Question:
Will intellectual property survive in the digital age especially with the advent of digital technologies and networks?

Definition:
Intellectual Property: property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks.

A.) Positives and Negatives of Being a Digital Creator and a Digital Consumer:

Living in a digital reality where anything can be created and distributed at a mere click of a button poses a bit of a conundrum for the people who integrate technology in the fabric of their lives. This new information age has posed a number of positives for creators who very much like the added simplicity and efficiency of using a computer to increase work flow and generate ideas as well as have the ability to reach a limitless number of individuals around the world. Consumers enjoy the ability to access an endless amount of data and information from the convenience of their personal computers. However, with these grand strides in technology come certain pitfalls. Creators of digital information have to question how much of their product is being sold legally and how much is being acquired through illegal means. Since what they provide is intangible and easily transferred by making electronic copies, how can anyone be sure what they make and sell online isn’t being transmitted and copied over and over again without the creator’s consent? There is no definitive way to really know for sure. If there is no law protecting the publication of digital information from being illegally copied without just compensation to the publisher then why would an individual create something at all? The flipside to this is the negative consequences to the consumer. Laws to ensure legal protection to the publisher..s works will be instituted and the consumer..s access to the intellectual information on the Internet will be severely diminished in order to protect the market for the digital publishers. Technology can either be seen as an enabler to help foster a creative and socially beneficial means of networking for the common good of both creator and consumer or it could potentially be seen as an inhibitor in which it ultimately stifles information distribution on both ends due to a gross negligence for intellectual property law. To promote the progress of science and useful arts,.. is part of the foundation in which our country was founded on, the main point being progress and the positive growth of society. To strike a balance and find a resolution that meets the demands of the creator as well as the consumer requires tough decisions to be made in the court of laws that will influence future judgments on how technology will ultimately change and shape the way we create, express, purchase, and interact on the Internet.

B.) Where the Problems Stem From:

Intellectual property cases are on the rise whether it be the increase in lawsuits against peer-to-peer networking companies or the constant litigation concerning the distribution of film and music online. Understanding the source of the problems will provide a key insight on how to find solutions. As discussed in The Digital Dilemma, there are two key developments that are central in the explanation of where the intellectual problem of technological change has stemmed. The first developments are in the way of ..radical.. shifts in the economics of reproducing, distributing, controlling, and publishing information. Along with the economic dilemmas, the second key problem deals with the information structure which is ingrained into people..s everyday lives. The trio of technological advances that have led to radical shifts in the economies of information are these: 1) information in digital form has changed the economics of reproduction, 2) computer networks have changed the economics of distribution, and 3) the World Wide Web has changed the economics of publication. In discussing the economics of reproduction, once one puts information in the digital form it dramatically reduces the price of reproducing that item. Take for instance the time and effort of producing a hardbound book at a library and the time and effort of producing a book that is online and has no physical costs. The low cost of having a digital reproduction increases the likelihood of illegally producing digital copies. The economics of distribution, aided by computer networks, allows individuals to send digital information from Tokyo, Japan to Knoxville, Tennessee at virtually no cost and as fast as their Internet connection will allow, which in most cases is instantaneous. The economics of publication is being heavily influenced by the advent of the World Wide Web. The Web has become a gargantuan forum where a countless number of works are available for publication by the worldwide network of users. The second problem deals with how the information infrastructure is so prevalent in everyday life. With millions of users downloading images, music, and movies on a daily basis, at times with no hesitation, where is the line drawn on dealing with IP law and how does enforcement take place when there is such a proliferation of public exploitation? IP law mainly dealt with large-scale public consequence in the past, but with the advancement of technology and the Internet, rights holders are becoming more concerned with small-scale infringements that could possibly threaten their markets. With these problems cited and a modest understanding of the information infrastructure one can seek to evaluate the problems and seek resolutions.

C.) Understanding the Problems:

Upon grappling with intellectual property law, one must first understand the complexity of such an issue and the far-reaching problems that lie therein. Dealing with digital information is dealing with an intangible object with intangible rights. Like a trade secret for Coca-Cola..s soda formula or the trademark of Nike..s swoosh, these examples of intangible property rights are easier to govern because they involve a tangible product you can see and taste. However, for a copyrighted song that is uploaded to the Web digitally and copied over and over again to a multitude of users, it is more difficult to enforce. This is because of the mass proliferation of piracy by individuals numbering in the thousands or millions covered in a veil of anonymity. It is also difficult to resolve IP problems because it covers a large gamut of industries with each having its own set standard. The layman individual, for instance, has no legal idea on whether or not it is acceptable to make a burned copy of a music CD they just purchased in which they would like to keep for backup. Is it acceptable to make a burned copy for yourself, while making one for a friend is deemed a violation of property rights? This is where the ..fair use.. doctrine of copyright law comes into play. ..Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders… Even under the fair use doctrine it is difficult to establish the legality of each particular case, since no current standard exists for a blanket decision on all IP matters. With so many players involved in IP there are varying views and opinions of what should be done and what shouldn..t be done. On one end of the spectrum you have the creators and publishers of the digital content, whether it be the music or film industry, and on the other end of the spectrum is the consumers of the digital content in the form of the online community. In the middle of this spectrum lie the government, libraries, and schools. How one approaches the content and the strategy they use will influence their viewpoint on the matter. If one goes by the customary model of exchange, where one party creates a good and another purchases the said good directly, it is to be understood that IP law would be welcomed to establish rights and fixate a strong legal foundation. However, if one were submitting their work for an ..indirect benefit.. on the Web, such as promoting their product or service by building a market online, then their strategy would be to keep IP an open source to foster a new and receptive community. It should be noted that since all IP matters are different and that each party is concerned with different outcomes, having a uniform IP policy might not be the best route to enforce. Enforcement of a draconian IP policy might be construed to be too intolerable for the average user and as a result prematurely cripple what could be a very lucrative market. Enhancing the IP problem with the fact that the Internet is a global market, one must then evaluate the international infrastructure and each individual nation. How can IP law ever enforce the policies set forth by the U.S. to apply to their court of laws? There is so much variation in global customs, laws, and attitudes; it would be impossible to implement such a far-reaching measure.

