WEEK 4 review

Politics & International Business

1 - Economy + Culture = Politics, meaning that when there are assets and a group of people there is then need for an authority.

2 - Nation states have a variety of different political styles from monarchy to republic.

3 - "Foreign policies" are the ways that nation states choose to relate to one another.

4 - Nation states have authority over business

-use of national currency dictates taxes

-use of import/export submits to customs

-nation states can create embargoes that limit business

5 - Nation states can help business

-incentives and tax breaks, often for science and technology compliance

-listening to lobbyists from businesses

-conflict resolution with nations and businesses

-aid and in worst cases, bail outs

The Black Market

1 - Most nation states have goods that are legal but considered unethical, or may be illegal elsewhere, including tobacco, alcohol and firearms

2 - The black market is a lawless economy of mostly illegal goods controlled by organized crime.

3 - Illegal business by organized crime is called racketeering. The use of force to create fear and maintain power is called extortion.

4 - Counterfeiting is lead by organized crime and includes logo alteration and product substitution.

5 - International Business scandals occur whenever an illegal business is identified by authorities and the nation state is also held accountable.

NGO's

1 - Non-profits, non-governmental organizations or civil society organizations all describe businesses that operate by government and private donation.

2 - NGO's do not depend on consumers but on donors

3 - Corporations commonly partner with NGO's or sponsor events for mutual advantage

4 - The United Nations/UN and the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization/UNESCO are global independent bodies that support peace and in some instances have authority over businesses such as international intellectual property

Technology

1 - Technology is simply applying knowledge to a material to create a tool

2 - The technology industry includes many businesses from airplanes to pharmaceuticals

3 - Internet technology boomed in the 1990's and continue to dominate the tech market

4 - Digital Rights Management/DRM is the right for companies to lock or scramble digital material to prevent copying and is upheld in the US by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

5 - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/OECD is an agency that is suggesting global standards for all technology and international businesses

Media & Advertising

1 - Media are simply the tools to communicate. The term is also used to describe news journalism.

2 - Global media can be interpreted by

-identifying the language, includes technology format

-recognizing the mode of address

-understanding the basic content

-understanding motives and values

3 - Advertising is most often created by agencies that use certain strategies such as emotional appeal to basic needs or star power associations, among many more

4 - Global advertising tries to be wordless and appear responsible to humanity

Media & Advertising

Media communications

-Technology is applying knowledge to create tools; Media are all of the tools of communication. A medium is the specific tool used to communicate.

-Most people think of media at large as the culture industry including the internet, film, television and magazines. The term media is also associated with the press and journalism.

-Media communication can be very specific, such as a text message between two people, it can also be limited by language or values to a narrow audience, or it can be very general as in mass media, which is intended for a public audience. For business, media is important to how the business functions and how it relates to others.

-Internal business communications: “Organizational Communication,” is an important category in business studies. It considers how people relate as well as the steps for proposals, meetings, information technology/intranet. See:http://www.morebusiness.com/running_your_business/businessbits/Internal-Communication-Strategie.br

-External business communications

Public relations, press releases and communication with the press

Marketing, strategic direct and mass communication to consumers

Advertising, strategic paid communication to the general public, to gain new consumers

Business to Business relations, in international business this requires several languages

Global media communications

-With globalization, there is an increasing trend for businesses to communicate to global employees, and global consumers. The same trend is evident in news journailsm.

Interpreting global media communication:

1-What is the form of the message? not only its media such as email, but also the form of the characters, as in language or digital coding. These aspects will tell you if you are capable to receive the message.

2-What is the “mode of address”? Look for specific cues or direction to a receiver, is it casual? Is it intended for many (important with email!)

3-What is the content? Is it explanatory, convincing etc, what is the intention?

