Letters from Emmanuel

The U.S. Government is supposedly a government "For the People, By the People". It has always been for the people, but in many ways, our government is lacking in the application of being "By the People." The Internet's proliferation and simple web technology can change this and be more effective and accepting new ideas and taking polls on the main ongoing issues of our government and our people.

One can easily imagine a web communication portal managed by a council and staff with no direct affiliation to our leaders of the U.S. Government that is focused on accepting new ideas from our citizens, discussing these ideas and opinions, and voting on ideas, plans, policies, laws, expenditures, taxation, enforcement of regulations, and ranking the popularity of ideas and opinions of our citizens, so that leaders can make more informed decisions, and ones based on the will of the public.

Where is this thing at? Does anybody know? Is it even being developed? Do we even have a leader or quorum of leaders that plan on developing such a portal? As far as whats available now by e-government, take a look at any .gov domain. its not focused promoting any type of portal, forum or platform for managing citizen's concerns. Why not? The isolation between our government leaders, officials and policy-makers from the average citizen is becoming more and more prevalent.

Calling your Congressperson is an action that fewer and fewer people are even interested in, for a number of reasons. Getting a hold of your government decision-makers is next to impossible when it is needed. A more efficient way of our state and federal representatives and senators to hear public voices can most certainly be deployed on a web platform. The general public should be allowed to place ideas at the feet of our elected officials in a transparent way. All communication with our leaders should be well documented and logged, and statistical information on discussion objects should be publicly tracked.

If I were a government official, I would certainly want to know the will of the people, on every issue that affects my specific decision-making tasks, to better serve the people. I would want to know how popular certain opinions are in certain regions, and in certain demographical heuristics. I would want to see more citizens involved in public policy, and I would wish that all direct and indirect communication with our government from the people that our government serves be a matter of public record. Is that too much to ask from our nation's capital? I think not.

Everyone needs to become part of our government. Everyone in America basically already is involved, yet, not in the dynamic ways that our nation's founders probably imagined. Now that the technology is actually here to make their dreams a reality, the next few years should determine whether or not our government really wants to. Let us hope that they do. And if they don't, let us hope that some independent initiatives should ignite an engine that will, which help formulate new policies and regulations that align our government's decision-making to the will of our citizens.

I SEE THE FUTURE

iSpace - When Apple and MySpace become more integrated, you will be able to sync your iTunes playlist, your iPod or iPhone to your MySpace profile, and shop for music and movies by virtue of what your online friends listen and watch. I see this is pure marketing genius.

ePal -  eBay and PayPal have already merged, so why hasn't this inevitable linguistic convergence occurred at the domain level? If you link to EPAL.COM, you will find its parked with no significant e-business storefront happening. I went to the WHOIS database to find out who will becoming massively rich eventually (unless they remain incredible stupid not to be utilizing this prized name), and I discovered that Kai Yui of  Palo Alto, CA has  his phone number listed. I wonder what kind of offers and/or threats they've been getting!

YahoogleTube - 2 successful silly-named search engines and the most popular video hosting site will start providing and supporting a webcam email service protocol- VMAIL. Email your own webcam videos and watch them in their new Web 2.0 AJAX interface.

The future of Microsoft and AOL:
Microsoft's MSN and America Online are like two sour peas in a pod right now. Maybe they should start capitalizing from adult content. Their company visions are just not sexy enough. What would happen if Microsoft started making porn and AOL sold the subscriptions? This is what text ad would look like:

THE ASS NETWORK - AOL Subscription Service (A.S.S.)

Register today for your Free .SEX Passport account to preview what you will be getting!
upgrade to the ASS Package - premium service - only $29.99 a month for unlimited access to the ASS Network and get MicroSoftCorePorn Access AND a free installation of the Windows XXXP Operating System, !  AND for additional $19.99 a month you can host your own reality porn with your webcam and create videos with HOLE Software (Horny On-Line Environment) -- Become a HOLE Provider  and upload your .SEX files to everyone in the ASS Network. Expose your .SEX files on YahoogleTube, iSpace, or send them via VMAIL! You can also sell access to your .SEX files with you ePal account! Your .SEX Privacy options:
• you can allow everyone with a .SEX Passport to view your .SEX Files, or
• you can restrict access of your .SEX Album to your iSpace friends only, or
• you can restrict access of your .SEX Album to premium ASS package members only, or
• you can restrict access of your .SEX Album to your ePal customers only

For total fun, get the total ASSHOLE PACKAGE - includes ASS Network access + the Horny On-Line Environment software (HOLE) for maximum sexual fun! ($49.99/month)

You only need 4 things, and they are all intangible assets:

1. AMBITION TO LEARN.
Your venture's first key player will be yourself, so your company's magnet to success will depend primarily on your desire to learn and achieve. There is a remarkable opportunity in the swift evolution of e-commerce in creating large amounts of wealth in remarkably short amounts of time, with smaller amounts of well-organized informational business systems and liquid assets. The greater your willingness to learn new technology and integrate it, the better off your enterprise will be.