D.) Governmental Regulation:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright act, signed into law in 1998, that criminalizes production and dissemination of technology with the primary purpose of circumventing measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself. It also heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. The DMCA has been under pressure by the two opposing sides, one being the software and entertainment industries and the other being librarians and members of academia. The software and entertainment industries enjoy the fact that enforcement of the DMCA will make it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures built into most commercial software, as well as outlaw the manufacture, sale, or distribution of code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software. Academics and the like feel that the DMCA is anti-competitive in nature. As Timothy B. Lee examines in his policy analysis of the DMCA, ..It gives copyright holders and the technology companies that distribute their content the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates… Another regulation imposed to curtail intellectual property misappropriation is the implementation of Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM refers to a number of technologies used by publishers that control and limit access to either digital information and or restrictions associated with a particular digital work or device. On the surface DRM can be seen as a positive way to merge both the wants of the publishers and the needs of the consumers in a safe manner that offers a level playing field. However, upon closer inspection there are camps from both sides that are displeased with the DRM implementation. Rampant piracy, so the argument goes, undermines the incentives that make it worthwhile to create new content. If, because of infringement, copyright owners cannot make a return on their investments in content creation, they will stop investing in new content. With this noted, the creators of digital works enjoy having a way to control the distribution of their works without worrying about piracy. Some advocates note that DRM might even result in the lowering of prices for consumers on products because of the ability to micromanage digital distribution. While it is definitely good to protect the digital creators.. products, one must argue the potential drawbacks of having DRM, especially when being supported by the DMCA with the question of whether or not fair use is being violated. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, ..An erosion of fair use in favor of DRM comes with the following potential costs; a reduction in freedom of expression, to the extent DRM interferes with review, commentary, scholarship, and parody, a reduction in innovation, to the extent that DRM eliminates the reservoir of incentives that spur companies to develop technologies that interact with copyrighted works, and an erosion of privacy, to the extent that DRM compromises user anonymity… The question of whether or not DRM will add more benefit than it detracts has yet to be seen for the long term. It can be concluded that DRM enforced by the likes of DMCA could have a powerful impact on the fair use doctrine in which there will be a distinct division between digital creators and consumers. As for international copyright, there are no current measures such as the DMCA or DRM being put into place to protect IP of digital creators. It should be noted however, that most countries do offer protection through conventions. The Berne Convention acts as a form of underlying regulation for the protection of copyrighted works from other countries. The Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) is the other international convention that protects copyright. The United Nations enacted this convention for the desire to ensure in all countries copyright protection of literary, scientific and artistic works. With these conventions noted, it is still almost impossible to a) know if one..s digital work is being compromised and b) how would one go about enforcing a transgression that happens in say Sri Lanka for example, a country on the other side of the world, where the government has no means by which to judge such a case? The issues still remain the same whether it is on a local or international scale. IP law is complex in nature with a multitude of factors being presented that make it nearly impossible to find a solution.

E.) Cases Involving Copyright

In the case of Eldred vs. Ashcroft, the constitutionality of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was questioned. In the CTEA, Congress increased the duration of copyrights by 20 years, making copyrights now run from creation until 70 years after the author..s death. Petitioners, whose products or services built on copyrighted works that have entered the public domain, argued that the CTEA violates both the Copyright Clause’s “limited Times” prescription and the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee. They claimed Congress cannot extend the copyright term for published works with existing copyrights. The District Court and the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed. The question of whether the 1998 CTEA exceeded Congress..s power under the Copyright Clause was called into question as well as whether the CTEA..s extension violates the First Amendment. In a 7-2 opinion delivered by Justice Ginsburg, the Court held that Congress acted within its authority, did not transgress constitutional limitations, and that the CTEA..s extension does not violate the First Amendment. This case is extremely important because it establishes the extended protection to copyright..s that were soon to become public domain. This benefits the intellectual property protection over a larger-scale for big businesses such as Walt Disney and their copyrighted cartoon characters. This case also points out who is most concerned with protecting their intangible assets and that is the businesses that will suffer the most financially from digital piracy.

In the case of MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., MGM Studios as well as other leading film companies brought suit against Grokster alleging contributory copyright infringement for distributing peer-to-peer file-sharing software. It is said that Grokster..s file-sharing software help facilitate the exchange of copyrighted material and thus with each exchange of information through his software copyright infringement occur. This case was an extremely important one for the role of intellectual property and established the realm of what is considered copyright infringement. Justice Souter wrote the opinion of the court, ..We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” This case affected the future of peer-to-peer file sharing services. In late 2005, Grokster closed his file sharing services and had to pay a $50 million dollar restitution to the music and recording industries. LimeWire, another popular peer-to-peer file sharing software halted the distribution of their program entirely and implemented a new strategy, in which to download the new software users must agree to a statement that stipulates that they will not use LimeWire for copyright infringement. Even with the waiver relinquishing LimeWire of doing any wrong, they are still under fire from the Recording Industry Association of America for the alleged profiteering off unauthorized downloads.YouTube is another file sharing service that has been accused of contributory infringement on IP. Their stance is that they don..t screen their videos in advance. However, if it is found that any material is a copyright violation, that material will swiftly be removed from their website. YouTube..s strategy is to rely heavily on the DMCA as means of protection. It is to be inferred from these cases that IP is big business and that copyright infringement of any sort will not be tolerated.

Through my analysis of intellectual property I have identified what intellectual property is, the pros and cons of the authors, publishers, and consumers of digital content, where the main problems stem from in relation to technological advances and the information infrastructure as a whole, understanding the problems, dissecting governmental regulation on IP, and cases involving copyright. With all of these aspects being examined and discussed on IP the question of whether or not IP will survive in the digital age has become clearer than it was in the past. The aspect to take note of is that information and technology is omnipresent on a global scale and it has taken relatively short time for IP law to become more and more complex with a multitude of factors contributing to this issue. IP will survive through the digital age with a number of legislative bills to being passed protecting IP law on a continuing basis. The cases cited in this paper reinforce the idea that IP law has to first understand the technology behind digital piracy as well as the infrastructure in which it is being distributed before any progress can be made. Once there is a general consensus between digital creators and consumers on rights and publications, IP can survive and continue to grow establishing a firm foundation to judge future copyright challenges.

Question:

What is the concept of a Knowledge Based Economy and how does it impact the Information Economy as a whole?

Definition:

Knowledge Based Economy: The term “knowledge-based economy” stems from this fuller recognition of the place of knowledge and technology in modern Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development economies. 1

What is the Knowledge Based Economy?

“The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few but information in the hands of many.” 2 Living in an information age where the knowledge content of daily goods and services are growing as never before, one must acknowledge the issues concerning the transformation of the US and global economies into a new Information Economy. A more definitive concept of the Information Economy is what is referred to as the Knowledge Based Economy or KBE. A KBE economy is one that is empowered by Information and Communication Technologies, the Internet, and digital technologies that are based on economic and business principles. The Knowledge Based Economy is characterized by the need for continuous learning of both codified information and the competencies to use this information. This being stated, knowledge is now the driver of productivity and economic growth, leading to a new focus on the role of information, technology and learning in economic performance.3 The knowledge content of today’s goods and services is vastly more important than it was in the past decades. The assimilation and synthesizing of this new information to generate valuable knowledge is now an integral part of business operations. Understanding the concept of the Knowledge Based Economy and the tools of the Information and Communication Technologies in which the producers and consumers in the Information Society use as a way to relate to each other are paramount notions in gaining a keen perspective on the social constructions, implications, and commercialization impacts on the Information Economy.

