Canadians appear tolerant to a fault to Europeans and Americans and others. Canadians are generally polite, more socialistic than Americans, easy to lose in a crowd and are brought up to believe that "profit" is a dirty word. Canadian schools have been reinforcing this concept for decades. "Don't hide your light under a bushel basket" is an American, not a Canadian saying. Canucks consider self-promotion to be socially unacceptable. NOW IT'S EASY TO SEE HOW THAT SHOWS UP IN THE VALUE OF THE CANADIAN DOLLAR.
This seems to be changing with the close of the millennium. In a pre-globalized world, Canadians and Japanese considered personal advertising gauche. The Japanese have a saying: "If you stick out, man with hammer will knock you back down", or something to that effect. Canadians show a similar avoidance drawing attention to themselves.
Growth of the planetary population to over six billion is one factor changing these 20th century beliefs. People are starting to realize that it matters not what you can do or produce if no one knows about you. Try being heard on the Internet without a catchy domain name. Try getting numerous visitors or hits to your website without a "grabber" to stop and hold those eyeballs so essential to Internet survival.
Some suggest that in our globalizing world, if you are not unique you are a commodity. Harsh and somewhat cruel. But true in Reality City.
If something can be built by simply pounding a hammer, eventually production will slide towards the area that pounds hammers at lowest cost. In Pakistan for $5 a day you can get the best carpenter in town. Why pay $40 an hour (plus benefits) in Canada? Similar situations will continue in the shrinking buyer and seller markets. In the burgeoning network economy there are no sellers nor buyers, only suppliers and users. Be it a machine or software, you don't own it, you just "rent it". Physical assets, once synonymous with wealth are becoming liabilities in a growing number of cases. They limit mobility, suffer increasing zoning and cultural restrictions that reduce their value, are a magnet for taxes, and depreciate and become obsolete before they can be written off.
Companies like Nike outsource everything. No bricks and mortar, no manufacturing. Simply concentrate on what you do best, in Nike's case it's MARKETING. Newer companies tend to avoid buying buildings. General Motors probably wish they were Nike, with just being responsible for marketing their cars. Much less pressure than handling complex problems like unions, government regulations, huge staffs and payrolls (now being outsourced big time).
One Renaissance man who consistently displays a flair for self-promotion is futurist Frank Ogden, thanks in part to his childhood in the U.S. He has successfully re-invented himself repeatedly over several decades, although not quite as often as the tides he rides daily aboard his floating cyberden in Vancouver Harbour. Those tides allow him to travel a full four km a year without moving. Recently, Ogden was invited to speak in Orlando at a American Payroll Association convention where 3,000 attendees wanted to learn how to improve their personal profile.
John Roth, president and chief executive officer of high-flying Nortel Networks, says, "too many Canadian companies think of themselves as Canadian companies. As a result Canadian firms will fall farther behind in the electronic commerce race". Nortel presently gets 95 percent of their business outside of Canada.
Canadians have lost their pride, confidence and daring as Canada falls to below one-half of one percent of the world population. Singapore, with one-tenth of the population of Canada, has INCREASED their clout substantially over the last three decades. It's the way you see the world.
Whether country, state, city, corporation, small business, or individual you have to market yourself.
If you can't market yourself, how can you market any goods or services, your employer, your company or your country? Then you are a commodity.
The latest way to get known? Via Ogden's global 'Tomorrow Channels', "Corridors of Glass" Photonic Cyberspace University one-hour Web-TV shows every Saturday morning. Go to: www.drtomorrow.com. Click on Ogden's face and then find his Cyberspace University program among his Tomorrow Channels. Or go to: www.mediaontap.com and look for the Tomorrow Channels. Then click on Cyberspace UniversityŽ
Be part of the "eyeball capture" crowd.