2. VISION OF A MARKET.
You really have to scope out your market and examine your competition thoroughly before shoving your e-store into the market. You must establish a reputation and a niche that shows that you are creating value where no value previously existed, or else your webpages would be better off not existing. Develop and write a vision of the over intent of your venture, and why it needs to exist. Develop a brand, a logo, a company name, a slogan or two, and trademark them. The will be considered intangible assets which you can use on your balance sheet to leverage a loan, if you need it.


3. DRIVE AND DEVELOP.
In order to turn the intangibles of your ambition and vision into a real business, you will have to undertake some of the following projects, which all affect your total website design:
1) developing user-interface templates
2) develop product shopping cart templates
3) build relational databases to integrate new information from customers
4) develop an administration interface which you can use easily
5) secure the site with SSL, and use secure middleware coding methods for protecting your server data
6) design logos, banner advertsiments, learn META tags and use search engine submsision software for search engine optization (SEO)
7) develop relationships with your suppliers, or even non-exact competitors, and look for methods of limited partnerships with other business that affect your industry
8) examine the potential of how you can turn your initial customers into marketers of your products (ie affiliates)

Once these projects are presentable and in working order, they will be considered solid assets to your venture.

4. SUCCESS FORMULA.

Re-examine your business model on a regular basis. Construct figures for cash flow analysis. Create balance sheets. Practice honest and conventional accounting methods. You may be starting with a small amount of capital, but guerilla financing your venture will most probably have to leverage your intangible assets, some of which are discussed above. But also, the most important intangible asset that is leveragable into a bank loan or a venture capital loan if you want to expand your business into a larger enterprise, or simply get investors interested in helping you launch is the success formula. How will your company consistently turn a profit? The more detailed you can answer this question, and the more the answer makes sense, the more your other intangibles are worth.

Business is about creating and providing an advantage to a consumer for economic gain. Economic gain is either financial gain or capital gain. Capital gain is either asset acquirement, liability subtraction and ammortization, or investmental income. Investmental income is simply gain from a smaller loss of resources occurred (ie succesful advertising).

Successful business is not about taking a loss (in money, time, energy or other resource) for economic gain. To undergo a loss and trade what is lost for economic recovery is not a happy way to business, if you could call this business at all. Sacrificing an acquired value for economic recovery is called trade. Performing and creating value for economic gain is called business. To explain this explicitly, we take two farmers, Ed and Wayne.

Ed and Wayne are both in the produce market. Ed sells a predictably and reliably uniform-looking type of onion. Wayne sells a unique, organic type of raddish. Ed has more gross revenue than Wayne, but Wayne always seems to be dressed in finer clothes and buys more groceries at a time than Ed does, always pulling out a wad of cash when at the checkout.

One day, Ed asked Wayne, "What's your secret? You always look tan and in nice clothes and I can't afford things like that, even though my produce business does fairly well. I even sell 5 times as many onions than you sell raddishes! Tell me your secrets, I must know."

Ed is a hard worker. You see, Ed toils on his land long hours and reaps an acquired value of produce for a mere economic recovery from his investment loss (time, labor, land, energy and raw materials). Why isn't Ed making more money than Wayne? Ed has a strong "work ethic" and works hard long hours. This doesn't make sense at first.

See, Wayne seems lazy. He simply plants raddish seeds that he gets from his last crop, hopes that it rains, and reaps a product that he puts value in, and exchanges it with others (consumers) who also put value in healthy raddishes.

Here's the root of the problem: Ed puts more value in the consumer's nickel than he does in his own product. He desires the money he could get more than the joys of doing the work, even though he works hard anyway. He is forced to compete harder for the nickel because he wants it more, and spends more resources to get it, thus losing on the bottom line, getting less of it.

Wayne desires the consumer's nickel just as much as he desires and puts value in his own product. This creates a fair price for the product. Because he doesn't want the money more than his asset that he is selling, he won't compete and waste more resources competing for the means to pay for more acquired assets and resources. He spends five times less per sale than Ed does, factoring in all of the labor costs.

The difference is more than just attitude or accounting figures. It is way of life. Ed is a tradesman and Wayne is a businessman. Ed trades in his work for money where as Wayne conducts a business in working for money.