Some key characteristics of this new economy, innovation, rapid productivity growth, and new business ventures, are closely related to the increasing role of knowledge in production. The acquirement of information to increase the financial acumen of businessmen is hardly a new idea. Whether it is Henry Ford’s mass manufacturing system, McDonald’s fast food standardized assembly, or Wal-Mart’s national/international retailing structure, the new information revolution is from the emergence of advanced digital technologies. The potential for the mass low cost replication of digital products on a global scale offers enormous productivity gains. The ability of companies to appropriate these gains may be limited by the intensity of competition. The effect of extreme scale economics in driving competition in the digital economy has been exacerbated by the influences of network externalities and competition for standards. Network externalities are the effects on a user of a product or service of others using the same or compatible products or services. Positive network externalities exist if the benefits are an increasing function of the number of other users. Negative network externalities exist if the benefits are a decreasing function of the number of other users. 4 Networks of consumers and producers are a common feature of many information based markets giving rise to network externalities, where the value of a product to a user depends upon the number of other users of that product.5 Network effects encourage convergence around a single technical standard, reinforcing the tendency to a single firm or coalition of firms to establish dominant market leadership. A good example of this would be the varying digital music formats between Apple iTunes, Windows Media Player, and RealPlayer’s multimedia player to play one’s music on their computer. This is further aided by the deflated unit costs as well as limited product life cycles brought about by the rapid increase in technological change. This brings about an inherent problem in this new economy, which is the pace at which technology evolves, making present products obsolete in a shorter manner than previously, because of the constant development of newer products. This in turn makes it a riskier proposition for businesses to excel and become market leaders because of the high churn rate due to an erratic market presence. The combination of extreme scale economics, network externalities, and fast-paced innovation creates “winner-take-all” markets where each competitor is willing to incur substantial losses to gain the change to emerge as the industry winner. In analyzing the Knowledge Based Economy it is important to understand the social constructions that arise. Because of the attributes the KBE possess, it is to be assumed the some of the following statements would ring true; enterprise will lead to self-efficacy, innovation will lead to invention, and intention will lead to aspiration. It would also be safe to presume that because the main commodity is now information, knowledge would lend itself to replace other established commodities and assets such as land, capital, and physical resources as a means for competitive advantage. It would also be presumed that at the heart of the development of knowledge economy is continuing innovation. Because it is innovation derived, it will ultimately lead to a successful economy, resulting in an increase in wealth, employment, and social equality. Some defining characteristics of the Knowledge Based Economy are as follows:

• Advances in scientific and technical knowledge ultimately enabling an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) revolution
• Digitization and informatization, which reduce transaction costs and increase productivity
• An increase in intensified competition between enterprises and nation via new product designs, marketing methods, and organizational forms
• The continual restructuring of economies to cope with constant change.

6

This could be further characterized by the fact that the KBE need not be constrained by geographic proximity; the current technology offers much more possibilities for sharing, archiving and retrieving knowledge, the most important capital in the present age. These characteristics and attributes lead to the inevitable knowledge gaps between the individuals who are prepared for the transition and those who are ill equipped. The impacts of perceived knowledge gaps include the drive to support education, lifelong learning, investment in R&D, and the constant development of new technology. Understanding the core components of the KBE will better equip one to understand its nature.

The Workings of a Knowledge Based Economy

Human creatures are inherently intrigued by their own curiosity and desire for consumables. Sociobiological studies of human behavior find clear and consistent evidence of spontaneous curiosity and hoarding, characteristics we share with most primate species.7 The Knowledge Based Economy is a great infrastructure because it allows us to quench these primitive urges of obtaining wealth by exploring and taking advantage of our curiosity. Because people are inventive and inherently curious, they tend to want to better themselves in the ways of internal and external development. It has been found that markets trigger these developments and thus multiply all of the innovations. Markets in turn reward people who commercialize ideas and inventions that others value. They give others incentives to copy these ideas in other places, and improve them if they can. Business is conducted by putting your knowledge to work in the form of commercializing your commodity. This commerce is brought about by obtaining and being able to decipher knowledge. It is important to know what opportunities exist out there and how one’s own knowledge can be valuable to business applications that exist. People are full of knowledge; they consume, digest, and accumulate data and information every second of every day of their lives. Their ability to acquire information and take that information and transform it into constructive and useful knowledge has an “economically meaningful cost.”

In the KBE an individual has to actively seek out information and take what they can from it. One must analyze information and soak up the essence of what it is they are reading and restate it in their own words with an emphasis on communicating to individuals the information one has decoded. This entire process is time intensive, requires the ability to digest the material, compare it to previously obtained and synthesized knowledge, and the added sustenance by which to power the individual collecting the information. In comparison, concentrated thought is as difficult and arduous as one conducting manual labor. With manual labor, one can see the physical strain and pain another goes through to accomplish a task at hand, however with demanding thinking it is harder to gauge the mental toll one goes through to synthesize information into usable knowledge. Having come to this conclusion, it is more difficult to manage individuals to think versus individuals to do assembly line work. The only proven way to get people to create knowledge, work that is both hard and difficult to measure, is to give them clear monetary incentives based on results rather than effort. For a company to be knowledge based, it has to give employees these incentives to create knowledge with commercial value.8 Free market capitalism has been found to be the only way to organize a society and effectively create and put into action the value of knowledge.

The KBE market sets up a situation in which individuals can capture the “commercial value” of their knowledge having a direct relation to an increase in innovation leading to an increase in reward. Profound thinkers are a valuable commodity to have in one’s business. The management who employ these “thinkers” want to engage in an environment that allows them to have free and unlimited access to information, where they can take full advantage of the valuable knowledge the thinkers possess. The KBE allows aspiring entrepreneurs to take full advantage of the free enterprise economy by protecting their intellectual property rights from which they profit from what it produces.

It is essential to note that in a KBE, the level of importance rests solely on the business who can innovate first. It is no longer enough to appeal to the budget conscious consumer by implementing cost saving measures; one must now raise “consumer value” meeting their unmet expectations. When a business has a leading innovation, it will enjoy gaining “more valuable outputs from the same old inputs.” Gaining more value will lead to a higher pay for the employees, a lower price for the consumer, and give the investors a better return on their stocks. The main point to note is that in a KBE, the power resides in the people. To get the most amount of knowledge from individuals in this economy, one must have complete and total access to all the information channels and markets. By being more and more connected to different information streams, an individual can ascertain a valuable knowledge to generate higher profits in whatever business venture they enter. The capacity of the knowledge worker to utilize their knowledge for power is the essence of what the Knowledge Based Economy is concerning.

It is imperative to understand that knowledge management is composed of different types of knowledge which lend it to varying characteristics. The distinction between knowing how and knowing about corresponds to the tacit/explicit distinction. While know-how is primarily tacit is nature, knowing about is primarily explicit—it comprises facts, theories, and sets of instructions.9 Tacit and explicit knowledge can affect management in the way each is transferred to individuals in the company. Explicit knowledge is easy to transfer, where tacit knowledge is more of a costly, arduous, time consuming transfer. With explicit knowledge, one would have a hard time to engage in a competitive manner against rival companies, however with tacit knowledge; the problem is less with competing firms and more of communication of knowledge within the firm.