4-Finally you will want to consider motive and values communicated, especially with mass media if it is conservative or liberal, or pushing a particular agenda

Ex-You can find very specific national media like the newspaper Liberation in France which is simply French but also liberal. Arte is a bi-national, French-German TV channel that tries to reach regional liberal audiences. The BBC is an example that aims for a global audience but is only for English speaker. Al Jazeera is a new agency in the Middle East that also aims to be global but only reaches those people speaking Arabic.

Advertising

Mad Men, AMC, 2008

-Advertising is paid communication of a product and message for a public audience.

-Most major companies hire outside advertising agencies to create their ads. Top advertising agencies are mostly owned by international corporations such as Omnicon (owns BBDO, TBWA others), WPP (owns Olgivy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, others) Interpublic (McCann Ericson), Publicis France (Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett) and many more.

-In the 1950’s audiences were still naïve and advertising was a new business. By the 1960's, the American advertising industry was concentrated in New York on Madison Avenue where they were known for big expense accounts, afternoon Martinis and “big ideas.” The TV show Mad Men is based on this period.

-The 1969 film "Putney Swope" written and directed by Robert Downey Sr. showed a man taking over an advertising company with indulgent practices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWoFqbYBo6M

-In general, advertising is now considered a creative workplace since there are many artists and designers involved.

-Advertising is essential to capitalism use value and mythical value. You can see anadvertisement is selling a product and myth.

-The following are some examples of common advertising strategies, which can also be combined

Appeal to basic needs (food, health) – Whole Foods

Appeal to aesthetics and augmented needs (beauty, status) - L’Oreal

Appeal to fear/safety (being rejected by others, guarantee) – Volvo, Fed Ex

Traditional values (family, home, nationalism) – Ford, Ralph Lauren

Bandwagon, everyone is doing it! – Coca-cola

Cute kids, youth culture – Lacoste, Pepsi

Anti-culture – Doc Martens

Gendered attractions - Axe

Star power - Nike

Cartoons & characters –Met Life Snoopy, Geico

Gobal responsibility and being green – Kindle e-book

Global advertising

Companies sometimes assume that what works in their home country will work in another country. They take the same product, same advertising campaign, even the same brand names and packaging. The result in many cases is failure. One solution is a wordless logo. Companies can also take on global missions to enhance their products, like the RED Campaign with Gap.

Coca Cola and the global commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Nwrfu1w5E

Benetton and global print advertisements

The advertising philosophy of United Colors of Benetton is based on owner Luciano Benetton's belief that 'communication should not be commissioned from outside the company, but conceived from within its heart.' From the beginning in the 1960’s the company has emphasized “colors” of yarns but in the 1980’s is became the colors of multi-culturalism and now the company supports global issues. They have used magazine print ads to publicize specific issues such as AIDS, oil spills, death penalties, barbed wire and soldiers at war in Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Africa. In 2003, the advertising campaign highlighted the problem of hunger, which is still the greatest humanitarian emergency around the world even though it has, to all intents and purposes, been forgotten by the media and the general public. The hunger campaign involved a partnership with the United Nations.

http://production.investis.com/ben_en/about/campaigns/list/

The clothes of Bosnian soilder, Benetton, February 1994

Technology

Swiss Army Hermes Typewriter, 1969

Technology & Business

-The industry includes research, development and manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals, Aircraft & spacecraft, Medical, precision & optimal instruments, Radio, television & communication equipment, Office, accounting & computing machinery, Electrical machinery & apparatus, Motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers, Railroad & transport equipment, Chemical & chemical products

-The dot-com bubble was a boom in internet technology business starting in 1998 until about 2000 when it peaked on the stock market. There is a tremendous risk for those working in internet technology and investing in it. Some internet platforms have not endured and are quickly replaced in less than a decade. The most major players from the start in computer and internet related business and materials are Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Intel. Apple was the 64^th website to be registered on the internet and the earliest that still remains as a major business.

-Telecommunications follows close behind the internet boom with the rise of the cell phone. However recent efforts at computer communications such as the Apple Iphone and Skype predict telecommunications being absorbed by internet business.

