Three articles that I picked of the two current Economist editions I'd like to comment on. The fact that young voters in the US really brought the change and rallied for Obama in a way which has not been seen so far. And the knew to use the internet and social networking. It is the real first internet election like it was the first television election in 1960 (the famous Kennedy-Nixon TV debate). 1960 it brought the iconic turn of politics. Like the 1960 Olympics made the sports competitions a global political event. The 2008 elections are the digital turn of politics.
The other 16-pages dossier is on cloud computing. A very good read to better understand the scope of this paradigm shift in computing and data storage. There are many dimensions to it, the environmental issue of energy consumption which makes server farms go under water, the political question of privacy rights and law enforcement when data is not stored at a place to localise, and the business impact. Who will benefit when information commoditizes further? Nicholas Carr sees Google as the benefitor and driver of this process like Microsoft emerged as monopolists by commoditizing products like the browser that were "complementary to its cash cows, such as Windows".
And I liked the face value on Maureen Chiquet, newly named CEO of the epinomious Chanel, a brand that stands for the luxury and inspiration for nine decades now. How to renew such as legacy? The notion of luxury is changing so much. Often people tell you that personal time and independence is true luxury, less buying expensive products that can be bought on Ebay or whose exclusivity may be undermined by fakes. Global brand need to aspire buyers in different cultures. Celebrities endorse such brands and vice versa, like Nicole Kidman or Keira Knigthly with Chanel. But even so, luxury has been a growth market over decades, and just now feels the impact of the credit crunch. I visited the Chanel Mobile Art Pavillion in New York and can say that this staging of the brand is a most modern expression of inspiration and brand mystique.
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