Another important aspect of the types of knowledge and how management utilizes each is the recognition of how the knowledge within a company is developed and applied. Knowledge can either be increased through increasing consumption and storage or individuals in the company can apply the knowledge the company already has obtained. Each type of knowledge contribution can be seen as either a knowledge generation or a knowledge application. The ability to effectively and efficiently store the information and retrieve the information from the databases is a key input when organizing, accessing, and communicating the information. Knowledge sharing and replication involves the transfer of knowledge from one part of the organization (or from one person) to be replicated in another part (of by another individual). Knowledge integration represents one of the greatest challenges to any company. What is important in the KBE is the ability to produce a good or service that utilizes the combined knowledge of an array of people. This is effectively done by implementing a defined organizational process to efficiently achieve the business’s main objective. In discussing the value of the knowledge workers, they must distinguish between internal information creation and the search to identify pre-existing knowledge from outside sources to acquire and assimilate the new useful knowledge into their business plan.

After the KBE is ripe and fully functional, the growth tends to be self-sustaining and self-reinforcing. A process known as “positive feedback” happens when the KBE reaches this point and this is where the process begins of knowledge breeding more knowledge. This feedback process comes about in four distinct ways.

• First, in a society where firms compete to innovate, the general information flow is bound to be large and innovation skills plentiful.
• Second, ideas and innovations developed for one job often have applications in others.
• Third, widespread knowledge makes investing in more knowledge less risky and therefore more attractive.
• Fourth, innovation frees up society’s resources, its raw materials, labor and capital. 10

It is important to note that knowledge is different than other inputs in economics for two main reasons. One reason is that it is intangible in nature and one can not trade knowledge as they might gold, diamonds, or furs. Because of this reason there has been a number of intellectual property issues that arise to protect one’s assets.

The second reason that knowledge is different than other economic inputs is because knowledge has the ability to be consumed more than once without any degradation in quality. Since this is the case, it is somewhat puzzling since you have a potentially profitable and usable commodity that can be extorted universally with it’s second characteristic of being able to be replicated. Theft is almost guaranteed for this universal application and the only way to protect the owner’s stake is to seek a strict enforcement of intellectual property rights. How can an innovative firm both retain exclusive control over its proprietary knowledge and apply that knowledge on as wide a scale as possible? The answer is that the innovative firm must grow very large very quickly. 11 This growth can be in both scope and scale. This need for rapid expansion is probably why periods of rapid technological advancement, like the beginning and end of the 20^th century, the 1920s and the 1960s saw waves of corporate takeovers. Mergers and acquisitions are the most straightforward way for a firm to get very large very quickly. 12 despite the fact that a knowledge-based economy is essentially a service economy. It provides knowledge to serve the global economy, and collects a hefty return. A KBE’s capital increases if it generates more ideas, and applies them on a wider scale and scope. Its people can earn more without putting in more hours or by saving more. On the other hand, non-knowledge-based economies collect only basic returns for commodities sold, hours worked and money saved. 13 Knowledge has always been the driving force for social and economic progress. A KBE has a number of interesting characteristics that set it apart from other economies. The main focus in the Knowledge Based Economy is the need to innovate and utilize new and pre-existing knowledge. Competition relies less on price-cutting mechanisms and more one on knowledge-intensive goods. It is important to note that technological developments have forever changed the way one handles information. The processing power has grown leaps and bounds year after year, giving knowledge workers better tools to mine and acquire information. The fact that individuals have a greater access to a quality education increases the number of people qualified for the information intensive sectors. Investment in new technologies and capital mobility has increased substantially, further supporting a stable and surging KBE.

The ability to acquire and assimilate knowledge for productive and economic growth is the essential foundation for a Knowledge Based Economy in an information society. Innovation, rapid productivity, and growth are key characteristics of this new economy. An exchange is made between the consumer and the information to create knowledge in the KBE. To capture the “commercial value” of their knowledge, workers actively seek and synthesize information to formulate a usable commodity for their individual industries. This usable commodity leads to “innovation” and innovation leads to a distinct advantage over the competition. Human capital is the key element in a knowledge-based company. Having the ability to innovate and see high-returns for knowledge based information is why the free-market economy works hand and hand with the KBE. The KBE feeds the desire to be curious as well as fuels the desire for a better life. Because of the commercialization of information and the impact it has had on society, the KBE has had a profound influence on the Information Economy and has set precedent for information being the most valued commodity.

1http://members.shaw.ca/competitivenessofnations/Anno%20OECD.htm

“In the reading of chapter 3, I came across a section that struck me as disturbing. On page 75, quote: ” Cultural homogenization is one widely feared affect of the globalizing economy as English, the language of business, becomes increasingly commonplace along with blue jeans, training shoes and American fast food.” This would insinuate that the United States is a “big bully”. Are we? Do we insist on English being the language of business because that makes us more comfortable or because we are such a world power that we can inflect ourselves upon other nations? Or do other countries idolize us to the point that they conform to our customs? I don’t like the thought of being so overbearing that a country will change their customs just to do business with us, by the same token I don’t want to change for them either. Why can’t we embrace each other’s diversity and just revel in the differences?”

My response;
I think we need to take a close look at the semantics of business and then discuss the current changes in the global economy when analyzing cultural homogenization. Look at the expressed meaning and interpretation of the complex constructions of signs and the derived meanings from the said signs. Signs being as ubiquitous as one can imagine. Just like an alphabet, letters and characters have implied meaning that is specific to the culture in which is utilizing the set alphabet of their preference. Signs and symbols have different denotations and connotations depending on where one is raised and one’s exposure to culture. As we continually shape and form the knowledge based economy we are currently operating in, people are adapting and perpetuating the new evolution and interpretation of semantics on a global scale. “Think of a global alphabet of sorts” As in business semantics, we live in a world that is based on highly intergraded information systems. An information system can be a data warehouse that stores the data mined from crawling websites or one’s personal data files digitally filed on her PC. The internet is the new “Silk Road” for trade and commerce on a global scale that is currently in the process of shaping the interconnectivity of the world-wide marketplace. Analyze the web ontology, as in the graphical relationships and networks associated with the internet. There is still a language barrier between nations, however the way in which individuals interact on the web sets up the crux of the convergence for this cultural paradigm shift towards a global marketplace in which there is a medium in which a number of information assets are being exchanged and the signs and symbols being used become increasingly universal in appeal and understanding. Context is king! We are currently in a state where we are establishing the nature of knowledge in working with knowledge intelligence as in the cataloging, retrieval, and dissemination of data with full text, parametric, and hybrid search engines. People are metadata tagging bits of personal and business information for the web each and every day without really understanding what they are doing and the effect that is happening when they do it. Take for instance when one posts a pic on a social networking site or on their personal webpage, the individual usually assigns a title to the picture and usually tags who is in the photograph and where the photograph was taken, etc. By doing this and submitting it online, the search engines crawls through the websites and recognizes these new information bits and assimilates them into a global catalog that can be accessed by virtually anyone in the universe. So next time someone types in your name or the location of where the photograph was taken, your picture could come up. What I am trying to achieve in this post is that the language of business is electronic and whether you speak English or not becomes ancillary. In electronic commerce you have matchmaking, negotiation, content formation, and content fulfillment. It isn’t necessarily about the conforming to US customs as it is about understanding and integrating oneself in the context of the changing climate of how one does business in the information based economy. If one loses diversity in their own customs its probably because either a) something else is more appealing in their quest to establish individuality in this world full of collectivism or b) it is the byproduct of becoming “efficient” through competition on the continual goal of maximizing revenue.

