American business, and particularly marketing and public relations practitioners, continue to encourage corporate agents to view the customer through the prism of matrix models calculated to identify the prospect as numerical “objects” that are leveraged, quantified and then reduced to percentages that are plugged into a measurement equation or algorythm. Today’s media and marketing executives continue to drive their client towards the same corporate centered culture, except now they encourage their agents to chase volatile short term markets through the popular social networks, instant messaging and e-mail hyperbole. Some companies can successfully manage these multi-faceted marketing models adequately in the short term. During the best of times the results may even serve to validate the effort. However, during more difficult times it becomes increasingly necessary to reassert the value of their services.
There is considerable evidence for the proposition that advancing technology and higher levels of employment cannot coexist. Structural unemployment in the industrial world is likely to continue rising as rapidly advancing technology continues to replace and outsource excessive and obsolete human resources. The most troubling aspect is that the current generation of workers seems to be oblivious to this dynamic shift as third world markets rapidly expand at the expense of shrinking industrial economies competing to meet their demand.
On the morning of April 30, 2012 during an interview conducted by Steve Liesman of CNBC, two members of the Federal Reserve Board dealt a crushing blow to the fixed income future of working Americans. In very cavalier fashion, while declaring that they were not picking winners” and “losers”, they agreed that the Federal Reserve Board would most likely continue to encourage a monetary policy intended to expand the Fed’s balance sheet at the expense of interest rates as the means of promoting long term growth. As QE3 becomes ever more likely, the market makers are already beginning to salivate in anticipation of a new surge of Fed backed intermediation
The best kept secret in American business today is that the new accounting standard has migrated from top line performance to bottom line results, with everything in between shrinking. It is simply a matter of time before the biggest pubic relations and business crises, both public and private, will be to openly confront a permanent reduction in the workforce. Consider the possibility that the standard of measurement will no longer be based on the percentage of unemployed but, instead, will be measured as a “new norm” for full employment.
How will the marketing and public relations professionals engage the inevitable outcome of the new world economy as real unemployment rises, retirement incomes disappear and the value of the dollar begins to erode in world markets? Will today’s vendor centric culture driven models be useful in an environment increasingly alienated by algorithm hysteria. It’s happening right now, and no clear thinking observer will deny it. What will happen from here? – Châz – June 2012