<<September 25, 2007>>

<<September 25, 2007>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved at;
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/35zedj>
This archive includes a html version of this list distribution and its MS/WORD version with its filename as “month-date-year.doc.” You can also access all of its attachments, if any.

John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy
Executive Director, International Center for Communications
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive, PFSA 160
San Diego, CA 92182-4522
619-594-6933
619-594-6910
Fax: 619-594-4488
jeger@mail.sdsu.edu
http://www.smartcommunities.org/
http://www.smartcommunities.org/guidebook.html
http://www.iicom.org/intermedia/july2001/eger.htm -- His paper on Smart Communities
in InterMedia.

Dear E-Colleagues:

(1) ATTACHMENT I and II below are two very interesting essays of John Eger;

Pls also retrieve his previous essays at;

(07/16/07) John Eger's new essay on the importance of creative clusters and the new urban economy
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2bvr4j

Dear John:

(2) Many, many thanks for your excellent essay again.

(3) Referring to your essay of ATTACHMENT I, Peter Drucker once said that the major player of the 21st century would be the NGO/NPO (Non-Governmental Organization/Non-Profit oriented Organization), which are situated between governments and industries/commerce.

(4) Referring to your essay of ATTACHMENT II, I will put the following slides, though I might have shown them before;

<Culture of America_no notes copy.pdf><http://preview.tinyurl.com/28bbdh>

America is so much more innovative a place than any other country. America allows you to explore your mind. America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can’t be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors:
* Extreme freedom of thought,
* An emphasis on independent thinking,
* A steady immigration of new minds,
* A risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing,
* A non-corrupt bureaucracy, and
* Financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.
These institutions, which nurture innovation, are the real crown jewels of American culture. The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise the capital, create a product and main-stream it -- that can only be done in the U.S.
The U.S. tech workers must keep creating leading edge technologies that make their companies more productive -- especially innovations that spark entirely new markets.
This is America’s real edge.

Best, Tak

ATTACHMENT I

From: john eger <jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:57:43 -0700
To: <utsumi@columbia.edu>
Subject: I thought you might be interested in the attached

San Diego Business Journal

Posted date: 8/20/2007
Capitalism, Community and America's Future Social Capital

Commentary - John M. Eger

For more than 40 years, capitalism has been in triumph. America's belief in freedom and free enterprise as the best hope for jobs and wealth creation is a message that has spread throughout the world.

The concept of a benevolent concern for one's fellow man and the commonwealth has also been a hallmark of America's success story. But all that could be history in the social and economic world that is rapidly emerging.

As Kirk Eichenwald of the New York Times observed after the fall of the Enron Corp., "Capitalism has been the hardiest contender in the global bout for economic supremacy. It emerged from the decades-long match with communism as the unquestioned victor."

But, he added, "A staggering rush of corporate debacles is raising a disturbing question: Can capitalism survive the capitalists themselves?"

The concept of "community" is eroding as well. In the book "Jihad vs. McWorld," author Benjamin Barber describes the Jihad as "the bloody search for bloodlines" and McWorld as "the bloodless search for markets."

What is missing, Barber argues, is the call for "the commonweal" or the public good, the common goal at the heart of every free democratic society.

After Robert Putnam's seminal work on the erosion of a sense of community codified in his well-publicized book, "Bowling Alone," cities across America have been on a quest to renew civic participation and to build anew those organizations and institutions that would enable citizens to work together for a common purpose.

Downward Spiral

Evidence that we have somehow found a solution to this downward spiral in civic participation is nowhere to be found.

Belief in once cherished and respected institutions is dwindling. In the wake of sexual abuse and deception by the Catholic Church; increased disillusionment with government and politicians at every level, with the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism, a profound feeling of a "loss of innocence" now permeates life in America.

Capitalism, some say, despite its faults, will in time prove once again - like democracy itself - that it still represents the best mechanism for ensuring economic growth, wealth and prosperity in the new "global" economy. Indeed, when speaking of globalism or globalization, Margaret Thatcher was fond of saying, "there is no alternative."

Yet that is precisely where the debate seems to be headed. The almost daily scandals and the protests over globalization may be, as UC San Diego emeritus professor and well-known economist Laurence Krause believes, "two separate issues." But some other heavyweight thinkers are seeing these issues converging.

Jeffrey Garten, former dean of the Yale University School of Management (and a former investment banker and Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade during the first Clinton administration) and Joseph Steiglitz, a well-known economist and author of the book "Globalization and Its Discontents," argue that global corporations need to be socially responsible and start "listening to their markets," while governments need to be more interventionist.

Both they, and more recently many others, suggest the issues of globalization and the interests of the commonwealth are being joined on the world stage and that real changes are coming.

What this foreshadows is a business climate very different from that which American corporations have enjoyed. But business itself may not be to blame. Barber believes, "Business malfeasance is the consequence neither of systemic capitalistic contradictions nor private sin which are endemic to capitalism and indeed to humanity. It arises from a failure of the instruments of democracy which have been weakened by three decades of market fundamentalism and ideology and resentment of government."

Some believe Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman's 1962 treatise on social responsibility has run its course.

According to Friedman, "There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to increase its profit so long as it stays within the rules of the game."

Standard Fare

Friedman's message - "If we don't have profits, we won't have much else to worry about" - has been standard fare at American business schools for years. The single focus of profit above all else, however, is beginning to lose its appeal and a new brand of leadership is emerging.

