The original Miss Moneypenny, a Canadian actress named Lois Maxwell, has passed away. Rest in peace.

 

For the past 4 years, I've worked for a marketing company in Toronto. This has provided me some invaluable insight into traditional marketing (which is not the same as advertising).

And to think that in 2007, we are witnessing success after success online. Companies like FaceBook turning down $1.6 billion dollars by refusing to be bought out. Google generating billions of dollars in advertising per year. Every year, more and more money is spent online, as people get over the fear of the technology and get on with the convenience of buying what they want for the best price available, all from the comfort of their living rooms.

So with all this going on, I've decided to launch Not Another Marketing Weblog - http://namw.wordpress.com/

NAMW will focus on all of the new types of marketing there are these days, most of which did not exists even 2 years ago. YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, SecondLife, Blogs, Podcasts... And new technologies are being launched all the time, and we will cover those too.

I hope you check it out. My first post is on SecondLife, and perhaps you'd be surprised to learn I don't think much opportunity exists to market there. Go over to NAMW and let me know what you think.

 

I write this patiently using my new iPod I bought yesterday. Blogging from an iPod is certainly new and interesting. Typing is going to take getting used to. As I sit here pressing one letter at a time, and making a mistake about 1 in 40 letters. Autocomplete is slowly getting smarter and is even catching my typos too.

I'd like to think I'm the first person in Canada with this device, since I bought it in Florida yesterday, and best buy here in Toronto says they go on sale here Oct 4. I have 2 weeks of exclusivity. Wee.

After Watergate and Whitewater, who was the genius who called that company Blackwater? Seems like a scandal waiting to happen. And it did happen.

By now most of you have heard about the so-called Blackwater incident in Iraq, where private security contractors in Iraq killed 10 people and wounded 10 in an incident whos facts are still being debated.

Many Iraqi witnesses, including those hospitalized by the bullet wounds from the ensuing gunfire, say that the security guards opened fire for no reason. CNN.com tells the story of an Iraqi lawyer on his way back from the courthouse being shot 4 times in the back (and his car shot 8 times more) as he attempted to leave the scene of the Blackwater covoy. And another man says he was aboard a minibus coming home from work when the shooting started, and as he attempted to flee, he was shot 3 seperate times. Once kept running, twice started crawling, and then finally a third time that kept him down for good. It was like someone was specifically trying to kill him. He claims the shooting went on for 30 minutes.

Blackwater disputes this claim, and says that they were fired on, and were defending themselves. Witnesses don't back up the "fired on" story. And there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

Now on the incident itself, it seems like a lot of innocent people got killed. There's hasn't been any proof offered by Blackwater that they were fired on - and the high number of innocent civilian casulties seems to back up the claim that Blackwater acted recklessly.

In my head, what likely happened was that there was some type of traffic jam or traffic accident, and the convoy found itself having to slow down. Then other Iraqi cars got too close for comfort. And so the security guards do what they do, shouting at people and then finally firing at them to get them to get out of the way. I can see this as being standard practice - come to close to me in Iraq and I'm going to shoot your car up.

On the one hand, Iraqis should recognize this as happening all the time and avoid these convoys when they see them. Turn off the street, pull to the side, whatever. Get out of the way because the convoys have guns and people willing to fire them for any provocation - real or imaginary.

On the other hand, it seems wrong in so many ways. These private contractors ("mercenaries" is the technical term I guess for private military) operate without respect for Iraqi citizens safety AT ALL. Not one bit of respect shown for anyones safety but the person they are protecting. They don't stop at red lights, block streets at will, and damage personal property without remorse. They act like they are above the law... well, probably because it appears they are above the law.

One of their favorite techniques is to ram the car in front of them that is going too slow for their tastes. Even the Iraqi police tremble in fear when they pass through. And like we see here, security guards suspected of using excessive violence and killing innocent civilians and traffic cops can't even be interviewed or held accountable for their actions. As a corporation, they can just shrug their shoulders and say "no comment" when asked about the possibility that they murdered 10 people. How convenient.

It takes a lot of effort to get the U.S. military to hold the bad actions of its own personnel to account. But it does happen - Abu Gharib, and when the occasional soldier goes crazy and rapes and kills a local Iraqi girl. They eventually act. But why, when the private companies act this way, do they go back into "denial" mode instead of doing the right thing and arresting the perpetrators?

And doesn't all this seriously undermine the trust ordinary Iraqis have in Americans in general? One Blackwater convoy shoots up a private Iraqi car, and all the good will American troops may have earned in keeping the streets safe and playing with children and kissing babies goes up in smoke. It takes hundreds of hours to build up trust and goodwill, and 1 minute to destroy it.

