Things I could do when I lose my job

Huh, here's a draft I saved mid 2009. It only took me 2 years to get started.
And no, I didn't lose my job. Yet.

Nr.1: Blogging full time. Perhaps I could do some of this already while staying in my job.

The real impact of social media

Social media will move journalism from an 'after the event' report to a 'during the event live view of what is actually happening' without any subjective writing poured over it as so often is the case in today's news.

We'll all be journalists soon.

Make a difference

1 post on your blog, one day on something you care about, will make a difference from being 1 of many bloggers to being THE reference in a field that maybe is yet to be defined. 

So keep blogging!

Dead of democracy

"If you narrow politics to an internetpoll where people can vote pro or con, to a mountain of individual little opinions where for each theme an accidental majority decides, than that is very dangerous. The individual reaction to a proposal is always understandable, however it's not always correct. On top of that she is always based on 1 consideration: what is in it for me in the short term? ... Democracy by internet is a caricature of democracy"

You may think this statement was made by a Chinese minister, perhaps some politician from 1 of the evolving African countries or someone from some other military regime... Unfortunatelly it is not! It comes from the ex-prime minister of Belgium, Jean-Luc Dehaene (prime minister from 1992 - 1999) in a combined interview with Alvin Toffler, the great visionair. 

Taking another look at the statement and thinking about the pre-internet times when Mr. Dehaene ruled Belgium, you can conclude that democracy never existed in the first place, as it is clear from his statement that he sees it as a selected group of people (yes, elected by the masses) that (seems to believe they) know better than the masses that voted for them.

de·moc·ra·cy

Pronunciation:

\di-ˈmä-krə-sē\

1 a: government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections2: a political unit that has a democratic government4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

Luckily Toffler disagreed and pointed out that we need to be aware that new ways of politics will arise in the future. What worries me the wost is that Dehaene is still active on a European level and if he doesn't understand that the world is changing, that the power of individuals, groups of individuals, communities and so on are increasingly become more important and POWERFULL than he should retire or open his mind to the possibilities that this is creating. 

Dead of democracy is now official. Luckily it never existed in the first place.