are Created Equal
Playing God An Other Atrocities
the
City That Spawned
The Age Of Advertising..
Fear And Self Loathing In Advertising.
The Greatest Success Metric Is Sales.
Foot In (Word Of) Mouth Disease
In the Begining, There Was The End.
The Rise And Fall
Of The Creative Class
What's Love Got To Do With It?
Champagne Brand
Beer Marketing Budget
Amtrak: Third World Nation On Wheels.
New Music Means
New Marketing.
Automotive Advertising Hits A Dead End.
Has Advertising Lost Control Of The
Creative Process?
If AdvertisingIs Meaningless,
What Comes Next?
What Could Make A Grown Man Cry?
I Have Seen The Future And It Doesn't Work.
This Column Is About Absolutely Nothing.
American Business Is In Need Of An Extreme Makeover...Now.
Advertising Immunity. Can It Be Cured In Our Lifetime?
Do You Have The Right
To Sing The Blues.
The Best Place I Never Worked At .
The Creeping Influence Of All Things Emo.
"If It Don't Mean Shit,
Then It Ain't Worth Shit."
"What's Wrong With
This Picture?
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Old School, New School, True School. There are times when I find myself wondering about what exactly is going on in our educational system. My biggest issue is not just with what is going on, but what is not going on. Bill Gates made a statement a couple of years ago that gave me cause for pause. He related that American youth appeared to be the smartest in the world in their studies from preschool to grades 5-6. And then from middle school to high school graduation (or drop-out) they actually declined in achievement scores to the point of being less educated than students in many third world countries. In other words, our students were actually regressing as they progressed through the educational system. What I find remarkable is the correlation between that statement and those of other Captains of Industry who hold that the reason behind so much of their outsourcing activities is not that offshore labor is so much cheaper, but that offshore labor is so much smarter. Even Mr. Gates admits that when Microsoft recruited for engineering talent in China and limited their call to the top 1% of that country's engineering graduates, more than 10,000 applicants showed up, as opposed to 627 graduates in the US. |
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How is it that American business, that is so impacted by the dumbing-down of America, can stand by year after year and let it happen? The movie industry with its billions in profits boasts the nation's lowest-rated public education system, the Los Angeles Unified School District. Wall Street, whose brokerage houses are insanely profitable, has America's most deadly school system in the City of New York's public schools. Silicon Valley has invested in the public schools of San Jose. Motorola and J.C. Penny have put money into Chicago's public schools. |
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I don't know what I can say to impress upon you how important your column is to me and my classmates. We get more out of your blog than in any of our classes. Please keep it up.-Diane C. Bodton Huh?– hw |
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Of course the Feds spend 73% more on defense than they do on education. But then Raytheon takes more senators to lunch than Newark's South Side High does. What is the net result of this? Well, as I look out the window of the Metro as we roll through Compton, CA, I am not amazed that the tallest building in Compton is the Criminal Courts Building. And that the conversation of the high school students in front and in back of me is focused on who is more fashionable, Beyonce of Shakira. Or that the container trains coming out of the Port of Long Beach are full and the containers heading back to China are empty. Or that the light rail car I'm riding on was manufactured by Nippon Shanyo in Japan. Or that the Sheriff's Department's dope-sniffing dogs that were brought on the train at Del Amo had sniffed out ten of the two dozen or so students in the car as "holding" on their way to class. I don't get it. Web development companies in LA are paying $60 an hour for kids who have web skills. They can't find enough job candidates because the local colleges don't teach web skills. This at a time when millions of teens are building their own web domains on MySpace.com. My wife just decided to go into teaching. LAUSD loaded her down with courses and homework and seminars and enough books and pamphlets to fill a nine foot, two-shelf bookcase. I asked her if anything they had given her instructed her on how to hold a student's interest or attention. She looked at me as though I were crazy. So here we sit. We can't order anything on-line without playing the Russian Roulette game of wrong color, wrong item, missing parts, doesn't work. My new iPod Nano doesn't work. My wife's new iMac shows web text files in Sanskrit. My buddy's new BMW has no turn signals. My shirts come back from the cleaners with more stains than they went in with. I hear the phrase "Our system is down." At least twice a day. WTF. Why can't American business get it right? Amazon is smart enough to sell me the exact same outfit that Steve Jobs wears to work (StevesOutfit.com) but Apple can't give me an iPod or an iMac that works. The Feds can spot the number of people standing at a local bus stop but they can't make a tax form a normal human being can decipher. I'm scratching my head right now. I don't get it. Perhaps, it is because I take the pains to surround myself with people who are a lot smarter than I am. I ask a couple of people in my office where they went to school. Most of them say Catholic school, or magnet school, or private school or some suburban school that had computers before most agencies did. I'm obviously the most under-educated person in this outfit. I call a bunch of friends. They all went to some non-public school. I realize that I am an island of ignorance adrift in a sea of privilege. I figure, so are the other folks who run their respective businesses. That's why we don't always perceive the effect of a crumbling education infrastructure. Not until a package arrives after being miss-delivered three times even though our address is clearly indicated on the waybill. When my fellow public school graduates enter my sphere of consciousness it is usually with disastrous results. But don't get me wrong. During my teaching days at Cal State University, I was subjected to individuals of monumental stupidity. Not just in the student body but in the administration and faculty as well. The point I am struggling with here is that the Republic is in jeopardy. We need to marshal all of our resources (not just those of Bill and Melinda Gates) to address this shortfall in intelligence and good old fashioned common sense. The business community is the only hope we have to make it happen. So do your part. Go visit a school in your community. Talk to some kids. Maybe even your own. Take a teacher to lunch. Help them buy some school supplies. Do something to help. Nobody else is smart enough. Stay tuned.
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