Culture-Media Reflections

Some responses to a blog for my MBA Organizational Theory class;

In addressing the issues on the causes and effects of media on culture I have a two part response;

My first response exemplifies that there is a perpetuation and proliferation of violence in the media and that the best way to curtail its effects is through a greater understanding by instituting media education.

The movie industry has grown increasingly towards a shift in violence and horror in its films. The question we have been asking over and over is what kind of impact does this violence have on American school children and adults. The impact of violence really depends on the personality and character traits of young adults and children. A child or teenager who has been brought up in an abusive family and has been hit as a child is more likely to lash out at other people, especially if they have just seen a very violent film like the “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” On the other hand, children who have been brought up in caring and nurturing environments really aren’t affected by these films. A good way to deal with horror and violent films that teenagers and young children see is to talk to them about it. Having parents talk with their children allows children to understand what they have just seen and that the film is not real. Some children think that shooting guns is cool. Parents must take responsibility and talk with their children to make them understand that it is not cool at all and in fact very dangerous. The debate still remains on the “culture of violence,” and on the normalization of aggression and lack of empathy that plagues our society as a whole. To put things in perspective, the ancient Romans engaged and reveled in the lethal spectator sports, the Mayan civilization made a spectacle of ritualistic killings, and the Mongols raped and pillaged entire towns. In the historical perspective, violence has always played a role in entertainment. It has been found that research indicates that media violence has not just increased in quantity; it has also become much more graphic, much more sexual, and much more sadistic. Concerns about media violence have grown as television and movies have acquired a global audience. It boils down to money and media entertainment is big business, popular culture products are now the United States’ biggest export. “In 2001, people around the world spent US $14 billion going to the movies. American media corporations earn at least half of their profits from foreign sales.”

Of course, violence is a time-honored element in stories told through the ages about what it means to live in a society and relate to other people. It’s an eye opener for young people to realize that the main reason for the proliferation of media violence is money. Violence and action are understood by all in a global market. If kids are growing up in a media-saturated culture, which they are, media education can help them articulate their attitudes and feelings towards violence.

My second response deals with the real world effects of the over-saturation of violence on society through the various mediums.

I will first discuss the social theorist Jean Baurillard and his observations and writings on society in a post-modern world. “We live in a world dominated by simulated experience and feelings, Baudrillard believes, and have lost the capacity to comprehend reality as it really exists. We only experience prepared realities– edited war footage, meaningless acts of terrorism, the destruction of cultural values and the substitution of referendum.” In Baudrillard’s words,”The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. . . The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal… which is entirely in simulation.” The masses no longer make themselves evident as a class (a category which has lost its force because of a proliferation of possible identities), they have been swamped by so much meaning that they have lost all meaning. They have been so continuously analyzed through statistics, opinion polls and marketing that they do not respond to enlightened political representation.

What Baudrillard is stating is that the mere existence of reality is a fabrication of what we deem it so. The lines have blurred where reality once existed and fiction has taken root through a numbed society that has succumbed to a world in which life has become a hyper-sensory simulation. Through this simulation of sorts, desensitization has taken effect on the masses and has skewed our perception of what’s normal/healthy/benign etc…Contemporary movies that contain hyper-real violence increase this desensitization that is infecting the American youth. Media and tabloid television are also seen as forms of imagery that celebrate and glorify violence on a large scale. When violence is glorified and mainstreamed, into culture it no longer holds a powerful degree of wrongness; instead it becomes more acceptable. Media is playing a large role in the desensitization of America. As a culture we celebrate and glorify criminals and violence. There are reality TV shows dedicated to crimes and dedicated to violence. The television cannot be turned on without some form of violence being exemplified or glorified. Another interesting angle to examine is the work conducted by the psychologist B.F. Skinner. He devised an entire system based on operant conditioning, in which the organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around its world, doing what it does. Through the analysis of this conditioning , Skinner examined a new set of questions with behavior modification. This basically stated that one’s behavior can be modified through conditioning and reinforcement. With the examination of Baudrillard and Skinner, I am proposing the statement that we as a culture are being modified and conditioned to have a predisposition to violence and we are actually being programmed to perpetuate these violent feelings towards certain “characters” that we are told that are evil (e.g. Terrorists in the vain of Middle Eastern Islamic extremists or Communist entities that vow resistance to the American way of life to name a few). Violence incites a combination of fear and hate and this fear and hate are used as a shaping mechanism to influence our perception of the world in which we live, reinforced by our hyper-stimulus through mass-media. At the end of the day, the modern media is just another form of propaganda so delicately used by our government to influence the opinions or behavior of the public. It has followed a strong campaign not only nationally, but internationally, establishing a grand campaign with a strategic transmission to indoctrinate the American way of life. Violence is a way to deal with fear and people are eager to quench their innate and primitive desires with the virtual display of carnage. It’s the opiate of the masses engineered by this seemingly nationalistic, militaristic, corporate, authoritarian state we now call the U.S. of A. Control is the key word and the only way to defect and rebel is through the resistance of accepting this false methodological use of violence to impenetrate our minds and govern the way we live.

