Education is and always will be a priority in my life. I not only strongly support educators across the world, implore governments to understand that education is an investment in the future but further stress it is foundation of bettering our society that each of us must champion.

Excuses abound while governments drain the blood from the future by reducing educational budgets as it neither shows an understanding of charting a course of growth nor recognizing its role in society. Yet in a diabolical twist, many educators are finding their budgets clamped down, classroom sizes skyrocketing and their ability to positively shape the minds of future leaders dampened.

In the simplest terms, it is a poor decision yet for generations that have been victimized by the lowering standards of education, such changes creep in on the backs of “budgetary necessities” or as one formerly great news agency now calls it, “savings”.

In the broad picture of developing a better world, there is no such thing as “savings” when it comes to lowering standards of education. There is only eventual hardship, a decline in the quality of life and the route back up is not guaranteed.

Education is an investment in the future. While I spend much of my day evaluating investments, none offers me a rate of return as does an investment in the future. That simple statement is not, nor should be an earth shattering comment as it is a tried and true principle.

Despite this, in many places of the world educational budgets are being slashed and burned. On the backs of “fiscal restraint” political leaders decree while the youth of their respective countries face a daunting future of lowered expectation and uncertainty because those sitting in the ivory tower are derelict of their duties.

I have and will continue to support educators, whether through my written work or video logs but something else must be done. It is clear that many who masquerade as leaders do not have their constituency’s best interest in mind with their decisions and the only course of action will come from the people, you and I working together to build a better tomorrow.

In addition to my recent announcement to expand my teaching program to greater online streaming, I will make myself available to educators through the Skype educational network. Providing assistance in my areas of expertise and without commercial interest, fee or agenda, I will make myself available to your classrooms throughout the world. If you have interest in this matter, please contact me at your convenience.

It is time to restore our future, to build a better tomorrow and show true leadership. It is time to build leaders of tomorrow, starting today.

As always, I remain

In faith,

John K. Davies

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

What is it about the public that finds the entire situation of a clearly drug-addicted, misogynist with violent tendencies of interest? When does a stupefied, desensitized society fail to recognize their idolization of celebrities as well as acceptance of immorality signals their coming doom is a mere formality.

The idolization of celebrities is one of modern society’s most corrosive elements as it not only detours the public away from individuals worthy of admiration but sets the stone in place for said “star’s” to be major influencers far outside their realm of expertise. Couple in the instantaneous “global village” and negative patterns of behaviour spread virally and eventually accepted.

Yet there is a special realm of filth this week, where the mainstream has shifted its focus away from important news towards the needs of the drug-infested mind of an actor. Forgetting quickly his history of violent tendencies towards women, ignoring his depravity, to which he is quite proud to expand upon, the public has failed to see their acceptance chisels their future into granite as they raise him to folk-hero status.

Think.

Think who you are, what you represent in life and if you are like the many who have sat in bewilderment, accepting, if not laughing at his antics and make a decision to change your direction.

Quite obviously the media lacks stewardship of the public’s best interest.

Quite obviously leaders in society, men and women who are built upon honour and integrity do not receive sufficient respect at present but something is clearly wrong.

Think before it is too late.

Ignore the ramblings of a drug infested fool and for that matter, those who publicise such depravity.

As a journalist, I am sickened by the coverage of this situation and though I have long since realized the integrity of profession is lost in many circles, this is a crushing stroke against its future. This is not responsible journalism and a black spot on a profession that I hold dear but now must seriously consider its vision and leadership.

If you do not understand how grave this situation is, consider how far society has sunk in to this moral cesspool in making his behaviour newsworthy and moderately acceptable. Moral degradation and collapse of values is not a humorous matter or even slightly whimsical. While the individuals behaviour in question should have been stamped out decades ago but allowed to go on due to societies idol worship of actors and escalating acceptance of immorality, what is most shocking at how the public gleefully welcomes more, more, more of this modern day Sodom and Gomorrah story. The objectification of women, use of sex-workers, drug addiction and endless bouts of violence should be clear cut signs this individual is unworthy of being in the public eye, yet somehow the public welcomes him, his “goddesses” and his putrid mind into their lives.