Which kind of entrepenuer are you? Are you a tradesman like Ed or a businessman like Wayne? Do you want money for its own sake, accepting that you have to work for it or do you want to work for its own sake, accepting that you'll have to take money for it? Let's examine further what Ed and Wayne do differently.

Ed spends money on seeds for his onions because he believes if he buys the best picked seeds, hell have the best product. He buys these seeds from a company who sells them to other onion farmers, thus Ed is subjecting himself to more exact competition and he is paying for the diservice!

Wayne spent nothing on his seeds, except for the first year he grew raddishes. It's not like he found a good deal, it's that he doesn't mind picking and recycling his crop, whereas Ed thinks this would lose quality. Ed is already looking for an excuse not to work (not to do the simple task of saving and selecting seeds).

Wayne's raddishes are unique because the raddish genetic tree has mutated since he first started. No one else can make Wayne's raddishes. Thus, Wayne is only competing with similar producers, whereas Ed competes with similar producers and exact producers. More supply competition on Ed's end equals a lower price for the product.

To compete with the competition, Ed puts himself at a further disadvantage because he goes and spends more money on growth hormones and expensive and dangerous fertilizers for his onions. Wayne does not do this, and has extra money for tanning lotion and extra time to enjoy the sun.

Ed's plants are not happy either because of this. Ed doesn't like his crop as much as the money. He calls his crop the "damn crop." Wayne, the seemily lazy one, is really the smart one, because he understands his crop and relates to it. Wayne knows that his friends (the raddishes) need space, time, sun, water and occasionally some fertilizer. He calls his crop his friends!

Wayne creates value in the marketplace because his organic raddishes are desired more than the money they cost. Ed creates no value in the marketplace because he doesnt want to be in the marketplace. He wants only to take from the marketplace (take money- trade in the disguise of a business). Ed understands that you have to give to take, but he doesn't understand that you don't have to lose anything to gain something.

It's obvious whose happier here. Ed pays 50 dollars a month for cable television that he never gets to watch, even when he is sitting on he couch, because he's too stressed, worried, tired, hungry, annoyed and busy complaining about how his bills are half of his crop's revenue. Wayne once paid less than that for a radio that keeps him entertained when he is bored. Wayne has free time to spend, and Ed doesn't.

To be more of a businessman and less of a tradesman, you must do something different than simply working all the time. You must do something that creates value or an advantage to consumers, while not sacrificing the advantages of being self-employed. This means you must also create value or advantage for yourself while you work or conduct business. Otherwise, you will not be happy and your business will turn into a trade-up.

Wayne sings and talks to his crop. Ed calls his crop the "damn crop." Not only does this positive/negative difference affect the attitude of the hired help, it affects the plants themselves, positive and negative, respectively and directly. Ed talks just to himself. He doesn't believe that swearing at the crop affects the crop's health, nor does he really care.

Wayne creates advantage for others with his business, where no exact advantage previously existed. Wayne has an advantage because he enjoys what he does and enjoys his day, and he is able to create more advantages for himself and other people because he profits. Ed does not profit, nor does he benefit, from doing what he does because he spends too much of everything to get less than everything back.

If you're like Wayne, you're probably well-mannered, knowledgeable, healthy, happy and never complain too much about not having enough money. If you're like Ed, you probably have a temper, you're ignorant, unhealthy, unhappy and never make enough money to get what you want, unable to save a dime.

Please follow this advice- if you're not creating an advantage for yourself, then you are not able to create an advantage for others, and you will never profit from "doing business." Focus on bettering yourself and doing what you love before you toil unsuccessfully at exchaning losses for losses. Begin to exchange advantages for advantages!

Thomas Friedman suggests that the globalization of the economy through information technology and automation is leveling the economic inefficiencies which create uneven competition and pricing power.Thus, the old economic advantages of location and captive markets are quickly disappearing and opportunity is being spread more evenly around the world. The question is whether globalization is really creating a better world of shared prosperity or leaving some underdeveloped countries and regions of the world worse off than before. What do you think?

This is what I think:

Can E-Commerce create a better world? Yes.
Can E-Commerce create a world worse off? Yes.

What factors will determine whether our enterprises create a better world or world worse off?

We are poised at the pinnacle of Western technological breakthroughs. Automated business technology can provide more and more value to more and more people at diminishing costs. At what expense we use this technology to empower human civilization? At what expense do we use this technology to limit this empowerment to everyone for the sake of our own power gain motives? Does a better world include a world where the best ideas win? Yes. Whether we are living in that world as we speak is debatable. We are engaged in one of the most dynamic dialoges of our times --

A major hurdle in the development of a peaceful civilization is the acquisition of power and wealth and whether or not the intentions and practice of using this power and wealth will be used to the advantage of all people living on the planet or whether it will be used to acquire yet even more power over the people that their wealth is derived from -- i.e. working class citizens. Currently speaking, we have not yet surmounted this hurdle.