To understand the uniqueness of a particular organization’s communities of practice or technologies of representation/control one must first understand the way in which the corporations presents itself as a sum of its units as well as the individual entities within that sum. Dramaturgy and performatvity explain the theatrical elements of a performance and how that said performance is conveyed through the use of words and actions. This includes a number of different factors ranging from the situational acting, the costumes, masks, etc. as well as the course of taking a set action to convey the intended information. These applications are sometimes referred to as the theater metaphor, which in essence makes a correlation to that of the actors of a troupe paralleling that of the business men in a corporation. The individuals in the corporation each have their set role with some being more in the front and some doing more back of the house functions. The main purpose is to achieve the intended goal which comes to fruition through the multiple performances from the various actors/business individuals. It makes a strong correlation with the dress of the individuals conducting business, like that of an actor in a play dressed to convey an implied meaning. The top executives of a corporation establish a rigid hierarchical structure by wearing “top of the line” professional suits establishing their role as being at the top of the totem pole and the others dress accordingly to their acquired position. The thick description implies that subtle differences of symbolic and non symbolic behavior within the context of the organization. Example being that of a casual twitch and that of an implied wink can be interpreted as two distinctive clues to what the sender wants to signify to the receiver within the context of an organization. Having a keen understanding of these frames one can dissect and analyze to a greater extent the communities of practice within the organization. Since the main focus is on examination of how learning occurs through social interaction, one can ascertain that constituents within a said industry will have their own field jargon as well as an established form of non-verbal clues that indicate the implied context or direction of either a conversation or business meeting. Within the confines of each of their “communities” whether it is regional/national/international individuals will develop a set of innate improvisational techniques to accommodate the varying climate of each community. An example being that of a worker who has close ties within the confines of his home office and he acts very relaxed and loose with his colleagues, where information is exchanged in a diplomatic, yet laid back manner and everyone knows one another. However, as the worker has to go to a national conference meeting, his demeanor starts to get a little more polished and more professional, yet the worker still maintains his laid back openness with his national partners. The 180 degree turn to the worker’s manner changes when he enters into the international market and he must be very reserved and respectful of the varying traditions from the different countries present, as well as the cultural climate that surrounds each one, as the worker is unaware of his set place or social role in the international community. At a regional level the worker has a close social structure with personal contacts and the more he expands from the base of his operations, the shared vocabularies both verbal and non-verbal with his new communities begin to become more and more diluted to the point where people could have a completely different set of rhetorical styles and forms of self-expression. The constructed interpretation of the social structures from the worker’s perspective can be gauged and detailed by his inherent dramaturgy, performativity, and thick description that has been assessed by his corporation. In discussing the technologies of representation, one can make the statement that the said “worker” is indeed just a cog in the machine that is disposable at any time he stops performing up to his expected rate. The worker wears his suit and tie and adequately fulfills his role in the “program” day in and day out without interruption. His interaction is mainly through the virtual marketplace of the internet and a good portion of his contacts are all virtual as well. This poses the question on which what aspect of the worker’s life has a shred of “truth” attached to it. The worker has overtime become a routine based simulation that fulfills his obligations with out hiccup and in return he gets to sustain the contentment of living a risk free life because of the calculated performances he continually conducts. This leads into the technologies of control, where through the lack of an identity, the worker has been conditioned for the loss of caring for the truth and instead becoming more preoccupied about being efficient. The worker has a specialized knowledge that is not innate in nature, but conditioned by the corporation through repetition and monotony. His cog fulfills a set specific desire and has little value outside of this context, especially as a means to fulfill one’s own desire to better oneself through the freedom of exchange of ideas and thoughts. The main purpose being perpetuated by the corporate entities is that of conformity, repetition, controllability, efficient, and measurable. The books that come to mind throughout this discussion is that of 1984 and Brave New World. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, A constructed utopia is imagined where society is organized to create ideal conditions for human beings, eliminating hatred, pain, neglect, and all of the other evils of the world and through the administration of soma people accept their role as conformist drones and communities of practice becomes leveled on the tier system they have created. In a stark contrast, George Orwell’s 1984 is one of the most celebrated novels depicting the negative utopian, or dystopian, genre. 1984 shows the worst human society imaginable, in an effort to acknowledge the potential outcomes that lead toward such a societal degradation. This vision of a post-atomic dictatorship in which every entity would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the televised screen could be terrifyingly possible under postmodern analysis of the technologies of representation and the technologies of control.
References
Hatch, M. & Cunliffe, A. (2006). Organizational Theory

There are a number of varying prescriptions for how an organization should be structured for innovation, especially in the midst of turbulent situations. Frequent themes include horizontal structures, project-based work teams, and lateral communication which are all characteristics of Burns and Stalker’s organic structure theory. Idea ownership and the sense to be in sole control of one’s work are also common characteristics. A climate and culture that has complimentary conditions will generally be open to change, willing to take risks, tolerant of debate and disagreement, playful, stresses flexibility, adaptability, and individual and group achievement. In discussing the paths in which an organization can take when faced with turbulent environments they ultimately have to choose between the two management systems discussed in the text being the mechanistic and organic approaches. Mechanistic organizations discourage change and inhibit individual differences, motives, and attitudes. They also operate like machines in that they consist of specialized parts that can be engineered into a high-performance system. On the other hand organic organizations need to adapt to their ever-changing circumstances, therefore they have less specialization and formalization and are less hierarchical, also engaging in considerably more lateral communication and coordination. Examples of this organic structure would include hospital emergency rooms and research laboratories (Hatch, 2006, p.110). Organic structures key offerings include flexibility, adaptability, and innovation. Responsibilities in this structure are redefined depending on the situation, which would be ideal for the turbulent environments such as the 9-1-1 operator or the firefighter. Since organic structure is decentralized, the decisions are made by those with knowledge. Such as the decisions that have to be made in a life threatening situation the firefighters might have to encounter. In the course of his duty, a firefighter needs to be comfortable in his knowledge and capable in his ability that he could carry our life altering judgments. Mutual adjustment and redefinition of tasks and methods through joint problem-solving and interaction are also key components of an organic structure. Personal expertise and ingenuity without supervision are supplementing factors. As in the case with facing the fear of threat in the air, flight attendants must be capable in their ability to handle highly volatile situations that must be ingrained through intensive corporate education. Some of these reasons are why organic organizations tend to be more successful in unstable environments, especially more so than the mechanistic approach. The fabric of the organization must have an understood idea on how to evoke innovation in their employees as the key contingency used to treat unpredictable situations. Organic organizations are open to more variation and experimentation with the attendants averaging a greater risk-taking position. Where as mechanistic structures hinder performance. The organic forms are more likely to be innovative and grant greater discretion to employees performing tasks since they are not bound by strict rules or protocol. Systems and people are more proactive and adaptable to changing circumstances through the organic approach. This is aided by the fact most successful organizations are those where the degree of differentiation and the means of integration match the demands of the environment, such as that of a fire fighter being able to assess each different situation he encounters in his line of work. It is said that departments with greater task uncertainty are more relationship-oriented. Unstable environments require a higher degree of differentiation than stable environments in order to meet varying and complex demands. Unstable environments such as that of a 9-1-1 operator who gets a plethora of calls ranging from the fairly benign to the realm of the macabre which in turn require a high degree of integration, with a need to push decision making to lower levels in the hierarchy so that problems can be dealt with through direct communication with those possessing relevant knowledge .A turbulent environment needs constant innovation and this is where an adhocracy would be a good model of structural enforcement. This structure sole purpose is to innovate solutions to the constantly changing problems. With a combination of an organic management structure coupled with successful integration and differentiation within the company, routines can be seen to develop. This can be seen as the protocol a fireman may go through when suiting up when being dispatched to an accident or the training a flight attendant goes through when faced with a threatening situation in the skies. A routine is where an individual in his/her vocation has been trained in organizational procedures and have developed particular ways of dealing with these situations from their own experience. With the idea of changing a routine comes close to the concept of organizational improvisation. This improvisation is custom tailored to specific situation requiring delicate and urgent care that varies from the norm and happens to operate more like a recipe than a blueprint. Organizational improvisations help the organization to react to a threat or take advantage of an opportunity in which case a best case scenario can be more likely because of the caliber of employee. By weaving a tapestry that includes an organic approach in dealing with turbulent problems within an organization, one can avoid disaster and be optimized for the best solution available.

