From David Anthony Hohol…

Social networking tools as they exist today are changing how we think, work, learn and live. As during the last great split from the normative causalities of daily life illustrated during the Industrial Revolution, the entire template for daily living has been scrapped and replaced with a newly forming organic prototype. What is happening today is just the beginning of the new standard that will lead to ways of discovering and interacting with both information and each other in ways never imagined. The fading boundaries of our suddenly very outdated past lives means we are re-writing social rules.  In other words, many of the norms and mores that once were – simply no longer apply.

Supporters look on with excitement, as we are no longer limited to or rely upon people in our neighborhood or the workplace to provide the interaction we crave. Some argue that we have shifted from the role of passive consumer to active participant, getting our news and information by which we establish our morals and social guidelines through a network of our creation. What information we chose to forward to others, the individual super structure for living we acquire, process and re-construct in our own image, tells others about just who we are. Most importantly, the long-reaching facilities to amplify these images, ideals and values has never been allotted to us before. By extension, we are more literate, more engaged and more connected than at any other point in human history.  Above all else, we are more open to generating new relationships, and more aware of the world around us.

Skeptics abound as well. Many describe social networking and dwindling our attention spans to almost zero, as well as drastically eroding our very identities. Some attribute the social networking template to fleeting relationships and a dehumanized sense of community, as our ability to empathize and communicate with our fellow human beings in the non-virtual world quickly becomes an endangered ability. Social skills in general are being damaged beyond repair and people no longer have the ability to simply speak with one another, and share life experiences in way that does not include a blog, a wall, or a 130-character blurb. In short, we are losing the depth of our humanity, our souls a mile wide and an inch deep, shallow and without profundity.

Regardless of one’s stance on social networking, the debate over whether we are being changed for the better or worse is a moot point. It is here and it is shaping our lives. Whether willing or not, we are all participants in quantum shift in human existence the likes of which happens every few hundred years.  Understanding its effects, positive or negative, is all we can attempt to do.

The rest is simply beyond our means of control.

China, heralded by some as a rising superpower, is never of want to be in the worldwide spotlight, and recent news has been no exception:  censorship issues surrounding Google and an arguably fixed-rate currency have been prominent topics within the last week.  Surrounding these talking points was the relevant issue of international business inside China and its surrounding problems.

The fundamental issue in US-China business relations is the absolute difference of economy:  free-market vs. controlled market.  Businesses inside America operate largely without government interference, excepting certain industry regulation, and the market operates essentially as a capitalistic free-for-all.  China, however, only pretends to have a capitalist market within a communist environment, issuing pronouncements, instituting intervention policies, and awarding preferential treatment to certain native corporations.

Censorship within China is not new, and has only become recently intriguing due to the fact that a company, Google, chose to end their participation in the subjugation of that nation’s people instead of acquiescing like so many other business enterprises.  It is this principle of government-mandated information flow, in combination with influenced markets, that presents a worrisome problem to the world-at-large: one of the most populous nations in the world continues to believe they can augment reality, fairness, and opinions by simply demanding subservience.

A nation that is to have great international influence should be one with politics and policies amenable to the rest of the world – a fact that China simply fails to understand.  Attempting to be the center of all that is business requires a certain acceptance of reality and outside influence, which seems to point to China simply not becoming the superpower that they, and some critics, believe is inevitable.  Communist Russia, at the height of its imperialist period, was simply incompatible with much of the Western World, and the People’s Republic of China is no different in this regard.

World business leaders should refuse to trade within China’s borders until censorship is abolished, and a slew of other communist controls are relaxed.  In the knowledge, however, that this is highly improbable, it’s far better to understand that the rise of the Red Nation will be substantially hampered, if not prevented entirely, by their insistence on lies, deceit, tradition, and subjugation.  The China Problem, while wholly internal, will have a great effect on the coming decade, and it does not bode well for the overall future of a worldwide economy.

From Kyle Brady…

Kyle can be found on his blog, on Facebook, via email, or on Twitter.