There may be some hope. Some companies believe that the pursuit of profit alone cannot hold societies together and acknowledge we need to widen the focus of business and to embrace a new civic role for large corporations globally and locally. Business, while not the villain of a free society, may yet be its savior.

"Companies that are good local citizens," said Goran Lindhal, former CEO of ABB, "will find it easier to hire and keep talent, obtain good financing and gain society's approval, political support and regulatory consent."

Qualcomm has publicly committed to bridging the "Digital Divide" and has supported local schools and universities with tens of millions of dollars to improve and enhance education in the region. It is clearly one of those new breeds of companies.

According to Fortune Magazine, which does an annual survey of the "100 Best Companies to Work For," young people want to work at companies like Google, Genentech, Intuit, Nordstrom, Booz-Allen, Whole Foods or Qualcomm Inc. because, it is believed, they have a "social conscience." This may be a new awakening of the role of business.

Indeed, what may be emerging is a new model of the corporation for the global digital age.

John M. Eger, the Van Deerlin-endowed chair of communications and public policy in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University, is a member of the Envision San Diego partnership, a media forum for discussing public policy issues affecting the region.

All contents of this site © 2007 San Diego Business Journal Associates. All rights reserved.

San Diego Business Journal, San Diego, CA 92123, USA.

Home | Help | Contact SDBJ

--
John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy
Executive Director, International Center for Communications
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
PFSA 160
San Diego, CA
92182-4522
telephone 6195946910

ATTACHMENT II

From: john eger <jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:34:30 -0700
To: <Jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Subject: I thought you would find this article of Interest

Posted date: 9/17/2007
Creativity, Ingenuity, Innovation: Needed for Global Economy

Commentary - John M. Eger

There is now little doubt that America will lose close to 15 percent of its white-collar work force during the next 20 years as a consequence of globalization.

In partial response, Congress passed legislation, signed by President Bush last month, that calls for $33.6 billion for research and education programs for "science, technology, engineering and math to address the challenges facing American competitiveness in the global economy."

Specifically, the bill, called the America Competes Act, authorizes $151.2 million to help students earn a bachelor's degree in math or science, $125 million to help math and science teachers get teaching credentials and create more educational programs at the kindergarten through12th-grade level to align math and science curriculum for college.

This broad-based, bipartisan legislation won strong support from business, industry, labor and consumer groups worried that America is slipping woefully behind other nations in these vital areas.

Yet, the idea of a classical liberal education was not discussed or even paid homage to, some educators complained. While the bill may appear to be a major step forward, they ague the contrary. Chester E. Finn Jr. and Diane Ravitch, both assistant secretaries of education in the Clinton administration, have said: "This is a mistake that will ill serve our children while misconstruing the true nature of American competitiveness and the challenges we face in the 21st century. Worthy though these skills are, they ignore at least half of what has long been regarded as a well-rounded education in Western civilization: literature, art, music, history, civics and geography."

New Study

Indeed, a new study from the Center on Education Policy says that enactment of the Bush administration's well-known No Child Left Behind legislation has been devastating to K-12 curriculums. Nearly half of U.S. school districts have reduced the time their students spend on subjects such as art and music.

Equally critical, the No Child Left Behind initiative, now in its sixth year, has compelled us to "teach to the test," and we are discovering much to our dismay that while math and science scores may be improving in some parts of America, we are at risk of turning U.S. schools into test-prepping skill factories where nothing matters except exam scores on basic subjects.

Understandably, there is concern that the requirements of the America Competes legislation only exacerbate this troublesome trend.

There is only one way for America to compete in this new global age. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said it best in his commencement address to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last summer: "If the U.S. is to compete effectively with the rest of the world in the new global marketplace, it is not going to succeed through cheap labor or cheap raw materials, nor even the free flow of capital or a streamlined industrial base. To compete successfully, this country needs creativity, ingenuity, innovation."

As Finn and Ravitch observed, "What makes Americans competitive on a shrinking, globalizing planet isn't out-gunning Asians at technical skills. Rather, it's our people's creativity, versatility, imagination, restlessness, energy, ambition and problem-solving prowess."

Most economists now seem to agree that the emerging so-called "creative and innovative" economy represents America's salvation. Where then is the legislation that puts art, music, literature, civics and geography back into the K-12 curriculum?

As Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch have argued, "True success over the long haul - economic success, civic success, cultural success, domestic success, national defense success - depends on a broadly educated populace with flowers and leaves as well as stems. That's what equips us to invent and imagine and grow one business line into another. It's also how we acquire qualities and abilities that aren't easily outsourced to Guangzhou or Hyderabad."

Students who benefit most by this new legislative scheme and acquire the high-tech skills we are aiming for may still get undercut by people halfway around the world who are willing to do the same work for one-fifth of the salary. "The surest way to compete," Finn and Ravitch say, "is to offer something the Chinese and Indians (and Vietnamese, Singaporeans, etc.) cannot - technical skills are not enough."

Unless we awaken to the realities, our graduates will not find the work they want and need, the purchasing power of the average family will continue its downward spiral and the state of America's prowess in both the economic and political arena will be lost.

John M. Eger, Van Deerlin endowed chair of communication and public policy in the school of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University, is a member of the Envision San Diego Partnership, a media forum for discussing public policy issues affecting the region.

All contents of this site © 2007 San Diego Business Journal Associates. All rights reserved.

San Diego Business Journal, San Diego, CA 92123, USA.

Home | Help | Contact SDBJ

--
John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy
Executive Director, International Center for Communications
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
PFSA 160
San Diego, CA
92182-4522
telephone 6195946910

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* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676                                                   *
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