Postmodernism is a complex term that has multiple facets associated with the theoretical constructs that emanate from its definition. It is difficult to define because “postmodernisms” exist in a plethora of areas ranging from organizations, arts, architecture, literature, and the social sciences; however within the realm of these arenas there is a varying consensus on the exact understandings of what postmodernism is. Gaining a sense of what postmodernism is can be achieved through the examination of the extension of which it was spawned that being modernism. Modernism stated the notion that one discovers truth through reliable measurement, i.e. “scientific method,” and through this accumulation of objective knowledge humans would be able to evolve and achieve progress. The modernistic approach to organizations emphasizes the operation in the “real world,” driven by rationality and efficiency for a stated purpose. Thus aiming its focus on finding the universal laws and being able to define the methods and techniques of an organization through rational structure and standardized procedures. The extension of this perspective into postmodernism drastically changes the perception of the “fixed” reality into that of the constructedness of reality which is obtained through language and situated in discourse where there is no longer an “object,” but rather a concept. Unlike modernism, postmodernism can not be quantified in analysis; rather it is a participatory qualitative interpretation of one’s existence through experience. Postmodernism deconstructs the standardized procedures implemented in modernism and encourages the destabilizing of managerial ideologies with an emphasis on reflexive and inclusive forms of theorizing and organizing. Modernism stated the “truth” can be discovered through reliable measurement, however through the postmodernist constructedness of reality, there is no longer one sole truth to be found. No single world construction can then claim the definitive representation of reality. The main problem with the modernistic viewpoint is the method in which it states that one could learn everything there is to know about the world if one just does enough research. It’s all about progressing towards the ultimate truth through perfected forms of research and examination. This truth is based on objectivity, which is an illusion that is perpetuated on the fundamental act of questioning past knowledge to obtain the current truth. Postmodernism negates the foundation set by modernist reasoning and offers multiple factors of multiple levels of reasoning. The postmodern perspective is a constantly and fluid plurality where knowledge is developed through exposure and experience rather than through facts and information. Postmodernism argues that what we call knowledge is a kind of story, a text or discourse that puts together words and images in ways that seem pleasing or useful to a particular culture, or even just to some relatively powerful members of that culture. French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, in describing that knowledge is power, “observed that this is because modern thought is binary and binary thinking leads us to center our attention on one element of a pair while ignoring its opposite. Therefore the development and use of knowledge are always power plays that must be resisted for the sake of the powerless” (Hatch, 2006, p.16). The synthesizing of knowledge through experience will far exceed that which is accumulated through objective quantified measurement. As an organization it’s important to recognize the postmodern view of the whole is more than the parts when assessing the organizational unit. This puts the emphasis on the whole entity versus that of each individual. However, the modernists view through scientific inquiry provides universal optimism granting a healthy outlook for an organization on which to grow and constantly assess themselves for the greater good. The postmodern view of the realism of limitations is too esoteric in practice for the organization and could be potentially harmful to the entities in which it has an effect on because of the subjective nature in which it stems.

Psychotropic dreams from the big numb…

I am in southern Thailand and will be leaving for Phuket either tomorrow or the day after… To tell you the truth parts of this place kind of disgust me. Just to see the exploitation of people by their own will institutes a wave of utter repulsion and despair over me. The poverty is robust on a multitude of levels and the people willingly accept their position here. There are so many Western type of establishments here e.g. McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger King, Dairy Queen, etc… It seems as if there was once a culture prevalent here, but now a void exists that has been occupied by the slavery of commercialism. Think of American culture amped up a 100% and seeing people want this falsified American dream they absorb through our television, music, and movies. Think of the historical perspective the US had with slavery of the African-Americans and thats exactly what I see here , but instead of enslaving their bodies, there is an enslaving of their MINDS through this mass-propaganda of Hollywood entertainment thats transcending cultural/territorial boundaries through global mass-marketing campaigns by huge multi-national corporations to extract every dollar each person has to fuel the corporations domination of their global empire. Everything is basically a fucking lie and people have to perpetuate these lies here just to make a buck to provide for their family.

Pause… ( As I reflect over the past week)

I have to reevaluate what I want now from this trip (life)… I can’t relax and chill after seeing these atrocities at some beach, drinking some alcoholic beverage, sunbathing… I want to be numb, to forget that I live in this world and when I get back everything will still be the same.

Tourists… We are all ultimately tourists in life, passing each other on our journey to self-fulfillment, only caring about the causes that we feel enlightened to implore because it fills some innate desire from within that is only subjective to our own purpose.

As I walk the streets at night I see these tourists…Eating flesh from animals, drinking their wine/beer, smoking their cigarettes, self-medicated by their personal drugs taking photographs… photographs… Documenting this place so they can go home and show their friends they came to some exotic location and saw some exotic things… We are all deviants… I hardly want to take photographs, because I don’t want to remember these things that I see… Oblivious comes to mind…

(I miss my carbonated fountain Diet Coke, my legal opiate to numb)

We are all interconnected now. Internet, cellphones, digital cameras/camcorders, personal tele-communicators… I do not want to see the future, for I think what I am currently witnessing is a glimpse of what is to be.

“Things may come to those who wait…but only the things left by those who hustle.”

Abraham Lincoln

            Discussing an organization with which I am familiar with and have a keen understanding of is difficult to establish and narrow down. When one is an entrepreneur, one must be well versed in a multitude of organizations/industries to “hustle” his/her product and make a profit. I choose the word “hustle” because it has so many connotations associated with it that I think perfectly describe what being an entrepreneur, of any sort, actually is. This is especially true when you are dealing with novelty beverages and snacks that are being catered towards niche audiences that predominately include twenty-something college students and individuals who are habitually intoxicated by alcohol or drugs and frequent bars/taverns and clubs. I started the company, R&W Creative Group L.L.C., three years ago upon graduation of my undergraduate studies at The University of Tennessee. R&W Creative Group L.L.C. is located in Knoxville, TN and serves the southeast United States. The company specializes in the production and marketing of novelty products, such as Stoney Snacks, an eclectic snack mix for college students, and Alkie Pops, an alcoholic frozen beverage with an assortment of flavors to appeal to a wide range of taste buds. I will discuss in this analytical piece my experiences with the bar/club industries in which I sold, distributed, and promoted my products, the processes by which I produced the items and the avenues I explored in the promotion of my ventures.

