aBIZinaBOX – Tech, Financial, GAPS, APPS and Professional Services

I am taking a couple of minutes to cross-post a topic between my business blog [blog.aziabinabox.com] and my personal social media life [jszesq on FaceBook]. My sense is that we are witnessing the convergence of everything in our worlds, and if you think you can keep them separate, I for one am skeptical. Let me start with the following anecdotes:

• Two weeks ago I went to visit some very dear friends that moved from Upper Manhattan to Carmel, CA with three small kids a year ago. Wow what a life change…..and my first vacation in more years than I ought to admit to. They took me down to Big Sur…which was stunningly beautiful, and anxiety provoking as it, seriously was perhaps the first twelve hour period I have been disconnected from the grid since broadband became available [and I bet I am not the only one that would have this feeling, merely I am admitting to it].
• A week ago, I attended and spoke at Salesforce‘s Dreamforce User Conference…which has grown from 200 to 90,000 attendees in ten years. If  you aren’t familiar with it check out salesforce.com. Social media has pervaded our lives and how to use it effectively…let alone appropriately could be the subject of a shelves worth of books.
• My sense is that everyone is getting bombarded with political ads from every possible media source….what I hadn’t focused upon is how large the share of us now get our primary news from internet and social media as opposed to traditional platforms its > 40%.

The background is the basis for several observations that I think are worth considering:

• Despite all of the whining from both parties…there doesn’t seem to be much basis for the assertion that either party is benefiting from “media bias” in large part due to the expansion of types of “media” available to everyone. Further, the polling process is not actually suffering from oversampling or a real skewing and there is a very thoughtful article in the New York Times that supports the premise that you can see here.
• While I am not going to move my own thoughts on the election to a business blog….one thing IS clear…there is whole lot more at stake with this election than the presidency……there are local races where the presidential electoral votes are completely out of play…..that you would never expect the potential for say a Democrat to win a Senate seat in North Dakota…..well it may just happen. Say hello to Heidi Heitkamp…….THE LOSS OF THAT SEAT WOULD BE ONE HELL OF A WAY FOR THE GOP TO LOSE THE SENATE.

Having been a CPA for thirty years…I have a pretty good understanding of what makes a small business works and the issues the owners need to deal with. Seems to me that four things are required for real change and success:

1. We need to deal with the budget deficit, health care, Social Security and Medicare and there is going to be pain all the way around….unless you earn < $40K/year as a family….your share of income and payroll taxes are going to go up…some more than others….there is a substantial likelihood that the favorable rate on capital gains is going to go away, the “cap” on social security taxation is going to disappear, as will some portion of the deduction for home mortgage interest and real estate taxes and Social Security cost of living adjustments are going to get a real haircut.
2. There needs to be a real decisive change in the way government operates…and the GOP expectation of smaller government doesn’t cut it unless and until access to health care, an end to the intrusion into issues of faith be it abortion, Defense of Marrage Act being repealed, etc. enviromnent, energy  and immigration are addressed. My thought here is that once we start to do the right thing, in a was that is similar to how it is done in the rest of the world, government is going to remain as the intrusive force [in other words.....those kinds of changes probably won't happen in any of our lifetimes so we ought leave the ideology behind and start cooperating to get to reasonable compromises].
3. Education and technology are the two forces that can provide for increased productivity and prosperity..which if they start working properly become a giant eraser for all of the problems highlighted in 1 and 2 above.
4. The entire process isn’t going away..so everyone needs to become informed and involved….if you choose NOT to participate in the process…HOW DARE YOU HAVE ANY RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS.

and with that I am back to being productive