The capitalistic machine is a highly evolved network of resources controlled by one dominating variable: wealth. Measured in dollars and pounds, money drives the market. Highly valued by a critical mass of people, we live in a society where you cannot eat, have shelter, or clothe your body without it. Don't have enough money or credit to buy a house? Pay the man with 20 houses. Don't have enough money or credit to start a business? Make someone else rich. Wealth protects itself, and is a magnet for more wealth. If you are without wealth, it is possible to create it, but not without playing the game of capitalism.

The dynamic game of capitalism is a way to leverage existing resources for maximum benefit. A factor in determining whether or not a business will succeed in the future is whether this idea of "maximum benefit" includes providing value and advantage to the consumers of the business's output, or whether the idea of "maximum benefit" takes wealth from the consumer without providing opportunity, thus limiting the power of the consumer. Does this business empower the consumer by creating an advantage for them, or does it disempower the consumer by capturing the wealth of an under-informed consumer? Is the intention or a sales tactic to manipulate or to educate? Is the marketing strategy of a new business aligned with the idea of creating advantages to the consumer where no advantage previously existing, or is the marketing strategy a collection of creative deceptions designed to hide the reality that the only advantage the business is trying to create is its own. Is the business run by honest people who are honest with their affiliates partners, contractors and consumers?

Eco-capitalism (aka environmental capitalism) is a perfect example of a rising new competitive market where companies are creating advantages and values for consumers and at the same time being mindful of the externalities that the business imposes on the ecosystem. Keys to the successes of these enterprises in formation are: sustainability, efficiency, renewable resources, and low maitentance automation.

Will the best ideas win? or will the 6,000 billionaires of this planet ruin everything?
Do the disgustingly rich people have the best ideas about how to change the world?
Are they willing to explore new markets based on renewable energy and renewable energy resources?
Do they have a plan to transition from an old economy based on the concept of scarcity to the new economy based on the concept of equanimity and abundance for all?

These are some of the major questions every business owner must think hard about if they are concerned with the over impact of their enterprise upon the world, the planet, its inhabitants, and our future generations. Our we providing a respectable legacy of systems for hundreds of years, or just a couple years?

E-commerce and the ubiquitousness of the internet itself provides a platform for amazing growth and transformation of our society. Our generation has the tremendous responsibility to design and manifest this growth and these transformations, which are genuinely positive, but it also has the burden of deconstructing the inertia of a well-oiled capitalistic machine which is not sustainable to our planet and our species.

The Six Human Objectives
The first objective of a human soul is to seek food, shelter and sex.  The second objective is to have a steady supply of that, in order to satisfy our thoughts about our lives and the stress of not having it - hence the accumulation of wealth. The third objective is to satisfy our emotions, so that we can achieve and maintain happiness and good energy influences and networks - hence the accumulation of power is the goal. The fourth objective of a human soul is to build and gain knowledge. when a human soul is still yet unsatisfied alone with knowledge of all kinds, the fifth objective is to find Love. L.O.V.E. is Light Oneness Vitality and Energy. This does not happen in sequence, actually the attainment of all of these human objectives may occur all over the map of time, from the spawn of our being to the death of our star, the end of time, which should be a dramatic re-transformation of consciousness which signals new beginnings and growth unparalleled with our previous objectives, which is to say that we should never die, and we probably existed before the creation of this chemical region of "reality" that seems to exist forever. There is a sixth objective, as you can probably imagine, that manifests when love is abundant. That is to become One.

Greetings from the Sixth Dimension
As a member of my soul tribe, the universal life network, you and I represent the union of reality with the peace that is filling the galaxy from ethereal existences of space, time and dimension unseen in our daily lives. Unseen, that is,  until you see it. See your future ahead of time and create it. Know yourself enough to transform into a new being that you want to be, not the being that you think *something* else outside of you made. Create yourself and grow out of this world in a wise and intentional manner, and your transformation will occur according to how you envision it. If you envision a dark, unstable, violent or hateful future, you must dream about how you will change yourself in alignment with how you want to change the world. That dream you must live. You will grow tired of fighting against it. You will embrace what you've been avoiding for so long, which is love, which is what we are beings of. don't fight against that. Allow the miracle of love encompass the landsacpe of our consciousness, which is what it does. Accept goodness into your life, don't deny it. Love your body. Nourish the soul. Feed the Mind.