            With this organizational analysis piece, I’m going to start with the actual selling and promotion of said products. When analyzing the various organizations with which I conducted business, mainly the bar/club industry, a number of post-modern analytical critiques can be used to examine the intricacies within these organizations. Through a critical feminist analysis, I can examine the gender politics, power relations, and sexuality, which females play in the bar/club industry. In the bar/club industry, women are constantly objectified and exploited, to sell and promote products for the businesses. There is a great schism between the persuasiveness of a female server and a male server. When promoting Alkie Pops and Stoney Snacks, I constantly used female friends and close acquaintances in various atmospheres, whether it was promotional events, sales functions, or in dealing with concert advertising. The objectification of the female body and sexual aura is commonplace in these industries. The old adage, “Sex Sales,” perfectly describes the position and role of the female when promoting/selling products. In my involvement in the industry, I would deliberately pick out costumes/uniforms for the waitresses to wear while serving the novelty products. Usually, I picked out an attire that suited the bar theme or the “atmosphere” of that evening, e.g. UT Vols football games, fraternity parties, alternative rock concerts, etc… It usually involved clothing that accentuated the assets of the models/servers that could best entice “visually” the potential customers. The drawback of this technique is that you potentially alienate the female customer base, which involved a good percentage of the market base. After observing the potential clientele at the various bars/clubs, I generated a mix where at locations with a larger male base, I would dress the models more provocatively and in places where there were more females, I would dress the models in a more conservative/fresh attire that made them less of a visual threat to the female customers.

            Sexuality has multiple meanings when one is trying to explain and understand the role it plays in business. A female’s body can be extremely persuasive in the way it can evoke primitive desires that can be understood and examined from multiple and complex positions and a variety of different and contextual perspectives.  The examination of the critical feminist analysis in post-modern terms involves the dissection of gender politics, power relations, gender sensitivity, and cross-cultural perceptions. Individuals fail to realize the consequences of this hierarchical structure that has been formed to perpetuate a marketing state where pornographic depictions of women are imbedded in the culture of bars/clubs to arouse an innate desire that shapes and molds a person’s consumerist condition. An illusion is established between the seller and the consumer. This illusion is what brings people to the bar/club in the first place. This illusion is a means to facilitate an escape from reality for the consumer. My job as a “hustler” or entrepreneur is to engage the consumer in a dynamic relationship that involves a manipulation of the senses to get him/her to purchase my product and to ultimately shape them into being a loyal customer. The product itself is in a visually enticing package, it is delicious in its flavor, and has a great price point however; all of this is a moot point if you don’t get consumer to try the actual product. This is the reason why understanding the best way to engage individuals is so very important in establishing a brand and generating a profit.

            The objectification of the female is not only confined to the physical façade that is being presented, but is further interwoven within the female’s mannerisms and dialogue with the bar/club patrons. The sexual persuasion on these levels is an important function in not only establishing an instant rapport, but also establishing the “bait and hook” scenario that is incorporated in the illusionary atmosphere of the bar/club industry. This is important in the selling of the product as well as generating a monetary tip from the sales of the novelty products for the server. Thus, an extra incentive is put in place for the female to make more of a sexually connotative connection with the patron to elicit this monetary benefit. This manipulation is enhanced by playing on the perceived gender roles, whether politically correct or not, to establish the power position between the server and the consumer. The female uses the suggestion of her sexuality to submit men into a magnetic/hypnotic state to generate more sales and thus improving her own bottom line by producing more tips.

            Understanding social relations is paramount when trying to engage in business with the bar/club industry. I have found that change is necessary and one must be aware of what is hot or trendy to be up to date on the promotional front. This is especially true for the analysis of the critical feminist perspective in market based advertising and promotion. As men have become emasculated over time with the pacification of the male psyche through mass-media propaganda, women servers have used their objectified presence as a means to dominate the male in a more submissive state with their approach. I have seen first hand how much more forward women are in the promotion and sales of products in the industry. Not that the women weren’t forward before. However, it seems in my opinion that the perceived roles are now more embraced to improve the bottom line of the bar/club as well as the female sever. Everything seems to be amplified to compete for the attention of the patrons of the bar/club. This amplification of the senses is achieved through a more provocative stance on behalf of the female server. This stimulation of the senses is usually accomplished through the manipulation of the gender roles and pandering to the masses through the playing up of the illusionary sexual arousal of the senses. An interesting dichotomy between predator and prey is delicately balanced by the female server/ promoter to placate the consumer into submission. As the lines continue to blur over time concerning what aspects are used to examine the critical feminist analysis of the bar/club industry in post-modern terms, one must examine the experience in which the gender roles are played out in the consumer’s placation of the senses through the female server/promoters sexual manipulation to achieve monetary gain. By understanding these power relations that result, one can gain a better strategy to “hustle” the patrons and achieve success in his/her business in the bar/club industry.

How does one find the truth? This is something that I have constantly struggled with in my examination of the world around me. Kierkegaard trusted his individual subjective truth and stressed that these subjective truths are most influential in a person’s life. If these subjective truths are indeed paramount, then where does the “absolute objective certainty” enter in? I find Kierkegaard to be as relevant today in our consumerist culture, where individuality is paramount among the populous for setting themselves apart from the “bewildered herd,” however a paradox enters into the equation, because the populous tries to set themselves apart by purchasing prefabricated utilities that have a certain built in signifier about them, which in turn expresses what the consumer has been programmed to think about the said product. It exudes an innate distinctively different quality that upon purchasing will magically transfer these marketed “truths” to the owner through mere possession. Example being, someone wants to be trendy and yet have a gadget which satisfies the want of digital music. The individual purchases an ipod or iphone, which both have a multitude of associations with it, such as being trendy, innovative, cutting edge, sophisticated, intelligent, worldly, costly, etc… Does this possession of the product hold these truths to be both for the electronic gadget and the one who purchased it? The person has a subjective feeling dealing with the ipod/iphone and feels that by using it and being seen with it can be a clear indicator to the public that the owner has such qualities as being innovative, trendy, intelligent, worldly, etc… However, in reality he could possess none of these qualities. This in turn gives rise to a “herd mentality” which Nietzsche discussed in his writings. Everyone is capable of thinking for themselves and having their own feelings, I am not refuting that, I am refuting that these feelings that are quite often associated with transference from the purchasing of a product to the presumed owner does not equate an authentic “subjective truth.” This transference is yet one of many illusions that I feel is directly manipulated on the populous through MASS media and marketing that has been cultivated in an art form of manipulation of all the senses and is getting harder and harder to ignore. This aspect of disappearing into the “mass” where we identify ourselves with a particular group and take on their standards does not lend itself to obtaining “subjective truths.” What if society has gotten to the point where we are no longer thinking for ourselves, but we are just synthesizing all of the data/information that is being transmitted and by being so overly-saturated we have no time to have an actual subjective thought? It’s a matter of preference, these are the choices, fill in this blank, and you will get this individual unique experience. We have no time to “think” anymore, if you think and ponder on a question, you will be left in the dust by worker bees who are trying their best to get ahead in the race against time and pleasure. This lack of introspection lends to being judged by peers and the “masses” on what’s right, what’s beauty, and most of all what is the TRUTH. Socrates says, ” Beware the bareness of the busy life,” most times we simply don’t know what we want, so we fill the void with stuff. As Erich Fromm suggests, we try to fill our lives with complete freedom, but we don’t take advantage of the important freedoms we have. Marx would say we have no time to create free from necessity, which is what we want to do. We are caught in the trap of filling our lives with things.