One of those extremely liberal news rags that continually complains about wishy washy non-measurable atmospheric problems like smog. The news rag of ill repute, is the Wall Street Journal, which is commonly known as an extremely liberal anti-business publication.

On Monday October 9th, the WSJ ran with a story describing the pollution problem in China and its impact on Hong Kong. As Chinese manufacturing continues to grow, the rapid ramp-up of production is not keeping up with pollution. Contrarians point out that China is attempting to industrialize and achieve its rightful place in the modern world.

As the argument flows, China should receive a relaxed opportunity to produce products cheaply and efficiently and turn a blind eye or nose to the pollution that is created. After all, other currently industrialized countries were allowed to pollute in order to achieve their success and current place in the economic pecking order.

There are several fallacies in this argument. First, China’s rapid development and growth are partly attributable to their willingness to benchmark and adopt best practices to produce products. China has a labor cost advantage that has helped enable their ascension. Their lax environmental controls and the resulting pollution have also allowed production costs to temporarily remain lower.

The problem is that the Chinese people are paying the price for this pollution expense. Instead of establishing pollution controls, checks and balances, and passing the cost along to the consumer, China is polluting their air and harming the health of their own citizens. More people will suffer due to this lack of policy and health costs will increase.

The WSJ is quick to point out that the air pollution in Hong Kong may trigger a brain drain. As more top CEO’s and the engineers and talent behind the production growth, make healthier choices to work in safer locations abroad, China and in this article Hong Kong will suffer. China has benchmarked industrial practices to deliver a widget faster, cheaper and maybe even with higher quality. China seems to be failing to benchmark pollution standards that would allow them to compete with the citizens of the rest of the world.

History is replete with civilizations that rapidly advance on the shoulders of cheap labor. Could China lose its competitive labor advantage by allowing pollution to trigger health costs that might spiral out of control? China is rapidly catching up to the levels of other industrialized nations. They are doing this in a window of time that is much narrower than any other existing industrialized nation. This unique deliverance might deliver a simultaneous super saturated dose of pollution on Chinese citizens and residents of Hong Kong. This could injure China’s development and potentially push them back into a dark age period on par with the severe impact that colonialism and the Opium Wars brought to China in past centuries.

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Simply do a Google Search on the keywords “Smog Hong Kong” then Click the images option.

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In a perfect world I could just think things and they’d be automatically etched into my computer’s hard drive, I’d receive fair and equitable compensation and the knowledge would be funneled down the pipe to the person that needed it next. We don’t live in a completely digital world and as such we must make plans and preparations to deal with the move in and out of the digital world.

I do most of my mindmapping and strategy using MindManager Pro 6. Its an excellent tool and helps me to manage my white board prone ideas in a digital environment where it can be rapidly disseminated to collaborators around the world in formats ranging from MindManager to Word to MS Project or Powerpoint, Visio or even a PDF or HTML version.

Nothing today is one hundred percent digital. When it comes time to host a training session or even a productive brainstorm meeting, it helps if the meeting is configured in a style conducive to allowing the individuals present to maximize their input and minimize their distractions. They need comfortable and functional furniture for the meeting.

Many times meeting rooms will be configured in a way that the larges possible round or oval table will be positioned to make an impression on visitors. However, a vast amount of space often becomes unusable or becomes rapidly cluttered. The clutter and inefficiency can become a distraction and this detracts from the need to figure out a problem and get the meeting over with as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Mayline Furniture offers meeting and training room table arrangements that can solve this problem. They specifically offer a U shaped arrangement that effectively brings people together, but opens up the interior of the space for more active participation. The tables also help to delineate seating arrangements such that extra clutter does not become and issue and so that meeting participants are less likely to bring other work not related to the meeting into the meeting evironment, where they might multi-task and detract from the group focus on the primary issue at hand.

Now as a MindMapper I often run into a different type of issue all together. What do I do with a great printed out MindMap. For many years I would roll mind maps and store them in canisters. This is an effective solution, however if you find yourself going to these files often, it is difficult to find the map you need in a hurry and the edges of the map always get bent, ripped and generally destroyed.

A more effective strategy is to use a Plan Filing cabinet. This is bascially a large cabinet that stores paper plans horizontally. This can keep documents from getting wripped up and when it comes time to lay the plan out flat on a table or wall, the paper will not roll up like a scroll. This is one of the most effective methods I’ve found to protect paper versions of a map for the long haul.

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Establishing a successful website these days requires good content. Content is still king. However, a good king may never be found if a company fails to use good online marketing strategies. DiscountClick is an Online Marketing Services company that offers up a number of services either in an ala carte service offering or in a monthly service package.
DiscountClick offers

1. Professional SEO Services
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3. List management Services

Below you will find a MindMap of the Services and price ranges for DiscountClick offerings:

Technorati Tags: DiscountClick, SEO Marketing, MindMap, MindMapping Online Marketing Services

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