Stop feeding the system and take action by eliminating the story with your consumer power. Do not mention his name, watch networks that run endless stories on him or fail to represent the truth of the matter. Turn your television sets off, stop reading those who glamorize the situation and help restore a time when honour and integrity meant something.

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook , Renegade Training™’s, Renegade Kitchen, Renegade Pink, RENEGADE X as well as or Twitter and his daily blog for USPlabs.

From his speech “The Torchbearers“, given prior to the start of the new millennium, John Davies discusses a problem in the horizon. A foreboding comment, more important than ever, watch “The Torchbearers“.

I’m going to cut straight to the chase because, well, that’s the whole point of this short and rather perfunctory post. I’ve never been one to sugar-coat things and to be honest, this is best served straight-up, neat.

As we look out the business horizon we see murky cloud of change. Sadly that “murky cloud” if you will has and is being met with fear and indecision. Yet now, more then ever, that “change” is offering unparalleled opportunities as we see a seismic shift in the world economies. Opportunities are boundless.

Yet what I’m witnessing on the street, is the continued evolution of the soft business mind, void of leadership, empty of innovation and creativity. If you’ll allow me the anecdote, over the last decade, society in the oddest of ways echoes its taste in coffee, little fru-fru drinks filled with sugar and cream and oh-so pretty straw. Coffee is meant to be black, straight and simple and not masquerading as a nonsensical distraction. But that’s precisely the business demeanour now, distracted from the facts, lacking a straight ahead common sense and most obvious, lacking any guts.

Well, maybe it’s these flecks of grey that buy me a little experience into this discussion and maybe it’s just that I was raised long ago with anyway, anyhow mentality by a leader and learned early that when your back is against the wall, there is only one damn direction I’m sure as hell going. I welcome with an open door this era of change, the struggles, the strains knowing full-well that knowledge and an old-fashioned, roll-up-sleeves street savvy and grit gets the job done.

Some of you might be annoyed by reading this. Some of you might cower, pull the covers up and fear the powers that be and everything else in your woeful day. Equally this isn’t pep-rally clatter, another sad commentary of the times, when all the sabre rattles and drum pounding falls pathetically short in action. I’ll hasten to guess the modern eunuch world will just roll their eyes, backspace out and continue to accept their quality of life spiral down as they go fill their cars up with petrol at a cost to feed a family for a week. I won’t and neither should you.

It’s time to be aggressive, very, very aggressive and return to a time some of us can recall. For those too young to know that era, the dawn of a new day is here and strong, powerful leadership with that anyway, anyhow mentality is life lesson needed and will change your life. See that doorway to opportunity and not tap, tap, tap on it waiting and hoping for response but kick the damn thing down. It’s time to tell political leaders and corporations that rape the public you’re not going to take it, demand change or you’ll shake the foundation that they live-in with political action and your wallets. It’s time to innovate, change and set the course. See where you’re going and make it happen.

This article was first published on John Davies personal blog in July 2008 and has been jointly re-released at Helix World Media

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook , Renegade Training™’s, Renegade Kitchen, Renegade Pink, RENEGADE X as well as or Twitter and his daily blog for USPlabs.

From his speech “The Torchbearers“, given prior to the start of the new millennium, John Davies discusses a problem in the horizon. A foreboding comment, more important than ever, watch “The Torchbearers“.

“Cause and effect” seems to be a lost notion over the last few decades. The simple idea that each action creates a ripple effect going forward does not receive the type of attention it deserves but so it goes in a time where the obvious is no longer obvious.