(And P.S., These private mercenaries are also likely paid 3 to 6 times the salary of the enlisted military person. Isn't the average U.S. military serving in Iraq upset that these people are doing the same job they are but getting 3 or more times the money?)

 

On CNN.com today, I was reading a sad story about seven soldiers who were killed in Iraq today. Two of these men had recently written an op-ed piece in the New York Times saying the "Baathist tyranny" has simply been replaced by an "Islamic tyranny", and arguing Iraq is generally worse off since America invaded. Out of the 7 soliders who authored that article, 3 are now dead in the span of 1 month. 7 soldiers dying in a car accident is sad. That two of those soldier wrote a highly-read newspaper article only a few weeks ago saying what they were doing was pointless and actually making the situation worse, that is REALLY sad.

Isn't it better to die doing something you truly believe in?

Just as I had finished the article, I noticed the ad that ran along side it:
"If you died today, who would fund your family's future?" An ad for life insurance.

Is this what contextual ads have come to? An article about multiple deaths in Iraq, next to an ad for life insurance??? And the tagline reads, "If you died today"???

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. This ad is in the poorest taste. I understand that life insurance companies need a place to advertise, but they should absolutely be blocked from running ads next to obituaries and other news reports of deaths. And their ads should be tasteful, not attempting to shock the viewer "if you died today" after reading an article about multiple accidental deaths. They are basically attempting to profit from these deaths. Maybe there should be NO ads next to news articles that report death, but life insurance has to be the worst thing you can try to sell there.

I tend to be a bit sceptical when I hear that China will continue its rapid ascent into world dominance. The main reasons for my scepticism are:

• As China's GDP continues to grow, the workers of China will begin to demand higher wages and benefits. Just like the Industrial Revolution that happened in North America and Europe at the turn of the last century, society will progress such that working conditions are forced to improve. Someone who lives in a hut and can barely afford fish and rice, making $2 a day assembling 50 inch plasma TV's... will start to wonder why they can't afford electicity while their boss lives like a king.
  

• China's centralized communist government will make a fatal mistake. So far China has been transitioning to a mixed capitalist-communist system fairly well. But it's not too far out of the realm of possibility that one day the communist government will make a decision that goes against its economic interests - like invading Taiwan or Tibet. The same type of problems that plagued the dictatorship in Iraq (invading Kuwait) can befall China, since not all of their priorities are economic. Or the next generation of communist leaders might decide economic reforms went too far and move China back into a wholly communist system - destroying independent business in the process.
  

• Their human rights record can catch up to them. What if another Tianamen Square happens? Or they execute the wrong activist, or do something so outrageous against basic human rights that world opinion turns quickly against them? One communist party leader in one far corner of the country may think firing wildly into a group of protestors with a machine gun is a good idea. But if that gets captured on video tape and broadcast to the world, China might find itself on the outs.
  

• America gets a vote. Obviously there are many things the United States can do to get in China's way on their way to the top. Not all of them are great options, but in desperation America could "repatriate" China's American assets. It could refuse to pay back any money that the U.S. owes to China. It could mandate that American companies sell products only manufactured in America. It could impose huge tarrifs on Chinese imported goods. It could impose sanctions. It could invade China militarily.
  

Obviously most of these are unlikely. But let's not underestimate the fact that America could view China's economic dominance as a "threat to national security" and justify openly or secretly acting against China in its own interest.

Various media reports have tracked the steady growth of China as an upcoming economic superpower. They are the world's most populous country - 1.32 billion people, and 15 million more people will be born in China every year. They will shortly exceed the United States in energy consumption. Not only do they make most of the products we buy, they lend us the money to buy them. (China lends the United States something like $250 Billion per year, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is... $250 Billion per year.)

Some people have said if you could make your child bilingual, make them learn Mandarin Chinese. At some point (soon), Chinese will surpass English as the most common language for business. With Chinese people emmigrating to almost every country in the world, there are large Chinese expatriate populations everywhere. In fact, it's not unreasonable to imagine a point where every major city in North America and Western Europe has Chinese as the second most common language spoken. For instance, in the last census, a full 40% of people living in Toronto came from Asian decent.

China's economic growth rate is something like 9.5% per year, while the United States is around 4%.

So the obvious conclusion a lot of people are coming to, is that China is in a position to take over from the United States as the world's economic superpower. Countries are looking at China as a new place to sell their goods. Companies are looking at China as a cheap place to get things made. But what should other people think? What should Canadians and Americans think of China's move to dominance?

Are we all going to lose our jobs to China? Can China keep its high-growth strategy for much longer without being forced to raise the standard of living of its people, or without being a democracy?