Short history of technology

-Technology is simply applying knowledge to materials to use them as tools, it also involves the continual transformation of tools

-Businesses use technology for internal and external operations and communication.

-A Museum for the History of Business Technology is located in London -http://www.mbht.com/

Examples include everything from Adding Machines, to Paging and Calling Systems, Peforating Machines, Time Recording Machines and more.

-Woodblock printing goes back to 200 AD in Asia. The first Western printing was created by Guttenberg in 1440.

-In 1500 Leoardo da Vinci created the mechanical typewriter. The typewriter was then re-invented around 1870 by numerous people claiming the origin. The letters were placed for convenience of frequency used and remain in the same place today

-The carbon copy is the name for an exact duplicate created in 1806. To make the first carbon paper, thin paper was soaked in ink, and then dried and placed between between sheets of paper. This allowed individuals to make copies at home.

-The photocopy machine was created in 1937 but, because of the war it was not installed in offices until 1949

-Sending messages remotely by wire goes back to the 1840’s but the fax Machine as we know it, transferred through phone lines was not popular until the 1980’s.

-Live operators were hired to answer calls until recorded voicemail was introduced in the 1980’s

-Electronic mailboxes connected to large mainframe computers were used at MIT in 1965. Email –electronic mail- was first created with the @ symbol in 1972. It was in use for government agencies as early as the 1970’s but not introduced with software mass programs until the 1980’s.

-The first text message was sent between NASA and Motorola in 1989

-In 1955 IBM introduced the fist large scale mainframe computer for commercial use at $200,000 with 2000 words of memory

-A word processor is computer software for formatting text before it prints. This appeared in many offices by the late 1980’s, over 100 years after the typewriter

-Video conferencing was first used for closed circuit television in Berlin in WWII

-Skype is a Swedish software for free internet video conversation introduced in 2003

Global technology

-Technology plays a major role in the integration of globalization. technology itself however still has a location specific development that means there are different tools unable to cross cultures. Global standards are a prime focus for new technology.

-Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a main way for international companies to control the content and use of technology. Your phone may be locked from use in another area. You may also not have the correct bandwidth for reception in a certain area. It also includes right to copying software and other products. DRM is used by major companies but in time consumers copy or crack the coding. DRM is debated by some companies as unnecessary but it is upheld in the US by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

-The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is advocating “global standards” for technology. They are now asking business to adhere to global principals. They have created a free public manual that is supported by 85% of global business. This mainly includes basic aspects like environment and avoiding scandal but it has created the first forum for global standards policy

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/56/36/1922428.pdf

Technology & foreign policy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8161650.stm

Technology & UN

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/5931353/Facebook-handed-Iranian-domain-name-by-UN.html

Questions

Can you imagine having a business today without electricity? What type?

What types of businesses can exist today without computers?

How can technology solve and cause problems?

Critical perspectives on technology:

Marshall McLuhan was a mid 20^th century Canadian professor in technology and media. He believed that all tools are extensions of the human body so that the hammer is an extension of the hand, or the mirror and extension of the eye.

“The Medium is the Message” is the idea that the medium (an email, a telephone, a television) determines the message. This means technology overpowers the content.

“Global village” is the idea that technology has made the human race closer in time, and electronic distance so that now we have a global accountability as if we occupied a village.

“Rear-view-mirrorism” is the idea that all new technology resembles the one that came before it. Think of how a CD looks like a record or a PDF looks like an actual piece of paper. This resemblance helps us transition between technologies.

Jean Baudrillard was a late 20^th century French professor of technology and media He emphasized the virtual reality that was created by technology.

“Simulacra” literally means copy but Baudrillard argued that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hypereal.

Baudrillard interview on technology:

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-baudrillard-on-the-new-technologies.html

................................................................................................

Images www.retrothing.com and statistics www.wikipedia.org