Scanning towards the horizon the new decade grows near. Once, the notion of the “new century” had a surreal tone to it, a peculiar little dalliance following ripples into uncharted waters and other mysteries. The concern has shifted as the day-to-day tone has a more ominous Wagner-like backdrop as solving global woes weigh down other concerns.

This is both a by-product of the present day “human condition” and the emergence of the “modern media”. Armed with über strength capabilities, the everyday citizen has replaced classically trained journalists and with it created not a ripple but a downward spiral at an ever increasing pace. Information, call it news is endlessly reported, layer upon layer in mindless forums. From a blog on every corner to a world where one-hundred forty characters is the limit to their reading experience, the “world media” creates a firestorm of non-newsworthy items, typically presented in a manner that yes, only a educational deprived population will absorb. The artist / journalistic is twisting from the highest branch whilst the media outlet fills space with “content”.

Sadly, this is a by-product of technological “growth”, where digital advances were meant to improve the quality of life but in-fact they have sent the train off the tracks in many areas. Though education should be ploughing ahead in what should sound like a Gene Roddenberry production, the ripples have hit the shoreline and now headed back. Though the world could be entering a renaissance of enlightened thought, it drifts amongst mindless babble. However the problem is not technological advancements but how they have been used.

From the first prehistoric cave drawings to roughly thirty years ago, there was a commonality of the educational experience that is easy to overlook. Whether to directly copy or create, it was done in some form by free hand and via an easily forgotten step, to consider how to even replicate another piece of work. Whether it was learning the complexity of linguistic characters or elementary arithmetic, the turning process of learning was involved in every step. Though there were seismic shifts in society such as the Gutenberg press, that improved the ability to learn, they did not negatively impact how you learn.

Unfortunately this is the point were the train jumped the tracks as quite innocently “technological growth” created a rift. Though it is a simple point, the basic notion of “copy and paste” has shaken the very foundation of education. The process of learning and problem solving has been skipped over with the instantaneous ability to answer questions through this simple two-step. While educators may have originally assumed that the student would truly understand the decision-tree in finding said solutions, they are riddled with a generation heading into the workforce knowing how to copy, paste but rarely create.

This is neither the fault of a generation who grew-up with soft-lead pencil and tablet, the educator or even those who poured their minds into improving technology but instead a curious by-product. The “how” and “why” debate is likely a fruitless one but instead a new course must be set, lest innovation will run aground. For roughly three decades problem-solving abilities and particularly right-brained thought have been, albeit unknowingly, derailed by a way of life that promotes “copy and pasting”. While this is most obvious in the arts, where every other musical act seems to be karaoke night, complete with yesterday’s closet, the cost in the business world is enormous as solutions to problems are simply not found. Solutions aren’t found because of intellectual roadblocks but because society is programmed on a daily basis to “copy and paste” and do as they are told. Conformity has been bred and with it, ripples that once only went forward are now headed back.

This article was first published on John Davies personal blog in the summer of 2009

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook , Renegade Training™’s, Renegade Kitchen, Renegade Pink, RENEGADE X as well as or Twitter and his daily blog for USPlabs.

From his speech “The Torchbearers“, given prior to the start of the new millennium, John Davies discusses a problem in the horizon. A foreboding comment, more important than ever, watch “The Torchbearers“.

As the spin of the social media storm unfurls, the vast dearth of businesses are jumping with both feet into the medium. In many ways social media is the broad new frontier of business but equally prone to series of misgivings promoted by public relations campaign by the medium itself. In the most peculiar of twists, the public relations of the social medium have wrongfully suggested that it is the answer to every marketing effort but missing broadly on a number of significant points.

Social medium is a potential massive influencer in the public eye. While the medium turns on the dial, making much of the top shelf logic often antiquated before it hits the new release, it also has based upon an interpretations of classic relationship marketing.

Of the list of numerous flaws in present day social media effort, is the lack of understanding how the medium relates to the market place, whether the approach is applicable or boils with passion. The fascination of the social media outlet and the misguided vision that the greatest readership, aka “friends”, will carry your message has distorted the reality that your audience must participate if the campaign is to be successful.

This simple fault was part of the great undoing of MySpace and equally the growth of Facebook from its frontier days. While the MySpace crew found itself trapped in the spiral of friend requests as sport, it failed to see the loss of individual personalities, interactive relationships and of-course the all too familiar rouge would play a major role in its fall from grace. Facebook, possibly by pure good fortune, tapped into the youthful market, built its market with virtually no dreary rules and set the stage that the world would eventually want to join.

The social media storm on the horizon is merely a veneer of the classic, where the updated raconteur story weaves its tale through public, ultimately influencing decisions. The twist of audience size and listing audience is a seismatic shift as the applicability of the message is the ultimate deciding factor in the influence and how the tale is spread virally. For the shill of the social media outlet, this basic notion cuts deeply into the approach that adding followers and friends is the magic cure-all.

The all-important followers only has mettle if their message resonates passionately with the audience and for many who build an audience without care to this, they find their releases effectively have the success rate of the coldest of cold call of a number from telephone book.

In the 1962 Morton DaCosta classic, “The Music Man”, the brilliant Billy Preston plays the travelling salesman Professor Harold Hill. A huckster, looking to swindle the good people of River City, Iowa for the costs of building a marching band, professes the “think system” in which his admiring students learn how to play their instrument without of-course musical training. While naturally through the allure of Marian the librarian and her support, the perfect ending, with 76 Trombones, comes true as the exquisite ending the band playing in perfect tune comes to volition.

For those in social media, the lesson of Professor Harold Hill’s “Think System” rings true. Be passionate about your story and build your message to the marketplace staying current and relevant.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved

The swirling change of media has been in a constant storm for no less than half a century. With the backdrop of Marshall McLuhan’s notion of “global village” not only ringing true but also turning into overdrive, the modern media has become both the pulpit to deliver information in hyper-speed and a test of constant evolution. Delivery methods have gone through a series of changes with technologies improving, this trend will continue at an alarming pace.

For the broad media, this serves as both an opportunity and requirement to evolve, lest face obsolescence. What was once a simple process of delivering information within the bedrock of classic journalistic principles has both eroded into a series of highly questionable approaches turning the modern media into an “entertaining” and “interactive” experience but placing a enormous weight on shunting information into the public’s eyes. The now prophetic tone of Mr. McLuhan’s “medium is the message” is ringing true but the further question on the horizon is whether the modern media, as well as news providers, recognize the need to evolve in rapidly changing environments.

In the most base, simplistic review, it appears that the vast majority of decision makers are peering into the future with their foundation set in the past. The failing grade of media outlets faced with plummeting readership is moving towards paid subscription and serves as evidence that they have lost touch with the modern world of information moving freely. The revenue stream is not simply from the quality of content but how it is delivered through the portals of today. Successful media outlets must understand this crucial test and will continue to separate themselves from the flock should they do this, creating a new series of major “players”.

The foundation of media was virtually unchanged, or at least to some degree, for many decades but now is in constant flux. The vast horizon of Social Media has leapt to the forefront but unlike “conventional” media, its window of being timely is significantly shorter. Customer loyalty within the broad Social Media sector is a rare breed where the errors of MySpace last decade seem to be infiltrating Facebook in the present. While the latter readies for an IPO in the near term, its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to have forgotten what made it a success during his teen years. Is it a matter of poor understanding of the foundation of success in the modern media or with the founder now twenty-six, has it lost touch with the grassroots of what turns Social Media? With Facebook’s shocking errors with culling privacy, it appears the latter and if they are not careful they will merely become a birthplace of the next major player in the media.

Modern media is on course for evolution of unforeseen levels and its present day look will be radically different by decades end. For the successful media outlet and marketing manager, the first key to success and growth is recognizing the inevitability of change and the vision to move boldly forward.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved